Death to the Sun

by Mare Macabre

Chapter 6: Stella Aurea

Warm sunlight rained down over the world, a stark and welcome contrast to the previous day’s gray, overcast sky. Bird happily twittered away on high branches, singing along to the cheerily soft melody hummed by the maiden below. The pretty young woman interrupted her tune with a quiet apology before ripping a thick bundle of weeds out of the earth, depositing them in a basket at her side. A white rabbit occasionally peeked its head over the side and snatched one of the fluffy flowers to snack on while the woman worked. A dirt coated hand wiped sweat from the woman’s brow, leaving a faint brown streak across her very lightly tanned skin, and she sat back on her heels to catch her breath and rejoin the birds in their merry singing. She whistled brightly, smiling as the birds picked up her tune and fluttered down around her.

“Hello,” she greeted in a breathy voice. “How are you doing today?” The birds chittered and hopped, and the woman’s smile grew as she listened to them. “Oh my, that sounds lovely! You’ll have to show me sometime.” The birds continued tweeting and hopping about, and the woman giggled quietly at one of their accounts. “Well I hope he learned his lesson.”

She listened to a few more tweets and twitters before the little birds bid her farewell and took off into the trees beyond the small garden, leaving the young gardener to her work. She sighed wistfully as they left before returning to weeding her vegetables, stopping only once to gently reprimand her rabbit for eating all the prickly weeds and spoiling his appetite before the job was finally done. The refilled basket, kept carefully out of the cotton white rabbits reach, was taken to a pile of compost before the bunny took the weeds’ place and was carried inside.

“Hello, darling—“

“Eep!”

The woman leaped away from the smiling face that greeted her just through the door. Her foot caught under her sundress and she toppled backwards, the basket flying from her hand in her panicked flail. In a blink hands were clasped around her own, stopping her fall dead. The woman remained tensed, expecting to hit the ground, for several moments before she realized she was standing once again. She faced her intruder, recognizing the elegant dress and expertly quaffed hair with a sigh of relief before panic for her rabbit clutched her.

“Angel!” she squeaked, spinning around.

To her surprise the basket, and rabbit, hovered lightly in the air behind her, lightly shimmering with the magickal force that held them aloft. Another heavy sigh left her as she took them out of the air and turned back to her friend, the older, smartly dressed woman flashing her an apologetic grin.

“Sorry, Fae,” she offered quietly. “Are you alright?”

Fae nodded, then frowned slightly. “N-not that I mind really but . . . why are you in my house?”

“Oh I just saw you were busy in your garden and thought I’d lend you a hand inside,” the woman shrugged, stepping back to let her host inside. “You really do spend far too much time tracking in dirt and too little sweeping it out.”

Fae shrank at the gentle criticisms as she stepped into her house, then straightened up as she looked around her front room. Where dirt and dust had previously been was scrubbed and polished ‘til it almost shined. The worn wood of her floor looked freshly painted and her furniture looked as though it had been shampooed. The ashes had been swept from her fireplace and her meager pile of firewood was neatly arranged beside it, and surprisingly looked a little larger than before. What stood out the most, though, was the smell. Before going out to work in her garden the room had been saturated with the familiar smell of animal waste and feed, with a light aroma of loamy earth from her trips to the garden and forest beyond. Now the room smelled entirely of lavender and jasmine, particularly around the couch at the back wall.

Fae took in the changes, turning slowly as she examined the room with a look of wonder. “Oh my,” she eventually whispered. “Rarity, how did you have time to do all this?”

Her friend smiled slyly and folded her arms. “Oh it was nothing,” she remarked, “A little magick, a little elbow grease . . . some called in favors,” she murmured with smirk.

If Fae heard her friend’s last comment she made no remark. “Wow. I-Is the whole house like this?”

“Everywhere but your bedroom,” Rarity nodded, glad to see Fae seemed to like the change. “I thought you might like it to keep its eh . . . homey feeling.”

Fae turned to her friend, her face betraying some embarrassment through her smile. “Th-this is too much, Rarity. I have to give you something for this.”

The dapper damsel scoffed and waved away the woman’s offer. “Oh perish the thought,” she laughed. “I just wanted to help.”

“Rarity, really, I can’t just accept all this work for nothing,” Fae insisted. “I have to do something for you.”

