When Elach got back to the point just before the point of no return, his arms straining under the weight of keeping his container expanded all of two centimeters, he just stared at the roiling orb between his hands. He needed to stop thinking about how his container was stretched. This was how it had to be. His new normal. But just thinking about how his container was now brought thoughts of how it was, and Elach just couldn’t let go of the fear of his container snapping back to normal when he let go.

And there lies the problem. Snapping back to ‘normal’. As long as that was in the forefront of his mind, Elach had no chance at rewriting his perception. His muscles screamed in protest as he held his hands out in front of him, begging him to give up and die. Elach swallowed around a lump in his throat, envisioning every possible thing he could think of to try and get this slightly larger container into his mind.

Nothing worked. Elach slouched forwards over his container, the pain and mental effort of keeping his container temporarily expanded fading to the background as his thoughts became quiet. It was almost too much to even attempt to think now. Instead, Elach replayed his memories of Sentence’s earlier instructions to try and glean anything that might help him right now. But as he tried to remember, one thing cemented itself into his mind and refused to give way. Flow’s song, and they way they made everything possible. They had to be the key to this.

Elach called out to Flow with a burst of Issi that he hoped made it to his headspace, lacing it with his thoughts of the melody Flow had sung to help him gather Issi just yesterday. He felt something stir in response, and what felt like half a minute later Flow appeared. They landed on Elach’s shoulder, chirped out a questioning and worried series of notes, then became silent as they surveyed the empty space they found themselves in. They silently looked at Elach as if asking what they could do to help, and all Elach could do was shrug.

“Your singing helped with taking in Issi, so I thought it might help here too.” He explained, nodding at his container that he held between his hands.

Flow looked between Elach and the container a few times, then hopped down his straining arm to the orb between his fingers. Elach didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what happened. Flow jumped off of his hand and landed on the container, their feet dissolving into Issi rot as they turned around to face him, then let out a song that sounded nothing like anything Elach had ever heard. It was fast, loud, and directed at Elach, like a drill sergeant’s tirade packed into a rhythm, insults included. It did nothing to his container, but it did leave him taken aback and he almost lost his hold on his container.

“Am I doing something wrong?” Elach sputtered.

Flow stomped on his container and motioned at themselves with their wing. Elach looked between the two, and would have smacked himself on the forehead if his hands weren’t otherwise occupied.

“The container is made from the bond between us. It’s not just mine.” Elach said. That seemed to be what Flow was getting at, and they sat down in the way only birds can on his container. “So do you have any…”

Elach felt just the tiniest traces of foreign Issi flitter down into the roiling storm inside his container, like ripples from a rock skipping across a great lake. But it was enough. This wasn’t the container he’d had minutes ago; this was what he was working towards. This is what it is right now, not what it used to be, and not what it will become. Flow quacked like a duck, a sound that Elach had never heard them make, and that startled him enough for his arms to give out. But he didn’t panic, because his container was exactly how it was supposed to be.

And then it exploded.

As Elach shook the death from his mind, Flow cawed sheepishly and waddled down Elach’s arm to rest on his container again. Elach cracked a wolfish grin and Flow looked away in embarrassment, laughter bubbling into Elach’s throat as the fear and pain washed away.

“Alright, we both got one.” Elach said between chuckles. “Let’s do this for real now, yeah?”

The strain this time was slightly lessened with Flow helping out, and Elach didn’t once think about his old container. Because this was his old container, would always be his present container, and would eventually become the container of a man who slaughtered eternals like they were nothing. Or so he hoped. He stretched until he couldn’t stretch any more, checking with Flow to see if they’d hit the same block as he had, and then let the strength out of his arms.

His container stayed as it was. A surge of relief washed over Elach, and he almost fell to his knees as his strength left him. His container still felt stretched far beyond its limits, his fingers were still rotting from the second knuckle up, and Sentence hadn’t pulled him out of wherever this was, so he knew this wasn’t the end. He took a deep breath and shared a look with Flow, who seemed to be as exerted as he was, nodding and sinking his fingers in up to the third knuckle. Issi spread over his container once more, and Elach started pulling.

----------------------------------

Elach lay still in a supremely sore heap, his container tender and raw from the assault of Issi Sentence had forced on it. He’d made it about three times larger, to what he guessed was a diameter of about a meter, and the Issi inside of it no longer strained at boundaries too small to contain it. He felt elated that he was growing more powerful, but it was dampened by the sheer amount of physical and mental strain he’d put on him and Flow. And he would have completely failed, and might have been stuck wherever he’d been if Flow hadn’t come and taken some of the burden onto themselves. He shivered at the thought as Sentence stepped into his field of view.

