Siidi rolled on the snowy ground, a pretty simple operation for an arachne, and managed to get some distance between her and her enemy.

All the while, she heard laughter and taunting: “Is this all you can do? Are you really Siidi, one of the four Midnight Murderers? You must be joking!”

Before Siidi could answer she was forced to dodge a sword flying directly towards her head. Well, not literally flying, the [Warrior] in front of her wasn’t stupid. No, she was just that fast.

“Are you perhaps holding out on me? Am I that incapable that you just wouldn’t even grace me with a proper fight?”

Siidi couldn’t contain herself and sighed: “Stop using those idiotic taunting tactics.”

From the very beginning of the fight the enemy in front of her had not stopped talking and it was really starting to get on her nerves.

“Doesn’t count as taunting when it’s the truth!” she shouted, preparing for the next attack.

Siidi wondered, not for the first time in the last fifteen minutes, how she had managed to end up in this situation.

----------------------------------------

“Issekina, Siidi, Yesterday both of you managed to walk my soul. You have taken the first step into becoming true [Soul Mages]. But, as you may have well understood, that was an introductory lesson. You did not find any obstacles or defenses, and were guided towards your final destination.

“That is not how things normally are. Souls have many ways to defend themselves. Truly, most people you will ever meet that have some modicum of power have, subconsciously, found ways to defend their being.

“For that reason, today, you will begin to learn the ways to navigate and defend yourselves inside a soul.

“Issekina, if you will.”

She motioned at the little arachne to begin.

A few minutes later (she was getting faster!) they were in.

Or rather, she was.

Isse found herself at the foot of the steps that led inside Grandmother’s little cabin. But Siidi wasn’t by her side.

Immediately, she began to panic. With the speed of a bullet fired from a machine gun she skittered towards the door and slammed it open: “Where’s Siidi?” she shouted immediately.

Grandmother was sitting on the triclinium by the fire, looking at the stand where the little button she’d changed yesterday sat, a faint smile still on her face.

“Don’t worry, Issekina. She is training. Now join me. It is time for you to learn too.”

She motioned her closer.

And her personal Airm began.

----------------------------------------

“Isse?! ISSE?! Where are you?”

When Siidi had opened her eyes in Grandmother’s soul she hadn’t found the other half of her soul with her, which was surprisingly distressing. She knew that nothing bad had happened to her, because she knew for sure that Grandmother would never deliberately and seriously hurt any of them. Well, ok, maybe she would hurt them psychologically, but they’d already gone through that phase.

She sighed in barely contained anger and agitation: “The moment I find that old hag I’ll give her a piece of my mind.”

“I absolutely support the idea, except for the ‘old hag’ part. She’s not that old. She’s, like, what, only six hundred years old,” said someone to her left.

Instinct took over and Siidi jumped away from the source of the voice, hand going for a weapon that hadn’t been there for millenia.

The voice chuckled.

And Siidi saw who had spoken. She was a rather young arachne with a pale complexion, her eyes a warm brown, while the fur of her spider half was a stark yellow. With that small nose and pouty lips she could’ve been very attractive, but then there was, again, the yellow fur. It hurt her eyes just looking at it.

“Who in all of Airm’s torture devices are you?”

“Hah, you’d like to know, am I right?” she smiled and only then did Siidi notice that she was wearing armor and had a sword strapped to her flank. She also noticed that her spidery feet, which should’ve been as yellow as her spider half, became white the closer they got to the snow, as if the soft beautiful white was trying to eat away at the color.

She also remembered she was unarmed and unarmored.

“You’ve got me at a disadvantage: I don’t know you and am weaponless. Care to even things out?”

“Life ain’t fair spiderling. Only Death is.”

“Can’t say you’re wrong, but give me some slack. Also, I’m not a spiderling. I’m probably older than you.”

The Yellow arachne chuckled: “It doesn’t count if you spent most of that time dead dear. Me, on the other hand? Been around for a few centuries now, together with Grandmother. Cute name she chose, by the by. She really did like that Button Man guy.”

She walked closer, and Isse walked away, skittering backwards to make sure she was always in sight. The Yellow Arachne had a strange aura about her. It took Siidi a while to recognize it. Once upon a time she’d also unleashed it in the presence of her enemies: bloodlust.

The woman in front of her smelled of blood and desire for battle.

Immediately, she felt a sense of kinship towards her. And became all the more guarded, because she knew how people like her could change at the drop of a coin.

“So, what’s going to happen now?”

The Yellow Arachne cocked her head sideways, an expression of fake disbelief appearing on her features: “Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to fight until one or the other cannot stand anymore. Probably because of blood loss.”

