"What is the realm of the Others?" you quickly change the subject. "What rules does it follow and what precisely dwells within?"
"Were you to travel by foot north from this cave you would find forests thinning to cold brushland and hardy grasses, to lichen-covered stone, and finally to bare rock and crushing ice. Were you then to press on against every instinct of mind and soul you would find yourself in a realm that is both part of the world and yet heavy with the hateful dreams of the thing the priests of R'hllor call the Great Others. Whether it is one thing or many, or even if such distinctions matter to it I cannot say, but there have been some bold enough to make the journey in the past and fortunate enough to return. Thus I can share with you some advice on how you may survive there."
"I'm not planning a journey anytime soon," you assure him.
Bloodraven nods in acknowledgement but continues in the same even half-whisper he uses to spare his ravaged voice: "Light no fires upon the ice, but scrape first to stone beneath. Drink no water from the icefields that has not been brought to a rolling boil thrice. Do not run over those cursed fields without a weirwood staff to guide your path by striking holes through the ice to see if there is solid ground, raging water, or lightless caverns beneath "
"No lesser staff?" you question. "Was that the reason for this..." you motion towards the token of your pledge to the Old Gods.
"One of the reasons," he replies. "Not the first in my mind, but certainly not the last."
"What might one find in the Farthest North in the dreams of the Other?" you ask rather than questioning what his other motives may be.
"There are said to be cities half buried in the ice where the dead walk, going about the hollow half-understood motions of life, cliffs upon which the wind wails like the screams of the dying, and the damned vaults filled the treasures of the Dawn Age guarded by great wyrms of ice. How far the ice goes or what lies beyond it none know, for no living traveler has reached the end of it."
"If it is a dream then perhaps it has no end," you offer.
"Half a dream, and the world we stand on is a bounded sphere as the sages of old discovered long ago," Bloodraven replies gravely. "For all the dreadful power of the Enemy it would not do to forget that this is now the world of men and what mortal wisdom tells us of it."
