"He and the boy walked that way, past the dunes. The man had a great power, it was enough to pull the boy along in his wake. The world is still...thin there. We have stayed away out of fear of walking too far into the future, but you may be able to find your way to the future by walking the same path."
He shakes his head.
"But you must be careful. Whatever brought you here, if it was supposed to take you to the end of all, and failed, then if you reach the future some other way, it may also be too weak to take you back to Longago. The old man and the boy that walked forward -- we haven't seen them again. And the one that walked back from the future, that spoke with my ancestors, he said he was walking back to Longago, but was forced to walk back the Slow Way. One flipper at a time."
The creature seems genuinely concerned. It's a nightmarish thing, walking back billions of years one step at a time, and it seems the kind of fate worth warning others about.
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"He and the boy walked that way, past the dunes. The man had a great power, it was enough to pull the boy along in his wake. The world is still...thin there. We have stayed away out of fear of walking too far into the future, but you may be able to find your way to the future by walking the same path."
He shakes his head.
"But you must be careful. Whatever brought you here, if it was supposed to take you to the end of all, and failed, then if you reach the future some other way, it may also be too weak to take you back to Longago. The old man and the boy that walked forward -- we haven't seen them again. And the one that walked back from the future, that spoke with my ancestors, he said he was walking back to Longago, but was forced to walk back the Slow Way. One flipper at a time."
The creature seems genuinely concerned. It's a nightmarish thing, walking back billions of years one step at a time, and it seems the kind of fate worth warning others about.