I watched Octavia as she lay motionless in what I assumed was sleep, not wanting to disturb her rest. For several minutes, I kept a watchful, vigilant eye on the web covering the cave passageway, just in case the ants decided to advance and it became necessary to wake Octavia up, but my vigilance quickly gave way to boredom. The ants, it seemed, had finally relented. We had won.

No, we hadn't won. We had escaped. It was a moment of relief, not a moment of triumph. The ants — hundreds of them — were still out there. So many of them. And somehow, they had nothing better to do with their time than try to hunt me to death. No, not just me now. Apparently, they had appraised Octavia to be a bigger threat. Was that my fault? I feared it might be. Octavia, up until my arrival, had seemingly been content to mind her own business. She apparently rarely left her cave, and she had gone so far as to upgrade her metabolism to digest fruit, which I imagined did quite a bit to reduce her risk of conflict with other creatures. (Come to think of it, the fruit that Octavia had offered me on the day we met was the first I'd seen a plant-based food source that seemed so rich in sugar, and sugar meant calories. There were bits of grass and shrubbery for herbivores to munch on topside, but I couldn't imagine where the fruit had come from.)

It was only after my carnivorous diet forced us topside to hunt that Octavia had left her dwelling and encountered the fire ants. Fire ants which, up until I had made an enemy of them several days ago, also seemed like the type of creatures to mind their own business. They hadn't shown themselves topside until I had started attacking their nests as a convenient way to farm experience points, in what might end up being the biggest mistake of my life. That had marked me as enemy number one, and now, Octavia was also on their hit list.

I watched Octavia as she slumbered. Some of her body was still covered with the black sludge she'd drenched herself with earlier — a reminder for me to be careful where I stepped — but there was hardly any left on her, the ants having worn through most of her defenses by the time I'd swooped in to her rescue, a rescue that would have been entirely unnecessary if I hadn't burst into Octavia's life, disrupting everything for her. I looked at her eyes, which were still covered in black gunk: by now, it had dried out to the point where it was no longer shiny. Would it eventually become hard and calcify to the point where it would permanently blind her? Hopefully, it would eventually become dry enough that it would simply flake off, but I had no way of knowing whether that would prove to be the case.

Her legs — the least protected part of her body, which had almost no black sludge remaining — were covered with marks where the ants had bitten her, and I wondered how much of the damage was currently being undone by her slumber. I assumed she would wake up with 'full HP,' whatever that meant. Would she have battle scars when she woke up? I hoped not.

Any physical scars of the battle seemed to pale in significance compared to a much more persistent problem: the fire ants had been out tonight, presumably out on patrol looking for me. In all my time here, I had never seen fire ants, night or day, and now dozens of them roamed the overworld. It was as if I had a bounty on my head. And now, it seemed, so did Octavia.

I flattened myself against the ground, feeling a pain in the pit of my stomach. I knew the feeling well: it was the shame that came from having hurt a friend. I'm sorry, Octavia. You deserved a more considerate guest. I wish I could have been a better friend.

I felt my eyelids grow heavy, and I plodded several steps toward the cave entrance, placing myself directly between Octavia and the outside world. If I can't stay awake long enough to watch over you while you sleep, I can at least be a shield. No one's getting to you without going through me. Content to have done at least that much, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

——

From sleeping while sheltered, your health has been fully restored. From sleeping while sheltered, your stamina has been fully restored

I stood up and blinked past the waking notifications. I looked at the cave entrance, seeing the sun casting long shadows. My first thought was that it was morning, until I realized it was the opposite: I had slept through most of the day, and the sun had already begun to set. Octavia's nocturnal inclinations were apparently beginning to rub off on me.

"Ah, you're awake."

I turned to face her and tapped once. Yes. With some amount of relief, I noticed that she was looking at me with two of her eyes — the bottom row. The rows of eyes above those seemed to be covered with dried bits of the black stuff, but apparently it did eventually flake off. I squawked, pointing to her eyes. Good to see you again, and good to be seen by you again.

"Hmm?"

I rapidly blinked my own eyes at her, and she seemed to understand.

"Oh, yes. I can see again. You don't need to be my eyes any longer, little dragon."

I tapped once. Yes. Good.

A thought occurred to me. If the black stuff was flaking off her eyes, was it something that I had to worry about in its dried form? Were the little flakes still toxic? I squawked in inquiry, then pointed a claw toward a part of her leg that still had a little bit of the black stuff.

"Hmm? Oh, this will all fall off. Just give it time."

I squawked again, and reeled back in an exaggerated pantomime of concern.

"It's nothing to be worried about. I'll be fine."

Yes, but what about me? I reached toward the bit of her that was covered, then pulled my claw back, again hoping that my gesture conveyed my concern about touching it.

"It's not dangerous to you, either," she said. "Well…you probably don't want to swallow it. But it can't hurt you if it's too dry to seep through your skin. Or scales, in your case. I guess that's good for you, though it would be more useful to me if it could be used as an insecticide in its dried form…"

Octavia opened her mouth, then rocked back and forth on her legs, seeming to hesitate before speaking. "Little dragon, thank you for saving me yesterday. I'm not entirely sure how you did it, but I managed to make it back here, and I assume that I have you to thank for it."

