When Elach opened his eyes, he found himself in his headspace, fully dressed and ready for whatever was to come. Flow flapped down from their perch and landed on the edge of the fountain, as had become tradition, and chirped a chipper hello to Elach as he fiddled with the ring on his finger.

“Ready to see what this does?” He asked, and Flow spread their wings while singing a happy tune. He took that as a yes. “Well, once I figure out how to get it working, I’ll finally get somewhere as a practitioner. Which should get you going too.”

Elach felt a pulse of recognition as he tried to push Issi into the ring. “Here we go. Get ready.”

Before he could say anything else, the scenery around Elach shifted into something familiar. He’d only seen it once, but it was burned into his mind like almost nothing else. Footsteps echoed from down a dimly lit hall, pictures bouncing ever so slightly on their hangings as Elach’s host approached.

“Well, it took you long enough.” Sentence said as he emerged from the hallway with a smile on his face. “Has my existential bleed proved useful?”

“You’ve certainly found yourself in the middle of something interesting. And so soon after you awoke.” Sentence mused when Elach finished telling him about his day. “I had no idea existential bleed put whoever consumed it in a trance as it did to you. Prisoner knew something about existential bleed that I myself didn’t. Interesting.”

Sentence leaned back against the wall, crushing picture frames with his bulk. “Maybe I should talk to him more than once a century.” He chuckled. “But that’s for later. What have you come looking for, Elach?”

“General Issi teachings, and how to make a focus.” Elach said, producing Prisoner’s coin from his pocket. “Prisoner gave me this, but I have no idea how to make it a focus.”

Sentence nodded, but didn’t reach for the coin. “That’s a job for the backyard. Follow me. And bring your wisp.”

Sentence disappeared down the dark hallway, and Flow flapped up to Elach’s shoulder as they let out a questioning chirp.

“I didn’t know there was a backyard, either.” Elach said. Flow gently pecked at his ear in annoyance, which he took to mean as he’d misrepresented the chirp. “Ow. Stop.” He said in a monotone voice, and Flow put their beak right up to his ear and out a piercing caw.

“GAH! Alright, you win.” Elach said, pushing Flow off of his shoulder. They laughed in the way only a bird can, hovering next to Elach with a hum as he rubbed his ear and made his way down the hallway.

It was completely dark, but somehow the picture frames showed through. Elach gave them passing glances out of morbid curiosity, seeing people with skin a rainbow of colours and manifestations galore, bonders that ranged from the tiniest insect to a monstrous serpent that looked to be made out of buildings, and beings that Elach just couldn’t make heads or tails of. They twisted and morphed even in still images, tendrils that just couldn’t pick one shade or colour writhing around or inside of them like they wore snakes for clothes or were infested with worms under their skin, and they looked like some drunk had described what they were supposed to look like and they took them at their word.

Every edge seemed razor sharp, every claw long and made for ripping into soft flesh. Whenever Elach got a glance at facial features they were either indescribably ugly, terrifying, or beautiful. There was no in-between, and the bodies followed suit. Elach shook his head and tore his gaze away with no little effort, nausea spilling over him as he tried to move. Flow had fallen to the ground and shook their little head, muttering to themselves with caws and sing-songy notes that contrasted like sarcasm.

“Sorry, I should have warned you about the inverters.” Sentence said, stepping into Elach’s bubble of vision. “Let me get that for you.”

Sentence snapped his fingers, and nearly a quarter of the pictures on the wall darkened. Elach groaned thanks, picking up Flow and tucking them under his arm.

“Are there any eternals here?” He asked.

“Yes and no.” Sentence said. “If you see an empty frame, that’s where an eternal’s picture used to be. Remember how I said they get completely wiped from existence, save for the memories of those who killed them?” Sentence gestured at one such empty frame on the wall. “At one time, I could have shown you their picture. Told you their story, and why they deserve the end they received. But then someone else came along and killed another eternal without my aid. All my eternal frames went blank that day.”

Elach didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut. Sentence let his fingers linger on an empty frame for a few moments before clenching his fingers into a fist and pulling his hand back with a sigh.

“I don’t know if this was a gift or a curse, Elach. I don’t even have holes in my memory; I can vividly remember working to kill each and every eternal my wielder and I sought to end. But like reading a story that has been censored, I cannot remember their names, what they looked like, or even what they hoarded from our people.”

“What would happen to me if I were you?” Elach asked. Sentence turned his head and shot him a questioning look, so Elach clarified. “If you were exactly as strong as I was, instead of how strong you actually are. Would you completely forget you killed an eternal?”

“I would forget everything.” Sentence said plainly. “I would be swept away in the primordial reshaping of the world, and this Sentence would be lost to the null beyond. I would awaken with completely different memories, a different personality, and everything would go on as the new normal dictates.”

