“Star,” Nazh said softly, “you need to stop worrying about that one. The horde will be gone from this ship as soon as Xisis finds a proper ship’s doctor.”
“Master Hoid told me to watch over the crew,” she whispered.
“I wish,” he whispered, “everything could just stay the same.”
“Nothing can.”
“I can.”
“No,” she said. “Dusk, we’re each a new person every day. The world changes, and is new each day, and we must change with it. That’s the blessing the gods give us. The blessing to be able to become someone new.”
One boy eagerly raised his hand. “How,” he said, “can a sea be endless!”
“If you sail it,” Frond said, spinning her finger around, “can you not keep going? Past islands, always sailing toward the horizon?”
“But that’s in circles!” the boy said.
“Which have no end,” Frond replied, smiling. “And an ocean, young Kapu, is never the same one moment to the next—it is a road into eternity.” She met Dusk’s eyes and smiled. “You cannot defeat it. You can merely accompany it.”
He hated that such things existed. However, you could not stop times from changing. His mother’s words. You couldn’t stop times from changing any more than you could stop the surf from rolling. But he could remember.