Ninety-eight point six.
The body’s core temperature is ninety-eight to one hundred degrees fahrenheit. What is that celsius? Celsius..first subtract thirty-two. Subtract thirty-two and divide. Divide by...one point....one point eight.

Under the ice of a river surface at night, there was almost no light. It only mattered when she opened her eyes, stinging, to try to reclaim some orientation to how long or far it had been. She’d lost sound. Sensation was limited to a dull impact feeling when she careened up into the ice because she’d lost control of her limbs in swimming or was trying to break to air and breath.

It had been a while. Long enough that sirens and lights no longer flashed in cacophony to greet her when she manage to find the surface instead of the riverbed. The police would not have her no more than the ambulances would. But she was cold.

Too cold. So cold that her thoughts had become train wrecks that she had to sift through and stumble along before they rallied to lurch a little further down the track. She scrambled along, breaking a path through the ice, no longer able to manage climbing on top of it to crab walk to safety. Just muscle through, even as red started to fan out onto pieces that bobbed. She couldn’t feel the sharpness in her shaking, or the tears through clothe that tangled as her powered strength commanded limb to face the solidity of frozen water. Schörl didn’t know if there were any Powers nearby- she couldn’t command her focus well enough, nor command herself to care. She knew she had to stay powered now, her body too weak to take the strain she’d demanded. Not without the black tendrils that she could feel now, gratefully, painfully, around the awareness in her starseed. Her self.

Ninety to Ninety-five is...low hypo-something. low? Low. No better synonym was coming forward. Her fingers scooped into half frozen mud of the shore, hauling her up the bank. MiddleIsWhat? Less...less than ninety. Okay...sy-..symptoms. Lots of shivering. Frostbite possible.

She looked at her hands. The flesh that wasn’t abraded and bleeding on meat around her nails was as white as ivory or bluing. Not quite frostbite, so not damaging. Her body had slowed metabolism to lengthen her viability. Or the darkness had for her. Unless she was too long exposed in the cold, in the air and wet, she’d be fine. Ashore. Now? Next step is?

Nothing was coming to mine. Lethargy. She was confused and stumbling into streets she couldn’t hope to recognize up from the banks of the river. The streets were slow moving, volatile sludge of glimmering black and puddly slush- slap....slapslap...slappadap as her boots trudged along trying to remember Left was left and Right was right. Schörl's consciousness was rapidly removing level by level from the consensus of reality, new layers superimposed over the world. She blinked, but the streetlights didn’t cease to be great, fluttering fireflies that oogled down from iron roses who bent over that black and slimy second river. She disapproved. Her disapproval didn’t matter as another Cuil stacked on top and the buildings began to sway and sing in raucous Klaxon Quartet like they were all Cadillac. She didn’t want to be in a Cadillac neighborhood. She turned a corner at a blue snail that was asking for postcards.

When someone is ...very cold.... Vocabulary was now gone. She thought a pictures and saw only blue lips opening in the ground before her, traveling as she traveled so that she didn’t step on them. They spoke with her own voice. “Its important to get clothes off, so that they can get warm. Hot packs beneath the armpits, and at the groin, as well as warmed, humidified air to breath help to raise core temperature efficiently. Efficient. What did you learn to be efficient? What did you learn in your battle today?”

“I....don’t think I should pursue...another aura like that again unless I have...a very good plan. Someone else. a team. I need a team. I need my circle. I haven’t found them yet. I don’t know where they are. The chain weathers strain more than link alone. More links. I have to find more links before I can chain the Tiger. Pretty tiger. I’ll bet her fur is warm. I’d like to nuzzle those...” Schörl broke off into a wide smile. Looked up at the stars and fell over into the black slush. She felt warmer, and struggled vaguely with her vest. It tore off with some flailing, but then she was tired. Laid still.

She didn’t think she was inside. She needed to be inside. Outside couldn’t possible be warm. The blue lips were kissing her, but they were dirty liars. She wasn’t warm. And there was no tiger fur right here to wrap up in. The dead of winter was no season to be spending so much time going for a swim. Humans were not polar bears, even if they called themselves that.