I followed Octavia down the spiraling path leading toward the depths of the Shimmergrove, aftermath of the elder dragon's attack still rumbling faintly overhead. Our path was mercifully free of threats. Across the chasm, I spotted what looked like some bright-colored shapes, beetles that seemed to have the same idea that we had: get away from the source of the vibrations from above.

Fortunately, the ceiling seemed solid enough to survive whatever onslaught was taking place above, and even if the ceiling did give way, at least we wouldn't be directly under where the rocks collapsed.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

"Away from the surface," she said.

"Yes, but where to? Do you know of a place down here where we can find shelter?"

"Some parts of the Shimmergrove have cavities," she said. "We can find one that's big enough for both of us. Or…" She trailed off.

"Or what?"

"I don't know what to do if we can't find a big enough hole to make into a new home," she said. "I could always create a suspended web for myself. But having you along makes things complicated."

I felt shame rising in my cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"We can find something that doesn't require walking on webs," she said.

"It's not just that," I said. "It's like you said: having me in the equation makes things complicated. This never would have happened if it wasn't for me."

"I don't blame you for the actions of another dragon," she said. "You're not the one who chose to appear and attack suddenly. It's not your fault."

"It kind of is my fault, though. The only reason the dragon attacked your tunnel network is because it sensed I was there. If I had handled things differently, maybe you wouldn't be in this situation."

"I don't see what you could have possibly done differently," she said.

"Maybe I could have tried talking to the dragon," I said. "I could have gone up alone and confronted it, rather than fleeing."

"That is an idea that seems…not that great. It didn't seem like a friendly dragon."

"I wonder about that," I said, plodding down the spiral pathway after Octavia. "I recall one time thinking that I was doomed to be food for a large predator, but she turned out to be quite friendly. What if the elder dragon is…I don't know, what if it's looking for its lost child? What if it's trying to rescue me, or something?"

"We have no way of knowing," Octavia said.

I stopped and looked up. "That's not true," I said. "I could go back up and introduce myself, see what happens. Maybe I'll find myself with a new caretaker."

"And maybe you'll find yourself dead," she said. "Do you really think it's a good idea for you to go up there? Are you willing to bet your life on the kindness of a dragon that you've never met, and who has shown nothing so far but an appetite for destruction?"

"No," I said, "but considering how this is working out for you, maybe it's better than the alternative."

She responded with a serious tone. "What does that mean?"

"I'm saying that even if the dragon did come here to kill me, it would probably leave once it was done with that particular errand. And one death seems better than two."

"You're suggesting sacrificing yourself to save me?"

I shook my head. "That's just one possible outcome. Maybe I survive. Maybe I make a new friend. But if I do end up sacrificing myself for you, that's an outcome I'm okay with."

"I see," she said. "If that's the line of thinking that brought you to that conclusion, then I'm definitely not letting you go back up there. Even if I was going to let you sacrifice yourself for my sake, this seems like an incredibly stupid way to do it."

"Why?"

"Tell me how it would make things better," she said. "Because it sounds to me like you're feeling regret, and wishing you could undo choices you've already made."

I considered her words. In a sense, the damage had already been done. Octavia's tunnels were already presumably destroyed, and turning back and joining the dragon now — regardless of whether treated me with gentleness or cruelty — would likely not undo the damage that had already been done to her home. Furthermore, there was a chance that the dragon already thought I was dead: if it couldn't detect my presence, maybe it would assume that I had died in the collapsing tunnels, and going up now would only serve to enrage it, or try to chase me. Whatever the case, there wasn't really a path that led to a better result for Octavia.

The real question before me was whether it was worth risking the life I had now — the life I had with Octavia — for the promise of what might either be a better life, or doom.

I couldn't help but feel as if I had failed some kind of test. Given that the elder dragon hadn't offered much in the way of an opportunity for me to peacefully approach it without being suffocated in a sandstorm, I didn't put high odds on it being the beneficent type. But even if I did, I wasn't sure that even "high" odds were enough to make the expected value calculation tilt in favor of risking an encounter with the dragon. Even if there was "only" a 30% chance of it deciding to kill me, that seemed like an unattractive risk. But was it worse than the risk of trying to weather things down here with Octavia?

Returning to the surface could mean death at the claws of my elder, but staying down here could mean death by a dozen other means. There was no 'safe' option. At least, there wasn't a safe option for me. But for Octavia...

I looked to Octavia. "Will having me here make things easier or harder for you?" I asked.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I meant what I said. What if my safety weren't an issue? What if I would be equally safe regardless of what you chose? Putting aside everything that's happened so far, would it be better for you if I left, or if I stayed? Am I more of a burden to you? Or more of a help?"

"You're not a burden," she said.

"That sounds a lot like a comforting lie to me," I said. "I've been a burden so far, and I'll continue to be a burden. It's a question of degree: do the benefits of having me around outweigh the costs?"

