Rowan woke from her journey down the night-time rivers. Her body felt clammy and the stirring heat of life ran through her limbs. The images from her dreams flowed through her unsettled head.

Deep green emeralds floating in a void black sea, supple spotless limbs moving ever so slightly.

Sensual, taunting, dangerous.

Movement with inhuman precision, a stride that barely seemed to contact the floor, as if suspended on the shadows of her soles. Deep arousing green eyes that darted with such speed that they moved almost imperceptibly. Smooth pink ears that seemed to hear even the rustling of hairs.

A rush of bewitching heat flowed down Rowan’s body.

She hugged the sheets somewhat tighter, letting the heat slowly dissipate. It had been long since something had stirred her this badly. Let alone a woman.

Somewhere further on, she heard the sound of Icid moving around on the ceiling.

Rowan went back inside her head. Lust, desire and even envy, all of them so strong they felt choking. But in a way, that was most pleasing of all.

She could still feel like this, overwhelming want filling her mind to the brim. Quietly she lay with her eyes closed, enjoying the trapping of humanity. While the background, she listened to Icid’s fumbling.

Her movement was stronger and more confident than yesterday. She had miles to go, but there was no denying that she had made an uncanny leap in mental fortitude since they met.

As time moved on occasional click from Icid mandibles revealed some annoyance. Rowan decided she was probably going to have to teach her some skills. If she was going to keep the spider around longer. And she might, as she was turning out quite the fascinating pet. She was going to need some basic training in hiding her emotions. And actual fighting practice might, that would at least help with controlling her movement better.

Suddenly the voices in the dining hall below grew quieter. She focused her hearing while Icid voiced her disgust at something. After a while faintest sound of gruff and stilted speech made its way through the cracks of the walls.

Rowan opened her eyes just in time to see Icid gouge her own leg and swing a quarter circle head first into the floor. For a second, she stared in utter bafflement at the display. Questioning what kind of horribly distraught creature she had taken in. She had encountered people who were into some weird stuff, but this, this was quite on another level.

But not a moment later someone tapped the end a broom against their floor, confirming her lingering suspicions. Rowan snapped herself out of her shock induced paralysis, the enemy is here.

They had moved fast, far faster than expected. Rowan had thought that the lack of modern means would slow their search. But judging from the timing they must have gotten on their tail instantly. This was bad, she had hoped to catch a carriage long before it got this far.

She jumped out of bed and told the spider to get dressed. After throwing on some clothes herself, she took a glance out of the window spotted no reinforcements waiting outside.

“Good, they don’t see us as competent then. With any luck, it is just a set of the lowest rung goons.”

Looking around, she saw Icid struggling around with her clothes. She was slow, too slow, they did not have time for this.

“Time to leave, get to the roof.”

Rowan jumped into the window and made her way outside.

The goat and the spider dove over the roofs as the guards chased them down below. Icid leapt and climbed between the buildings and endless gangly tree. Her movement improving with every jump.

Her body seemed to heal as Rowan stared at it. The wounds on her face closing and her 8th leg coming back in action in a hand full of minutes. At the start, she had worried if she was going to have to leave Icid behind. But after the first hand full of hesitating leaps she once again proved extraordinarily adaptive. Within minutes she was throwing her body over gaps many meters wide like an absolute madman.

No fear of death, legs held upward into full running leaps, like instinct was burning the ways of a spider into her mind. Even when she missed, she managed to grasp onto the wall and drag herself back on. Lines of blood and drool flowed from the corner of her mouth and her many eyes had gone wide as if overdosed on adrenaline.

Rowan felt herself starting to fall behind as her tiny goat legs proved inadequate for the ever larger leaps the spider was making. Below her, the occasional crossbow bolt or flintlock rifle fired, the running shots coming ever closer.

“Hurry up Rowan, the coppers might get ya if you keep running that slow!”

Joy, once again her voice rang with that childish joy. The closer her body came to going all out, the further she seemed to sink into delusions.

“The day you outrun me is the day I will be in my grave. Now get down to those large leaps over there so we can finally lose these rotworms!”

Rowan found herself smiling again. It was utterly messed up, the girl’s already unstable mind seemed to be getting its inhibition reduced by her own body. Yet to see a being so pathetic spread its wings. To see the damsel in eternal distress claw at her own cage that was the type of exotic gem Rowan had always loved most.

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A diamond with a trail of blood behind it, a jewel cursed and crooked, a one of a kind piece of literal narrative gold. The only true shame was that she didn’t get to wrench it out of the hands of someone else.

Her hooves tapped on the soft wood and her beard fluttered in the wind. A large gap appeared before them, a frothing river of dust between two houses. Drifting bones, long-fanged fish and greater horrors down below.

The spider leapt as only a spider could. Six engines firing in parallel, flinging the body through the air. Two long hooks launching ahead, finding the opposing surface. A dozen meters, a bridgeless river, crossed in a single jump.

The guards halted, they knew one target was lost, so they turned to face the one that remained. Crossbows and flintlocks were raised in anticipation.

Rowan dove into an all or nothing run, her hooves pounding against the roof. One step, two steps… the end rushed close. She drew both her legs parallel and planted them at to outmost edge. Air rushed into her lungs as she sunk through her knees as far as she could.

Momentum tilted her forward. This was it, the edge, the last fraction before the fall. She threw all force she had into her hooves. The shoddy roof buckled before sending her flying off with a loud crack.

