As a creature with no eyelids, Octavia's many rows of eyes weren't capable of widening, but there was something about her eyes that seemed to shine with excitement as she spoke. "You can talk? How?"

"I just learned how," I said. "I was…well, I was going to attack the fire ant colony, and I was leveling my mouth to make myself better at killing. But I saw the 'speech' ability, and I chose that instead."

At the mention of 'ants,' Octavia looked at the horizon. "Should we expect them?"

"Uh, no," I said. "Or, at least, I didn't attack them. Once I realized I could talk, I came straight back here. Speaking with you seemed more important than farming ants."

"I'm flattered," said Octavia. "And I agree. Come inside!"

I stepped into the cave, and Octavia carried me past the web-covered threshold, speaking as she walked. "I have questions for you, but I don't even know where to begin, little dragon. Come to think of it, that's a good place to start. What's your name?"

"I'm Drew," I said. "Or at least, I was when I was a human, and if you're still Octavia, then I reckon that I'm still Drew. By the way, on the subject of names: Octavia, do you think your name had anything to do with your reincarnation?"

"Huh?" She looked at with me with confusion. "Why would it?"

"Octavia...octo…eight…you're an arachnid. Eight legs."

"Huh," she said. "I guess so. I'd…honestly never considered it before. I thought I knew a much more straightforward reason for my new form. Maybe the name thing factored into it, but I don't think it works like that. I mean, it's not as if 'Drew' is a dragon name."

"I mean, it might be?" I said. "Not phonetically, apart from the same starting letter. But 'Drew' means 'wise,' and dragons are often depicted as being wise…"

"Owls are also wise."

"It's more than that," I said. "Drew is a Welsh name, and the Welsh flag pretty famously has a red dragon on it."

"I didn't know that!" said Octavia. "Were you named after some Welsh ancestor?"

"Uh, I don't think so," I said. "In fact, I don't think I'm even Welsh to begin with. My mom just picked the name when my parents were up late one night with the TV on. She was won over by the charisma of one of the people she was watching, and when the credits rolled, she decided she liked how the name looked when written out. I guess she picked the name in hopes that I would also grow up to be a charming celebrity just like my namesake. I may have let her down."

"Hey, chin up," said Octavia. "I think you're plenty charming. Certainly the most charming face I've seen around these parts in quite awhile."

"You're too kind," I said.

"I'm definitely not."

"No, you definitely are," I said. "You're the nicest person I've met since coming here."

"I'm guessing I'm the only person you've met since coming here," she said. "And I'm not even sure if I count as a person. Do you think we still count as people?"

I considered the question. "I think we're people. We're not humans, but we're people. And you're good people, Octavia."

"I'm glad to hear you think so," said Octavia, glancing away. "But if those fire ants ever succeed in finding and killing you, I'll be the one to blame. And that's a serious risk: those fire ants don't mess around."

"I'm well aware," I said. "In fact, I was aware before I met you. The fire ants already had it out for me before we met."

"Really?" she said. "How did you manage that?"

"I'm pretty sure I already told you, by way of taps and gestures. Remember? You mentioned that the fire ants had been really active inside their tunnels, and then asked if the first time I'd attacked them inside their tunnels was a day and a half before I met you."

"Oh, right," said Octavia. "I did ask you that."

"So, my less-than-friendly relationship with the fire ants came before you and I ever met. If the fire ants have any animosity toward me, that's my fault, not yours."

"Really?" she said. "You say that you killed them, but you did it without actually entering their tunnels, right? Are you sure that they even knew it was you?"

"Pretty sure," I said. "I encountered them the following morning – which, again, was before we met. I woke up with them all over me."

Octavia didn't audible gasp, but her mouth hung agape in something resembling one. "How did you escape?"

"Remember when you called me 'smelly?' That's my noxious breath attack. I was able to repel them with that."

"Noxious is a good name for it," said Octavia. "It smelled like cigarettes – no, actually, it smelled like an ashtray. Cigarettes sometimes smell sweet, but your breath was less sweet and more bitter.. It's like the worst parts of smoking. Your breath is like the cruft that flakes off a cigarette, except even more dense and overwhelming to the point that it feels like being choked in chemicals. No offense."

"None taken," I said.

"Is there a limit to how much you can do that?" she asked. "You don't smell like that all the time."

"Yeah," I said. "My breath could only repel them for so long, and they seemed capable of following me anywhere, until—"

"Until you came to my den."

"Yes, exactly."

Octavia raised her two front legs and tapped the claw-tipped ends together in a gesture that seemed like a clap. "It's a good thing you made it down here."

"No argument here," I said. "Though, I was thinking of upgrading my scales so that I could start sleeping outside without fear of being bitten to death."

"Huh? Why not just sleep here?"

I glanced away sheepishly. "I didn't want to be a burden."

"You're not a burden!" said Octavia. "Having you around is great." Her voice lowered. "It gets lonely down here."

"I can imagine," I said. "Are there any others like you?"

"There were," said Octavia. "There were a bunch of us. I had an entire brood." Her voice got suddenly quiet. "Then the fire ants came."

"I…I'm sorry." I suddenly felt as though I understood Octavia better. From the time I'd been able to talk to her, she had struck me as a gentle soul, but despite that, she really seemed to have it out for the fire ants. Now, I understood why. I wanted to inquire more, but it seemed to be a painful subject for Octavia. Still, given that figuring out how to defend ourselves against the fire ants — or exploit them — was such an important topic, I didn't want to leave things there. I decided to come at the topic indirectly.

"By the way," I said, "there's one other thing I wanted to tell you. Do you remember when I dragged you back here?"

"I had sort of surmised that you dragged me back here," she said. "Though at the time, I couldn't see, and I couldn't feel a thing, either. But I do remember going numb, and then later recovering here, with you as the only explanation, so I figured you were responsible. How did you do it? Are you immune to paralysis?"

"I guess, in a manner of speaking. I seem to be unharmed by my own breath attacks. And one of them causes paralysis."

"So, you were able to paralyze the ants after they paralyzed me! A little bit of karma."

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"No, Octavia. You were paralyzed because of the effects of my breath attack. I saw you getting swarmed, and attacking the swarm seemed like the only way to save you, so…you got hit with the collateral effects of that."

"Oh," she said. "It…certainly wasn't pleasant."

"It seemed better than any of the alternatives. My other breath attacks cause damage over time. I figured paralyzing you — and more importantly, everything around you — was the best way to go about things."

"Well," she said. "That's okay, since you saved my life. A little warning might have been nice, though."

"I had the same thought. But at the time, I wasn't exactly, you know, verbal."

"You're right. But now you can talk! This is going to make cooperation so much more convenient. Tell me, what are your other skills?"

Octavia and I spent the next half hour detailing the finer points of our kits, at one point briefly stepping out of the cave so I could provide a demonstration of several of my breath abilities to give her a sense of the radius of each attack, and also to familiarize herself with the odors of each in case she had to identify them. Octavia even decided to engage in a bit of self-destructive experimentation by standing in my [noxious breath] to see how quickly it would drain her HP. (It certainly wasn't pleasant, but apparently she was sturdy enough to stay in the cloud until the count of ten while only losing around a tenth of her HP, though interestingly, the amount of HP she lost each second seemed to increase geometrically, which was interesting to know: I'd never had the chance to get a target's perspective on my breath attacks, so it was quite the educational experience.)

As we continued to exchange notes on our abilities, I explained all of my abilities in detail (as well as those I had yet to learn, in hopes that she might offer me pointers on how to best progress, though differences in our physiology and potential skillset meant that Octavia had limited insight into what my unlearned abilities might be — the likes of "roar" were outside the purview of spider anatomy.

