The dining car was roughly like what Will expected, except for the giant spider. It crawled along the ceiling, dropping menus, dishes, and other objects on lines of silk. Will guessed it was some kind of ogre-faced spider, based on its proportions.

Virgil watched Will watching the spider. “It must be to save space,” Will said, apropos of nothing. “You know, I wouldn’t have expected giant bugs to be so common here.”

“Are they not on earth?” Virgil asked.

“Not anymore. The largest land arthropods went extinct hundreds of millions of years ago.”

“Extinct? As in, they all died out? How do you know what happened to them?” Virgil asked.

“Fossils,” Will said. “Do you guys have fossils?”

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “People dig them up sometimes, but they’re not usually different from living species.”

“Most fossils on earth are of plants and animals that no longer exist. Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever lived are extinct.”

“That’s sad,” Virgil said quietly. “But that’s life, I guess.”

“Life’s a bitch and then you die,” agreed Will.

Despite himself Virgil laughed. “That’s true! Well, then you come back. Life’s a bitch and then you die and then you come back.”

“What’s it like, to die?” Will asked, still watching the spider.

Virgil didn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s different for everyone, and I obviously try to avoid it, but… for me, it’s like I’m sinking into a dark lake.

“It’s cold, and murky, but underneath the surface there’s this beautiful glimmer of light, and I swim after it, and when I finally catch it, I wake up, good as new.”

Will listened intently. “That sounds…” he paused to keep himself from saying ‘peaceful,’ “…lonely.”

“It can be,” said Virgil. “Sometimes, even though I can’t see him, I can feel Glory watching me, like he’s protecting me.”

Food was rappelled down to their table, and Will was briefly unconcerned with anything beyond his own hunger.

It hadn’t yet occurred to him that his new body required significantly more calories than Will needed as a human, and that he was often slightly malnourished because of that.

“Okay, you’re right, these cinnamon rolls are really fucking good,” Will said, forcing himself to speak instead of eating.

Virgil said nothing as Will ate. After another minute in his own head, Will looked up to see Virgil smiling at him from across the table, his own food mostly untouched.

Will swallowed the half-chewed roll in his mouth, which went down like a chunk of drywall. “You, uh… you good?” He asked sheepishly.

Virgil snapped awake as if he had dozed off. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just glad you’re enjoying yourself. I know this whole…” he gesticulated vaguely, tail flicking behind him, “…thing, this place, I guess, isn't fun for you. So I’m happy when you do find things to enjoy.”

Will laughed nervously. “It’s not like it’s the worst. There are some redeeming qualities.”

“Such as?” Virgil asked, keeping his expression neutral.

“Giant bugs,” Will said. “I like the giant bugs. It’s better to be trapped in a gay porn fantasy world with giant bugs than to be trapped in one without.”

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Virgil laughed briefly. “That’s something, at least.”

“I guess… I don’t know,” Will continued, unsure of where he was going. “I don’t hate it here. It’s not that bad. Sometimes things are stupid, and annoying, and don’t make sense, but that’s true back home, too. I think that’s just true everywhere, but…”

“But?” Virgil prompted.

“There are things that make it worthwhile,” said Will, looking again at the spider so he wouldn’t have to face Virgil directly.

Virgil looked up at the spider as well, studying its deep, black eyes. “What do you want to do about Skullcrusher?”

Will’s mind snapped back to reality. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess he can stay, if everyone else is okay with it.”

“Yeah, but what’s your opinion?”

Will didn’t like confronting the question directly, but didn’t immediately understand why. “He’s clever and easy to control. I think he’s got a lot of good ideas, and maybe he can help us find more intel on whoever was messing with him and those bandit guys.”

“Will, do you or do you not want him in our little team?”

“Yeah, I do!” said Will, his temper briefly flaring. “I don’t know why now my opinion suddenly matters.”

Virgil flinched but kept his tone steady. “You’re not making any sense. Of course your opinion matters. It matters quite a lot.”

Will slouched, the tension leaving his body all at once. “I know. It’s just… hard to explain. It’s frustrating.”

“What’s frustrating?”

Will searched for the right words. “It’s easier to imagine going home when there’s less… stuff… keeping me here. I mean, I’m not gonna up and leave, you know that, but, after it’s all said and done I just want to go home.”

“And Skullcrusher is something that might keep you here?” Asked Virgil.

“Well, not just him,” Will said sheepishly. “You, too. You guys, I mean. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you guys.”

Virgil nodded. “I understand. For what it’s worth, I think you should enjoy yourself as much as possible here. Even if it’s just the bugs.”

Will looked up at the spider one last time. “I will miss them, too, I suppose.”

The rest of the train ride was quiet and uneventful, except for when Will officially invited Skullcrusher to come with them.

The gnoll had picked him up and squeezed him like he was a Furby in a hydraulic press, babbling inarticulately in gratitude and excitement.

Before the train had even stopped Skullcrusher had jumped out onto the platform and ran on all fours presumably towards Virgil’s estate, leaving Will and Dio to carry his luggage.

“You know, I always wanted a dog,” said Dio, apropos of nothing.

“Hyenas aren’t dogs,” Will corrected, dragging along a bag of gardening tools that probably weighed more than Virgil. “They’re feliforms, so closer to cats than dogs.”

Dio picked up the bag Will had been dragging with one hand. “That’s nonsense, they don’t look anything like cats.”

“That’s cladistics,” Will said proudly. “It’s like how whales and dolphins are mammals even though they look more similar to fish. Well, technically they are fish, but not any more of a fish than you or I.”

“I’m a fish!?” Dio said, with genuine surprise. He looked at his hand as if expecting it to become a fin.

“Distantly, yes. All tetrapods retain some ancestral traits from fish, like how our lungs are modified from swim bladders.”

“Fish lungs…” said Dio dreamily. “That’s wild.”

“If you go far enough back, even arthropods are distantly connected to us. Even plants and fungi share a common ancestor with us, too.”

“That’s part of the druidic teachings,” Dio said, “that we are kin with all living things.”

Dio and Will paused, having walked all the way to the estate. Virgil, Glory, Rex, and now Skullcrusher, were already home. Will felt a surge of contentment as he passed the threshold into the courtyard, where Rex was cooking a whole chicken over a large fire pit.

“You know, I could have just teleported that,” Glory said, looking at the bags Dio had been carrying.

“Sometimes it’s not about doing things as fast as possible,” Dio said sagely.

“So you wanted to show off your prodigious muscles,” Virgil interjected. Everyone laughed.

Dio flexed theatrically. “And? What of it?”

Rex wolf-whistled at the display, then turned the chicken over to cook the other side.

Will said nothing, leaning against the wall and watching the conversation unfold. He felt… at home, he decided. He wanted to feel annoyed at himself, but he decided that it was okay, for now.

After all, it wasn’t like he would be here forever.