Once upon an orbit of planet Fait, a playful young girl and her flustered yet resourceful single father must endure sickness, encounter exotic creatures, escape a predatory government, and outwit a wicked wizard to survive just one more day. Having...
Through the smoke of the Neath, through the night, Neatherella did not know where she was running, but she clutched the small purple stone in her hands against her chest, against her heart. She would run to the Black Gate. She would escape Tetrapolis or she would die trying. She would be free. She would-
Through the smoke, Neatherella came to arrive at an enormous black crystal spider leg. She followed it along and found that it led to the enormous head of Arachnor, which was slowly wheezing for breath, slowly dying. Its eight eyes no longer red, its body no longer bossessed of boggis, no longer frozen, yet trembling and groaning, Arachnor looked so sad, so pitiful, lying there fallen in the dirt. Neatherella reached out for its forehead and pet it.
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"You poor, poor beast. You're trapped here the same as us all, aren't you? And now you're so hurt, you're going to die. So far from your home, aren't you? I never understood you. I was always so scared of you. But it's not fair what the General did to you, Arachnor. It's not right. I wish I could help you."
The stone in her hand began to glow and there appeared next to Neatherella an arc of rainbow, which spoke with the voice of the shinseon Ophiuchus.
"Noble, selfless Neatherella, to my aid in my hour of need you tried to come,
Wish to be healed your wounds, outer beauty restored, I can grant for you-
Any one wish you make, through my sylvan power I shall make it done."
Neatherella sighed. "My wounds are my own. Wherever I stand is my own place, and I will live. But if I can ask any wish, good shinseon, it would be for you to use your power to heal poor Arachnor, that he may live to do what he wants, to go where he wants, and be free from this awful prison of ours."
The rainbow moved to the fallen beast and showered it in sparks. The great spider's wounds healed and, with great effort, Arachnor stood. With its eight black crystal eyes it peered down at Neatherella, who smiled up at it. "Go," she whispered. "Be free out in the big world, big spider. You climb right over this gate and return to your home. No matter what you don't stop until you get where you want to be and you put your big, big spider foot down and you know it is your own place."
Neatherella gave his massive pincer a last pet, then turned and began to walk away. She felt a gentle nudge behind her. She turned to look back, and Arachnor had followed her.
"Go on, it's okay," Neatherella said. "You're free, Arachnor. Free. My heart goes with you."
She turned again, but Arachnor nudged her shoulder again. She turned to look back at it, and it bowed its great head to her. Then it gestured urgently with its front leg to Neatherella and to itself, as if to say, "You come with, you come with."
Neatherella understood. She smiled and climbed up onto the front-leg. With the front leg Arachnor placed Neatherella gently down atop the back of its wide, wide neck. Neatherella looked up. At the top of the supertower loomed the Jade Pyramid, and inside that Jade Pyramid awaited the Black Banquet.
"You want to go to a party, Arachnor?" Neatherella asked, petting the side of the creature's smooth black neck.
Arachnor nodded its great big head and snorted its agreement with its pincers. Smiling, her eyes fixed on the Jade Pyramid high, high above, Neatherella leaned forward and whispered, "Climb."
And climb is what Arachnor, with Neatherella safe atop its back, did. Yes, Neatherella would be attending the Black Banquet after all, not as anyone's date, but as herself, as a woman of the forgotten people of Treinte, and Neatherella would be accompanied by her rather large, rather terrifying, new best friend.
