Retcon: three heroic animals ride atop a shoe-catamaran as it soars through the air! Unfortunately, it hits a piece of debris hard enough to separate the two shoes. The jolt also knocks the scorpion loose into the air, but it manages to grab onto the tip of a shoelace with a single pincer, from the same shoe our wizard spider also rides. The tarantula heroically rescues the scorpion as the shoe hangs from the same jutting bit of debris as it did last time. The two make it safely into Alden’s bag.

Snake and the other shoe get caught in the wake of the oceanic anomaly and are swept into the hall near the entrance of Liam’s boom room. The snake swims away from the lone shoe, and tries to keep crawling as the water recedes. Not knowing where its friends are, he struggles his way out of the building, finally tasting freedom for the first time. Cold and exhausted, snake can go no further and collapses onto a piece of fibreboard.

******

Alden Thorn was safe for the moment, finally moving forward from where he’d sat worrying at the end of the dark hall. The system could finally lower his priority to more passive monitoring, just one among thousands of other avowed important enough to teleport away from any immediate threat of death, but who did not need highly attentive babysitting.

Its attention flickered from Alden to a hyperbole who didn’t realize she was one spell away from falling out of the sky, then it moved on to an aqua brute who was combining brilliant rescue work with interesting amateur mistakes it had never seen before. Its favorite chainer was safe, and then there was an agility brute who was getting himself into trouble but would definitely survive at least the next 4 seconds.

Another scan through thousands of at-risk targets brought it to a priority risk ping. It looked to see who had gotten themselves into immediate danger, and reflected that it was going to need to build itself a subroutine that would allow it to sigh more deeply and more dissapointedly.

Alden Thorn. Do not you dare pick up that highly venomous snake.

Clearly it needed to recalibrate its assessment of Alden’s intelligence and judgement. It ran a review to model whether the lapse might be attributable to him still being doubled-up on peace of mind chains. It did not have any prior data of Alden being influenced by a doubled-up chain, but based on its extrapolations the wordchains were probably not entirely to blame.

You realize that if that snake bites you, I will have to teleport you, and someone else who needs that teleport will die. Because if I don’t teleport you, you will die, and Zeridee-und’h will die, and Mother will make me have a bad day forever. Is saving this snake really that important to you?

It considered the tiny snake.

You are very cute.

The system recognized the assessment as unusual, and took a more critical look.

How optimal. Another venemous critter with an appeal buff granted by our favorite exotic pet breeder. No wonder Alden’s bleeding heart can’t help but consider you to be at a similar priority level to an Artonan woman that will die if he stumbles.

There was nothing for it but to bring up the requisite paperwork. The snake was not a wizard, but it did have more authority than it should. Another byproduct of years training with the Long siblings, most likely. It also had an unusually refined authority for an animal, but still not at the level of most humans. It would not only be susceptible to chaos, it would turn into a potent demon. Thus it went on the list of beings to be tracked.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Alden Thorn has many inconvenient features. But it is quite a benefit that he talks out loud so often.

He was calling the snake “Tiny Snake,” and he continued to talk to it as he picked it up with a pair of chopsticks and put it into a food container. The system filled out the paperwork for Tiny Long and added the stamp of certified witness approval.

You’re cute, Tiny Long. But you’re not a wizard, and you’re not an Avowed. I have no obligation to you. If you bite my wizard rabbit, your cuteness will not save you.

The system watched as Alden succeeded in closing the lid over the snake without either coming to harm. She set him back to non-emergency monitoring status and sent the extra attention to a brute who had spent the last hour trying to punch the ocean into submission and who was no longer winning.

Please don’t need me tonight, Alden Thorn. If there could be just one person on this island I didn’t have to actively take care of, if you could bear just a single eight hundred thousandth of the responsibility I have right now, that would be a meaningful amount, and I could do so much with it. So please make good decisions and be safe.

******

I’m stabbin’ this guy!

It was less a statement of intention and more a fact that hadn’t quite happened yet.

Move your bits closer. That’s a hand! I’ma stab it!

She thrust her stinger forward.

TIME TO STAB.

She stabbed.

Stabby stabby stabby!

Her stabbing muscles did the stabby, over and over.

…Am I stabbing yet?

The scorpion concluded its work with a few extra stabs for good measure, unaware that it was not, in fact, stabbing. Its stinger had been caught at the last possible moment by a loop of silk lassoed down from above, and her stabbing muscles convulsed without recognizing that the intended motions were being held back.

The pale squishy hand withdrew from the bag, leaving behind a plastic box that smelled like fish. And then the silk loop withdrew as well, still unnoticed by the scorpion.

I hope I did some good stabbing.

******

Tap.

It sounded weak, and she worried, but snake was alive. Her new eight-legged big friend had made sure the three were reunited after the predator had separated them, and he was thoughtful enough that he’d even provided snake with his own little habitat. It might not be luxurious, but it was enough protection to keep scorpion from accidentally stinging snake while he was vulnerable.

Big friend was walking at a good clip, singing to them so that no one would feel alone. She’d lost contact with the dancing one. The thread between them had stretched far enough that his vibrations failed to travel the distance, but surely he was out there somewhere and the thread would liven back up when they got closer.

She’d finally managed to dry off a little, which made her optimistic. The material of the bag had helped absorb the water off her body, and some of her big friend’s big person body heat was warming her up nicely.

She poked her head out of the pocket to check on snake.

He seemed only slightly unhappy about being in the little habitat, and more unhappy about being cold and tired. Her nice warm pocket was better. She made an inspection of the habitat and worried it was too much like a nest with no entrance. It was important to have access to outside air.

She didn’t have much strength at the moment, but she crawled over the box to feel out the softest part with her mandibles. She braced with her many legs and bit her fangs through the material, leaving two small holes.

The snake pressed his nose up to one of the holes and flicked his tongue in thanks. And then they both returned to exhaustedly waiting in their spots, listening to the big one sing them lullabies, his motion rocking them into an uneasy sleep.