Garnak sighs as he steps into the clearing at the foot of the plateau. A cold wind whips around him and the bundle of cloth in the crook of his left arm. A kitten's head sticks out of the cloth bundle. It turns up towards his face at the sigh. "I think I've been here before," he says down to the kitten, "in the long ago, or maybe an actual dream, it's not clear. Feels more like the long ago than a dream, though. I wonder." His eyes tighten at a wisp of smoke rising from the path, about two thirds of the way up. Garnak hitches up the bundle and begins climbing the switchbacks up the plateau. He occasionally steps carefully over desiccated corpses and scattered bones on his way up. Eventually, he turns around another switchback and sees two figures huddled over a small fire tucked behind a crumbling wall, out of the wind. A pure white cat rises from its crouch next to the fire and watches him warily as he climbs around to them. The figures resolve into pale blue elves, wrapped in blankets and hunched over the fire. The younger looking of them smiles as he comes close enough to be heard over the wind. "You're back sooner than we expected, did you bring the others?" she asks. "Others? No. Well, I brought Master Toldrum here, glancing down at the kitten. I guess, uh," he pauses, "Ragux was right when he said we left you here. Sorry, cousin Namya, it feels like an old memory, but I'd swear you were just snatched away by the Wild on hidden path." "Oh, that makes no sense. You just, just went up to the plateau a couple hours ago," Namya stutters, looking confused. "What do you mean, 'an old memory,' and 'cousin'? We just met a couple days ago!" "We're deep in the Wild here, it's been a month, at least, to me. Time moves differently here. It's good, I don't think you have what you need to survive here a month. That's easy, the strange part is that I remember clearly rescuing you a month back, and then losing you on the hidden path to Lord Amite's court." Garnak squats down next to the fire, next to the older elf who has been watching the exchange silently with half closed eyes. He unwraps the kitten from the bundle. It is black, but for a white star on its chest. The kitten stretches, then sits up primly. The white cat looks at it, cocks its head, then crouches down and ducks its head to the kitten -- looking almost like a bow. Garnak continues, "Ragux said we all came here, and you were left behind, but that seemed strange, and he is a strange one -- almost as old as I am, and no memories at all seems." He looks over at Namya, half smiles, and says, "I am old, I don't know how old, but probably thousands of years. Most of my memories are snatches, and brought back only when triggered by something -- like when I saw the one who calls himself Garnak. I definitely knew him, am pretty sure I fought with him, for him, but it's just fragments. I think it is like your memories from being a young child, though you are a cousin of sorts, so maybe you are more like me." "Cousin?" asks Namya. "Ah, aye, your folk are of the fae, but you're long out of the glamour and have gone mortal. You have new children, and grow old, and such. Mortal now, but somewhere in your ancestry was someone like me. Probably blue though. I was never blue." "Huh, but. It doesn't matter. You came back up the trail. How? You went up on the plateau. How, where are the others?" "Oh, Ragux said we all died, but it hasn't been nearly long enough if that happened, and I am still wearing this body, so I think he's confused. Or something very strange is going on. Either way, I think I'll wait here with you for now. If the wild brought me back here against my goals, well, it will probably bring the others too at some point."