I breathed. The mere act of breathing didn't come easily: my body rose and fell with each breath, and even that small movement was enough to send waves of pain all throughout my abdomen. The only thing that kept me breathing was that in the moments that I stopped, I could feel my throat tensing, the start of what might become a cough — if I didn't feed my body the fresh air it needed, then it would expel the spent air from my lungs by force, and that was guaranteed to be more painful.

With each breath, the pain seemed to weaken. The pain didn't "lessen" so much as change form, from a sharp pinch to a dull throbbing sensation. My body seemed to pulse with the pain at the same rate that my health bar pulsed, and I noticed for the first time that there was a discoloration in my health bar — most of it was empty, but a small bit of the 'empty' portion of my health bar wasn't fully empty, but white — and the white portion of the health bar seemed to be slowly refilling. My health slowly crept up until it eventually plateaued at [HP: 12/29]

Now no longer on the brink of death, the pain had dulled to the point where I could attempt to stand. I tried to steady myself, and wobbled for a moment before lying back down to rest as Octavia arrived. "Are…are you okay?"

"I've been better."

"Can you stand?"

I willed my legs to lift, and this time, found that I could support my weight. I realized that I was still slightly dazed — the edges of my vision were hazy, and I had to focus on Octavia to actually see her expression. I took a tentative step forward, and then a second. I suddenly realized that there was something else hindering my movement: the melons were still clinging to my hind legs where'd they'd been secured by Octavia's webwork. She tore them away from me.

"Don't move," she said. "I'm carrying you back."

I took a step forward. "No, you're not," I said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I am," she said.

"The only reason I'm alive right now is that I intimidated that assassin bug into giving up the fight," I said. "If I look like I'm hurt so badly that I need to be carried, I think that aura of intimidation will fade real fast."

"You're in no condition to walk."

"Watch me," I said, taking another step forward. I looked at the path ahead of us. "One step down, maybe a hundred more to go." I took another step. "Make that ninety nine." I didn't mention the pain that came with each step.

"You can't walk all the way back! Let me carry you."

"I'm debilitated. That slows my movement. It doesn't prevent it. Even like this, I can walk faster than you can carry me. And besides, you can't carry me, because you'll be busy carrying the melons."

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

I continued walking up the trail, growing more confident with each step. "You're going to carry the melons. I'm not sure what happened to the one that bounced away, but we have four melons here. After all that we've been through to get them this far, I will be very upset if I arrive back home in this condition without any melons to show for it. I'm not going to let our team drop the ball at the one yard line."

"You need me to look after you," she said.

"Then look after me," I said, taking another couple steps forward, and easing into a regular gait. "You can keep an eye on me while also carrying the melons." I breathed heavily as I spoke, but speaking distracted me from the pain in my side, so I kept talking. "Come on, Octavia. If I'm really too hurt to walk, then why am I this far ahead of you already? Hurry up, I don't want to be kept waiting for you when I get to the top."

"You're going to collapse from exhaustion!"

"I bet I won't. And if I do, then you are more than welcome to abandon the melons to carry me back."

Octavia paused, then I heard the sound of her bundling up the melons. Several moments later, she began following me, rolling the melons up in her makeshift web enclosure. Her progress with the melons was slower than I had been when carrying them, but she was able to keep pace with me.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"That would make you the second one to apologize for a melon mishap today," I said. "They're big and heavy and don't roll perfectly. You dropped a melon. I've been known to do the same thing."

"It's not that," she said. "I…I didn't realize I was stranding you. I mean, I just didn't think about it. I didn't think about whether it would be a problem to leave them stuck to you. I left you totally defenseless. It was thoughtless of me. I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven. We both learned something new today," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "You gave me a chance to learn how to use my roar."

"You could have died!"

"Not my first brush with death. I already told you, you're forgiven. And forgiving you is easy. You've saved my skin on more than one occasion. To blame you for putting me in danger today would seem awfully ungrateful, considering all you've done for me. Octavia, you made a mistake. A split-second error in judgment. Mistakes happen."

"And I swear I won't make the same mistake again."

"I am glad to hear that. Chin up. We'll be better tomorrow than we were today."

She spoke softly. "Why does it feel like you're the one comforting and reassuring me?"

"Because the more I focus on you, the less I focus on myself, which is useful for distracting myself from the pain in my side. I was hoping to go as long as possible without thinking about it. But now that I've failed at that, you might as well tell me how big the hole is."

"Hole?" she said. I heard silence behind me as she stopped rolling the melons. "I—oh, I think I can see it. It's a small wound."

"That was a small wound?" I said. "It jabbed me twice, and each of them individually could have been the most painful experience of my life."

"It doesn't take a large hole for it to inject its enzymes," she said. "But it looks like most of it didn't stay inside your body. I can see a dried trail of it on your scales right under the wound where it leaked out."

"Enzymes?"

"It was trying to digest you from the inside out," she said. "Just like how I eat ants."

