When Crevasse awoke, it was to Sunlight showing Cameron pictures of snow.

"...and these are what we call snow-xunari," Sunlight was explaining, showing the wide-eyed aerobic pictures of some of the contestant's creations from last late kerah.

"How do they stay up?" Cameron asked, fascinated.

"The snow sticks together if you pack it right…" Sunlight began to explain, but was interrupted.

"Like mud, if you squeeze water out of it," Pepper motioned to where she had been building a… mud-xunari? It looked like it was a sneeze away from falling over, but Crevasse figured it was fine for a rush job.

"So it's like cold mud?"

Rocky considered. "If cold mud was also like sand."

Cameron stared blanky. "That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes more sense in person," Crevasse agreed sleepily, and yawned. "Especially if you've never seen ice before." Xe shifted and yes - the mud cracked! Xe began to wiggle, trying to get it off.

"Oh, let me help - It's quite a pain to get out of fur and feathers."

Crevasse submitted to Cameron's help willingly. "You don't have to tell me twice."

The swamps spread out around them, though their extent was obscured by the thick fungi foliage, and the sun was blocked by the towering caps overhead. The sun had moved since Crevasse had settled down to nap, though it was still shining strongly where it breached the canopy, suffusing the world below in a pale diffuse twilight. It and the strange flora gave the swampy forest an almost mythical look.

"It's not this muddy in Rekes," Crevasse muttered grumpily, eyeing the surrounding swamps. Xe was going to hitch a ride on someone's shoulders instead of dealing with that again…

"Really?" asked Cameron, sounding interested.

"Yeah," Sunlight agreed, pulling up pictures of the mountains to show them. "It's mostly rock."

"And dry as bone," Pepper snorted.

"You say it like it's a bad thing," Rocky huffed, trying to brush out his frizzing fur.

"To me it is."

"Tomato, tomato. It's not like there aren't plenty of lakes to soak in."

"Yes, but those are icemelt. You think I want to soak in freezing water?"

The argument continued in the background while Cameron peered over Sunlight's pictures with increasing interest. "That looks nice. The trees are weird, though."

"It's the trees here that are weird to everyone else," Crevasse pointed out. "They're giant mushrooms. Mushrooms don't grow this big anywhere else."

"...huh."

"Yeah, we only have small mushrooms and normal trees. But not as much mud! Except during spring…"

"Yes, but that's one season rather than all of them."

"It also doesn't flood as bad. The rivers can flood, but not the entire coastline."

Cameron leaned in further, long neck arching over the tablet. "I think I would like to visit someday," they commented thoughtfully.

Rocky and Pepper paused in the background, and Pepper got a mischievous look in her eye.

"Just don't mind the bones."

"The bones?"

Sunlight flicked to a picture of the glowing bones erupting from the earth as Crevasse said, matter-of-factly, "The bones."