Siidi raised a hand, like a good student: “Can we actually, like, die of blood loss? We’re not in the real world.”

The woman in front of her laughed: “Ha! Clearly you’re not the [Mage] of the two! Which is fine, I didn’t understand shit about this stuff until Grandmother explained it to me. Still really don’t. Gist of it is: souls are real, we are inside a soul, so the wounds are real.

“Can’t really die, Grandmother won’t allow it, but we can hurt each other all we want!”

Siidi absorbed that. And realized something: “Wait, you mean we could actually die?”

“Oh, absolutely. That’s why soul magic is so dangerous. Kill someone in their mind? It just gives them a headache. Kill someone in their soul? That’s death as much as arrows all over your body are.”

She stopped for a moment, as if remembering something. Then her body started to bleed all over, painting the snow red as big, fat droplets of blood crawled out of her body from holes that hadn’t been there an instant ago.

Then she was back to normal.

Blood still covered the snow around her, and she looked a little paler, a little more like the snow around her. But she was there, alive somewhat.

“Sorry about that. Sometimes I remember I should be dead and this happens.”

Siidi’s mouth hung open: “What in the actual fuck did I just witness?”

“My death, obviously,” she unsheathed her sword calmly, “I was killed by… probably hundreds of arrows hitting me. Arachne are only ‘hard’ to kill.”

“Then how are you here?”

She didn’t get an answer. The Yellow Arachne launched herself at her. Siidi had expected the snow and ground under the woman’s spider feet to burst away behind her, but not even a puff of white was raised from the earth.

She was graceful, like a dancer on the stage: her movements were precise like a clockwork machine, leaving no openings and using as little energy as possible. Truly, a machine. It was so perfect it was mesmerizing.

Luckily, Siidi wasn’t a newbie. The sword, a two handed longsword that looked too big for the arachne’s frame, went for her torso. The younger arachne hastily retreated, managing to dodge by a few centimeters. As she did, she felt the movement of air as the sword passed by her. From that alone she could understand the strength of the blow and she knew, without a doubt, that had it hit her she would’ve ended up on the ground with half her ribs and, probably, her sternum broken.

“Don’t you remember? Weren’t you an arachne too?” asked Yellow Arachne as she retrieved her sword. She could’ve probably attacked again, but the blow wouldn’t have been as strong. Instead she’d stepped back, putting some distance between them. Any [Warrior] worth their Class would know that was a bad idea but, after seeing that first blow, Siidi knew the distance was only going to give her an advantage. Especially considering the reach of her longsword.

“I forgot many things,” answered Siidi, positioning herself in a way that could allow her to more easily dodge any oncoming attack. She was weaponless and Skilless, true, but she was still a skilled warrior. Maybe, with a bit of luck, she’d even manage to disarm her opponent, and at that point she would have the upper hand. Sure, it wasn’t the weapon she remembered using, but what did it matter?

“You couldn’t have forgotten this. It’s impossible|” she launched herself at Siidi again.

This time, she was ready. She dodged the attack sideways, letting the sword whistle over her head, her hands moving as fast as she could make them go without Skills, going for the unarmored wrists, bending and twisting them in painful ways. Yellow Arachne grunted slightly, her grip on the longsword’s hilt lessening slightly. Which was more than enough for Siidi.

A few moments later she bounded away from the arachne with the longsword in her hands.

“So, care to talk now?” she asked, her tone mocking.

Yellow Arachne raised an eyebrow, nonplussed, and snapped her fingers.

The sword in Siidi’s hands disappeared, reforming out of the snow in her hands.

“First lesson: you don’t fight fair inside souls. You’ll have to learn to make your own weapons,” she said, a small victorious smile appearing. Mocking her.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“But you disarmed me well, so let me answer your question: I am a piece taken from the soul of one of Grandmother’s sisters. We were close… more than friends. And we chose to exchange small pieces of our souls with each other. It was one of our species’ traditions.

“Now, even in death, I can stay with Grandmother. Keep her company, keep her partially anchored to this world. If it wasn’t for me and the others, she’d have long since become one with Winter.”

And Siidi remembered. She remembered how she and her sisters had done the same thing. How they’d asked their Eldest to cut away pieces of their souls and stick them into each other. A way to always be connected. More intimate than blood, more intimate than a simple Rite of Binding. It was a sign of greatest trust and respect and love. And they’d done it.

Then they’d died and, in death (and her eventual resurrection), the pieces they’d exchanged had been taken and put back in their place.

Death, while fair, could sometimes be cruel.

A single tear rolled down her eye as she remembered this too. Another thing she’d lost and could never get back. Remembering hurt. It hurt so, so, so much. Why?

“Well then, let’s begin again!”