"Good thing I have a heartier constitution than the ants do. Unfortunately, what doesn't kill you can still be extremely painful."

"Yes," she said, quietly.

"Not that I'm casting blame here," I said. "I lived. That's the important part."

The minutes that followed were mercifully uneventful: my [debilitated] status slowed me down, and Octavia wasn't exactly the most nimble with the four melons, but no creatures attempted to waylay us on the way back. Did my roar have something to do with that? Perhaps I'd let an important ability go under-utilized. Certainly, I wouldn't hesitate to deploy it as a preventative measure against any other future assassin bugs. If I was going to send a creature fleeing in terror, better to do it before giving it the chance to stab me multiple times.

After we entered Octavia's lair and she sealed the web "doors" behind us, I slumped down in the tunnel.

"How's your condition?" she said.

"I've been better. Looking forward to a long rest."

"No, I mean…" She gestured with a claw, searching for a word. "Do you have any lingering ailments?"

I noticed my status bar was still red. "I'm debilitated," I said. "Should I be worried? I've been bitten by ants and felt 'impaired' in the past, but that condition always faded after several minutes."

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"It'll fade with time," she said. "But I think we can speed it up. Wait here."

"Don't worry," I said. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere."

Octavia left me with the melons, and returned several minutes later with a chunk of glowstone affixed to one of her legs by a bit of web.

"What's that for?" I asked. "Does the glowstone have healing properties?"

"It's for light."

"If light can heal me, then take me to the Vault."

"The light is for me," she said. "I just need enough to see clearly."

"What exactly are you planning to do?"

"Some of the fluid has drained out of the puncture," she said. "But I think I can do a more thorough job of removing it. How does it feel? Can you describe the pain?"

"I've been trying very hard not to focus on the pain. It's…painful."

"Does it feel hot, or cold?" she asked.

"Right now, it's hot," I said. "Like a burning sensation just below the surface. Like I've accidentally touched something burning, but can't pull away from it."

She leaned in closer. "Does it feel like it's radiating from a particular point?"

"Yes."

"Since you can't see it, I'm going to have to rely on touch here. Is it okay if I touch it?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Is the pain emanating from…here?"

I winced. "Yes."

"Do you feel it…here?" She gave me another gentle poke.

"Yes," I said through gritted teeth. "Actually, that seems closer to the center of the pain."

"Okay, great. You're doing great, little dragon. Is it okay if I squeeze the affected area? It might hurt."

"After what I've been through, I'm not going to complain about a little more pain."

"It might be more than just a bit more pain."

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath.

"Don't hold your breath," she said. "Taking a lot of deep breaths is okay. Big, slow exhales are good. But don't hold your breath in. You need to relax your muscles.

I took a few slow, deliberate breaths.

"Yeah, like that," she said. "Are you ready?"

"Go for it."

I felt a moment of pressure, followed by a massive flare of pain, extending through my body like a thousand needles burrowing through my flesh and leaving fire in their wake. And then, amid the pain, I felt something wet against my scales.

"It's coming out," she said.

I can feel it. I opened my mouth and tried to vocalize that thought, but all that escaped my throat was a ragged gasp.

The flare of pain was replaced with a different sensation that ebbed between torment and release for several moments as the stuff trickled out of me. A moment later, I felt a numbness, and I realized that the pressure was gone: Octavia had released her grip on my flesh. The numbness came as a massive release — though several moments later, it was replaced with a dull ache. Painful, but nothing like the searing pain I'd felt moments before, or even the pain I'd felt during the long walk back. I noticed that my status indicator was no longer red — "debilitated" no longer.

"Thank you," I said in a voice that barely rose above a whisper.

"Happy to help," she said. "I just helped your body do what it already would have done on its own. Are you feeling alright?"

I stood for a moment, just to confirm that my legs still worked, and took a few steps forward before lying back down. "I'm still sore, but I'll be fine."

"Do you want anything?"

"I just want to lie here. It's been an exhausting day, and I would like it very much if I didn't have to do anything that involved moving."

"Alright." She lowered her torso to the ground in front of me — the closest a spider could come to 'sitting.'

"I'll be fine on my own," I said. "You can go and do whatever needs doing."

"I think that I'm in the same boat as you," she said. "I had one major item on the agenda for today, and it's done. So if I'm going to spend the rest of the day anywhere, I might as well spend it here with you."

"You don't have to do that. You can do something else besides sitting here watching me."

"Why would I?" she said. "You're more interesting than anything else down here. What else am I going to do with my time?"

"You could eat those melons we just fetched."

Octavia grabbed one of the melons from next to me. I noticed it was the melon that had a puncture — the one that I had dropped when first retrieving it. Octavia poked at the hole, as if planning on how to split the melon. "Are you sure it's okay?" she said. "It feels rude to eat in front of you without offering you something to eat."

"I'll be fine. Besides, it's not as if I can get nutrition from the melons. If I can't enjoy them directly, then I can enjoy them vicariously by watching you."

