The humid and fresh air hits my lungs… I think I’ve missed this.

  It stings a little from the pain of leaving them behind… but they’ll be better off for it. And this way, I can… I can understand that love for family Sal seems to have. And maybe more about my own family, my adopted sister of a spider.

  “Isn’t it ironic, Oraxia? My old family used to worship your kind, and now here I am coming home with you, after running away.”

  Stepping over a poisonous vine, I hear her voice echo in my mind. She’s gotten more vocal since we left the city, as if being around people were strangling her voice. “Worship…?”

  “Oh, right.” Climbing up a tree and leaping between some, I precariously avoid the dangerous waters below. “These waters are dangerous by the way, they’re filled with weird fish. We don’t know why they’re so dangerous, just that they can eat you if you get near it.”

  “Do they eat your soul?”

  “...good question, remind me to ask them that when we get there. But anyways…” Dropping down and continuing forward, I answer her prior question. “Worship is when you… put something on a pedestal.”

  Looking up, I spot a large spider sitting in the canopy above, ignoring us. As if we were ants. “As if it were above you, better than you, knew more than you. Or, basically, treating it like a god.”

  “...like how I treat you?”

  “Huh? No, that’s way different. That’s called love and trust. Worship is… hm…” Grabbing a large machete I bought on my way out, I chop down a particularly annoying vine in the way, slipping through the gap before it closes back up behind me. Growing in a matter of moments.

  “Worship is more like if you thought you knew I could do anything. It’s if you thought everyone should feel that love and care no matter what. Or if you treated everyone who I knew as far above anyone who didn’t, and would get upset if someone didn’t feel that for me.”

  As I sprint and jump over a fallen log- or what looks like one, before the bark tries to bite at me mid leap, she speaks in my mind. “Oh, so like… trusting you’ll keep me safe is trust in you and your love, but thinking anyone who doesn’t feel that way is bad is worship?”

  Nodding as I move more, I smile. “Yeah, sorta. There’s more to it, but those are generally misunderstandings past that point. Like overestimating what whatever your worshiping is capable of. Like these people would’ve thought you’d be a god, not… my little spider sister.”

  Feeling her head poke out the top of my back, I can tell she’s looking around. And with good timing too, we’re nearing the city now.

  “So do we tell them I’m not the only one?”

  “No, we don’t confirm nor deny that. If anything, we play into what they want to hear. I… haven’t seen them in a long time, so I can’t tell what it’ll be like.”

  Looking up at the wooden walls that stretch to the top of the forest, I smile with an odd nostalgia. My formative years were here, after all.

  “So… should we speak like this to each other?”

  “Yeah… wait, can I talk back to you in my head?”

  “Yes… just try to do it. I’ll make it happen.”

  Blinking in surprise, I nod. ‘Like… like this?’

  “Yeah, exactly. Just will it.”

  “Wow, this is… weird. Cool. Is this that thing Sal mentioned about will being important? You will our minds to be heard, so they are?”

  As I step up to the gate, I hear her satisfied voice in my head. “I think so.”

  Pausing in front of it, hesitating, her voice in my mind gives me confidence again. “Are you proud of me?”

  Smiling, I knock on the gate. “...very.”

  ***

  Walking through the city with some young guards, I can feel the disdainful stares directed at my back.

  Not for my tail and ears for once, no. It’s not like the wealthy districts of the city, in the inner ring.

  “It’s because I’m an outsider. They don’t know I came from here, and if they did they might be even more upset.”

  She sounds surprised as she responds. “Even if you showed them I’m with you?”

  Annoyed I can’t shake my head in line with my thoughts, I follow the guards up the steps and to a large building. Well, not large, but decorated. One only the most respected elders can get. “No… I don’t think so. Sorry, but stay out of my thoughts for a bit here, I need to focus. The old chief was a hard-assssss… was a pain, so I can’t mess up.”

  “Understood… he is a hard ass.”

  I almost laugh as I walk in, the guards standing outside.

  But that smile is gone in an instant. Instead… it’s the exact woman I was hoping to see, and dreading the meeting with at the same time.

  “...Yunaria? Is that really you?”

  In front of me is a tall blond woman, with a thick bushy tail and two fluffy ears. Only unlike me, she is fit from years of manual labor, and lacks my bust in favor of a few inches of height.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “...yes, Mom. It’s me. And I go by Yuna now.”

  Clicking her tongue at that, she stands and walks over to me, pulling me into a tight hug. “Yunaria, that’s not very nice, that was your grandmother's name.”

  Sighing, I hug her back. “And what if I don’t deserve that name? I ran away, after all.”

  Letting go of me, she frowns a bit and gestures to a seat. “Well, why don’t we discuss that over some tea? It’s been a long time, and I want to hear what you learned.”

  Raising an eyebrow at her, my tail fails to hide my confusion, and she gives me a quiet smile. “What? You may have left, but you’re still my daughter.”

  Watching her sit opposite of me and set a tea cup in front of me, one hand made out of clay, I sigh and kneel across from her. “Alright… but that’s not how it works here. If you leave, you never return. And I made it clear I didn’t like our ways.”

  Frowning, she swirls her cup in hand, and it’s then I notice that it’s the one I made for her when I was a little kid. It’s uneven and can barely stay upright. And as she puts it down, I see it almost tips over.

  ‘She kept it…’

  Taking a sip of the tea as she speaks, the familiar taste sends a shiver up my spine. Bitter, but homey. “Why yes… those were the old rules. But that’s changed, since I’ve become the chief. Your father and her… they went out and died, trapped in spider webs and likely to have their souls consumed. So, I was put in the role as the next candidate… and I did away with that. But… I have more reasons to not be concerned.”

  “...why?”

  “Why I removed it? Because I missed you, and if you ever- or rather, when you undoubtedly came back, we needed to welcome you.”

  Something sends a shiver up my spine, as I wrap my hands around the cup. “...when I did come back? How did you know?”

  Smiling, she holds up her cup. “It was… well, prophesied. You might not remember, you were still young. But it was said that there would come a day that… a child born in the village would return, and seek knowledge. That they would become the one to transcend us. And somehow… I had a feeling it would be you. You were always so clever, so strong willed, after all~” She takes a long sip, letting me process.

  I’m stunned, just staring at her.

  ‘No way… there’s no way she would’ve assumed that. It’s too… too spot on. Well for the first bit. I did come back. I was born here. I am seeking knowledge. But… transcend?’

  Feeling Oraxia move in my bag a bit, her voice is in my head. “Transcending is… evolving or growing. Such as my voice. So being connected to me would give you higher odds than others. Right?”

  My ear twitches, before I sigh. “So… let’s say I am looking for knowledge. What then?”

  Smiling wide, she gestures to the shelves of scrolls on my left. “Well, you can learn all you need. We’re here to reach transcendence, and what better way than to watch how another does it?”

  “So… what, you want me to evolve or something? I’m not a Juyomon.”

  Raising an eyebrow, she laughs. “A Juyomon…? Haha, no, I don’t know what that is but not that. It’s to become greater, or put simply… instead of being below the beasts that live above us, it’s to become the same level, through learning.”

  “...so why not turn me away? Or try to gain my info?”

  Smiling, she takes a long sip of her tea, before looking to the scrolls. “Because… no matter how much you read, some info only comes from the heart. And we can’t force that, you must come to find it. So someone with such a heart to come back here? It must be full of vast experiences.”

  Said heart aches at the thought of where I came from. Sal, Lulu. That I had a family and left them behind for this.

  ‘Is this all right to be doing? Should I just run away? Leave?’

  Closing my eyes and taking a sip of the hot tea, bitter nostalgia running down my throat… I swallow it down along with my hesitations and fears.

  “I’m already this far. So yes, I do have that, and am here to learn. But… I have more than just that.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  Taking my bag off my back, I look at it with a contemplative look, before looking up at Mom. “You need to trust me on this one, and whatever you do, do not freak out or tell anyone until I say so. Or I’ll turn around and leave. Got it?”

  She flinches, her tail sticking up and stilling… it’s a question of her authority, something that no chief nor mother would or should stand. Anyone else would be kicked out for that alone.

  But… she knows what’s at stake. All this info, and whatever I have here, could be worth my weight in copper.

  So, she sighs and nods. “Yes… I can do that much. But nothing can be hidden forever.”

  Smiling a little, I nod. “I knew I could count on you… so then. Meet Oraxia.” Opening the backpack, Oraxia crawls out and onto my chest and back, her head poking over my shoulder to look at mom with curious eyes…

  Her eyes are like saucers, looking between me and my spider sis with what’s akin to reverence and awe.

  “Y-you… a soul weaver… with you…”

  Smiling, I nuzzle Oraxia. “Technically, no. She’s a dream weaver, not a soul weaver. But I believe she will one day grow to one… I have it on good word that she will.”

  Taking a deep breath, she nods. “R-right… okay… okay alright… I’m not dreaming am I?”

  “Want the pinch test?”

  “No no… just… okay, I need to digest this. For now… you can sleep upstairs, in the guest room. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Nodding, I grab my bag and go up, Oraxia speaking into my mind as I climb the wooden steps. “So that was your Mother? She looks like you.”

  “Yeah… she’s interesting, isn’t she?” I speak in my mind as well, careful of what we share.

  “Yes. I… am curious. Why did you respond like that? Saying “I knew I could count on you”? It was out of place.”

  Smiling that she caught that, I open the door to my room. “Oh, it’s simple. Guilt and love are two dangerous things, Mordret taught me that, and Mira proved it. So I abused it a bit to make sure she doesn’t snitch.”

  I can sense that she likes that answer, as I look through my room.

  The walls are made of dark jungle wood, well crafted and waxed over with some beeswax. The window is covered by a fine net, just enough to keep out stray dust from dust storms or insects. Along the walls are some scrolls like downstairs, these ones fewer in number and more suited for children. Well, not really, but it’s what they considered as such, teaching us about codependence and faith.

  Reaching into my bag, I place a couple of photos beside the bed. One of Lumi and I, when I was young and just found by her, and the other of all three of us together.

  Tears welling in my eyes, I sit on the bed made of fur, with a layer of some strange foam beneath that, and then a stone beneath that as the base.

  I still don’t know where the foam comes from, but it doesn’t bother me as I lay back and pull Oraxia to my chest, hugging her.

  “Why do you feel so… distant? Shouldn’t your mother bring you joy?”

  Shaking my head, I sigh. “No… I… I don’t know if I can trust her. Not yet. As long as I’m useful they won’t hurt us… but if people think they can get something from you more easily by hurting you, they will.”

  Seeming dejected, she nuzzles into my chest, making little clicks. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

  “Don’t be… you’re doing more than enough, my little spider sis.”

  Nuzzling her head, she clicks. “Love you.”

  Yawning and cuddling her, I just think out “Love you too.”

  ___

  A long lost family, and a lonely mother given her daughter back. Do you trust her? Or do you think she’s just using her “Yunaria”?