And then they’d started fighting, Yellow Arachne beginning to taunt her after five minutes of constant dodging.

She attempted to take the longsword from her two other times, hoping that the Rule of Three would allow her to keep the damned weapon, but nothing! Every time she managed to get the sword, Yellow Arachne would just snap her fingers and it would appear in her hands. Then she’d say something cryptic along the lines of ‘You must make your own’ and keep trying to cut her in half.

Honestly, it was quite unnerving.

And now here she was, wondering how in Airm she’d ended up in this situation, and dearly hoping to find a way out of it. She really wanted to see Isse and make sure she was ok.

“Look, dipshit, we’re at an impasse. I can’t take your weapon and don’t even have my Skills to let me win this fight, you aren’t skilled enough to actually nail me down, and we’re not going to be finishing this anytime soon because I don’t feel tired so I guess we can’t really feel tired in here. So how about you just fuck off and let me have some illumination on how to do this your way tonight when I go to sleep?”

At that, Yellow Arachne stopped, her sword touching the ground.

Her expression became suddenly serious, as if Siidi had just insulted her whole race.

In a way, she had.

“You speak of Skills as if they were necessary, as if we were bound to the gods’ so called ‘gift’ to all that is living. As if we had ever used the System and its Skills.

“Have you really forgotten, warrior child? We never used their gifts. We abused them, created abominations they’d never imagined could be made when they created their little plaything. That was why we scared them so much. Because we took something made by their hands and twisted it against them.

“You call upon Skills, but we razed cities to the ground before we were ever given Levels.

“And now, here, in this place where Skills matter little, where the chains of reality are unshackled, you choose to chain yourself down with petty excuses instead of facing your own failure, that you can’t even beat a [Warrior] who isn’t trying to actually fight.”

Siidi opened her mouth to say some witty come back, and a fist greeted her.

She hadn’t seen the Yellow Arachne move. Nor heard. Only felt. And gods dammit did she feel it.

She fell to the ground, her jaw creaking as it tried and failed to leave its sockets backward towards her brain stem. A few teeth loosened and, for a moment, she could’ve sworn she had just swallowed one.

She spit out blood, nose bleeding, eyes frantically moving up and legs scrambling in an attempt to push her up and away from the enemy.

She managed it, only for another punch to hit her, this time in the ribcage, sending her tumbling back to the ground, spider legs curling up around her thorax from the pain. Again, she hadn’t seen the blow coming.

“Grandmother had been right. Being gentle with you wasn’t going to work. Well, she always was the most perceptive of our group.”

She heard knuckles cracking: “I don’t know how they did things in your time, but when I was in training they beat us black and red until we learned how to properly fight. You either understood or you were beaten into the ground. Harsh, but it worked.

“On your feet, once warrior. Time to train.”

Defiantly, Siidi rose through the pain and stared down her adversary. She was sure something had just gone wrong before: if she tried hard enough, she’d be able to dodge the coming blows. She had been the best in her time, after all.

One moment, she was looking at Yellow Arachne.

The next, she was on the ground, staring at her own chest as she clutched at her stomach in agony.

“Again. Rise and fight.”

And she did. Because she was the greatest [Warrior] in the history of the arachne.

And again, she ended up on the ground, writhing in pain.

“Again!”

She rose.

She fell.

“Again!”

She rose.

She fell.

She screamed in pain and fury.

“Again!”

She had been the greatest [Warrior] of the arachne.

So she rose.

And she fell face down to the ground.

“Again!”

She found it hard to look from her left eye. Still she rose. Because she was once one of their greatest warriors.

She fell, because that wasn’t enough.

“Again!”

She rose, legs trembling slightly. She stopped them before they could do it more. She wouldn’t give her adversary this satisfaction.

She fell, because this wasn’t a matter of pride and satisfaction. This was a lesson, and she wasn’t learning fast enough.

“One more time!”

She rose. Her stomach lurched and tried to empty itself on the ground, but there was nothing to throw up. She hadn’t eaten since she’d died. But, even if there had been anything more than some bile to eject, she would have kept it down. Because she’d been the best.

Again, she didn’t see the punch coming. So fast. Her eyes couldn’t track it, and she’d been among the ones who had snared and killed the [Time Runner] during their Era.

This time she didn’t hear Yellow Arachne’s voice when it told her to rise. She did it anyways.

And fell.

Rose. And fell. Rose. Fell. Rose. Fell.

She threw up, yellow greenish bile staining the white snow. But not for long. Her blood covered it soon. And not long after, the white had eaten it away, leaving behind only smooth snow again.

Rose. Fell. Rose. Fell.

Her whole body ached. Her legs trembled.

“Again!”

She had been so good at the time. What had happened? What had changed?

