[Yuan's hand seems to shake Kratos out of his stun; but he doesn't turn, or acknowledge Yuan's question. Instead he stirs and steps forward, and then forward again. He doesn't rush, but it does seem as though his pace is inexorable as he moves into what had once been the estate.

[The aquifer is still intact, he notes numbly. No wonder people are using it. They've set up a rudimentary slope, so rain-water will empty into the aquifer and the aquaduct above still joins to it; but the water seems ... dull. It takes him a moment to realise that it's because the purifiers aren't active, aren't making the water seem to glow.

[How badly off must everywhere else be, for having to boil water seem like a luxury?

[His steps don't pause, though, despite his thoughts dragging on the sight of it. He walks to the next building, and the hall joining them is open to the air as it shouldn't be; the rooms are laid bare, the building not much more than rubble. When he reaches the garden his chest constricts; it's clear that the flowerbeds were broken, but the olive-tree, miraculously, is still standing. Less than it was, branches stripped and trunk split, roped together -- but alive, and being lovingly tended, and with the implications of possible fruit on the limbs.

[But broken, in the midst of an equally broken house. Kratos's head seems to be pounding; he exhales shakily.]