"Are you sure you couldn't enjoy them directly?" she said. "I know you're a carnivore, and you might not be able to properly digest plants, but can't all living creatures enjoy sugar? Why not treat yourself to a little bit of juice."

"Huh," I said. "I never considered it before, but…maybe? My general understanding is that sometimes, carnivores' digestive system can get gummed up if they ingest too much fiber, and they have problems with complex carbohydrates, like grains and whatnot. I guess carnivores can eat glucose – that's sugar – directly, but they don't have to, because they have metabolic processes that let them break down amino acids for glucose."

Octavia smiled. "I'm glad to hear that you're back to your usual self. But I asked you a simple question: do you want to try some of the fruit or not?"

"I don't think I need any," I said. "Aside from my ability to digest proteins, I imagine that most of the animals I eat contain at least some amount of glucose. I'll leave the plant-eating to you."

"Come on," she said. "Just because you don't need sugar doesn't mean you can't have any! Try some."

"I don't need–"

"For science."

I was about to protest, but Octavia was right — even if it wasn't 'optimal' for me to eat sugar, there was knowledge to be gained here.

"Alright," I said. "For science." I opened my mouth and tilted my head back, allowing her to raise the pulp above my head and squeeze some of the juice into my waiting mouth.

My mouth was overwhelmed by the sweet, tangy sensation as the juice cascaded across my tongue, and as I swallowed, the feeling of the wetness on my throat felt soothing. She squeezed the pulp until it went dry, then returned it to the rind.

"Thanks," I said. "That was…great. I fact, now that I think about it, that might be the first thing I've drank since waking up in this desert. …how is that?"

"Are you asking how is it that you've survived without drinking?" Octavia pondered the question. "I'm not sure. I suppose you've been getting moisture from the foods you eat. Some animals are able to do that, particularly those that are well-adapted to deserts. I don't drink water, either. It's never been an issue."

I frowned. "I guess I don't really sweat. Maybe my body's just really efficient at retaining whatever water it needs."

"Maybe you'll eventually grow to hate water," she said. "It could be that fire-breathing dragons and water don't really mix."

"Good thing I'm not a fire-breather yet, then," I said, grinning.

"Was that your way of asking for more juice?"

I grinned. "I wasn't fishing, but if you're offering…"

She laughed. "Don't worry about it. After all that you've been through today, you can have all the juice you want." She fished another lump of pulp from the hole in the rind, and squeezed it into my waiting mouth. I savored the crisp taste. It felt refreshing on my tongue, and as I swallowed, I noticed the tiniest budge of my [satiety] meter.

"Hey! I actually got usable calories from that!"

"Great!" she said, returning the spent pulp to the rind.

"Feel free to eat that," I said. "It's not like I'm going to."

"Oh, I will. It's just, when I eat things, it involves external digestion." Her words prompted the mental image of Octavia spewing some kind of digestive enzyme into the melon's rind. "I take it you'd rather not watch when I do."

"Maybe some other time," I said. "For science. But...for now, I don't need to watch.

"How about this." Octavia used her claws to split the melon in half. She carried one half of the melon behind me, out of sight, and sloshing noises later, returned to the other half of the melon. "Still have an appetite?" she asked, offering me another clawful of the pulp.

"Sure," I said. "As long as you don't mind spoon- or claw-feeding me."

"I don't mind at all," she said. "You earned this melon. Besides, it's been awhile since I've had time to practice my bedside manner. I've never minded caring for friends when they were in need of bedrest."

"Sounds like you should have been a nurse."

"I wanted to become a nurse when I was little," she said. "I mean, not as a spiderling, but back when I was a little human."

"So why didn't you?"

"College is…hard," she said. "And expensive."

"Oh," I said. "Sorry."

Octavia looked amused. "Why does it sound like you're offering me condolences? I liked the job I ended up with. In fact, I bet if I went back in time and told my 8-year-old self that I grew up making deliveries for a flower shop, she'd be overjoyed to hear it and would immediately give up on any aspirations of pursuing a career in medicine."

For the next half our, we chatted about Octavia's childhood as she fed me juice from the half of the melon that she wasn't presently digesting, though each bit of pulp returned to the rind, presumably to be digested by her later. At a certain point, I wondered if I should stop, and a flashing status bar answered the question for me. I felt the abdominal discomfort just as the notification appeared.

You have: Upset stomach. Difficulty digesting food. Further ingestion may lead to vomiting.

I chuckled. "I think I just discovered what happens when a carnivore ingests too much glucose."

"Oh!" she said. "Sorry, did I overfeed you?"

"It's alright," I said. "I'm a week old. Eating too much sugar and getting a stomach ache is a lesson that all youngsters need to learn at some point. Now I know what my limits are, as far as stretching outside of my ecological niche. It's good to know what exactly it means to be a carnivore."

"We should get you some proper meat," she said.

I nodded. "Tomorrow."

"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow."