Beauty and the Beast

an

Emergence story

by

clancy688

"Wake up, Sweetie! How long do you plan on staying asleep? It's nearly noon!" Her mother's voice prompted Hana to open her eyes. Golden late autumn light streaked through the caravan's windows and illuminated her. She was smiling at her daughter, but behind those twinkling eyes, Hana could feel her mother's concern hovering.  

Hana stretched her arms and yawned, giving the impression of a still not quite awake adolescent. Not that there was any point in assuming that her mother wasn't just as aware as her daughter of the fact that she'd been awake for over three hours now. While Hana surely wasn't an early bird, she normally didn't sleep as long as today.

It wasn't a case of staying as long as possible in her comfortable bed, framed by her beloved stuffed animals, either. Rather not wanting to do what followed getting out of bed, Hana gloomily reflected. And her mother knew this as well as she did. But both also knew that it was, after all, inevitable, so her mother settled for a cheerful face to make it as easy for her daughter as possible. Which was one thing, Hana was her mother immensely thankful for.

So she decided to give in her mother's play and rose from her hiding place from the world to enter the small bathroom-compartment. By a normal caravan's standards, Hana's and her mother's moving home was effectively obscenely spacious. By the 15-year old's standards, it was a cramped hell. But nonetheless a cramped hell her mother tried to make her daughter as comfortably as possible in. She'd even provided Hana with her own sleeping compartment, conceived for at least two people. But she'd decided to give Hana the space a young woman needed and instead moved onto an emergency cot in the dining compartment. Hana felt totally ashamed in face of this state of things, and often she'd tried to convince her mother in favour of a shared bedroom. But she had adamantly refused, in knowledge that there'd be times Hana would need the relative solitude this arrangement was providing. And there were indeed times when Hana was incredibly thankful for it, as well. Which didn't mean that the whole arrangement wasn't totally unfair from her point of view...

As she now looked in the mirror over the tiny sink, a young, beautiful asian face looked back. Dark, almond shaped eyes, a small, tipped nose, full, red lips. And most of all, her hair - dark, black hair, falling down to her hips, with occasional strands of glowing, glittering gold.
Most people who saw her for the first time tended to think that this remarkable hair was some kind of fusion of her father's Japanese and her mother's Caucasian genes. Her bright blond hair made this the logical assumption. Only that it wasn't true. There were traces of her mother's genes in her face, all right, especially seen in her nose, her lips, and her not quite so asian-shaped eyes. But her hair was not one of them. Her unusual hair came from a farther relative - her paternal grandmother. Hana sighed and finished her morning hygiene. In a fashion, this relative was responsible for Hana's hour-long hiding under her pillows today.

As she entered the dining compartment, the aroma of fresh pressed orange juice entered her nose, and her mother was busy cluttering around in a pink apron Hana had made for her birthday years ago. On the table, a couple of slices bread with marmalade, a steaming omelette and the orange juice were waiting for a consumer, and with a smile, Hana seated herself. She immediately started breakfast (which, considering the actual time, actually had to be called lunch) because, contrary to her, her mother indeed was an early-bird and most likely had already eaten hours ago.

But the lovingly created breakfast did help in raising Hana's spirits, so afterwards, when she started collecting her backpack and put on her shoes, she wasn't feeling as gloomy as just after "waking up" - which, unfortunately, wasn't the same as overflowing with joy either.

"I'll be gone then, mum." Hana said with a smile and faced her mother. It wasn't actually forced, but it wasn't entirely natural either. Her mother doubtlessly saw through her charade, because there still was concern hovering behind her eyes. But then she smiled, and embraced her daughter in a tight hug.

"Be careful." she whispered, and for a moment, Hana nearly felt like crying, for this woman had sacrificed nearly everything in her life to help Hana coping with her problems, and it ashamed her not being able to pay her all the things back, she'd given to Hana - and lost herself.

Hana returned the hug, and then, self-determined, disembarked their caravan. The least she could do to repay her mother was facing the challenges she prepared Hana for, but yet couldn't assist her in.

The scenery she stepped into was different than she was accustomed to. For most of her perceived life, Hana and her mother had been moving around in company of traveling carnivals. Each morning had been filled with sounds of people labouring and machines operating, for in a traveling carnival, there was always something to do.

But now, no sounds of hard labour. Instead the happy noises of children playing, of people chatting, of life and community. These noises had been present in the travling carnivals as well, but they'd always been overshadowed by labouring. Not so here. There were other, unusual noises, all right, Hana reflected, as she observed a trio of young dragons skittering around and hissing in their own language.

As her mother had heard that the government was creating camps for mythics, she had instantly abandoned the carnival community and instead moved to the next nearest camp for mythics she could locate. The decision was made not because of her mother's mythic nature. Because she was what was now being called a "Class 1", a normal human. No, it was made because of her, Hana Yamauichi, who was a mythic, thanks to her grandmother's legacy. And not only a "Class 2", a creature which was still humanlike where it counted.  Instead a "Class 3", called by courteous people "beasts", and by not so courteous people "monster" - or worse. A definition, which was not quite so unreasonably in her case, she thought scathingly. But then she shook her head. Her mother preached her again and again that she shouldn't, couldn't think of herself as a "monster" - but girl, was it hard!

Her story began nearly 20 years ago in a rural, Japanese village, deep in the mountains of Shizuoka prefecture. Her mother, a young and aspiring botanist, and her father, met there. Her mother was doing studies for a research paper, and it had been love on first sight. Luckily her father spoke excellent English, courtesy of a degree in English literature he only achieved, because he didn't had any better idea what to do with his life after high school graduation. But since he'd always wanted to leave his small home village, and he'd had not that much of a family anyway, he'd followed Hana's mother to America. As they had married, according to custom, she had changed her surname to Hana's father's, which had amused him greatly. After all, she had even less family than her husband, a state of things which could also be described as "nobody at all", so who should care anyway, as he remarked?

But her mother had always been a headstrong person, and while she didn't have much sympathy for limiting customs, that was one she was inclined to follow. When two years later a baby-girl was born, they had named her Hana - Japanese for 'flower', in remembrance of where and why they had met.

Their domestic happiness had been shattered abruptly when Hana was three years old. It was a freak accident, something nobody can prevent, nobody can be blamed for, but which still happens from time to time, causing horrible consequences.

Her father had been traveling home from work, when his car went over an ice plate. The road hat been cleared of ice before, had been salted, only one small patch had remained, stubbornly refusing to yield human control. His car had gone into a spin, going off the road and hitting the only tree besides the road within three miles. Rescue had responded fast and swiftly, and motorists had done their uttermost to help, but there are accidents when even the best of human determination can't overcome fate.

So suddenly Hana's mother had found herself alone, a widow with a three year old child to care for. Many would've had broken, but she had refused to surrender. She had quit her researcher's job at the university and taken a much poorer paid half-time job at a local laboratory to be able to care for her daughter. Which had went quite well, until a fateful day, two weeks after Hana's seventh birthday...

Hana's teeth clenched together involuntarily. Sometimes, she was cursing her grandmother's legacy. Sometimes, she was unhappy with it. And sometime, she simply took it fatalistically, like a convicted who couldn't change her fate anyway.
Her mother always tried to convince her of accepting her grandmother's legacy as a part of her being, something which made her whole, not broken. But it was hard, and so far, she hadn't been successful in her efforts.

Arriving at her selected destination deep in the forest, Hana removed her backpack and carefully observed her surroundings. Nobody to be seen, which was good. Very good. Her mother's farewell before, to "be careful", hadn't been an advice on taking care of her body. It had been advice of taking care that nobody see her true form.

Hana inhaled sharply, and then began stripping her clothes. This was the part she always hated the most. Soon there was only a naked young girl standing in the woods, shivering in the chilly autumn-wind, golden-streaked black hair flying like a shielding cape. Hana stored her clothes in her backpack and deposited it on a conveniently placed branch. She took one last breath, then went down on all fours and released the yearning which had been tormenting her body for the last two days now. Released it from the prison she had constructed herself, and it was overjoyed by its sudden freedom.

She didn't close her eyes because this would have been pointless. What she was to become, her true form, had no eyelids. And therefore she simply waited. Waited, as her arms and legs became longer and thinner at the same time. As they were joined by two other pairs of legs, identical two the first two. As her posterior began elongating, forming another body. As her mouth reshaped itself into a maw. And her eyes became black and unfocussing, fourfolding. The changes washed over her, and then it was over. Hana had entered her true form. Changed from her human beauty to what she considered an inhuman beast. Beauty and the Beast, in the same body, that's how she regarded herself.

Slowly, the huge spider got up, her eight legs probing the forest floor. She felt vibrations, bred by deer and rabbits. Her body rotating, her eyes scanning the environment. One set of four looking for colours. Another set of four looking for movement. The occasional rabbit roaming the floor. Here and there squirrels climbing trees. But no humans or mythics. Good.
Would Hana still have possessed human lungs, she would've breathed a sigh of relief. But she didn't have human lungs, instead breathed out all over her whole body.
Hana felt an exhilaration, a rightness, a joy of her body, of finally being released of her prison, of being who she really were. And she hated it. She wanted to be a human girl, but she wasn't. Instead, her true form was that of a giant spider, with long, spindly legs, an elongated back body and fancy, golden striped colouring, mirroring her hair's golden streaks.

Once her mother had persuaded Hana to let her take pictures from her while in spider-form. Hana had contended only grudgingly, she didn't want her Mom seeing her in this form. Which was actually kind of silly.

When Hana had changed for the first time, two weeks after her seventh birthday, her mother had discovered her. A frightened little girl, who suddenly found herself in a strange, hideous body, hiding her hairy torso under the blanket, all eight legs quivering in terror. It's fair to say, that out of 10000 women, 9999 would've had taken flight there and then, running until they dropped, without looking back, ever. Not so Hana's mother. She'd instantly realized what must have happened and moved in to comfort her daughter, despite her sudden, nightmarish body. She'd spent the entire night with her and finally, in the morning, Hana had managed to turn back.

So there was no point in not showing her mother her true body, one of the few people, who wouldn't dart away screaming and cursing once they'd have laid eyes on Hana's unnatural natural form. Her mother had then shown her the pictures and actually complemented her on her spider form. And she hadn't lied either. She truly thought Hana's spider body to be beautiful in its own way - a fact, Hana had denied rather forcibly. Not because she truly thought it was ugly. But rather because she feared what would happen, if she'd accept her other form as beautiful.

A beauty, which, just like her human-form beauty, was a direct product of her grandmother's legacy.

Back when her father had proposed to her mother, he'd also told her his family's most guarded secret: That his whole family wasn't quite human. That his mother was, in fact, a Youkai, a Japanese demon, in human form. A Jorogumo, an ancient species of demons, who was a giant spider, taking the form of beautiful young women and luring unsuspecting and lovestruck males into doom.

Those were ancient folktales, of course. With a grain of truth, but folktales. Her grandmother and her ancestors had long realized that preying on humans wasn't the most economical way to survive. It had filled their stomachs, at least shortly, but the following hunts by enraged villagers, looking for revenge for their prey-fallen fellows, had gone badly for the Jorogumo all too often. So finally they had decided to settle down, to coexist with humans, becoming wives instead of hunters. The transition hadn't been easy, but they'd managed. One peculiar detail of Jorogumo was that they could only reproduce with humans - because there are no male Jorogumo. That also means that male children of Jorogumo are fully human - such as Hana's father.

Unfortunately, they still carry the Jorogumo legacy inside their genes. So if they sire a daughter, even with a normal human woman, there's a chance that this child will become a Jorogumo as well.

Her mother had been shocked at first upon this revelation, but she'd gradually accepted it. And their common wish for children had been that great that they'd decided to take the risk. When Hana had been born, both had looked warily for any signs which would indicate that Hana was a Jorogumo. Which they hadn't found any. So both had thought that they'd dodged the bullet - until the fateful night.

And suddenly, her mother had found herself the single parent of a child with a mythic legacy and absolutely nobody to tell her what to do. For Hana, it had been infinitely worse. She'd been a normal child, a normal girl, one who was playing with puppets and frightened of dogs, one with a cheerful personality. And suddenly she had found herself with a body which until now only had hunted her in especially vicious nightmares.

After she'd managed to turn herself back, she'd simply tried ignoring the fact of her other form. She'd treated it as her worst nightmare yet, but only that - a nightmare. Nothing real. Which had worked quite well for a couple of months - until she had suddenly turned Jorogumo again. Thankfully, it happened again at home and not in public.

But now her mother had slowly realized the problem. Whatever Hana had wanted to believe, the spider, the Jorogumo, was an integral part of her. And if she locked it away, she locked a part of herself away, stripping half of her soul of its freedom. And then, eventually, the urging would become that great that she couldn't hold back anymore, that she'd become a Jorogumo again, uncontrolled.

If that would happen at home, fine. That she could deal with. But if it would happen at school...

If Hana had been frightened by her true form, then her mother had been frightened of what would happen if Hana transformed in public. That would be catastrophe, the police would probably should her outright. A giant spider in a school. Never mind where the damn thing came from, first stop it from eating the children, THEN start asking questions.

To prevent this, to give her other half of her soul what it was craving for, Hana had to change into her spider-form regularly, and the older she became, the more often she had to change. Which had posed another problem. How would she be able to do this without anyone spotting her eventually? A six feet spider isn't that easy to overlook, and Hana's mother had concluded correctly that, if Hana's spider-body measured six feet from front to back at her human age of seven, she'd be much larger as an adult.

So her mother had figured that there was only one way out. She had quit her laboratory job, sold her house and bought a mobile home. Then she had joined the next traveling carnival coming to the county, working as cashier, always on the move. That way, Hana could change into her spider-form regularly, and even if she was seen, it was only once, because she wasn't staying for longer than a week. And a one-time sighting is obviously a false alarm. The spotter having been drunken. Or crazy. Or similar. After all, it was widely known that giant monsters are alone child's talk, aren't they?

Of course this arrangement had had downsides. The once-cheerful Hana had suddenly found herself yanked out of her accustomed environment, coping with a (from her standpoint) entirely unreasonable and incredibly frightening situation, leaving all her friends behind.

And she had been that frightened of revealing herself to other kids that she had shut herself in for the first months. It hadn't been that the other kids of her age in the traveling carnival had been mean, because they hadn't. But when they'd tried to get to know Hana, and Hana had retreated fearfully from their advances, they'd taken this as arrogance.

And by the time Hana had slowly recovered, the damage had been done. She had been the pariah, the girl nobody had wanted to play with. And not only that. By now, her confidence had taken a brutal blow, instead she'd developed a severe shyness. Her physical beauty which had now begun to emerge, courtesy of her grandmother's Jorogumo legacy, had made everything worse.

For the time the traveling carnival had rested in a town, the carnival's children had been sent to the local schools. Here, Hana's unusual beauty had made her short-time classmates precarious. Coupled with her shyness, they'd all too often concluded that Hana had been simply arrogant, considering herself better than the rest because of her beauty.

If she'd have had more time in each school, there'd have surely emerged someone who would've realized what really had lurked under this armour of silent beauty - an insecure, lonely girl, desperately longing for friendship. Unfortunately, one week is not enough for such a discovery, so Hana had spend her time as a child and now a young teenager mostly alone.

Her mother had been heartbroken to see her daughter suffering through no fault of her own, but there had been nothing she could do.

Actually, now with the mythic emergence and the camp, her mother was somehow hoping for improvement. If they'd move to a camp where other people like her, other kids like her, lived, there'd be a chance for accepting Hana for what she was. Or, even more importantly, a chance for Hana to accept herself for what she was.

She herself wasn't so sure about that. She had followed all TV-reports about the emergence closely, and while there was a large range of mythical being reported about, she had yet to spot a single report about some sort of giant spider beast. Or even something remotely similar. Hell, she would even have settled for giant ladybugs, but nothing!

Therefore she and her mother had agreed on continuing as always and keeping her true-form secret - for now. But she still needed her regular time in spider-form. And not only that. She also needed food to keep her spider-form from starving. Another point of her Jorogumo nature which took a lot adjusting to.

Hana's mother had realized the problem early on and tried to challenge it. In which she'd been quite unsuccessful, despite her many tries. Hana's spider-form was fundamentally different from her human form, which also held true for its digestive organs. Typical hard food, the kind mammals normally eat, simply didn't work. After a bit of research, Hana's mother had realized the problem. Spiders are mainly doing their digesting partly out of their body. By injecting their prey with a venom which dissolves its inner flesh, so that after some time the spider will be able to suck its food as predigested juice out of its prey's body.

The explanation of this fact, done by Hana's mother to her daughter, who already had been completely disgusted by her sudden emergence of her other form, had been one of the bigger feats in human history. In fact, based on the patience and obstinacy involved, it probably ranged somewhere between the erection of the pyramids and Magellan's tour of the globe.

Anyhow, Hana's mother had managed it, only God knows who, and Hana herself had begun trying to hunt - and feed - in her true form. Kicking and screaming all the way, but at least managing to keep her true form from starvation.

And today was not only one of the days where she had to become the Jorogumo to prevent "accidents" from happen, but also a day where she had to hunt.

Hana had found it to be easier to let her spidery instincts take over. She didn't like it because when she did so, she felt more beastly than humanly, but it helped - and so she accepted this grudgingly. It was so now, too.

Her eight legs were probing the soil for the location of the deerpack. Based on the vibrations she felt, probably still a mile away she concluded. Slowly she began walking forward, her long, spindly legs cautiously and silently stalking the ground. Soon, her eyes spotted a pair of trees, ideally suited for her purposes, located about fifty feet besides each other.

She stalked to one tree, pressing her large abdomen against it and releasing her silkglands. Carefully she crossed over to the other tree, spanning a child-arm thick strand of sticky silk. Connected to the other tree, the strand became a thick trickwire floating several inches above the ground. Hana probed the strand with one leg and then, pleased with its performance, departed the location of her trap.

It took nearly two more hours to bypass the deerpack without them noticing her, but then Hana was in position, the animals exactly between her location and her trap. Slowly she began stalking forwards, stopping now and then and probing the ground for vibrations, to realign her position with the deerpack's. The herd was now only several hundred yards away, without any realization of what came stalking upon them. A human hunter would've seen them by now, but Hana's eyes weren't human. One part of them only saw shapes and colours, the other part only movement. Something naturally camouflaged like a deer was impossible to make out for her, at least as long as it was standing still. But Hana wasn't concerned. The vibrations in the bottom told her enough, the pack was still unsuspecting... and in this exact moment, her eyes spotted movement. A deer, raising its head startled and looking in her direction, seeing the gold and black spider crouching closer.

It warned the whole pack and suddenly, Hana's vision became alive with moving shapes, the whole deerpack in flight. It didn't matter. The trap was already set.

Thanks to her instincts, Hana didn't think much. She simply exploded out of her crouched, careful sneak and began taking after the fleeing deerpack, all eight legs pounding on the ground. The pack spread, but that didn't matter either. There, a trio of deer, making for the location of her trap. Hana followed the panicked deer, forming a looming threat behind them, pushing them farther into the direction she wanted them to take.

In a straight-up, fair race, Hana in her spider-form wouldn't have had even a snowball's chance in hell to catch a running deer. But unfortunately for the deer in question, nature normally wasn't fair - and they went right through Hana's pre-built trap. Two of them managed to evade the sticky silk strand, more out of luck than of everything. But the third one hit the strand with full force with his front hooves and crashed to the ground brutally. The impact alone would've stunned it, keeping it from fleeing, but the sticky strand kept it captured like a leash.

As one of the three moving shapes went down, Hana immediately realized what had happened and reduced her speed. She wasn't capable of moving that fast for long and didn't want to burn too many calories. So she made towards her trap at a more leisure pace. The deer was still out, shaken from the fall and stunned, which was quite fine for Hana.

This was the part she hated the most. All the more with her prey struggling. She stopped over her prey, and then let her spider instincts take over again. She opened her giant chelicerae, vicious fangs the size of large daggers, and then plunged them deep into the fallen deer. It jerked in pain, but then started losing focus soon. Her fangs' poison flew into the animal, together with digestive juices, and she let her fangs buried in the deer's body for well over five minutes. As she pulled them out, the deer was long dead.

Now came the hard work. With four legs she fixated herself on the ground. With the other four, she moved the dead carcass gently to her silk glands and began coating it in silk. It took another five minutes, and then the carcass had been embedded in a silken cocoon. Hana packed her prey and began dragging it to her hide.

It was actually a small cave she'd discovered the first time she'd roamed this forest in her true form, camouflaged by leaves and branches. Now she pushed the cocoon into the cave and exchanging it for a second, slightly smaller cocoon she removed from the cave. It contained a deer she'd caught during her last hunt.

The first time Hana had done this, she had been sure that she'd vomit. Which, of course, didn't happen. First of all, spiders apparently can't vomit. And second, they have no tastebuds. And by now, she'd become accustomed to the way her spider body was consuming food. Accustomed only. If she thought about it in human form, it still gave her goosebumps and nausea.

So now she put her fangs into the old cocoon and, additionally, inserted her mouth - basically just a sucking tube. Then she began sucking the deer's inner flesh, liquidated by her venom and digestive juices, through. She was feeding on the carcass for several minutes, until there was only an empty hull left and her stomach was full.

Well, that should do for the next two to three weeks, Hana thought, while she was covering her hide with moss and trees again. Then she began her way back to her backpack, to change into her human form again.

She was nearly there when she abruptly paused. Because her eyes had spotted movement ahead. Movement, which shouldn't be there, a tiny part of her brain whispered. She had looked out for treacherous vibrations, damn! And there had been nothing!

On the other hand, the figure sitting on a tree, barely a dozen yards away, and now turning to face Hana, held something square in her hand. If she had been setting there the whole time, reading a book, of course she wouldn't have picked her up! And the way her eyes worked in this form, she couldn't have seen an unmoving person until she literally bumped into her. And thanks to Hanas silent movement in spider-form, the person didn't realize she was coming either, since she wasn't looking out in her direction in the first place!

Hana was nearly panicking. It had been clear to her mother and her that she wouldn't be able to keep her true-form secret, not here, not with all those other mystics around. But to be seen so early, that was too fast... a part of her mind was gibbering fearfully, while another part examined the person moving in front. There was something different, something which didn't fit to how a normal human should look like.

Hana was already in the process of setting her main body down on the bottom of the forest, in a gesture to signalize that she didn't mean any harm. Not that anyone who suddenly faced a giant spider heads on would realize the gesture as such. She'd probably think the spider was contracting for the final jump to reach its prey...!

But then the person had finished her move and looked at Hana directly. She was so near that Hana could see her clearly, despite her bad eyes, could see that the person was female, that she had coppery skin, with scaly patches all over her arms and legs. Bright green eyes which went wide in surprise. And hairs, something about the hairs, how they moved... and then suddenly everything became... well... peacefully was probably the best word.

Hana suddenly found herself totally at peace. Her body became rigid, an icy warm flowed through her veins, comforting her, shaping her into solidness. She couldn't move anymore, and Hana didn't care. She couldn't feel her body anymore, and yet perceive the wind and forest. She couldn't see anymore, and yet be aware of her surroundings.
The stranger ran away startled, and Hana still didn't care. She just... was at peace. Forever.

She didn't know how long she had been in this state, as she somehow realized that the stranger was coming back. But she didn't care. The stranger moved closer to her, circled her, and Hana didn't care.

But then suddenly the stranger bent forward and planted a kiss on Hana's body. And the icy warm from before reversed itself, becoming a warming ice flowing out of here body. And then, her senses were back. She felt her body again, heard, again, saw again, all of it, crashing down on her. Hadn't she already been lying on the ground, she would have collapsed here and now. Her whole body was convulsing, but now, that the stranger was merely inches away from her head, she saw a clear image of her. A young woman, not much older than her. Bright, green, eyes, coppery skin, and now her hairs were covered in a scarf.

"I'm sorry." she whispered. And slowly retreated. Hana wanted to follow her, but her body wouldn't obey. It took nearly half an hour, until she managed to get up again, and by that time, the stranger was already gone.

Shaken to the core, Hana managed to stagger back to the place where she deposited her backpack. Even her human body was trembling, and slowly and carefully she went back to the camp.

What the heck just happened? She asked herself. Who was that stranger? And what had she done to her? She must have spent at least an hour in this... condition the stranger had put her into, judging from the suddenly longer shadows and lower sun.

Hana thought carefully. She probably was a mystic, or a mage, that was the only explanation for what had happened to her. So then she must be somewhere in the camp...

I need to find her! Hana realized. Not only because she wanted to know what had happened before. But also because... because that girl hadn't been afraid, it dawned on Hana. Startled, yes. But not... afraid. And later, when she had...reversed whatever she had done to Hana, she hadn't been fearful either. There had been sorrow and embarassement... but no fear! Someone who wasn't afraid of her spider form!

By now, she could see the camp's lights starting to appear in the encroaching darkness of the beginning autumn's night. She crossed the boundary which separated the forest from the large clearing the government had assigned to the mythics. Determined, Hana entered the camp. She would find her mysterious stranger!

But five minutes later, she started to realize that this task wouldn't be that easy. How in God's name should she spot somebody she'd only seen clearly for an instant in this beehive of human and mythic activity? Aimlessly she wandered the camp's alleys, formed by scores of caravan's parked in parallel. Bonfires lit the scenery, illuminating human, humanlike and beastly shapes crowding the fireplaces, seeking for warmth in the chilling night and chatting all the while.

The variety of forms was mindboggling. Humans, Nagas, Gryphons, Tengu, Phoeni, beasts and anthropomorphs she didn't even know the name of, intermingled by humans, and all of them chatting, laughing and playing peacefully. And nowhere even a trace of the stranger from the forest.

Discontented, Hana gave up after half an hour and began her track back to her caravan. She took a shortcut, circling around the main bulk, when suddenly she spotted a trio of caravan's parked slightly away from the others. But there was also a bonfire, and also movement. Over the distance, the adult and young males looked fairly normal to Hana's eyes, but all females, even little girls, where wearing scarfs which completely covered their hair. They almost looked like muslims, only that besides the scarfs, they were wearing normal clothing like jeans and t-shirts. Something about those people bothered Hana, and then it flashed through her mind. The scarfs! The stranger from before had worn a scarf as well! Hana's heart began beating furiously. Had she been lucky and indeed found her mysterious stranger's home?