I tapped once. Yes. I hope I didn't sound immodest in agreeing with her, but she was right.

"I've never experienced anything like that. I…I lost control over my own body. I couldn't even move. I didn't know their bites could do that."

I tapped twice frantically. No. It was me. I had to do it to save you.

Octavia continued speaking, seemingly oblivious to her own misunderstanding of what had happened. "Little dragon…there is a big problem that we need to discuss." She paused. "These blasted fire ants."

I tapped once. Yes.

"Those ants must be furious with you."

Yes.

"I know how the fire ants operate," Octavia said. "They do not forgive, and do not forget. Once they've made an enemy, they will hunt them to the ends of the earth."

Yes.

"These ants know who their enemies are. And I suspect that they also consider any friend of an enemy they've made to be an enemy as well."

Yes. I couldn't be certain, but her intuition seemed right.

"When we first met, I suggested that we become friends. At the time, I didn't see any harm in it. But now…I think that may have been a mistake. A very big mistake." As she said it, the guilt from last night came rushing back, and I looked down in shame.

I hesitated, then tapped once. Yes. Acknowledging her statement seemed like the closest thing I could offer to an apology.

"It's…unforgivable."

I looked down, not daring to meet her eyes. I couldn't even bring myself to offer a tap of agreement.

Octavia paused for several seconds, opening her mouth, then closing it again, seeming to struggle to find her next words. "I…I'm so sorry, little one. Those ants decided I was their enemy a long time ago. And because you chose to defend me, I fear that they've decided to make you their enemy as well. This is all my fault."

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I sat, dumbfounded at the realization that she wasn't blaming me. She was blaming herself. After a moment of stunned silence, I tapped twice. No. None of this was your fault.

"It is my fault," said Octavia. "There's no point in sugarcoating it."

I tapped more frantically this time. No.

Octavia looked at me, her mouth curled into what looked like a feeble smile. "Are you saying that you already forgive me?"

I hesitated, then tapped once for yes. It wasn't exactly true: really, there was nothing to forgive. But saying no and letting her think I didn't forgive her seemed like it would have been even worse.

"You're so quick to forgive, little dragon. I haven't earned that forgiveness. But I hope that one day, I will." She turned in place, looking back toward the cave entrance, covered top-to-bottom in her webs. "I don't think it's smart for us to go back there. We'll have to find you another source of food. Do you need to eat soon?" Octavia asked me.

I tapped once, indicating yes. I was out of starvation range, which meant I was fortunate enough to not suffer any current stat penalty (and sleeping indoors had healed me back up to full health for the first time since I'd been reincarnated). I wasn't eager to start dipping into starvation range again, which would happen if I didn't eat today. If Octavia was offering me food, I certainly wasn't in a position to decline.

"I'll be back soon. Do you need anything else?"

I tapped twice. No. Nothing urgent came to mind, at least.

"Wonderful." Octavia walked to the part of the cave tunnel that overlooked the chasm, and I followed her. She began climbing the web that lined the wall, and I squawked to get her attention. Forgetting someone? Not all of us run on walls, Octavia.

She looked back at me. "Wait here. This is the safest place for you to be right now."

I didn't enjoy being treated like a child who needed to be kept out of danger, waiting at home until mother returned with dinner, but…that kind of was our current dynamic. As long as I was a "baby dragon," I wasn't really in a position to object to being treated like one, and while the trip would have been a valuable learning experience for me, Octavia probably had enough to worry about without me underfoot. As she disappeared into one of many tunnels that fed into the central chasm, it also occurred to me that the deeper catacombs must all be incredibly dark. It was surprising that I could see so well in the dim-light conditions of the upper cave tunnels, though I was intensely aware that "low light conditions" weren't the same as "no light conditions," and being able to see didn't make me all that special; it just meant I shared company with owls, racoons, and any variety of other nocturnal creatures. Odd, then, that my "default" waking cycle seemed to be diurnal as opposed to nocturnal, though ever since I had started living with Octavia, I seemed to have adjusted to night living without much issue.

With that thought in mind, I watched the sunset. I could only see what light poured through the cave entrance, which I was separated from by a wall of Octavia's web, but the effect of the light on the web made it shimmer in a way that was quite picturesque. Octavia's web wasn't quite the stuff of Emily Dickinson's poetry, the strands were too thick to be considered "gossamer" by any reasonable definition, but that was fine by me: if I was relying on a web to protect me from a swarm of ants that was bent on my destruction, I preferred a sturdy one to a delicate one, even if that meant sacrificing some aesthetic concessions. And there was a different kind of beauty in Octavia's functional web: it had a thoughtful symmetry to it, yet with certain organic slight imperfections and breaks in the pattern that made it feel as though it were the product of an artist's touch, something that couldn't have been done by a machine performing actions by rote.

As I studied the unique details of Octavia's web design, I understood how it was that there were people who could spend hours staring at the same painting or sculpture: the nature of any analog medium was that it had infinite resolution, and every detail told the story of the physical motion that had led to its creation.

