Blackbeak Bluff didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back

There was a softness to Ephraim that Tux couldn't seem to figure out.  It contrasted directly the foreboding, crackling energy that came from the sky that like Ephraim, Tux did not understand.  He turned his massive body (as he thinks: when did that happen?) towards his childhood friend and offers him a thin smile that is slow to form.  I'm glad you're home, friend, he says, drawing closer.  Ephraim has lost the round curves of youth and has becomes something angular and stretched thin — at least compared to nomi, and he can only assume it's the same when compared to himself, too.  

What happened, over there?