Rarity kept her amused face, looking for some break in her friend’s persistence, then let out a dramatic sigh. “Well, if you must,” she conceded, “I suppose there is one thing I could use your help with.”

Fae lit up like the day and edged closer. “Oh anything! I can’t thank you enough for this.”

Rarity blushed slightly and dismissed Fae’s praise. “You’re too kind, darling, really. But anyway, I could use your assistance for a little pet-project I’ve been working on, if you’d really like to help.” Fae nodded for her to continue. “You see, I’ve heard that there’s a certain type of spider that weaves its webs with golden silk, if you can believe that. I thought the idea was ridiculous, but would you believe that, according to a book I found in the library, it lives just inside the Everfree Forest?”

Fae’s hopeful smile dropped from her face. “T-The Everf-free . . .?”

“Can you believe it?” Rarity asked excitedly. “What luck, I thought, that I should live so nearby and have a best friend that can speak with animals! Just imagine the things I could do with golden silk. Think of the accents! Think of the necklaces!”

“R-Rarity I don’t mean to sound negative but . . .” Fae trailed off as her friend returned mentally to the room.

“Yes, darling?”

“Well, I mean, what makes you so sure she’ll give it to you?”

Rarity blinked once. Then again. “I’ll have you to ask her, won’t I? No animal can resist your charm.”

Fae fidgeted, turning her eyes to the floor. “Oh, well, um . . . I-I don’t know that she might think that’s reason enough to, uh—“

“Fae?”

Fae looked up, shrinking away from Rarity’s leer. “Y-Yes?”

“You keep saying she. By chance do you already know the spider I’m talking about?”

Fae shifted anxiously, her eyes darting around the room. “Uh . . . w-well I know of her. She’s not very well liked by the other animals.”

Rarity fought back the urge to pounce on her friend for not revealing she knew of such a nearby recourse of so precious a material and took a breath to calm herself. “Well . . . maybe we can change that,” she offered cheerfully. “You’re great with animals, I’m sure you can get her to change her tune, as it were.” Fae puckered her lips, nervously shrinking away from her friend and the task she had set before her. Rarity’s smile gradually faded, replaced with a look of disappointment. She lowered her head and started for the door. “Well, if you’re sure. I suppose I can buy gold colored silk when the traders come back through . . .”

The dressmaker glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wet and lower lip quivering. Fae felt a stab of guilt at turning her away. She looked around the room again and felt the sting become a dull throb. She had offered anything as thanks and now she was turning down the first offer. Fae was aware Rarity was fairly well off, more so than her at least, so payment would neither be wanted nor accepted for her deed. She was already house-training Rarity’s cat, so that offer was off the table. Really if there was anything the fashionista would conceivably need her help with, this was it. Her eyes settled again on Rarity, who quickly stowed a compact mirror and put on her best pout, and she quietly sighed in acquiescence.

“I suppose,” she began, making the tailor spin around with a hopeful grin, “if it means that much to you to have real gold silk—“

“I should like nothing more,” Rarity nodded quickly.

Fae sighed again. “I’ll get my boots then. You might want to change . . .”

Fae shook her head, slightly disoriented by the realization that her friend had stripped off her lavish dress when she wasn’t looking to reveal a tight-fitting, oddly colored—though admittedly quite attractive—blue one-piece suit. She extracted a pair of gloves from one of the pockets and pulled them up to her elbows, the superfluous laces along them matching those of her thigh high boots. Were she preparing for a fashion show Fae might have assumed her ready, but the outfit was far from practical for the purposes of trekking through the dense forest. Fae fought her urge to grimace at the outfit, knowing that doing so would immediately darken her friend’s mood. Instead she offered a meek smile before venturing up to her room to change her own clothes and fetch a few necessary supplies.

“Um, Rarity?” she called down.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind terribly if we rode Harry out to the nest?”

Fae could almost hear the sour look her friend made. “The bear?”

“Well, dire bear,” Fae mumbled, then called down, “Yes.”

“Er . . . it’s a bit hot to be swamped in all that raggedy fur, isn’t it?” Rarity mused.

Fae scrunched her face and set the socks she had chosen back in her drawer in favor a pair with more padding. “Right . . .”