"I don't think this is a 'cost-benefit analysis' situation," she said. "We're talking about your life here."

I shook my head. "I think that everything is a cost-benefit analysis situation, and if lives are at stake, then that's when being honest about the facts of the situation is the most important."

"A parent doesn't think of their child as a burden," she said.

"Is that how you see me? Like a child?"

"A bit like one, yes," she said. "You certainly have a childish habit of asking the most inane questions."

"You think my questions are inane?"

"Not this one," she said. "But yes, plenty of your questions are nonsensical."

"So, that's one in the 'burden' column."

"Stop that," she said. "That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. You think that you can win an argument by being clever."

"I've always figured that's how arguments were won," I said.

"Winning the argument doesn't mean you're right," she said. "If you're defending the wrong side of the argument, do you really want to win? Is the point of argument to score points? Or do you want to let the other person persuade you of the truth?"

"You're right," I said. "About the purpose of argument, I mean. I'm open to being persuaded. So, give me a reason to stay down here with you."

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"I'd miss you," she said.

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I think you'll get by fine without me," I said.

"You really need me to sit here and tell you reasons not to go up and confront that dragon?" she said. "Fine, how's this: you're a child and you have been a burden."

"Very persuasive. I'll see myself out."

"Let me finish," she said. "Children start off needing their parents to look after them. They need to be sheltered and fed until they're old enough to look after themselves. But they don't stay that way forever: eventually they grow up, and it's the child who has to look after the parent when they're too old and feeble to care for themselves. So if, in your eyes, you're just some burden that I've been looking after all this time, the least you could do is stick around until you're big enough to return the favor."

"That might be awhile," I said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," she said. "I recall you telling me very recently that you weren't expecting to be a 'baby dragon' for much longer. And if I've been looking after a baby dragon all this time, shouldn't part of the deal be that I get a big protector as a friend once that dragon is all grown up? If you're feeling guilty for what happened earlier, and if you're looking for a way to repay me, then the best way to do that is to stay around."

"You see me as your investment?"

Octavia shook her head. "Your value doesn't have anything to do with your abilities. But if calling you my 'investment' is what it takes to keep you down here, then maybe you should start seeing yourself that way. You're…you're important to me. Part of it is that I'd miss you if you left. But more than that, I want you to lead the best life you can, and I get the feeling that if you go up there to confront that dragon, the life you lead might end up being very short. Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, I think you should stay down here with me."

"Thank you," I said, suddenly realizing I was blinking away a tear. "Octavia, were you ever a mother?"

"No," she said. "Not unless — I mean, no."

"Well, I think you would have made a good mother."

Octavia gave me a gentle tap on the snout. "Come along, little dragon. We've still got a ways to go."

As I followed Octavia down the spiraling trail, we passed a spot that I recognized as the point we had rappelled from. "We're talking the long way down?"

"Yes," she said. "No need to descend directly into the thick of things. We're looking for shelter, not food. I suspect we'll find that closer to the rim."

I nodded. We'd have to find food eventually, but that seemed like a problem that could wait until we were settled. I noticed several armored ants in the path in front of us, but they quickly vacated the path and disappeared into a crack on the wall. It wasn't clear to me whether they'd noticed us and had chosen to flee, or whether that had been their intended destination all along.

"Is this where the armored ants live?" I asked.

"Some of them, apparently," she said. "Too small for us to enter, though. Not just the entrance, but the entire tunnel, probably."

I glanced ahead. "Are there other creatures we're expecting to run into?"

"Not on the part of the path that we're headed toward," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Wondering if I might have to be ready for combat," I said. "I just remembered I have two unspent skill points from the last time I leveled up, back when I exterminated that hyena. So much has happened since then, I didn't even think about spending them. I had briefly thought I might save them to deposit into 'wings' when the opportunity presented itself, but now I'm thinking that investing in armored defenses might be better in the immediate term. And in the long term, too, if we're going to be underground for the foreseeable future. Anyway, I'm more than happy to delay that decision, if we don't expect to see combat any time soon."

"I don't expect any creatures in the near future," she said. "But you might want to invest in those scales anyway."

"Why?"

She raised a leg and pointed. "See those indentations in the path ahead? They're vents."

"Geothermal vents. Are you saying I could get burned?"

"It's possible," she said. "They're volatile. Unpredictable."

"How do you avoid getting burned, if you don't have scales?"

She rubbed her two front legs together. "I can sense the temperature changes. It's mostly intuition," she said, stepping toward a divot in the path. She edged up to it, then after a moment of hesitation, skittered over it, directly onto a small patch directly between two divots. She swayed back and forth for a short moment before picking a path and moving forward, and she continued walking along the path that way, bouncing and dancing across the hazardous ground. Halfway through, she stopped, and I watched as a fumarole erupted in front of her, spitting gas upward in a vertical stream for a few brief seconds. As soon as the steam column subsided, she immediately leapt forward, avoiding another steam eruption behind her. She continued this dance for the next forty or fifty feet as I watched. As she passed the last of the cavities in the path, she spun around and raised two legs, beckoning me to follow.

