You laid your eggs? Adon’s tone was colored by a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

I did, Goldie replied. Her inner voice carried that same weariness Adon had already noticed.

Uh, you sound kind of tired, Goldie. Are you okay?

I think so, she replied. I told you there would, ah, recovery time…

Adon was immediately worried.

Can I please come up? he asked. He tried to keep the fear out of his voice. He had no idea how hard laying eggs was on bugs. And even though Goldie had mentioned that she expected to survive this process, she hadn’t ever done it before herself.

Had Adon’s butterfly mother died when she produced Adon and any siblings he might have had? Could that be the norm in this invertebrate world? Was Adon about to lose his best friend?

Of course, she sent immediately. Still weary, but also excited. She notably did not seem worried. Come see my eggs!

As Adon began walking around under the web, moving toward the low edge that he could climb onto, Goldie continued thinking at him. You made this possible, you know. I was afraid to lay eggs with thief spiders close. If not for you, Red and I would probably be eaten now.

Adon felt only slightly comforted by that idea. He was still worried that Goldie and Red would be eaten, or that they would die of some more natural causes after reproducing. And leave him alone with the eggs and the web and the garden.

I’m not sure I want to be here anymore, he thought, carefully keeping the thought from sending. If something happens to Goldie and Red—or even just Goldie!—would I want to be in this horrible garden? Where everything is trying to kill you, and you’re trying to kill it first?

Adon’s feelings were strangely mixed. He was both proud of his accomplishments in slaughter, and also reluctant to continue as he had been. It just felt pointless. It wasn’t what he was here to do, was it? Was his best life really just killing his way to the top of this garden food chain?

If Goldie was with him, at least there was some point to everything. As much point as every human life had. More point than any of his human incarnations ever had, honestly. When had he ever had someone he cared about?

Adon reached the edge of the web and excitedly pulled himself onto it. However anxious he felt, he was also excited. He wanted to see Goldie’s eggs—couldn’t wait to see them hatch! And even if Goldie herself was in bad shape right now, he hoped that his healing magic might do something for her.

As he moved along the surface of the web this time, Adon noticed something was different. It felt unstable. Shaky. No, the web wasn’t different. He was different. His body. Adon had passed some sort of weight threshold after eating that bluebird chick, and now he seemed to be too heavy. Goldie’s web was shivering with every step he took.

Adon forced himself to slow down and tread lightly. I guess I’ve gotten bigger. Maybe I ate one too many birds.

Even walking carefully, he managed to scale the web quickly enough and get within sight of Goldie. He found her in a noticeably reduced state. All the eggs she had been storing inside her had bloated her body and consumed a lot of resources to create. The result, now that they were outside, was that she looked deflated. Her bottom half was almost like a popped balloon.

You made it, she thought. She sounded like she was almost ready to pass out.

Of course I did! Adon sent.

As he sent the message, Red scurried over to Goldie from somewhere just above her. He seemed to check on her superficially, and he ran back up the web. Adon followed the smaller spider with his eyes and saw that he came to rest on the underside of some leaves that were webbed together above them.

Those weren’t like that before…

Then Adon saw what was different. Goldie had webbed a bunch of leaves together as a base to hide her egg sac. Beneath the leaves there were a number of very small, off white pearl-like structures.

These, he realized, were Goldie’s eggs.

Dozens. No, hundreds? It was hard to count them. There were clearly multiple layers of eggs bundled together, and Goldie had placed them so that they were hidden in the shadow of the leaves above. More carefully concealed than the web itself. They were basically defenseless besides being hidden, so Adon admired how well she had managed to keep them from view.

Congratulations, Goldie, Adon transmitted. You did it!

I did. I accomplished mission encoded in my biology. I perpetuated the great cycle. Though her face could not shift to a smile, Adon could hear a contentment in her voice. It felt a little alarming to him, though. Almost as if she was ready to die.

Do you need healing? he asked, stepping in closer.

Could not hurt, she replied.

Adon moved another inch until he could touch her, and he called upon the same magical power that had restored him to full Health. It was so much easier now. The mental process was a quick retracing of steps. Then he saw it. A gentle green glow emanating from his front legs.

This is my magic, he thought. He had never actually seen the healing power in action before. When he healed himself, he was in the darkness of that strange mystical void until he ran almost completely out of Mana. By the time he came out of it, the glow was gone.

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Adon leaned in and began applying the green aura to Goldie.

He saw some results immediately. The deflated look diminished a bit. He was happy to cut down even a bit on her recovery time, and more importantly to hopefully increase the odds that she would survive this process.

I think magic is something I’m going to be good at.

He kept going for around thirty seconds, and his Mana continued to hold strong. It was enough for at least a few minutes of this.

But just as he was starting to think he might get Goldie back to full Health, the power simply stopped working. Adon suddenly felt as if he was trying to push through a brick wall.

What’s this resistance?

Goldie noticed it too after a few seconds.

Thank you, Adon, she thought. I think you have done all you can.

You still don’t seem a hundred percent, though, he replied instantly, not concerned about how he sounded. He desperately wanted to know what was going on. Was Goldie dying or something? Was that why he couldn’t finish healing her? Too much damage?