A humid heat permeated the Forest despite the thick canopy of leaves that cast it into a near-endless twilight. The smell of damp earth and old, mossy wood clouded the air and made the long trek into the depths of the wood feel stuffy and gross. Water both from the previous day’s rain and the lingering dew in the shade of the trees dripped in fat drops to the Forest floor far below, more often landing on a head of frazzled and distressed indigo hair than not. Rarity had long since given up on trying to maintain her prized quaff and taken to trundling miserably through the uncomfortably wet wood on her guide’s heels—sometimes more literally than she meant.

“Sorry,” she grumbled after kicking the heel of Fae’s boot for an uncounted time.

“It’s alright,” Fae assured her with a smile. “You know I’m glad you got me to come out here. The Forest is so lovely after a rain,” she mused, breathing deep the damp air.

“Mm, lovely,” Rarity growled, wrenching her stained and tattered boot out of yet another mud puddle.

Fae flashed an apologetic grin over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too much farther.”

“Fae, you’ve been saying that for hours,” Rarity groaned. “Are you sure you know the way?”

“W-Well,” Fae breathed more than said, “I’ve never actually been there myself, but Skyler said if we kept going this way we’d be sure to find the nest.”

“Skyler?” Fae pointed up to a branch above them where Rarity realized a small bird was watching them. The bird flitted ahead to another branch and turned around to watch them approach before doing so again, and Rarity let out an exhausted half-laugh as she realized that Fae had likely been letting the little bird lead them for most, if not all, of they’re journey. “Stunning,” she grunted, stepping over a slick, mossy log.

They resumed their silence after that exchange, the only sounds passing between them being the pants, groans, and grunts of their traversing the obstacles in their path en route to their destination. Rarity came to notice eventually that, at some point, their path had begun to take them steadily uphill, and the thought that they would have gravity on their side as they returned bolstered her spirits as she wiped hot sweat from her pallid face. Slowly, surely, the incline began to level out, and Skyler the lark hopped a little more often and twittered at Fae with increasing regularity. Rarity assumed they were drawing near the end of their trek—a suspicion that was confirmed by a rather abrupt shift in the colors of the trees around them.

“This is the edge of her territory,” Fae announced suddenly.

Rarity almost ran into her before realizing her friend had stopped. “Ah,” she panted, waving a hand. “I wouldn’t have known from the . . . the webs. Ugh, I’m too tired for sarcasm.”

Fae smirked in her direction before looking up at the obviously uncomfortable bird in the branch above. She whistled, the sound eerily similar to that of the lark’s own chirping, and the little bird peeped something back before taking off back into the forest—away, and very quickly Rarity noticed, from the spider’s domain.

“I feel like I should be worried about whatever she just said,” the designer thought aloud as she caught her breath.

“He,” Fae corrected, “and . . . well, probably.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Whatever it was, don’t tell me. Let’s just go in, get the silk, and get out.”

Fae took a deep breath, more to calm herself than regain her strength, then nodded. She stepped cautiously past the webbed threshold, her pace even but slow and head up. Rarity took another breath, admiring Fae’s stature when she stood fully erect, then followed after, wincing as she felt the start of at least one blister on each foot. Note to self, henceforth function shall always come before form in footwear.

The two women walked slowly and quietly through the thickening blankets of stringy white that coated the trees and ground around them, their eyes darting from place to place at any hints of motion. The distant sounds of life in the Forest faded as they trekked further into the spider’s lair, the humidity and heat—very thankfully for Rarity—slipping away as well. Their footfalls became all but silent as the sticky white sheet beneath them grew thick and pillowy. The shade of the canopy turned to near darkness while the channel of web grew dense. Soon the world was little more than a tunnel, and the prospect of retreat was fast becoming an attractive one.

“Fae?” Rarity asked in a whisper.

“Yes?”

There was a pause.

“Rarity?”

Fae stopped and looked back, tensing as she saw her friend hunched up and trembling. She looked beyond the petite dressmaker and felt her muscles grow tighter at seeing what had made her so upset.

The way back through the tunnel was slowly filling with dozens, possibly hundreds, of spiders that were descending from the high ceiling of the cave of silk. The arachnids moved slowly and deliberately, slinking down in a wave behind the two travelers and blocking off their means of escape, their whispery voices filling Fae’s ears as they saw they’d been discovered. A look above herself told Fae that there were many more spiders than were presenting themselves to the duo and that the rolling army was closing in on them from overhead as well as behind. She glanced backward, toward the inner domain, and saw that the tunnel was clear. They were herding them.

She gently touched Rarity’s shoulder, making her seize and almost fall over. “We should keep going.”