Slowly she lurked closer to the camping site, hiding behind a tree and carefully glimpsing at those figures. Everything about them looked pretty normal from here, but there was nobody who looked remotely similar to the woman she'd seen in the woods. Should she just go to them, and ask?

Yeah, right. Hana snorted innerly. Just going up. Hi, my name's Hana. By the way, I'm the big spider one of you bewitched today in the woods. Nice to meet ya. Hope we'll be good neighbours. She could just imagine how THAT was going to end...

Hana was still busy thinking, working her mind furiously, when a finger tipped on her shoulder. Startled, Hana whirled around, gaping at the girl standing behind here with an irritated look on her face. Her coppery face, with bright green, and hairs covered by a scarf. The body dressed in a loose t-shirt, showing some sort of space-battle, a leathery jacket against the cold, scuffed jeans and fairly new sneakers. The visible skin covered by patches of scales, here and there.

"What, exactly, is it you're doing here behind the trees?" the girl Hana now had just met the second time for today, asked her with a raised eyebrow. "Because to me it awfully looks like stalking."

"Um... no... that's not... I mean..." Hana stammered helplessly and her thoughts were racing. There she was, the appearance from the forest, and all her preconstructed plans and phrases she'd carefully drawn up in her mind during her search for speaking to the stranger simply disappeared like a puff of smoke.

The other girl apparently wasn't keen on wasting time with incoherent babble. "Yes? Just spit it out already! Or we'll still be here by morning!"

Her frank openness practically terrified shy Hana. On the other hand, it washed away her defenses like a tsunami burying a sandcastle and she simply blurted it out.

"Ijustwantedtothankyouforreversingwhateveryoudidtome!"

Now the girl actually grinned. "Okay, now that was to fast. Something between this and your previous stammering would be magnificent, thank you very much. So you want to thank me for... what exactly?"

"Um..." Hana looked to the ground shyly. "We already met today."

The girl's eyebrow rose again. "We did? When? And where?"

"In the forest... I... surprised you... or rather, you surprised me... oh hell, let's just say we both surprised each other, that sound's about right. Anyway, we met, you... did something to me... and then you came back and reversed it. Thanks... for that."

Now the other eyebrow joined her follow. The girl bent forward, closely examining Hana. And focusing on her golden streaked, black hair.

"You're the spider from before?" she asked, and even though the girl still sounded self-assured, Hana could hear a small bit of genuine surprise in her answer.

Hana only nodded, bracing herself for the storm she totally knew would come crashing on her in the next moment. She only hoped that the girl wouldn't dart away, screaming bloody murder and crying for her companions to brace themselves for the monster which had undoubtedly come to ravage their small community. Which was why the girl's refusal to do anything remotely connected to this scenario left Hana bewildered.

"Oh. That's cool." she only stated grinning, in the same tone one would comment on one's clothing. Oh, that new top you're wearing, it's cool. Oh, you're a giant, evil spider monster, that's also cool. Hana's jaw hit the bottom. This was madness! For years she had KNOWN what would happen when someone besides her mum realized her secret, and this girl was the first one, as Hana suddenly realized. She'd just told a total stranger that she was a monster! And the stranger obviously didn't care. What the hell was going on?

"Um... you're... not afraid of me?"

The girl looked at her, deadpanned. "No. Why should I?"

"Because I'm a monster!" Hana argued hoarsely.

"You looking like a normal girl to me, a cute one to boot." her opposite countered.

"But I'm a giant spider in my true form!!!"

"So you're going to eat me when you're a spider?"

"What? No!" Hana retorted. "Of course I won't. Why should I do such a thing!"

"Well, why should I be afraid of you then...? There are enough class 3 beasts running around here. Dragons, for example. Sometimes there's a Gryphon flying around. And if I'm not mistaken, there's even a six-headed hydra roaming the lake. And yet we're still all alive and there's no monster armageddon happening. So where, exactly, is the problem of one more beast?"

"Because..." Hana began, but then her voice trailed off, the other girl looking at her expectant. In a logical sense, she was right. Why should she be afraid of her? With multitudes of other beasts crouching around.

