Adon, Goldie thought.

Her inner voice sounded tired and muddled to him. As she formulated the thought, she was still wiggling her legs as if she could turn right side up by dog paddling through the air.

I’m here, Goldie, he replied instantly. He moved around to her side to help her up.

I was in the space between this world and the next, I think, she thought. I saw the Goddess—unless it was all in my head. I feel confused. Everything hurts. What happened?

You were hurt, really badly, he sent. He began pushing her side, and with his help, she managed to turn right side up. Wasps attacked—

Wasps! Her voice inside his head became suddenly clearer and frantic. I remember now. My eggs… Red! What happened? Where are they? Adon, have you seen my eggs or Red?

He shook his head sadly but forced himself to answer her question more fully, even though it was painful to do so. I saw some of your eggs, broken, but I haven’t seen Red.

No… The word came through the telepathic link along with a choked sound like a human sob. My babies. My mate. I have to…

She began moving toward the edge of her web, but it was painfully slow, clumsy, and hard to watch. He could tell she was far from healed.

Stop, please, he sent. I’ll go look!

He was trying to protect the eggs, she thought sadly. Trying to protect our little ones… I wish I could remember more. All in fragments. The wasps’ venom is strong…

Adon felt her pain like it was his own.

Please sit tight, he sent. I will find Red if he’s here.

He went after the wasps eating our eggs, Goldie thought. It is coming back slowly…

Adon threw himself over the edge of the web before Goldie could get overwhelmed with emotion and try looking for Red herself again. He had an idea for where he wanted to start looking at least. He had seen a pile of dead wasps surrounded by pieces of Goldie’s eggs. The area around it seemed as good a place as any to find Red.

He did not have to walk far. He almost landed right in the middle of the dead insects as he fell. Adon approached cautiously. Though he had not seen a single wasp stir, and they were in the exact position he remembered them in from before, he did not want to underestimate these things.

He snipped the necks of the wasps at the bottom with his mandibles before he finally admitted to himself that they were not playing dead. He was just stalling, afraid of what he might find.

Adon pulled the wasps bodies to the side one by one.

At the very bottom, buried under a half dozen creatures, each of which were multiple times his size, lay Red.

Adon did not need to do more than look at him to know that he was dead. His legs had curled in on themselves, the way that spider corpses’ legs often did in his memories from previous worlds. He sent a telepathic probe to Red’s mind, the mental equivalent of a nudge, and it ricocheted off. Like nothing was there. As if Adon was trying to communicate with the dust.

Nearing despair, Adon stepped closer, reached out, and touched Red’s body with an antenna.

But as expected, Red did not move. Adon’s touch confirmed that the spider’s body had gone stiff and lifeless.

Goldie’s mate, one of Adon’s only friends in this world, was stone cold dead.

You’re gone, Adon thought. You’re really gone.

He tried reaching out one more time. This time, he touched Red with the green healing magic that had done wonders for Goldie. The waves of aura rippled off Red’s corpse as if there was no damage to repair. Everything was done.

Now the reality was final. Irrevocable.

Could I have saved him? If I had moved faster, could I have saved him?

Adon felt a terrible headache coming on that he did not think was related to Mana consumption. Though he was getting relatively low again, he now had a much deeper pool than he had enjoyed just that morning.

He put his forelimbs to the sides of his head and restrained his desire to scream. That would not help Goldie, after all. She was the one most affected by this. He had to tell her. He had to let her know that Red was dead, and it might be Adon’s fault.

If I had just been a little bit faster…

He stared at Red, still unwilling to move, obsessively going over everything that had happened that day from morning until now. At first, he barely saw what he was looking at, but then he realized that Red’s body did not bear many of the conspicuous puncture marks that covered Goldie’s frame. He had a couple of stinger wounds, but not nearly as many as her.

I guess it didn’t take as much to kill him, he thought. Red was so much smaller. At least he died for Goldie and the little ones.

But that thought felt like a stab in his chest. As far as Adon knew, there were no little ones left. So Red had died pointlessly.

No more stalling. I’ll tell Goldie now. Maybe she’ll tell me to get lost. I would understand if she hates me after this. If she wants to kill me and eat me, I won’t fight her.

Adon jumped back into the web, expecting Goldie to be near the edge, close to where he had left her. She was nowhere to be seen.

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Did she see what happened to Red and decide she wanted to be alone?

He looked around for clues, and he saw a swathe of the web that had been ruined. Threads with long strands of Goldie’s exoskeleton clinging to them, chunks of the fabric that were torn from the body of the web. Goldie was so exhausted that she could no longer navigate her own web effectively.

But it left a trail that Adon could follow.

He tried to keep in Goldie’s tracks as much as possible, walking on the chunks of exoskeleton she had left behind. As he reached nearer the top of the web, he saw what looked like a hollowed out husk of the spider.

She shed her skin. I hope it helped her heal a bit, and she didn’t just have to do that because she had damaged her exoskeleton too much crossing the web.

In the distance, in Goldie’s usual preferred concealed perching location, he saw the spider. She lay amid those chunks of off white debris that were so familiar now. The shattered remnants of her eggs.

Did any survive?

He wondered for a moment if he had accidentally sent the thought, but Goldie did not react as if she had heard anything. She just sat there.