“Oh.” Elach said quietly.

“Don’t ask your next question, Elach.” Sentence warned. “I specifically did not tell you the last time you were here. You won’t find the answer you seek.”

“I think I need to ask it.” Elach said. “When was the last time an eternal died?”

Sentence turned away and slammed his fist into the wall. “seven hundred and eight years, seven months, eight days, fifteen hours, fifty four minutes and nine… ten seconds ago.”

Elach stopped in his tracks. “What?” He asked in disbelief. “How is that possible? Nobody got sick of the divide and tried to change it?”

In that moment, Elach thought back to Rainshear’s reaction to him telling her about the eternals dying. “Wait. Do people even know that eternals can die anymore?”

“Learning the truth from a chance encounter with a mythic weapon.” Sentence said bitterly. “You’re making a habit of learning from blades, Elach.”

“It’s true, then?”

“Yes. Those who are immune to the pull of an eternal’s death are aware of the eternals, but when I spoke of growing fat and content with their current lives it was them I had in mind.” Sentence sighed. “You met the apprentices of one of them.”

“Glasrime?” Elach guessed.

“Glasrime.” Sentence confirmed, his voice bubbling over with hatred. “But we don’t have time to speak of ancient grudges. That will come when you’re strong enough to do something about them.” Sentence removed his hands from the frame, shattered glass pulling itself from the floor and his hand to reform the frame as if nothing had happened.

“I have about ten hours before Rainshear’s gonna notice something’s up.” Elach said, gingerly stepping over where the glass had been. “How much can we pack into that?”

“Once we begin, that ten hours will become one hundred.” Sentence said. “Four days and four hours. That will have to be enough to etch into you whatever Prisoner did not.”

Elach winced. “I kind of forgot to have Prisoner explain anything to me.”

Sentence stopped in his tracks and slowly turned to face Elach. His expression was one of disbelief, and it slowly morphed into confusion.

“You know nothing? I can feel you have used your wisp’s gift, and that you have found the use of your anchors. Is that not what he taught you?”

“Well, aside from that, he taught me nothing.” Elach said.

“You can blame me for that.” Sentence chuckled. “I instructed him to get you moving as soon as he determined you wouldn't be killed by a random roaming Issi beast. Getting you to Freshetfall was far more important than anything else.”

“Wait. Prisoner told me the existential bleed put me somewhere random.” Elach said. “You had control of where I landed? And you put me ON TOP of a glacier?”

“You got down, did you not?” Sentence teased, his eyes full of laughter. “But I will apologize. Last time I visited the glacier, there were lines that would take you straight to the ground or back up again. Things must have changed since then.”

“Fine. Apology accepted.” Elach said. “So how are you going to stretch out time? Is that something my Issi will be able to do?”

“No, no.” Sentence waved his hand. “You would need immensely powerful time or perception Issi, along with somewhere that is unbound by the laws of reality. A headspace as powerful as mine fills the second criteria, but for the first I have some help from an old device I appropriated from a god’s temple before the eternals razed it.”

The yard came into view through a glassed-in room that felt far more humid than the rest of the room, a large flat of ground that housed statues and relics like some sort of outdoor museum. The flora dotted around was no less majestic, countless flowering plants and trees that separated the yard into rows, their ethereal blossoms and fruits bursting with Issi like nothing Elach had seen before.

Sentence strolled through the rows of plants and statues towards a tall wall of green, Elach keeping up as best as he could while gawking at the contents of Sentence’s garden. A row of ghostly, translucent white flowers that had petals like the intricate lacework of a wedding dress sprouted above withered stalks and blooms, like the spirits of flowers had shrugged off their mortal coils yet still remained bound by the soil. He leaned down to brush a finger against a petal, pulling away moments later with a profound sense of loss that he couldn’t quite explain. And then it was gone.

Another few steps forward led Elach to a tree with bright orange leaves that constantly folded themselves into different shapes, small perfectly spherical fruits growing three to a branch. One red, one yellow, and one blue, skewered down the middle with a long thorn to form a natural fruit kebab. There were bushes with flowers that changed colours every time Elach blinked, a purple and gold vine with flowers that spun like pinwheels in the windless garden, and herbs with leaves that dripped a sparkling substance into the dirt below. It smelled of nothing, stealing away the floral scents of the garden when Elach brought a fingertip dipped in the liquid up to his nose.

A true feast for the senses, and those were just the ones Elach had time to focus on. Sentence’s garden held majesties he suspected were no longer a part of the world. Flow just flapped up to the kebab fruit tree and plucked one of the three from their thorn, landing on Elach’s shoulder, proceeding to loudly and happily dig into the juiceless fruit right next to his ear.