The most important part that Octavia brought up was that physical maturity seemed to correspond to level: apparently, my status as a "baby dragon" was something that I would have to transcend with effort, rather than simply waiting for the passage of time to take its course. On one hand, that meant that I couldn't become bigger and stronger simply by following the path of least resistance, but I saw it mostly as a positive: it meant that I wouldn't be hamstrung by arbitrary age limits. The only thing standing between me and physical maturity — and hopefully a pair of wings one day — was more levels.

Octavia spent some time filling me in on the particulars of her own abilities. Surprisingly few were relevant to direct combat: "toxic eruption," the overwhelmingly devastating ability I had observed earlier, was the most exciting one, and its power seemed to be downstream of how many toxins she had stored in her body, which seemed to be something that accumulated over time, an additional "meter" which gradually filled and could be spent for things like venomous bites and similar attacks. The bulk of Octavia's development had focused on her ability to spin webs: she had mastered a variety of skills that allowed her to form stronger webs (requiring her to use less silk for reinforcement), synthesize silk faster (allowing her to spin more webs per day), and synthesize silk more efficiently (requiring her to consume fewer nutrients to fill her silk reserves). Her goal had apparently been to turn this section of the underground into an impenetrable silk fortress.

I was eager to discuss strategy, and Octavia spent more than an hour indulging me, but at a certain point it seemed obvious that she was losing interest, so I suggested that we return indoors, and I steered the conversation toward lighter topics.

"By the way, you mentioned that there was some other reason you thought you were reincarnated as a spider, something besides your name. What was it?"

Octavia laughed. "Well, it's only a theory. But on my last day on earth — of course, I didn't know it at the time, but on my last day as a human, I was delivering some flowers to a hotel, and when I dropped them off at the front desk, a spider crawled out of the bouquet onto the reception desk. The gentleman behind the counter was so startled he nearly jumped out of his seat! He was about to squash the spider, but I grabbed his wrist to stop him, and snatched the brochure that the spider had crawled onto so that I could carry it outside. I was planning just to let it go as soon as I got outside, but I was downtown — it's a real concrete jungle — and I had to carry the spider for several blocks until I found a park that seemed like it might be a good home."

"And that's why you got reincarnated as a spider."

"That's what I assumed. Maybe I'm wrong!"

I smiled. "I can absolutely picture someone like you working at a flower shop. I don't even know what you looked like as a human, but the image of you standing behind the counter of a flower shop seems like the perfect mental picture of who you are as a person."

"That mental picture isn't accurate," she said. "I spent more time out of the store than in it. I mostly just did deliveries."

"Ah," I said. "That's a bummer."

"No, not at all!" Octavia started speaking with excitement. "Deliveries are the best part of the job. You know how people say the worst part of being a first responder is that every person you meet is having a bad day, maybe the worst day of their lives? Delivering flowers is like the opposite of that. You get to see people on their anniversary, or birthday, or the day they got a promotion."

"No flower deliveries for the grieving?" I asked.

"Some," said Octavia. "But even if the reason for the delivery was something sad, like the loss of the loved one, I got to be the one to add a little bit of brightness to their day, and give them a little token saying, 'someone out there is still thinking about you and cares for you.' If the loss was tragic, it's probably because they lost someone who was a source of happy memories, and a lot of times, they were eager to share those memories with the nearest person who was willing to listen, and that turned out to be me.. In fact, sometimes those were the best visits."

I nodded. "You do seem like the kind of person who'd be good at offering comfort to someone who needed it." I paused. "Is that why you took me in? Because I hope you didn't rescue me in hopes of being reborn as a dragon, in the same way that you got reborn as a spider after rescuing one. I have to tell you, life as a dragon isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"What?" said Octavia. "No, I'd never even considered anything like that. I didn't even know you were a dragon at first."

"Oh, right. You thought I was a lizard, or a gecko, or something." I thought back to our first one-sided conversation. "You have a naturally protective instinct for taking care of others. I could tell it from the first time I got to have a proper conversation with you. I mean, back when talking to you required…" I tapped the ground three times.

"Oh yeah," she said.