But as he looked the spider over, he thought that couldn’t be it. She genuinely looked much better than she had before he started. Still a bit hollow. Noticeably weak.

Some things magic might not be able to do, she replied. Need recovery time. Food and rest. Magic probably cannot replace everything. Like sleep.

I guess, he sent.

Speaking of food, how did things go for you? Her inner voice was so faint just then that he wondered if she would fall asleep.

Adon began recounting his trip in order, starting from when he left the web. Goldie reacted appropriately, with surprise and interest in all the right places. She seemed especially shocked about what happened to the Vendetta Ants. The spider was an amazing listener, he observed once again.

But midway through Adon’s description of his conversation with the Princess, Goldie stopped responding to his messages. It was as if her mind was simply offline.

Goldie? he sent. He waved one of his limbs in front of her face.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of movement from her head.

So, Goldie passed out. Okay. That’s fine. This is going to be okay.

He deactivated Telepathy and started brooding about what to do next. There were so many things. Helping with Goldie’s recovery, unlocking some more magic, preparing for the new hatchlings…

He looked up at the eggs again as he had this last thought.

Was I really that small once? he wondered. In theory, he might have been even smaller at some point, considering that he was a mere caterpillar, and Goldie was a mighty spider. But it was hard to believe.

For now, Adon decided to prepare as best he could for when Goldie woke up. She would be hungry, so he would at least make sure she had food within easy reach.

He was going to blow her mind with the prey he’d felled this time. She and Red would be on the fast track to Evolution. And her babies, too, if they hatched soon enough.

As Adon slowly worked his way back down the web, he felt movement above him. He looked up and saw Red scurrying back to check on Goldie again. Adon felt a warm feeling inside.

It was good to know that Goldie had someone who would look after her the way that Red did.

Adon reactivated Telepathy and targeted the little spider.

You’re going to be a great dad, Red! he sent.

Red just looked around, slightly startled, until he saw Adon was looking at him. The two made what Adon decided was friendly eye contact, and then the caterpillar decided to keep climbing down from the web. Give the love birds some privacy.

Over the next hour, he carefully opened up his silk casing over the crow, carved off what was left of the head and neck region, and pulled it out of its container. Then he resealed the crow in its makeshift sarcophagus as best he could. It would not do to have other predators, or even scavengers, come nosing around Goldie’s web while she was at her most vulnerable. The best Adon could do was try to keep the smell of dead crow sealed off inside of the silk. He knew it wasn’t a permanent solution, but then, in a few days, there probably wouldn’t be any crow left.

It was a big bird, but Adon was habitually a very hungry caterpillar.

He dragged the bit of bird meat up the web and placed it in front of Goldie and Red.

Food, he sent to the smaller spider.

Red looked at the meat, back at Adon, and finally turned to Goldie, who continued to lie still. Clearly confused, Red did nothing.

And Adon decided that now that he was alone with Red, it was the perfect moment to invest some more energy trying to communicate with him telepathically. This time, instead of just shooting words at him, he took his time and came up with a more thoughtful strategy.

Web, Adon sent, along with an image of the web.

Red just looked at him with what seemed to Adon a curious tilt to his head.

Adon sent more images along with the accompanying words. Leaf. Water. Food. He coupled that last with a picture of the meat.

Goldie, Adon added, with an image of Goldie.

Red sort of nodded, though Adon couldn’t tell if that meant the spider knew what Adon was getting at, or if he just liked being sent pictures of Goldie.

You eat, Adon sent. He transmitted an image of Red sinking his fangs into the hunk of meat Adon had dropped.

Red almost jumped. He seemed startled by the image.

Then he looked to Adon, head tilted again, as if to say, Do you really mean me? This is food that I can eat? Even though you hunted it?

For someone who had no access to language, Red could sometimes communicate rather eloquently.

Red eats, Adon sent, along with the same image again.

And the small spider actually did begin trying to consume the meat. It looked like he was trying to suck out the meat’s juices or something rather than eating it the way Adon would eat meat, but he tried to ignore that and look away. He had always vaguely known that spiders ate differently from caterpillars. That was why they were carnivores, while most caterpillars were omnivores or herbivores.

This was progress.

And Adon had another task to add to his to-do list: teaching Red language. Which was good. He intended to get comfortable here.

He, Goldie, and Red would be confined to the immediate area of the web for a while. Until Goldie recovered at least. If Adon went anywhere while she was in this condition, she would be completely vulnerable. Ideally they might even stay in place until her eggs had hatched. Depending on how long the food supplies lasted.

He would think about the logistics and the risk-reward ratio of leaving between recovery and hatching later.

For now, he simply deactivated Telepathy and climbed back down the side of the web.

I’ll see if Goldie has any ideas about how I might be able to get Red to learn language when she wakes up.

Until then, Adon would try to spend as much time as he could in that black void where magical power could be claimed. There was a wider landscape out beyond this garden, and magic was the only advantage he could think of that might give him a chance at having a real footprint in it.

Even the Princess had been curious about whether he could do it. Magic was clearly something special in this world.

Maybe I’ll even learn something that I can teach Goldie, he thought.

Then Adon was in that familiar black space, the orange orb floating above him. He started walking again.

I’m looking for illusion magic this time…