"It's safer than normal," she yelled.

"What happens if one of those erupts when I'm standing over it?" I asked.

"You get burned," she said. "Probably not fatal for someone like you."

The word 'probably' was doing a lot of work in that sentence. I wasn't sure if my scales could offer any heat resistance, but to whatever extent they could protect me from damage against the elements…

I glanced up the pathway, toward the collapsed remains of Octavia's former home. I'd already decided I needed to be more committed to investing in my defensive abilities. If ever there were a time to prioritize personal defense...I grimaced and deposited a skill point into scales.

Scales: level 3

No new abilities available. Well, given how my [mouth] development had gone, that was to be expected. And at any rate, I needed the passive defense boost of stronger scales more than I needed new ways to spend my limited pool of stamina, anyway.

Scales: level 4 Unspent skill points: 0

I cautiously walked up to the open gas vents, trying to see if I could intuit whether they would erupt, but if there was something about them that gave Octavia the ability to predict their activity, it was apparently lost on me. There was only one way I could think of to minimize my chance of exposure: every second that I spent over those steam vents was another second for me to potentially get scorched. I backed up to give myself a running start, then dashed forward as fast as my legs could muster. I ambled along the uneven ground, making it almost to the end when I felt something warm on my tail. I let out an involuntary yelp and tumbled forward, stumbling the last few feet to safety.

"Well done, little dragon,"

I took a few more cautious steps forward on solid ground, my legs still wobbling. "Are you sure that taking this path was safer than rappelling down?"

"It's the safest way to get to the safest part of the Shimmergrove," she said. "Look."

I followed her pointing leg, and saw what looked like more impressions in the ground. I groaned. "Are those more geothermal vents?"

"Maybe they were at one time," she said. "But they're not active now."

"So, safe."

She walked up to the edge of one of the holes. "Any one of those is a possible home," she said. "So, very much not safe, if some other critter beat us here." She peered over the edge into one. "Armored ants inside. Do you want to handle this one with your breath?"

"Is that hole the only way for them to get in or out of the hole?" I asked.

"It's hard to know which ones are connected. It might be, it might not be," she said. "Why?"

"Just thinking," I said. "If I fumigate it, they're probably going to flee. It seems to work best when your webs are there to catch them when they flee, doesn't it?"

"Oh," she said. "Good thinking."

She spent a minute blanketing the largest hole with a web covering (one that my breath attack could still easily permeate), then did the same with several other nearby holes that seemed potentially adjacent. I exhaled [noxious breath].

SP: 4/16

I heard the ants before I saw them attempting to climb out, sticking harmlessly to Octavia's web and flailing until they were motionless.

Armored ant defeated. 1% exp toward class ascension Armored ant defeated. 1% exp toward class ascension ...

A minute later, Octavia grabbed the web cover, rolling it to bundle up the ants inside. "Our next meal," she said, climbing into the hole. "I'm going to go investigate. You keep an eye on things up here." She disappeared into the hole, and a moment later, she was out of sight. It took several seconds for her to emerge. "Okay, you can go down there. See if you fit."

I entered the hole, which twisted downward at a slope until the gap narrowed to a slit that was too small even for an ant to pass through. It seemed barely large enough for me and Octavia to fit inside simultaneously.

"Is it good?" she said.

"Good enough," I said. "It's cramped, but it'll do, I suppose. The only thing is, what if something tries to get inside?"

"I think my webs should hold," she said. "But you're right. It'll be difficult to do a layered approach."

"It's not just the space," I said. "Every other time you've done a 'web wall,' it was horizontal. With this, we're in an underground hole, with the entrance facing up. What happens if someone gets smart and tries to roll a giant rock onto us?"

"I guess we'll have to hope that no creature down here is smart enough to try that."

My mind went to the image of armored ants carrying huge chunks of glowstone. "That's a bet I'd prefer not to take. Let's consider this hole a contingency option for now."

"You think we can do better?" Octavia asked.

"This is the first hole we've checked," I said. "Seems a bit premature to sign a lease. How about we take a tour of the neighborhood before you commit to installing a home defense system?"

"Alright," said Octavia, spinning a web covering. "I'll cover this one just in case we decide to come back to it. Wouldn't want to return to a den full of unexpected visitors." She sealed the entrance with her spider web. "Consider this property officially off the market. Now, onto the next hole."

I scanned the crater-pocked pathway ahead of us, then glanced at the one hole that we had fumigated. "This one had armored ants," I said. "Might be worth considering what the other holes might contain."

"Are you saying we shouldn't check them?" asked Octavia.

"No," I said. "If they contain some sort of deadly enemy, then that's all the more reason for us to check them, if this is going to be our new neighborhood. But..."

"But what?" she asked.

I stepped forward hesitantly. "Just be careful."