Before they left town, Patience bought two oranges from a cart. Across the bridge, she lounged under a budding cherry tree and began to snack. It seemed that Anax’s eye was calming down at last. The orb settled above her cheek, staring at her fingers peeling the fruit.

“Did you enjoy the trip into town?” asked Patience chucking torn peels into a bush.

“Very much. I did not know people came in so many shapes and colors. Particularly the general store keeper, I’ve not known humans to be as dark as he.”

“Have you seen humans before?”

“Only ones that ventured into our forest. Not many. The closest I’ve ever seen one was a second-born.”

“So like me? The human was a host?”

“The donor. Yes. But this second-born took over the human completely and had enveloped them in his body.”

“Like when you wrap around me?”

“As so,” said Anax. Patience yelped in surprise as Anax’s mist formed a cocoon around her. Ropes of silvery white coalesced and gave form to his own body, a hulking fog bundling her torso and limbs, arm over arm, leg over leg. He was a glove and she a hand, only this glove was the master. Anax stood their legs up. Patience panicked having lost control. She flexed her limbs only to meet heavy resistance like pushing against immovable sacks of sand. She was floating a couple feet off the ground, held up by the solid smoky frame of the creature she wore on her head.

“All right! I get it! Put me down! Please!” gasped the girl. Anax reclined and his body vaporized nearly instantaneously, leaving only a few wisps languishing over Patience’s shoulders and back. He remained silent as Patience caught her breath.

Still slightly shaken, Patience made a deliberate decision to not address what had just transpired. It was something she would have to accept. He could do this at any time. She should be thankful he did not insist upon it. A foggy coil lifted a jeweled citrine cluster to her lips.

“See? I can move us around. Needn’t rely on you always,” said Anax quite pleased with himself. Patience quivered and forced down the rest of the orange. She stowed the second fruit in her wagon to save for another day.

“How do others of your species get their hosts anyway?” babbled the girl.

“Sometimes we help our first-deceased family members find a life-donor.”

Thoughts of hulking monsters kidnapping poor unsuspecting humans crackled in her mind. She gulped.

“Normally just deer or wolves, on very rare occasions stray traveling humans.”

Her mind still sympathized with hapless lost souls forced into physical and mental slavery. It was a terrible thing, but she saw no use in arguing with Anax over it right now. She held her tongue.

“Other times if we’ve perished alone, we lay dormant and simply wait for a creature to crawl into our skull.”

“So even a mouse would work?”

“It does not take much,” said Anax.

“But mice don’t live very long.”

“With one of my kind they can.”

“You can prolong your host’s life?” asked Patience astounded.

“We give our life-donors what we can to ensure we both stay alive.”

“I thought you could simply move them away from danger.”

“That and our mist. Look around you, you are mine, I am all over you, surely you are breathing in some of my essence. We’ve never studied it ourselves … we just know it to be this way; but I suppose it has some preservative and regenerative properties. ”

Patience dropped a handful of peels on to the ground. A feeling of horror welled up in her stomach, but the positive implications currently outweighed it.

“That’s … that’s simply amazing,” she whispered.

She shook her head. She had to focus back on her own life. This creature was now a part of it, but she still lived in the same house and had the same obstacles as she did a week ago. For now, Anax only complicated things. However that was not to say Anax was not useful either. Upon returning home, she had Anax carry buckets of water from the pump and the barreled reservoir in the kitchen was filled in half the time Patience would have normally taken.