Prisoner didn’t join them for lunch. And he didn’t join them for supper. Sechen didn’t catch another glimpse of the man until the wee hours of the morning, when he walked through the living room looking like he’d just fought a bear to a stalemate. He muttered something to himself as he opened the refrigerator, pulling out a glass bottle of bright pink liquid and downing it in a single breath. He grimaced and shivered, then turned to Sechen who was lounging on the couch with a book in her hands, staring up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Cloudy ain’t doin’ so well.” Prisoner said, his voice hoarse and scratchy as if he’d been screaming the day away. “I’m tryin’ to take her mind off all this, but it’s those moments she has with herself that send her just that little bit closer to the point of no return. We ain’t got a lot of time, ringlet.”

“Maybe we should drop her off at Novia’s.” Sechen suggested. “It’s not like we can’t go back to get her once we’re done with this. Hells, keeping her here with us might be what’s doing the most damage.”

Prisoner sighed, taking a seat across from Sechen and waving his hand. The small table between them was suddenly filled with trinkets, and Sechen recognized the Issi coming off of them.

“Why do you have so many light Issi trinkets?” She asked, setting her book to the side as she reached for a little statue with clasped hands and wings of vibrant light Issi. “There’s no way you got all of these for me.”

“You got that right; these are from my personal collection. Most of ‘em belonged to an old friend of mine who bit the dust on the third go-around. He was a sculptor with light Issi, and he put a little bit of himself in everything he made. And I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout passion or Issi.”

Sechen grimaced and retracted her hand, instead leaning over the statues. She couldn’t see anything obvious, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “Flesh and blood?”

“Blood, mostly. All the sparkly bits are a mixture of some material whose secrets he brought to his grave and a small amount of his blood. Said it activated it somehow, and that it needed to be blood. He showed me once that if he used Issi it would peter out within a few days, and though they were still some pretty beautiful works, they didn’t have the same sort of lastin’ majesty to ‘em.”

Prisoner reached down and grabbed the statue Sechen had originally reached for, handling it with the delicate touch of an art appraiser. “I figured you might get some insight from these, since you finally got a grasp on how your body ain’t normal.”

“So you did know all along. How?”

“I’m aware of everythin’ that happens in my domain, ringlet. Just so happens it ain’t a city, or a glacier, or volcanic tunnels; it’s the space ‘round where I am.” Prisoner spread his arms in a grandiose gesture, smiling with teeth as he did. “It’s why I know how close to gone cloudy is, that fumbly’s bond is self-tainted, and how your body’s healin’ itself. I’ve got a guess as to why that is, but I won’t say anythin’ if you don’t want me to.”

“Yeah, don’t. So, how are these supposed to help me?” Sechen swiftly cut off that angle of conversation. She wasn’t ready to talk to herself about that, nevermind someone else. “I get that they’re pretty to look at, but they don’t feel all that powerful to me.”

“Well, why don’t you wander your eyes over to this little lady.” Prisoner placed a finger on the head of a carving of a two-tailed fox. It’s whiskers, teeth, eyes, and the tips of its tails glowed with light Issi. “Focus on it, and I mean really focus on it, for a good fifteen seconds. You’ll see somethin’ interesting, and maybe it’ll give you some insight on how to get that headspace of yours in shape for compression.”

Sechen nodded and gently picked up the little fox, her left hand wrapped tightly around its hexagonal base while her right cradled the overly long tails of the creature. The closer she looked, the less she recognized the beast she held. Its tails curled around its feet multiple times, shrouding them in carved fluff, far longer than any Issi fox Sechen could name. Its teeth were a little too long, and a little too sharp; like rows of cobra’s fangs that must have made it difficult for the fox to close its mouth. The beast’s body was lithe and flexible, curling around so that its four legs were almost in line with each other, with fur that shivered and shook as if it were hunting in arctic winds. Whiskers that didn’t attach to the fox’s muzzle floated immovable in the air, like luminescent needles that the fox controlled. Sechen breathed in deeply, the scent of a frozen forest overwhelming her, finally looking directly into the fox’s eyes.

Snow blew through the sparse tundra, waist-high drifts making it near impossible for Sechen to take another step forward. Her entire world was whited out by the storm, her body wracked with the utter cold that accompanied it. Her clothes were thick, fashioned out of the furs of some beast she couldn’t name and lined with countless Issi markings that were supposed to keep her safe through her trek, but her batteries had run dry long ago. And her light Issi wasn’t close enough to the heat Issi that powered them. Hands tucked under her armpits, she pushed on towards wherever she was going.