Rarity was slightly taken aback by the authority in her voice, but, at noticing the spiders descending toward them, quickly forgot it and followed. Fae righted her back as she walked, adjusting herself to appear confident despite the growing pit of fear in her stomach. She shut out the droning breathy voices of the spiders, momentarily jealous of Rarity’s inability to hear their jeering, hissing, and otherwise unpleasant commentary. Further they walked into the nest and more Rarity shrunk into herself and wished to be anywhere else, until finally sunlight lanced into their eyes from around a bend. Fae and Rarity shielded their eyes from the golden light that streamed into the cavernous web structure as they approached it, sharp glimmers of light dancing across their faces in odd patterns the nearer they came. As finally they exited the tunnel and adjusted to the light of day, Rarity felt the breath sucked from her lungs in awe.

Between two gray spires extending from beneath the tower of web, hanging taught in the in the air, catching the afternoon light with a dazzling gleam and glitter, hung a massive, intricately woven web made entirely of heavy golden silk. A gust of warm summer air ran through the clearing in the webs, sending several of the smaller webs around the golden threads swaying and wobbling in the wind, but the thick, gold strands remained motionless. Rarity’s breath came back only for an instant before she let it out again in a gasp of amazement at the delicate looking strands of metal. She stepped closer, shielding her eyes against the glint on its surface, but a strong hand pulled her back. She looked up at Fae in surprise, but the other woman did not meet her gaze. Slowly Rarity followed her eyes to the top of the web and, once again, felt her breath catch in her throat.

Slowly, delicately, a spider nearly five feet across plucked its way down from the uppermost threads of the web. Its body was black, its legs long and spindly with thick, coarse brushes on the first and second segments of all but two of the stick-like appendages. Its abdomen was long but rotund and bore a striking starburst in its center. Its head was black, but each of its eyes glittered with flecks of gold, as did the long fangs that extended from its chelicerae. Rarity took an anxious step backward, positioning Fae between her and the giant arachnid, but the faint feeling of something brushing the back of her head made her snap back beside her friend, her scream only just contained.

The enormous spider stopped in the center of the web, its position making the starburst on its abdomen look like the real heart of the web from which the golden threads extended. There it stayed, its pedipalps twitching every so often as it apparently took stock of the intruders into its domain. Rarity gulped loudly and glanced at Fae for guidance, then did a double take as she realized that the younger woman’s lips were moving. She squinted at her friend, trying to see what she was saying, but the shapes her mouth made made no sense to her. She instead strained her ears to hear if she was casting some form of spell, but was met with total silence.

Movement made her jump. The spider had shifted a leg, its chelicerae twitching and bobbing as though they itched. Rarity watched the spider’s subtle movements for a few seconds before another motion made her flinch and look to her friend. Fae, to her surprise, had lowered herself in a curtsey, and turned to face Rarity as she stood.

“Rarity, this is Her Majesty Stella Aurea, queen of the star spiders and weaver of the Web of Aurum.”

Rarity blinked before turning to look up at the spider with a nervous smile. “Eh, ch-charmed,” she said with a curtsey of her own.

The spider regarded her silently before her mouth parts began to move again, and Rarity realized she must be talking to Fae. The pink-haired spider-speaker listened quietly as the regal arachnid spoke, waiting until she was clearly finished to say her own piece. The spider showed her far less patience, apparently interrupting Fae several times as she spoke. After a few moments of watching this, Rarity finally felt the courage to interject.

“What is she saying?” she whispered to Fae.

Fae flinched at the interruption, almost having forgotten her company. “O-oh! I’m sorry, I forgot—let me-or-I’ll let you hear her. Would you want that?”

“Oh,” Rarity blinked. “Er, yes. Please.”

Fae nodded, silently saying something to the spider, then turned fully to her friend. Rarity shifted slightly as she felt the focus of the area shift to her but stood tall as Fae folded her hands as though in prayer and gathered her magick about her.

“Hear as through my ears. Speak as in my voice. Know that the world is not silent.”

Magick pulsed through Rarity’s being, making her body tingle and head swim. She swayed slightly, almost falling, but managed to stay upright through force of will. Hissing, whispery echoes drifted to her ears as the spell took root within her and soon the faint voices became clear. Hundreds, if not thousands, of chattering, raspy, hissing voices assaulted her ears in the wake of the spell, and Rarity turned for the first time to see the forest of dangling arachnids that had closed in behind them. Chills ran up her spine as she heard them take notice of her realization and several of the voices began calling to her in mocking, angry tones. With a nearly deafening hiss the voices were silenced, and Rarity looked to the great matriarch of the nest.