"There was a lot of room for miscommunication back then," I said. "I was relieved to find out you weren't planning to eat me."

"Of course I wasn't planning to eat you. I had told you I was going to come back and feed you, right?"

"I'm pretty sure you told me you were leaving me in that pit to wait until meal time. When you're alone and defenseless, and you hear that from a large spider who's just caught you in her web, it's easy to get the wrong idea."

"Oh!" said Octavia. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. You must have been so scared, waiting down there for all that time..."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Though…if you do happen to find yourself in the same situation, yeah, you might want to choose your words more carefully." Then a thought occurred to me. "Do you find yourself in that situation often? Do you make a habit of finding creatures in your web, and feeding and caring for them?"

"No, I don't."

"So why did you take care of me?"

"I could tell you were different," said Octavia.

"I mean before I showed you the Gaussian triangle."

"The what triangle?"

"Never mind," I said. "You found me in your web, you set me down at the bottom of a pit, then you went off to find food for me. Why? Did you know I was special, even back then?"

"Yes," Octavia. "I knew you were different. The very first time I laid eyes on you – no, from the moment I first heard you, from the moment I felt the vibration of you shaking my web – you were crying."

I thought back to that moment. "You're right. I was crying."

Octavia nodded. "I can't imagine how scared you must have been in that moment."

"No, no," I said. "I remember the moment that I started crying. Those were tears of joy."

"Are you trying to make me feel better about making you cry?" asked Octavia. "Because I'm pretty sure being caught in a spider's web isn't the kind of thing that would cause you to weep with joy."

"No, no. When I was caught in your web, for several hopeless minutes, I thought I was going to starve to death. And then…I didn't. I realized I wasn't going to starve to death, not right away, at least. I was going to live. That was the realization that caused me to be so emotionally overcome that I started weeping. Loud enough to draw your attention, apparently."

"That's fascinating," said Octavia. "And…also kind of wonderful. But regardless of the reason you were crying, I don't think it changes the fact that what made you different is that you were crying."

"I don't think that makes me special," I said. "Lots of creatures have tear ducts. Lots of species can cry."

"Yes, lots of animals can cry," said Octavia. "Most mammals will get teary-eyed if there's something in their eye and they need to flush it out. That's what tears are for. But crying from emotion? Crying because you're sad, or frightened, or joyful? I'm pretty sure that's something only people do."

"Really?" I said. "Is that a scientific fact, or just an intuition that you have?"

"Well, I don't know if it's scientifically true or not, but it feels correct," said Octavia. "I've never seen an animal cry. And I used to volunteer at an animal shelter. I've been around a lot of dogs that were sad, or fearful, or hungry, or traumatized. Dogs have lots of ways to express emotion. I've seen dogs whimper, cower, tuck their tail between their legs, flatten their ears, widen their eyes in that puppy dog expression that they're so well known for…but I've never seen a dog cry. Not unless it had dust in its eye."

I wasn't sure if Octavia's point about dogs generalized to all other animals, but the idea did make sense: from an evolutionary standpoint, there was no reason to cry from emotion. What good would it do for prey to display its weakness to a predator?

"Maybe you're right," I said. "Maybe crying is what makes us human. Or…maybe it's what makes us people, at least. Former humans? It's hard to find many definitions of 'human' that would include us currently."

"True, little dragon," she said. "Sorry, Drew. Does it bother you when I call you 'little dragon?'"

"Not at all," I said. "I'm fine with answering to 'little dragon.' It feels…comforting, in a way. Certainly more dignified than 'baby dragon.'"

"Is that what you are?" she asked. "A baby dragon?"

I nodded. "That's what I was born as. Since then, I've learned how to talk, and have mastered some mouth skills that have proven to be considerably more lethal, but I'm still a baby dragon."

"If you've already grown to be that capable, then the day when you'll ascend beyond being a wingless 'baby dragon' can't be too far off. "

A spark of anticipation flickered within me. "You have no idea how much I look forward to that day," I said.