Air rushed past, rustling her fur as the distance halved, then it halved again, and again.

Rowan stretched out her claws, reaching for the other side. With mere inches to spare she grabbed onto the ledge. The second her fingers contacted the wood she knew she had made a mistake.

With a wet snap, the rotten wood splintered in half. She reached into the shadows with her right hand, as if willed into existence, a cold metal grip contacted with her fingers.

[Hidden Blade]

She wrenched the blade out of the nothing as she fell and thrust it into the wall. Rowen held on with all her strength as the dagger dragged her to a sudden halt.

Loud bangs roared as black powder combusted. She could feel lead shrapnel smash into her right shoulder.

“Ghaaa!”

Rowan suppressed the urge to swear at the top of her lungs. Swinging up from her left hand, she managed to get a foot on the dagger. She looked at the rotten ledge two meters up, she could reach it, maybe…

But her weight would likely tear the wood again. Then eight eyes appeared over the edge, still frenzied but clearer than before. Concern was housed in every one, a simple human concern, the innocence of those not used to death.

A crossbow bolt missed Icid’s head and struck the ground behind her. She flinched, but didn’t move, then she extended a hand.

“What are you waiting for!”

Rowan sunk through her knees and leapt, her claws hooking around spider's arm. With an ungraceful pull, they landed on the roof, rolling out of the way of another volley of shrapnel. Slightly flustered she started into the spider's many eyes…

“Thanks, Icidae.”

The carriage driver looked in shock at the two potential passengers that had arrived at his cart. First, a goat, that was bleeding profusely from her shoulder to the point that most of her fur had been dyed red.

Secondly, there was a spider. She was in better condition, but was also stained in blood and her eyes glared like she was tripping on something really, really bad.

“No questions, we will pay triple rate if you can leave this instant for the bloody heights.”

The goat’s words rang clear and concise. The driver looked around, they were alone.

“Hop in…”

As soon as Icid closed the curtains the cart immediately set off. Rowan laid herself down on the bench face down.

“Icid, the bullet needs to be taken out of my shoulder… The infection is going to be bad enough as it is.”

Rowan cursed her carelessness, she had no clue of this simulation featured antibiotics. She should have taken far less risk. If the level of technology here was fully medieval, a simple infection could leave her bedridden for weeks or even kill her.

The spider scuttled closer and leaned over, inspecting the wound.

“Driver, do you have a low-quality regeneration pot?”

“Sure, try one of the crates on the left. But you should remove the metal from the wound first, the cheap ones don’t perform miracles.”

Without warning, Icid pried the wound apart with her fingers.

“Ahh, careful! Wash your hands, the risk of infection is bad enough.”

“Icid eyed her with a strange suspicion. No, it won’t, once we throw on a regen pot, the wound should close in a handful of minutes.”

“A regen whut- aah!”

With her second hand, Icid started digging into the flesh, ripping the wound further.

“Sit still, you crybaby! Your fur makes this work difficult enough as it is.”

“No, you go behave like a normal person and get a scalpel and tweezers! Why the infernal horseflies are you completely unperturbed by digging into a bleeding wound?”

A pleased smile appeared on Icid’s face, resulting in a manic expression when combined with her dilated pupils.

Then she cleared her throat.

“Let me tell you about the time I got hit by a motorcycle.”

Rowan convulsed in agony as Icid dug her fingers deeper.

“No thank you! No one wants to hear about your miserable past, damsel. Especially not me right now.

Gyaaaagh!”

“Oops, though I saw the bullet, but it was only your shoulder blade.”

“Lies!”

“Where was I, so I was walking home in tears after some bullies had thrown my backpack in the pool. They tended to do that from time to time.”

“I am starting to think you deserved every bit of tha- aaaaah!”

“So some punk tears through the park on his motorcycle while looking at his phone and hits me square in the back. Then he drives off, leaving me for dead, of course. It was just a fat nerd anyway, nobody will miss her.

So after thirty minutes the ambulance finally comes to lift me out of the pool of my own blood. Their first reaction, well that does not look good. And yes, it wasn’t good.

Legs broken, spine over-bend, muscles torn and my lower internal organs almost completely liquefied.

Oh look, there is a piece.”

Icid held a thumb size piece of broken metal in front of Rowan’s eyes.

“That looks like it is only about half…”

“Yep, we aren’t done yet.

So yea, I managed to live through that one by a hair, but my organs never fully recovered. The first couple of months the bunch was so unstable that it tried to leave through the back end on a semi-regular basis.

Imagine that, looking at your own insides attempting to escape your body. But after a while you get better at handling it, humans can adapt to a surprising number of things. So for all the weaknesses and phobias I have, I don’t feel much when looking at simple wounds and blood.

Ah, that would be the other half.”

After another excruciating yank, a second piece of bloody metal was discarded on the floor. Rowan breathed ragged breaths while attempting to cope with the horrid pain.

“Man, you turn cruel when the mood strikes you. I don’t see how you got bullied for all those years.”

Icid let that comment hang in the air for a couple of moments while she rummaged through the boxes.

“You think it would have stopped them?”

“Blood and pain levels of cruelty? It might, depends if we are talking normal delinquents or people who got actual screws loose.”

Another silence fell as Icid fished a red coloured bottle out of one of the boxes and read the label.

“I don’t get like this with other people…

Talking like this, fighting like this, extending a hand like this or being mean like this. I can do that with you…

Because you are not real.”