“You can hear me now?” a loud, rasping voice asked.

“Q-Quite clearly. Er, Your Majesty.”

“Then I shall speak to you,” the spider growled, sending a shiver through the designer. “The fat one tells me you seek my web. Through experience I am inclined to believe there is a reason. No one seeks my web without some selfish desire of their own.”

Rarity narrowed her eyes at the insult to her friend. “I beg your pardon, Majesty, but you would be wise not to be so tactless in reference to my companion.”

Fae fidgeted anxiously, her eyes fixed on the ground. “Rarity, don’t worry about that.”

“I will worry about it,” she whispered back. “We did not come here to be insulted.”

“You came to insult me then?” the spider hissed, drawing a ruckus from the crowd behind the two women. “Do not suppose that I cannot understand your language simply because it is beyond my capacity to speak. I know what you have come here for, and you will be insulted for your stupidity!”

Rarity turned a dark glare up to the Weaver. “Madame—“

“Majesty!”

“. . . Stella, I imagine you have received others that sought your silk before us.”

If the spider could have glared Rarity imagined she would be. “Those who enter my domain always come seeking my beautiful silk,” she hissed, strumming an odd thread out of habit. “And always they make some benevolent claim as to its use. I have heard every excuse from every type of man and woman wishing to obtain my glorious silk for their selfish, petty desires. You shall not leave with it,” she rumbled. “If you cannot convince me you deserve it you shall not leave at all!”

Thousands of excited voices cheered the announcement, making Rarity’s ears ring and filling her with dread. She looked to Fae, but her friend remained silent and kept her focus on the ground. Whatever the spider had said before she began addressing Rarity had obviously upset her deeply and she apparently had nothing or knew nothing to say that could convince the angry queen to let them go. Rarity felt a sick ball of guilt settle in her gut as she looked at her friend. It was obvious her lack of enthusiasm to guide her to this place was well founded, and Rarity had paid little attention to the signs of worry and reluctance in her agreement. The tailor felt her jaw set and turned a stern look up to her captor.

“Your Highness, I would make a request of you.”

The giant spider’s abdomen throbbed and mandibles jittered. “You would be so bold?”

“I would,” Rarity nodded. “I ask that my friend be allowed to leave unharmed.”

Fae’s eyes bulged as she looked up at her friend. “Wha—Rarity!”

The queen’s chelicerae flexed as she absorbed the statement. “And what, pray tell, do you offer for her passage?”

Rarity took a breath before answering. “Myself.”

Fae gawked at her friend while the star spider let out a hissing, hollow sounding laugh. “Do you suppose this is a fair trade?” Stella chuckled. “The fat one will feed my children much more than you. Why should I even trade one for the other when I have both as it stands?”

Rarity was quiet for a moment, all eyes and ears focused on her. Slowly her eyes began to glitter and glow with magick, and the air around her flickered and wavered with heat. The next words she spoke let tongues of orange flame seep from her mouth and the breath that followed was filled with smoke.

“Gold has a surprisingly low melting point for a heavy metal. Did you know that?”

The nest filled again with angry hissing and shouts. Fae stared in horror at her friend as she folded her arms and smirked up at the mistress of the spiders. Stella Aurea twitched with anger and restraint as Rarity’s words rang in her ears. Eventually she let out a sharp yell, silencing the voices of her children and making both Rarity and Fae jump.

“Do you expect I will be intimidated by your threat?” the spider asked in a low growl.

“As an artist, I expect that you will do what’s necessary to protect your masterpiece.”

The queen fell silent, her mandibles idly twitching and flexing as she considered Rarity’s words. Silence reigned in the clearing. The many gathered spiders swayed quietly in the wind. Fae nervously glanced back and forth between her friend and the imposing, arachnoid matriarch. After nearly a minute the massive spider queen shifted her spindly legs and started to move down the lower half of the web. Rarity flinched as she scuttled down from her perch along the ground, then seized as one of the nimble legs latched onto her boot. The fashionista felt her muscles tighten more and more as Stella reached around her back and daintily clawed her way up her body, eventually coming to rest with her powerful, knifelike chelicerae undulating less than a foot from her face.

