As your mortals rest and prepare, your gaze turns outward. You are prepared to assist Veve when the time comes; no further preparations can be made for now. And, although there are other threats that loom ahead... in the end, they are threats your mortals are suited to. You are confident in their abilities –
– as mortals.
The Grimm are different. You have suspected since your very first contact with the Voice, that they were something beyond the scope of mortal solution, and your brief glimpse of the Clockwork and Ataxia only cemented it further. The Grimm are a problem that will not easily be solved. Even you aren't certain how to unravel such a grand and immense working – you have long known the Grimm to be made of magic, if an unfamiliar form, but the way the magic is decentralized and spread across the entirety of Remnant, each miniscule piece reinforcing and refracting the greater whole...? Not even beginning to comprehend the nature of a spell that hijacks and countermands the nature of entropy, powering itself in an infinite spiral...
Your mortals each possess their own dreams and goals. Each unique and worthy of recognition... yet, at the same time, all life dreams of survival. The Grimm have made themselves your enemies by proxy, first simply by existing – and now, through Cinder Fall, more directly. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Penny... each of them are capable. Each grows ever more with each day that passes, with each mote of effort invested in themselves, with each fragment of knowledge they gain from you or other teachers. Yet, you can foresee their inevitable failure. How can they supplant an enemy such as the Grimm?
Alone, they cannot.
How fortunate, then, that they are never alone.
It began simply. You reached into your Dream and began unraveling it, picking through the knowledge gained from your brief-but-intense glimpse of two ancient forces creating and destroying. The endless crash of order and entropy against each other. You've sought clues or weaknesses before, and found little – and so it remains, even now. Although you managed to pierce through time to gain that knowledge, it is not the same as truly witnessing it – the details are blurred and difficult to piece together.
But it leads you to a realization: even in this distant era, even after the annihilation of that Atlesian lab, your connection to the Voice remains. Why? They no longer drink from your energy, so how could you still be connected? You spend some time pondering the question as you dance along the edges of that dark link, never quite diving through.
Finally, you understand. In that moment, when you and your mortals conducted your ritual – when they guarded you and opened the path for you to truly Dream of the Grimm, something was cemented. You promised Blake that you would keep her safe from the Grimm, no matter what happened, and you indeed shielded her from the grasping void that is the Voice.
And instead, they latched onto you ever harder. In that place of Penny's creation, where Grimm were born and twisted, where Adam Taurus was parasitized and consumed... you forged a bridge into the Grimm's innermost secrets. And though that location has been wiped from Remnant, that bridge is not so easily destroyed.
And even if you find yourself, now, in an era where that bridge has not yet been forged?
That bridge is not so easily destroyed.
You have only one path, then. You must understand the nature of this connection. You desire to comprehend the Grimm of this era. You wish to support your mortals.
Thus, with a moment's focus, you cross the bridge.
The Engine screams and roars.
The void around you is different, now. The one that will be is more... structured. The bloated lines that once traced along the chaos are nowhere to be seen, replaced by an infinity of grasping claws and yawning mouths.
The Engine howls and grinds.
The eyes around you barely acknowledge your presence as your gaze shifts back and forth. Through your senses you can feel the endless swathes of Grimm that crisscross the land, aimlessly giving chase to whatever death and suffering they can find.
The Engine growls and shrieks.
Little by little the endless chaos begins to focus on you, multitudinous eyes slowly locking with your gaze from all directions as the slavering mouths begin to draw closer and closer. You pull back your awareness, retreating towards the bridge – all too aware of your relative smallness in this era where your body slumbers deep below.
The Engine whines.
Fangs are bared as some mouths hang open, drooling dark shadows into the void around you. As tendrils begin to slither towards your mind, as a red shimmer begins to flicker through the infinite gaze of the Entropy Engine, you pull back completely.
Nothing follows you.
As your mortals rest, you ponder.
So different are the Grimm in this era. So... undirected. With none of the cunning or capability they displayed in the future. Barely animals.
... They are just as the Ataxia wove them, in your distant Dreams. They have changed not at all, save to grow more numerous and in differing forms and shapes. As you originally deduced, the Grimm were not intended to evolve or to change.
Yet, the Voice spoke of an event that reshaped them. At some point between now and the future, they acquired a mind. Was it simply age, in the way that older Grimm become more intelligent? Did the Grimm simply grow so numerous that their Voice became clear? Or did some other event occur...?
For the moment, you put that question aside. At this point, you could only speculate. Yet something valuable was, indeed, gained.
Because, as small as you are in this era, as blind as the Grimm yet are, you managed to catch a glimpse of something critical. That link, that connection between what will become the Voice of the Grimm... and the Grimm themselves. The web of infinite threads through which Grimm are reclaimed and reborn. Doubtless, in the future, many things has changed about the Grimm – this, most likely, included. Even if it were exactly the same, it is not an easy thing to weaponize.
But it is something the Voice has always concealed from you, when you interacted. Never has it allowed you to follow the threads to its individual shapes, its "little ones." Knowing it is a step.
Perhaps, in time, you will perceive the Voice in its fullness and entirety.
Perhaps, on that day, you will have an answer for it.
For now... for now, you will return to your mortals.
The hole that is Salem approaches, and you have promised to aid Veve when the time comes.
You have made progress towards satisfying a Curiosity.