In the far future on a cold and snowy planet, an aging woman seeks a successor to her role as Kunchen: a bearer of memory for her people across generations, a role in which one must live a long and lonely life punctuated by decade-long cryosleeps.

An elderly wizard senses an impending earthquake and asks a former student to help him stop the damage. He also calls upon the transformative magic once taught to him by a cherished female mentor in order to stabilize the ground, becoming irreversibly one with the earth in the process.