“You have missed your chance to act,” the monarch hissed, her mandibles twitching in what Rarity could only assume was a smile.

Rarity breathed slowly, forcing herself to calm, and looked beyond the quivering fangs at the glimmering golden silk with resignation. “Truth be told I could never bring myself to destroy something so beautiful,” admitted the seamstress with a sigh.

The spider hovered around her, her eight eyes boring into the designer’s face. Her mouth parts wobbled in thought, her pedipalps absently touching Rarity’s hair and brushing it out of her eyes. The spider twitched slightly as the deep blue, diamond-shaped crystal in the middle of the woman’s forehead was exposed from under her messy veil. She shifted slightly, examining the gem from different angles, then finally settled.

“You are Cornish,” she thought aloud.

“Y-Yes,” Rarity affirmed.

The spider seemed thoughtful. “You share blood with the Crystal Nomads?”

Rarity frowned slightly. “I-If I do this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Gems, crystals, precious stones—you feel a connection to them, do you not? You can sense them within the earth?” the queen asked somewhat harshly.

“Yes,” Rarity answered quickly, “I-I do. I incorporate them into my creations. I’m a jeweler, as well as a tailor, dressmaker—“

“I will let her go.”

Rarity and Fae both blinked. “Sorry?”

“You’re friend, the large one, she may go,” the spider repeated. A chorus of angry voices began to protest but a curt hiss shut them up. “She may go unmolested.”

A few whispery murmurs of discontent continued. The queen shifted, focusing her multi-eyes gaze on her kin, and the spiders quickly began to retreat up their anchors into the webs above. Fae watched them clear a path with a breath of amazement, but her feet remained rooted to the spot.

“W-What about Rarit—“

“My business is not with you!” the queen spat, making Fae flinch.

Fae pursed her lips and looked to Rarity, her expression scared. The dressmaker spared her a glance then motioned discreetly with her hand. Fae hesitated, shifting on her feet and looking from the tunnel of web to her friend and back.

“Begone lest I consume you myself!” the spider roared.

Fae squeaked and ducked into the sticky corridor, fleeing through the receding ranks of the forest of spiders. She bumbled through the darkness, knocking against webby walls and stumbling over unseen roots and blocks until finally she emerged into the dim forest beyond the thicket. She kept running, not stopping despite the frenzied cries of the few hand-sized spiders that had gotten stuck to her in her dash. Her passengers leapt onto passing trees as she ran and yelled curses at her as they began scuttling back to their home, grumbling at not being allowed to eat her as they went. Eventually Fae’s earlier hike caught up to her and she staggered to a halt, propping herself against a tree for support as she struggled to regain her breath. The hot, humid air of the Forest filled her lungs and made her cough. She stumbled and fell as her coughing fit sapped the remaining strength from her limbs, then, when it had passed, leaned her back to the tree and resumed her panting.

The animal keeper cracked an eye to examine her surroundings. She was well familiar with the outer edges of the forest, but its interior was not something she was wont to explore. True, she knew what direction to travel, but the way would be perilous after the sun had set and she had no idea what creatures could be lurking in the night. The darkening wood was foreboding, the sounds that echoed through it more so, and Fae felt a growing dread as she realized she had not followed the path she had taken to reach mad queen’s nest, making the road to her cottage even more dangerous. She pulled her legs close and looked around with increasing panic as the sounds of night creatures started to filter through the trees, growing louder and more hungry sounding as the moon rose above the canopy—

Something exploded in the distance, making Fae scream a breathy, quiet scream. The boom was followed by a rumble in the ground and several large animals charging through the Forest past the terrified woman. Fae peeked out of her fingers after several seconds of silence, looking in the direction of the earth-shattering blast. She could see a cloud of dust pierced by intermittent moonlight in the distance, and could not help but sigh with relief as she realized the explosion was in the opposite direction of the nest. Her reverie was short-lived, however, as she realized what was in that direction.

“Oh . . . oh dear,” she murmured, standing up. “Doesn’t the train pass through the Forest that wa—”

A yell interrupted her thought, making her flinch and whimper again. She checked over her shoulder, seeing that the sound had sent any and all creatures bounding in the direction she needed to travel to return either to her home or to the nest. She gulped, turning her attention back to the cloud, and, with a shiver, cautiously made her way toward the source of the noise.

* * *