That being said, an exercise in appreciating beauty wasn't the sort of thing I'd have engaged with if I'd had literally anything else to do. But Octavia had left me here with nothing else to occupy my attention, and so I allowed hours to pass as I admired her handiwork as the only way to stave off boredom.

—

Well after nightfall, and what must have been at least halfway through the night, I heard movement in one of the other tunnels from across the chasm, and I watched with anticipation as Octavia returned, cradling something wrapped in silk. She deposited the payload in front of me. "Dinner," she said, slicing the bundle open, and plucking the silky strands away from it.

It was a frog, or a toad — I wasn't sure which, but at any rate, it appeared to be an amphibian of some sort, the first I had encountered in this desert biome. The existence of amphibian wildlife seemed to imply the existence of some water source that lay further underground, where Octavia had gathered this from. I quickly gobbled it up, the slimy texture of its skin serving as no deterrent to enjoying it. It was good to have meat in my mouth again. White meat, for the first time in my short life as a dragon. More savory than ant remains, to be sure.

Satiety: 21%

"Is that good?" Octavia said.

I hesitated. Good in the sense that it was food, yes. Good in the sense of being all that I needed, no. I decided to tap three times.

"Hmm," said Octavia. "Now what could you mean by that?"

I meant that you should ask a more specific question.

"How about…was the meal nutritious? As a carnivore, you're okay with eating toads?"

One tap. Yes.

"Was the meal filling?"

Two taps. No.

"You typically eat more than this in a day."

Yes.

"Ah," said Octavia. "That…may be an issue, then. Hey. How many critters of this size would you need to eat in a typical day?

I did some basic mental arithmetic, then tapped the ground six times.

"Sorry, I lost count. Repeat that?"

I tapped again. Tap tap tap, brief pause, tap tap tap. Six.

"Six?"

One tap. Yes.

"That might be hard to swing," said Octavia. "That's going to be a problem."

I tapped twice in disagreement. No.

"It's not a problem?"

I pointed toward the cave entrance. There was still a hunting ground out there. I could supplement what I got from Octavia with food from outside.

"Is that such a good idea?" said Octavia.

One tap. Yes. I had given the matter some thought in Octavia's absence, in the moments when I wasn't studying the finer points of her web architecture under the moonlight. While our last foray had been a minor disaster, the biggest impediment had been Octavia's mobility, or lack thereof. I was faster and more agile than she was, and had it been just me out there, I could have escaped without much issue — in fact, I had done exactly that before leaving the safety of the cave to rescue her from harm's way.

While Octavia did feel like my "guardian" in a certain sense of the word – she was the adult who had apparently taken on the responsibility for looking after me – it really did seem like I was better-equipped for outdoor survival than she was. As a spider, her specialty seemed to be defensive fortification, which left her vulnerable outside the nest. I, meanwhile, had the ability to sprint faster than ants if retreat became necessary, and if things really became desperate, I could protect myself with an area-of-effect breath attack. I had woken up this morning — er, evening — with full stamina, so why not put my SP to use while I was awake?

"Sorry," said Octavia. "I still need time to recharge from our last trip out there. We can go…tomorrow. Or the day after."

I tapped twice. No.

"This isn't a negotiation," said Octavia. "We're not going out there.

No.

"If you leave, I'm not following you."

One tap. Yes. That's exactly what I intended. I wished I had the means to simply explain my reasoning to her. All she had to do was hold down the fort while I was gone.

I wished I could have just told her that, but it took several minutes of back-and-forth interrogation to convey the bare essentials to her as she asked a series of plodding yes-or-no questions. Yes, I planned to go out on my own. Yes, I was capable of surviving a scenario where I faced down over a hundred ants, as the previous night's events had established. No, I didn't need her to follow me. Yes, I wanted her to stand guard at the cave entrance until I returned; the only thing I needed was to not return home to a locked door (or a webbed-up entrance, which would have made entering much more difficult).

Octavia eventually relented. The thing that really seemed to convince her was the fact that I had managed to rescue her last night from a swarm of over a hundred ants — though she apparently still had no idea how I had done it, being blind for the entire time (and completely paralyzed for a good portion of the ordeal).

With what seemed like a small bit of reluctance, Octavia removed the vertical web covering, and ferried me over the web flooring, so as to minimize the amount of damage I would do on the way out. She set me down at the cave's mouth, and gave me a small pat on the head with one of her legs, a move that I chose to interpret as affectionate rather than patronizing.

I might be a baby dragon, but I had at least earned a small bit of independence. I turned around, and stepped into the moonlit valley. Time to hunt.

Class: Baby Dragon Level: 7 Progress toward next level: 26% HP: 27/27 SP: 14/14 Satiety: 23% Claws: level 1 Scales: level 2 Mouth: level 8 Wings: level 0 (wingless), max reached for current class Traits: Carnivore, Kin sensitive, Carrion feeder Abilities: Sprinting, Noxious Breath, Poison Breath, Paralyzing Breath, Harden scales Unlearned Abilities (Mouth): Hot Breath, Cold Breath, Poison fangs, Roar Unlearned Abilities (Scales): Abrasion, Camouflage Active Quests: Say Hello