I continued on for a while. There was still no living soul in sight. It appeared this forest either didn’t get much traffic, or today was just quiet. Either way, it made for uneventful travel, not that I minded that. I was content just being with the person I’d fallen for a while ago, even if she had no clue about it.

Her reaction when I eventually told her was one of the only things I feared. Yet, I felt compelled to let her know sooner, rather than later. I wanted to be honest with her, especially if we were going to travel together.

Would she still be willing to sleep against me? She’d seemed so peaceful in her sleep last night, and so adorable when hugging my lower head.

“Are you alright?” Cellestra’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.

I realized I’d been staring at the ground in front of me the entire time I was thinking. She must have noticed my head tilted down.

“Yeah. I’m alright. I was just… lost in thought again.”

“You seem to have that quite a bit. I’m quite worried about you Kealyna,” She spoke warmly. “To put it in your own words: don’t let yourself get distracted. There could be danger anywhere around us.”

“You forgot the part where I have two heads to think with. I’m still looking around and I’m seeing nothing nearby.”

Cellestra shook her head. “This is so confusing.”

I chuckled. “Yes. Yes, it is. I’m getting used to things pretty quickly, though.”

“I can see that,” Cellestra said with a slight smile.

“Speaking of getting used to,” I said as I stretched out my massive legs to the sides one by one. “I’m getting too used to making the same movements with my legs. I need to stretch them a bit or I’ll go crazy. What do you say we head back into the forest and make camp?”

The elf nodded. “You’re doing the walking. I’ll leave those decisions to you. It’s evening already, so I daresay it’s about time to call it a day.” She paused for a second or two as she looked at my legs. “I’m surprised you’re mentioning the stretching thing. I mean, don’t you get tired?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not at all. It’s as if these legs were made for walking extreme distances. I can go quite fast too, but I’d rather not do that with you on my back.”

“That’s fair,” Cellestra said. “We made good time as it is. I think at this rate, we’ll reach Edhil tomorrow afternoon.”

“That close?” I asked.

“Well, Arhil is just outside the forest. From there, Edhil is half a day out, but you’re much faster than the average person, so yeah.”

“That’s not so bad, then,” I said. “I’m looking forward to what Elysa will be able to answer. From there on out, I am worried that our next destination might be quite a distance away.”

“Could be. Who knows? For all you know, your parents are right around the corner in Edhil.”

I’d already started walking into the forest a while ago. Darkness was starting to fall slowly at the same time. “That would be quite the surprise, but I know that won’t be the case. If anything, they would prefer to live sort of like you do: secluded and close to nature. It’s likely to make our search quite a bit harder…”

I sighed after I said that. “I guess we’ll see what we get to know tomorrow then.” The question from before popped up in my mind again. “How do you want to spend the night anyway? I reckon one of us will have to stay up while the other sleeps.”

Cellestra nodded. “That’s pretty much the only way you can spend nights out in the forest. It’s far from ideal, but we’ll have to make it work. If you want, you can go ahead and sleep first.”

“Thank you. I’ll do that, I think. That way, I can also make sure you have a proper night,” I said, referring to her nightmares.

“I suppose that’s true as well.”

I was about to come to a halt when a very odd feeling struck me. I took a good look around and realized that despite the darkness closing in on the world, this whole area looked eerily familiar. The way the trees were spread out. The amount of green that was present. The grass that stretched the forest floor in this specific area.

It couldn’t be…

I moved through the grass slowly, looking to find out if my gut feeling was right. Then, I came to a sudden halt.

“Are you okay?” Cellestra’s voice called out softly.

I nodded, but my gaze was fixed on what was in front of me. There, not too far away, was a cave inside a hill that stretched further to the back. The stones that made out the entrance, I recognized every single one of them. There was no mistaking it. This is where I was… born into this world.

I felt a tear run down my face as memories of my first days returned. It had been a constant struggle for survival without the kind of hope that I now held for my future.

“Kealyna?” Cellestra’s voice came again.

I was still frozen as I looked at the cave entrance. Come to think of it, I never did find out what was further down inside. At the time, I didn’t think it would be possible for me to get past that snake.

I felt Cellestra jump off my back, just as another tear ran down my face. When she appeared in front of me and saw them, her face became one of worry.

“Kealyna? What’s wrong?”

“This place…” I started with a whisper. “Is where I hatched as a spider.”

Cellestra turned to look at the darkness that was within the mound before us. “What? Inside this cave?”

I could only nod at her statement. I quickly wiped the tears off my face. Why was I even crying? That was long behind me now.

The purple-eyed elf kept her gaze on me as I tried to regain my composure. She didn’t say another word. Slowly, she walked up to me and put a hand on my spider head and lightly patted it.

“Are you okay?” She whispered.

I nodded. “I’m not sure why I reacted like this. This isn’t like me.”

“You can’t always control what is going on inside you,” Cellestra continued. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

She looked back at the cave and then back at me. “Come, let’s make camp a bit away from here. I was going to suggest we do it here, but… you know.”

“Okay,” I replied softly, still a bit forlorn.

We continued walking in silence for a few minutes more. Along the way, I found a large, dead tree that I felled after repeatedly hacking away at it with my legs. After that, I held the trunk down in the dirt with my legs while summoning several earthen spikes to split it into smaller logs. We then settled nearby, just in time too, as the day was at an end.

We put some of the logs together and had a campfire running in a matter of seconds, thanks to Cellestra’s flame spell. I was about to do it myself, but she was just a tad quicker than me.

I lowered myself onto the ground, my fangs poking the dirt below, and finally stretched my legs properly. Cellestra sat down in the dirt across the campfire and finally broke the silence that had haunted us.

“Still thinking about it?” She asked in her usual gentle voice.

I shook my head. “Not really. I just… I don’t know what to say.”

“I guess it was a bit of a shock, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “I didn’t spend that much time in that cave, but I did get to experience many things in there. Most of them, I’d rather forget.”

“That’s understandable. How are you doing anyway?”

“I’m okay, I think. I mean, I can’t complain at what I’ve become now, can I?”

“You can always complain,” Cellestra said. “But I get what you mean.”

“Complaining won’t do me any good, anyway. It’s better to look forward.”

“Agreed.”

Cellestra removed the bag from her back and placed it next to her. She reached inside and pulled out some bread and a canteen.

“I’m assuming you’re not hungry?” She said.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll be for quite some time. How much did you bring with you?”

“Enough for a couple of days. I’m confident I’ll be able to stock up in Edhil, even if I can’t enter the city.”

“If what you said is true, I assume there’s not going to be an issue.”

Cellestra nodded. “That’s true.”

I stared at the campfire while I thought about the past, and the future. Hopefully, I would get an explanation from Elysa as to why I’d been turned into a spider, and by whom. What reasons did they have? Would I get any closure on it?

I had already accepted what I was now, partially thanks to Cellestra, but I couldn’t help but think about it.

Would it have been better for me to meet Cellestra without being what I had become?