She didn’t get an answer when she fell next.

She just wanted the pain to end. The Hunters at least had had the grace of killing her outright.

“Again!”

She rose, because that was what she was good at.

She didn’t notice her legs give up. She just noticed the ground coming close without the pain of another hit.

Silence.

Then: “Is that all? Not so great now, are we?”

The voice was mocking. And growing closer.

“Well, guess there’s nothing more to teach today. We’ll do this again tomorrow. Let me end this.”

Siidi looked up and saw Yellow Arachne skittering closer, sword grasped in her hand raised for a finishing blow.

More pain to come. She knew it would last: it would take time for her soul to unravel and go to rest back in Isse’s Mind Castle. She’d feel it all. She didn’t want to feel pain anymore. Hadn’t she felt enough of that in her past life?

No more. No more! NO MORE!

Then she felt it. The connection, the thin thread that held her and Isse together, bound to the same body. So thin, so small, so fragile. It would take nothing for both of them to just… be separated. From their body, that is.

Life was such a complex, beautiful, fragile thing.

But right then, right now, it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t die. But she’d be in pain.

And, for the first time since she’d been brought back from the dead, she grasped at that thread of life between herself and Isse and asked for help. Help to keep the pain at bay, to not have to feel more of it. She wanted this to end with all of herself, and knew she couldn’t do it alone.

She had never been alone, after all. Her sisters had always gone to the battlefields with her, supporting her and helping in more ways than just killing the enemies she couldn’t see or kill herself.

She grasped at the thread, asking for help.

And it answered.

The sword came down.

But it pierced not Siidi’s spine and the heart underneath. Instead, it remained stuck in… a jacket. A simple worn, leather jacket, light blue and puffy around the sleeves.

Yellow Arachne didn’t know what she was looking at, but Siidi felt the knowledge as much as she felt the warmth of the garment hugging her, cradling her wounds kindly. This jacket, it had been a present Isse’s parents had given her when she was six, for her birthday. She’d immediately fallen in love with it and always wore it wherever she went for three straight weeks.

In the years, she had outgrown it, but still kept it around, because it brought back good memories. When she’d ended up in that hospital bed, she had taken it with her and left it somewhere where she could look at it and remember.

This jacket was good memories, warmth, protection. An armor greater than any chainmail a smith could ever hope to forge.

“Ha! So you’re not all talk,” said Yellow Arachne.

Only for a pen to sprout from her throat.

The pen is mightier than the sword, thought both Siidi and Isse as they watched the blood blossoming from the arachne’s opened throat.

Yellow Arachne just chuckled. Or rather, gurgled.

“Firrrst lessron learnred.”

She began dissolving into the snow. The pen fell out of the open wound, which was already closing.

Before she could disappear, Yellow Arachne said one last thing: “Don’t forget who you were, Siidi.”

Then there was silence.

----------------------------------------

That night, while Isse slept away the fatigue from Grandmother’s training, Siidi walked around their shared mindspace. Sometimes, if they chose to, they could just… flick their minds off and just sleep, even dream.

Siidi didn’t, even if her body and soul demanded she do.

There was something else she had to do first.

She walked and walked. The farther she walked into the darkness outside the Mind Castle, the less Time had meaning. She could’ve been walking for months, years, or barely a handful of seconds. It mattered not, because what she was looking for wasn’t in their minds, but deeper still.

Isse could’ve reached it easily, the place where their souls resided. She could see the threads, after all. Siidi couldn’t.

But she could call upon the connection between them now and, thanks to that, see a ghost of what her other soul half could.

She followed the thread that two chestnut colored threads woven together, back towards the depths where they reached their origin.

And, in the end, reached it.

A chasm opened in front of her, and she suddenly found herself on the wrong side of it. On her side. Far away from her soul half, who Was on the other side. The only thing uniting them was that doubled thread.

It wasn’t enough.

Siidi understood that now. If they wanted to be stronger, better, they’d have to be more. Not one, she wouldn’t make that mistake, she wouldn’t allow herself and Isse to become the same person, an individual made up by mixing both of themselves. But she could thread the line quite easily: the chasm was large, and she couldn’t see how far to her left and right it went.

She wove a little thread out of the sphincter in her abdomen, looking at it, then at the doubled thread.

And began weaving.

[Conditions Met: Mind Curator -> Soul Curator!]

[Soul Curator Level 8!]

[Skill - Soul: Armor of Kindness Obtained!]

[Skill - Soul: Improvised Weaponry Obtained!]

[Skill - A Minute, United Obtained!]

[Warrior Level 3!]

[Skill - Lengthy Step Obtained!]

[Skill - Pain Resistance (Minor) Obtained!]