“Tom, I’m with child.” The black widow said to him, rubbing its belly with its many legs. The stomach was squirming and partially see-through. Tom looked closer and saw what was inside her stomach was not a baby, but chains.

Too late, the spider’s legs had already clamped down around him. Chains began to erupt from the spiders spinnerets, wrapping around him in a suffocating grip.

“Tom, I need this, I swear I’ll pay you back. And let’s face it, you’re not going to amount to much in your lifetime.”

***AWAKE***

“GAH!” Tom’s eyes shot open, revealing Roadkill smacking the side of his cheek, seeming flustered.

“Eeek!” she shrieked at his sudden noise.

“aah!” He screamed back.

She took a step back. Eyeballing him warily.

“Did I just have a dream?” Tom asked, cocking his head. He’d never actually dreamed before. Dreams were weird.

Weird dream. Suzie said from where she sat next to him. Much subtext.

“Yeah, that part was pretty glaringly obvious,” Tom said, rubbing the goose egg on the back of his head before he froze.

“You can see my dreams?”

Familiar. Suzie said, thumbing herself with a froggy thumb.

Well, anyway, let’s try to say hi again. Since she didn’t kill me in my sleep, we’ve got some common ground to stand on.

Groaning, Tom unfolded, drawing himself to his feet.

Roadkill’s jaw dropped as he rose up and up, towering more than a foot above her.

What is she, four foot ten?

Roadkill seemed to swallow her saliva before she said something in a language that Tom struggle to even parse.

“Hello.” Tom spoke, slowly and gently, like he was speaking to a frightened animal. Which to be fair, I am. “My name is…” – There was a brief, stupid instant where Tom considered a whole village of people who didn’t know English calling him something stupid like ‘master’, or ‘stud’ or ‘pussy slayer’, or ‘bagel lord’. It was quickly discarded. - …Tom.”

“Tom,” Tom said tapping his chest. He pointed at her with an expectant gaze.

“Nema.” She said, tapping herself. She then pointed at the truck which was still idling.

“Truck.” Tom said, walking up to the rumbling machine and patting it’s side. “It’s not going to hurt you.” Tom knew she didn’t understand his words, but he hoped his relaxed posture and his tone would carry the message across.

Nema approached it warily, like one might approach a huge animal that could devour her at any moment.

Tom had a sudden inspiration.

“You know what, I should check the engine,” Tom said, lifting the hood up. Nema froze in place, eyes wide.

Thankfully nothing was knocked out of place. “There, nothing out of place, you didn’t cause any damage to the truck,” Tom said as she slowly approached.

“Matter of fact, I should be able to piece the windshield back together with my magic rachet. It’s just a matter of –“

Tom judged she’d come close enough, so he flipped the switch and let the hood fall down onto his arm.

“AAAIIII!” Tom screamed, falling to his knees, his arm trapped in the monster’s ‘mouth’.

Nema screamed, but rather than dash away comically as he’d hoped, she leapt forward and grabbed him, yanking him backwards and kicking the truck to separate them.

Tom’s practical joke fell flat as she leaned over him, studying his arm with intense concern, foreign words tumbling out of her mouth too fast to follow. They sounded self-blaming.

Tom had to laugh. Now, if he didn’t laugh, she would think the truck really did try to eat him.

Tom broke into a laugh, rising to his feet as she tried to hold him in place. When it became apparent that Tom could take her along for the ride like a backpack, she finally let go, dropping back into the dirt.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Tom said, walking back up to the truck, which had a footprint in the grill, and a headlight out.

That was a dumb decision.

“You see? This is a machine. It’s not an animal.” Tom said, lifting the hood again. “No teeth.” He pointed at the top of the hood before removing it entirely, showing that it was made of metal by tapping on it.

There it was. Nema’s expression went from being terrified, to sudden realization, to being pissed at his childish antics. The young woman marched up to him and pinched him viciously, but Tom couldn’t hold back the laughter, and eventually, she joined in on the joke.

Once the laughter died down, Tom pulled out the rachet, wincing as he spent another soul-pulse to reassemble the headlight, windshield and grill. Nema seemed to be in awe, pointing at Tom, saying a bunch of words he didn’t understand.

Tom didn’t know how to respond to that, so he shrugged.

About fifteen minutes later, he’d convinced her to get in the truck and go for a ride.

“Where does Nema sleep?” Tom asked, pantomiming sleeping while saying her name. Tom’s pantomime probably wasn’t great, but it seemed like she got the gist of it.

Nema pointed off to the southeast, and Tom put the truck in gear.

It only took five minutes or so to reach her village, a collection of maybe a hundred huts made of wood and stone clustered around a small well.

Tom wasn’t expecting the welcome wagon. Specifically a rock the size of a man that fell onto the hood, crushing the engine under its weight. The engine sputtered and died, rolling them to a halt. The windshield was still fine, though, and through it, he saw somewhere around a dozen lean warriors racing toward them with spears.

Tom didn’t wanna get perforated, so he turned to Nema for help.

“If you could do me a favor,” Tom said, his heart beginning to pound. “Nema.” He pointed at her. “Tell them,” Tom pointed at the bloodthirsty men rushing to save her. “Tom is cool.” He pointed at himself, then at his bright smile.

A moment later he was yanked out of the driver’s seat and his vision went white.

***Nema***

“No, don’t hurt him!” Nema said, heart pounded as the giant alia was dragged out into the open, his eyes swimming from a single punch.