The seconds ground by, eventually replaced by minutes, which fell to the side as hours took their place. Sechen’s breath crystallized on the inside of her scarf, squinting through the mostly ice-blind goggles that could be frozen to her face. Her Issi worked overtime to stave off starvation, dehydration, and frostbite, but every second she lived was a second closer to death. Her container was larger than she remembered, the Issi inside as dense and bright as the sun, and yet it was only a fifth full. She’d started the day with almost twice that, and would wake up in the morning to emptiness. Hells, maybe she wouldn’t wake up at all. Sleep was a temptress whose wiles were growing impossible to resist.

Through the white, something appeared. Twin dots of brilliant light, beacons of sanctuary through a storm of uncertainty. Sechen sucked in a lungful of freezing air, imagining the light storming through her body and spinning down to her container. Issi joined the thought moments later, a comfortable warmth that reinvigorated her down to her very soul. This was pure light Issi, not the distilled sunlight she was so used to. The beacons hung there, immobile, as she approached. The white evaporated into a calming glow, the pelting fury of the storm giving way in the sanctuary of the small beast that now stood before her.

Small paws balanced on the surface of the snow, brilliant golden scales covering the fox’s legs until halfway up where they faded away into soft white fur. Their eyes were bizarre, a honeycomb of hexagons without pupils or eyelids that simply went dim whenever the beast blinked. Each hexagon blinked at different intervals, making sure the fox was never unaware of anything that happened. It tilted its head to the side at the sight of sechen, opening its mouth in a yawn to show rows of snake-like fangs flattened down in its maw. Long tails stood sentinel in the wind as the fox turned and started walking, looking back to make sure Sechen was following before it’s sphere of safety threw her back out into the storm. She tried to speak, but her throat was dry and raw, her lips cracked to the point of bleeding just by moving them. Instead, she bowed thanks, the fox letting out a chirping laugh in response, waiting for her to walk beside it before continuing.

Sechen gasped, almost dropping the carving as the vision faded. Her hands trembled as if they were freezing, and she gently set the fox back down on the table with the rest of them. “What… what was that?” She asked, voice full of wonder.

The look on Prisoner’s face gave her pause. She’d never seen him so morose. “One of Morriss’ memories. His first meetin’ with Hex. One of the most powerful manifestations I’ve ever laid eyes on, and one of the final eight that we took to the end. When she took on a bipedal form, Morriss was just a little too happy. Fortunately for him, Hex shared those feelins in spades. When Morriss passed, a part of Hex died along with him.”

“They were a couple?”

“They got married a couple of hours after Hex showed us her person-like form, if that tells you anythin’.” Prisoner chuckled, a faraway look in his eyes. “We didn’t even have time for a bachelor party. Not that Morriss would’ve wanted one, mind you, since that man only had eyes for Hex. They lived a good forty years together, but they never had any kids. Knew we’d eventually be goin’ back for another, and didn’t want the pain of that loss.”

“Why show this to me?”

“Remember when I told you to find somethin’ to put your energy into?” Prisoner gestured over the table of statues. “This is why. So people have somethin’ to remember you by. It don’t have to be sculptures, or weapons, or anythin’ like that, just somethin’ you can put your mark on. Rat wrote songs. Hex made clothes. I made jewelry. Somethin’ to work on in the downtimes, and somethin’ your friends will keep close if you ever bite it. My greatest regret is that I don’t have much to remind me of the fifteen I lost on that first run. I don’t want any of you to go through that, but we never know what’s gonna go sideways. Think of it as a contingency plan and a way to distract yourselves from our final goal.”

Sechen wrinkled her nose. “You want us to be distracted from killing an eternal? Why in the hells would you want that?”

“Tunnel vision is dangerous, ringlet.” Prisoner said gravely. “You lose sight of what’s beside and behind you, you’re dead. Takin’ some time for yourself ain’t just for relaxin’. Helps you think through anythin’ you might be too focused on seein’ otherwise.”

“Alright, but why do you think these things would help me? My hands are too shaky to carve or sculpt anything.”

“You’re tellin’ me you didn’t see anything that might be related to your Issi in there? Nothin’ at all? Not even, I dunno, an application of light Issi that you might be able to cannibalize? Or the technique someone way stronger than you used to take in Issi?”

“It’s that simple? I thought this was some kind of freaky training thing you came up with.” Sechen put a hand over Morriss’ carving of Hex, then froze. “Wait. This feels like you saying you won’t be there to teach me this.”