Noah did not have an answer good enough to give, so he did not give one.
What would he do differently? He meant to climb. To gather power, all of it he could reach, and become an Immense One.
But the Collector had done exactly that, and it had not given him a grand life. It had given him a long one, and then a cold end in a Dimension of snow at the hand of a thing that did not even speak. Bug or one of Those Who Remain, a being lived, and then it died. Becoming Immense only made the second part take longer.
So he looked at the Caretaker a moment longer, standing in snow so thick now it was nearly a wall, and he left.
The hours after that passed slower than any hours had passed for him in a long time.
But they passed.
—
THE Chrysalis of THE First Sundering was never still, and this corner of it least of all!