“Nema, you’re alive! Vol told us you were eaten by that giant monster!” The chief said, pointing at the ‘truck’ which was in the process of being vanquished. The spears tended to shatter against the beast’s metallic hide, but rocks did the job just fine.

Nema winced. Tom would probably be upset that they killed his beast of burden.

“He’s not an alia!” Nema shouted, ignoring the chief and doing her best to cover Tom’s head and neck with her body. She was honestly too small to cover much more than that.

Still, the Vith warriors backed off, unwilling to hurt Nema.

“What do you mean? That is obviously a southerner. We kill southerners on sight, as they do to us.” The chief said.

“His language is different. It’s not a southern dialect.”

“That’s it?” The chief said. “He obviously babbled nonsense at you in order to lure you into a false sense of security.”

“That’s stupid and you know it. He didn’t have to come here. He was taking me home after Vol tried to rape me.” Nema said, her eyes narrowed. “How else to you think Vol witnessed me throw myself at a giant monster with glowing eyes? Miles outside the village. In the middle of the night?”

They had begun to draw a crowd, and many of the women were giving Vol weighing looks.

“The woman lies. She deliberately lured me out into the wastes with promises of pleasure, then took advantage of me. This is Nema we’re talking about.”

“Everyone I’ve lured miles outside the village before pleasuring, raise your hand.”

Nobody raised their hand.

“So while I was ‘taking advantage of you’, did you try to stop the monster eating me. you’d have to be pretty close for ‘taking advantage of you’ to happen, wouldn’t you? At what point was I so far away you couldn’t hope to rescue me?”

Vol’s eyes flared with hatred, and she knew she had him. He had to either admit to being a coward or being a rapist. Honestly, he was both.

The chief cleared his throat and set a hand on Vol’s shoulder. “Vol, everyone knows Nema doesn’t like you like that. Why don’t you go back to your home and get some sleep? There will be a lot of work to do in the morning.

Vol’s expression was horrifying for a split second before it disappeared behind his mask of boredom.

“Of course.” He said, turning and walking away. Nema felt a slight chill down her spine as she watched him leave. He’d just been dealt a serious blow in the village hierarchy, and he was sure to repay it.

I’ve gotta get out of this place before that comes back to me.

“In the meantime, restrain him and get old man Gunn.” The chief said. “If he isn’t a southerner, Gunn will be able to tell.”

***Tom Graves***

Tom’s world slowly came back into focus, and he found himself in a cozy little hut, illuminated by a single lamp near the center. The leather wraps around his arms and legs were concerning…

A burst of foreign language grabbed Tom’s attention. In front of Tom was an old man with a bushy white beard and hair. He was also missing his right arm from the elbow down.

The man said something, then pointed at a bowl, giving Tom an expectant look.

The man said a word than pointed at the bowl again.

“Bowl?” Tom asked. The old man nodded, then moved to another item.

Ah, we’re playing word association.

They went through several hundred words, repeating often and Tom got a bit bored, answering automatically. There were a few other bursts of foreign tongue, but Tom couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

Oddly enough, the way the words were formed sounded a little bit like the language the knights who kidnapped Ellie were speaking…

Is the guy using multiple languages to try and figure out where I’m from? Tom thought.

***Nema***

“I have no idea where he’s from,” Gunn said with a shrug.

“You’re the wise man. Wise up, already.” The chieftan said.

“I tried every trick I could think of. I went through two hundred different objects several times, and his babble never changed. I even offhandedly threatened his life in southerner, and said we planned ritualistically remove his testicles in the morning.”

“That’s terrible!” Nema said. Men needed those. Especially giant ones you could climb like a tree.

“It was just a test to get a reaction,” Gunn said eyeballing her scornfully as he itched his beard. “And the only reaction I got was bored and confused. So no, he can’t understand southerner. He’s got the look of one, but he doesn’t speak their language.”

The chieftan scratched his chin, contemplating.

“Fine. We’ll treat him as a guest. Now we just need someone to take care of him…”

Nema wiggled in her seat.

“…Maybe Nora? She’s got a calm disposition, and her children are old enough to take care of themselves.”

“I’ll do it!” Nema said.

“Nonsense, you’re engaged to Vol.” The chieftan said.

Nema made hard eye contact with the leader of the village.

“That will never happen.”

“Let me give you some advice,” Gunn said, tapping the chief on the shoulder. “Resentful women make poor partners. Leave her be.”

“But…” The chieftan motioned to her helplessly. “I swore to her father I’d see her gainfully partnered before she became too old and wound up the village comfort woman, and who better to help guide Vol in his role as the shaman, than someone who literally grew up watching the old one? It’s an ideal solution.”

“Let it be.” Gunn said, shaking his head.

“If me being partnered means so much to you and my dead father, I’ll just be Tom’s woman,” Nema said with a sly smile. A fresh, decent, unmarried man with strange foreign magicks had dropped into her lap like a fairy tale, and this time, Keera wasn’t able to steal him from her.

Nema’s former rival was way too pregnant.

“…Is Tom going to know that?” the chief asked.

“He’ll figure it out.”

The chieftan and Gunn both burst into uproarious laughter.

***Tom***

Tom woke up to a strange, warm pressure around his waist. Something was on top of him…and that sensation…

He opened his eyes and glanced down.

Suzie was sleeping on top of him, curled into a ball like a cat, radiating heat through the covers.

Oh, I thought that was going somewhere else. Having dreams is weird. He habitually dropped his soul pulses into the healing crypt in his pocket, then nodded off again.