Adon approached and saw his friend had curled her body around something. It resembled Red’s dying posture slightly, which made him worried. Had they both succumbed to the wasps’ venom?

Goldie? he sent.

Silence.

He probed gently with his antennae.

She stirred slightly, as if disturbed in the middle of sleep, but did not respond otherwise.

He deactivated Telepathy.

She only passed out again, he decided. He began channeling healing magic again. He would give her the bad news when she regained consciousness. For now, he would be the best friend he could be and ensure she survived this.

After some minutes of this, he could see the wounds on her body—shallower now that she had shed her skin, but still present—had begun to close.

After half an hour, she looked almost as good as new to his eyes. Her body had lost a little of its usual luster, as if her skin was as tired as the rest of her somehow. He chalked that up to low Biomass and thought that, at least, was something they could fix.

She stirred again, and he reactivated Telepathy.

Goldie? he sent.

She seemed startled as if awakened from sleep, then immediately relaxed.

Adon. Thank Goddess for you.

The guilt struck him again, like a slap in the face.

Please don’t thank me, he sent. Red is dead, and I think all this is my fault.

He proceeded to explain the entire story of what had happened to him since he left the web that morning, trying to leave nothing important out.

When he was done, he sat nervously awaiting her judgment.

Goldie was silent for a few seconds, quietly processing. It made him slightly uncomfortable when she withdrew into herself this way, and he did not know what she was thinking. With his improved Telepathy and mental magic, he was fairly certain he could have looked into her mind, but such a violation of her privacy was unthinkable. No matter how painful it was, waiting for her to say her piece.

Adon, this is not your fault, she replied finally. Let me explain what happened us while you were gone.

She told a story almost as complete as Adon’s. It had been an uneventful day until around an hour before Adon’s return. The wasps had arrived at the web, by Goldie’s estimation, around the same time that the rest of their colony was confronting Adon.

So they were never going to leave us alone, she added.

Red and Goldie had retreated to the underside of the web at that point, and Goldie purchased another addition to her collection of silk manipulation Skills and Adaptations. This one was a Skill for throwing out silk nets and lariats, Silk Lasso. The wasps were initially slightly hesitant to approach the web, which gave her mind time to properly absorb the Skill.

By the time they did try to get close to the web, Goldie had prepared silk that was thicker and stronger than usual, and she knew, through her Skill, how to throw further and more forcefully than normal.

The first wasps to approach the web were forced to retreat higher into the air to avoid being captured, and then Goldie was in a kind of deadly competition with the wasps. They dodged and fell back when her lariat almost caught them, while she used her silk primarily as a tool to keep them at a distance.

The wasps were too large to easily maneuver through the gaps in Goldie’s web at the speed necessary to avoid her silk cable, and the gap that separated the underside of the web from the ground was too small for the wasps to sneak through there without being snared. A pair of them tried, and Goldie almost captured them.

All the while, she was waiting for Adon to arrive and trying to bide her time.

But eventually, the wasps found her weakness.

They had the numbers to do more than one task at a time, she thought bitterly. While some were looking for a way around my lasso, others found hiding place for my eggs. A pair of them tore the egg sac down from where it was safe, and they started eating my eggs in front of me! Adon heard a terrible despair ring through her voice. Red went after them. He had not been able to do much before. Just stood by ready to bite anything that came through web, but nothing did.

But he couldn’t stand by for this, Adon sent.

Goldie nodded. Neither of us could. He rushed up and attacked the wasps that had my eggs. I had never seen my mate so fierce. A note of pride was obvious in her voice. I followed him. We fought together for a little while. But there were so many. A few tried to carry my eggs off and fly away, but Red was fighting them, injecting venom over and over. I could not see what happened to him; too many wasps in my vision. And now I know. He died fighting. Obvious emotion swelled up in the spider, and she stopped transmitting for a moment.

Adon stepped closer and wrapped his limbs around Goldie in the strange embrace that was the closest he could come to a proper hug with this body. After a moment, she returned his squeeze with her forelimbs. Her lower legs continued to be clenched tightly around the web, as if she thought a breeze might blow her away. They continued to hold each other as Goldie resumed talking.

It felt like their numbers were impossible. I used so much venom. Kept going until I ran dry. Threw wasps into the web, but there were so many. And so big. Then I saw a wasp taking a break from the fight while others kept me busy. It was eating my eggs again. Another wasp joined him, but it did not bother eating my eggs. It simply smashed as many as it could. I still do not understand what happened then. I went wild. I barely remember… but I think I killed most of them while I was like that.

Goldie, I’m so sorry, Adon began.

It is not your fault, Adon, Goldie replied insistently, cutting him off. Last thing I need is you blaming yourself. Attack began on us at the same time as on you. Red died long before you finished your fight. Nothing you might have changed could have made difference.

Still. Even if you’re right. She attacked you, because you were associated with me. Even if it wasn’t my fault, I had something to do with Red dying. With your babies dying.

How could I blame you for what happened? Goldie thought. Even if I wanted to, I would only hurt myself. You are the only one left who cares for me. And there is still hope.

Goldie gently released her grip on Adon, and he took a step back, uncertain what she meant.

Then she raised her body up on her back legs, and he saw what she had been holding onto all this time with her middle limbs.

A half dozen spider’s eggs, intact and beautiful, hung from the underside of her abdomen, stuck there with a clumsily applied layer of silk.