Elach suddenly found himself face to face with Sentence, yanked up from his place on the stone and set on unsure feet to meet the memento’s eyes.

“And this, Elach, is why expansion is the most dangerous part of how practitioners grow more powerful.” Sentence said, gesturing at the clearing around him.

The stones had been cut up and churned, some smashed to dust and others lying in various states of ruin around the clearing. The plants on the edge seemed to be unharmed, as did the sundial and flow’s sitting table, but they were the exception.

“I did all this?” Elach asked, looking at the destruction in awe.

“You did. There is a reason cities have rooms, or sometimes entire quarters built specifically for practitioners to expand in, and why masters find somewhere far away from civilization for their own advancements.” Sentence said. “But most expansions, unless they come with a breakthrough, are relatively tame in comparison to this. A few tree branches snap off, some pebbles get crushed, and other side effects depending on the place.”

“How often do people have to expand?” Elach asked. “I never saw my parents do this back home.”

“Practitioners who are content with a slow, steady pace of advancement may only expand their containers once every few decades.” Sentence said. “It happens naturally over the years, growing very slowly until they find themselves close enough to needing to compress their Issi that they will travel to a safe spot to force that last bit of expansion.”

“And what you just forced me to do?” Elach asked, gesturing at the ruin around them. “How long would that have taken to do naturally?”

“Thirty to fifty years.” Sentence said, chuckling as the weight of his words silenced anything else Elach might have had to say. “You might have heard before that there is an expanding gap between two sets of practitioners; it is not that there is an ever-widening gap at some arbitrary point, it is that practitioners who do not regularly expand their containers are always far, far weaker than those who do.”

“How often should I expand my container?” Elach asked when he found his words again. “Once a month? Twice a month?”

“Once nightly.” Sentence said. “Do not expand your container by much, and head directly to sleep after. Learn how much expanding you and Flow can recover from in eight hours of sleep, and set that as your normal. The less you do, the less destruction you will cause to the area around you as well.”

“Uh, I just had a thought. What happens to where I was before I came here? Did I destroy Rainshear’s house like I destroyed this place?” Elach asked worriedly. Rainshear had been kind to him, and he really hoped he didn’t repay her kindness by destroying everything she owned.

“While you are inside my realm, all of the destruction will not escape this place.” Sentence assured him. “But once you are on your own, delving into your headspace will not contain the destruction to the outside world. But by doing daily expansion exercises, you will become skilled at containing the destruction to an absolute minimum.”

Elach breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know.”

“From what you told me, Rainshear and her apprentices must have their own ways of expanding their containers. Especially that Metea/Irric, who seems to hold far more power than someone her age should hold.” Sentence said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Rainshear and her apprentices practice the same regimen I am preaching to you. It would do you good to try and insert yourself into their training.”

“What about Sechen or Glasrime’s apprentices?” Elach asked. “How would you rate them power wise?”

Sentence crossed his arms and tapped his foot on the stone beneath him. “Based on the amount of time they have been bonded, I would say all of Glasrime’s apprentices are on the same level as the average practitioner. Sechen, however, I would place on the lower end of practitioners. The fact that her manifestation is only coming in now, after being bonded to Revelation for so long, shows that her growth is unfortunately, and possibly unnaturally, slow compared to her peers.” He said. “There may be some unknown factor that is limiting her development, and if that is righted she might find herself alongside the Glasrime apprentices in strength.”

“So it’s bad for a manifestation to come in late?” Elach asked, looking down at his own hands. “When I was at Resthollow, the person who bonded with them got their new manifestation right away. Is that what’s supposed to happen?”

“For someone who already has a solidified bond, yes.” Sentence said. “But for someone like you, a new practitioner who hasn’t yet fully integrated their Issi seed, it normally takes upwards of a year for a manifestation to show itself. And don’t even bother worrying about that until we’ve finished here. We still have to compress your Issi, and your container after that.”

“We still have all day, right?” Elach said, leaning on Flow’s table for stability. Flow hopped off of his shoulder and sat down on their table, making no noise as they settled down.

“How long do you think you were working on your container, Elach?” Sentence asked.

“Half an hour?” Elach shrugged. “It didn’t feel like that long.”

“It’s been four hours, Elach.” Sentence said. “A forced expansion like that puts a heavy strain on your mind and body, so some of the natural defence systems overtook you and put you in a trance-like state for large swaths of the more painful parts of the process.”

“Figures.” Elach muttered, looking at the sky that had barely changed since he started. “Nothing’s simple when it comes to Issi.”

“Indeed.” Sentence said with a small smile. “Take a minute to eat, then we’ll begin compressing your Issi.”