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“Do you see the land around us? The depth of the frost, and darkness of the sky?” Some time had passed, she was not sure how much, but the beating warmth which radiated from Crowfather brought thought and feeling steadily back to her, the child he carried in his arms. She did not speak in turn, untill he offered further. “Can you tell what is wrong here?”

“It is all the same?” She offered, the words coming to her in much the same way that she seemed to understand some of what she encountered innately. Her voice was rasping from the cold, but it was still clear.

“No, child. The flaw is that it is always changing, every moment, into something new.” The look of confusion that writ her features brought a kind smile to the wizened man’s features, before he explained, “You remember, when you arrived, your pod remained in place, until it was claimed by the Frost. It was too static for this realm, it was the same for more than a moment, so the everchanging frost claimed it.” She began to understand the logic of what Crowfather spoke to her, if not the spirit, and she nodded against his hot, beating, chest. She did not interrupt him as he continued. “There can be no progress here, for each moment, the individual shards of frost, the cloud of darkness upon us, must be cast into turmoil. Change is the only aim, and with that, the Realm remains as this.”

She frowned as he spoke. The words tracked, but the meaning did not. While the land before them held the character of change, it had embraced it so fully that it could not attain its own aim. The concept was frustrating, and flawed. The principle was appeased, but not the reality.

“There are places, in this great expanse, which do not obey such rules. Some are holdouts, some are those which have bowed to rule of this land and earned a reprieve.”

“Bowed to who?” She felt again, with the words of Crowfather beating through her senses, that something was wrong. We should all bow to one. Which one was that? She did not know, but she knew it was not one who would condemn the world to ever changing stagnation.

“To the great evil that rules these lands.” Crowfather spoke with a tone which seemd to bring discomfort to his kindly features, a flash of realtity which showed to her how there was weakness beneath this aged form. “To the Great Changer.”

“He rules this land?”

“He does, long ago there were many, but now it is him, who has confined the realm to this existence.”

“You want us to stop him together.” It was not a question, but it had doubts. She had seen the ease with which Crowfather had dispatched the twisted forms of the hunters when they assailed her. She did not know why some one such as him could require her aid for anything.

“Yes child, we will defeath the Great Changer, and you will find your home.”