Because I'm a damn, giant spider, that's why! Another part of her brain whispered. That's the way the world works. Everybody is afraid of spiders, even the more of giant spiders, dammit! But this girl apparently didn't. Hana surrendered.

"Okay... I guess you're right." she said in a faltering voice.

"Yeah, I know. That's one thing I'm often." the girl exclaimed in a totally not arrogant tone of voice, like she was stating a well known fact. "And since this is, apparently, our second meeting, I'd say that introductions are in order. I'm Miranda, what's your name?"

Taken by surprise, Hana automatically grabbed Miranda's outstretched hand. "Um... nice to meet you, I'm Hana."

"Hana? Like 'flower' in Japanese?" Miranda asked interested, and for the second time, Hana was gaping at Miranda.

"You know Japanese?"

"Oh, not really." Miranda abnegated. "I had a Japanese phase once. Great fan of anime and manga, oh that had been times... anyway..."

She looked Hana in the eyes. "I think that an apology is in order. I'm sorry for what happened today in the forest. But you startled me and I had not enough time to get my scarf out. And your sudden appearance chased me away for quite a way until I remembered that it may be in order to reverse the change. And then it took me some time to find the spot again."

"Oh..." Hana cheeped. Miranda's manner of idly conversation totally steamrollered her.

"That's okay. You reversed it, after all. Although..." she bend her brows. "What, exactly, did you reverse?"

Miranda eyed her sceptically. "You mean, you didn't realize what had happened? Well, that's easy to explain. I accidentally petrified you."

"Oh, okay, so that's what it had been. You had petrief- WAIT, WHAT?" Hana stared at Miranda, shocked.

"Yes, that's right." she nodded. "I'm a Gorgon. And below my scarf..." she pointed to her head. "...are the snakes my kind has for hairs. Little buggers, quite annoying sometimes, especially when they pretend they're hungry. Which they can't be, because they don't have stomachs in the first place! Okay, unimportant side information, store away or discard, where did I stop? Oh, yes, my kind. Gorgon's and stuff. And... when a mortal being lays eyes on our snakes, they... well... petrify."

"But..." Hana said dazed. "Aren't Gorgon's supposed to be that ugly that her appearance is- oh!" appalled Hana covered her mouth with her hands, realizing what she had said to Miranda. Who took the insult totally, practically maddening indifferently.

"Oh, no harm done. That's a common mistake."

She began grinning. "You know, most of the stories about our - let's call them 'deeds' - come from ancient Greece writers. They had to use eyewitness accounts for their stories, and that was, in our case, somehow a problem. Back then we had been different creatures, not as civilized as now. And to get an eyewitness account, you naturally need an eyewitness. Which, of course, there wasn't any. Let's just say nobody who actually saw a Gorgon's face came back to tell stories of it. So they had to figure out for themselves how we were looking. The part about the snakes they got right. That's probably this slimy narcissist ass' Hercules' fault who spilled the beans."

She shot an amused glance to Hana who was gaping again.

"Hey, we Gorgons don't like Hercules much." she explained. "That should be understandable, you know. The guy practically wiped out a third of our early population in just one day. Anyway, actually we're kinda nice looking, as you can see. Except for the hair, of course."
Hana shook herself, totally taken away be the Gorgon's talkativeness. A tiny part of her brain gibbered, that this was probably the longest conversation she had with someone who wasn't her mom for... years? But somehow, she didn't want it to end.

"So..." she asked unsteady and pointed at Miranda's scarf. "Under this are your... snakes?"

"Oh, yes." Miranda responded cheerfully and tapped her head. "Obnoxious little fellows, that you can believe!"

"And they are... not moving?"

"Nope. Actually, they are kind of boozed. Old family recipe. Some kind of tea which somehow calms them down. Wouldn't do for us to run around with scarfes covering our heads when the thing's moving and shifting because the snakes are agitated."

She put one hand under her scarf and gently pulled something green, scaly out... something with a snake's head and weary eyes. It was definitely alive, but very sluggish. And yet... as Hana stared at it, she felt the same, icy warm sensation from before, in the forest. Not nearly as powerful, but it was there. And her whole body was suddenly more... rigid.

Miranda put the snake-hair away under her scarf again and eyed Hana amused. "What you're feeling are the effects of the snake's magic. There's a specific threshold which triggers a petrification. You need to see a certain amount of snakes at once to come under the influence of the spell. One snake alone would probably be enough for small animals and babies, but everyone else should only be... hampered by them.

Hana blinked. "And when I met you before in the forest..."

"...I didn't have my snakes stunned, because it's a numb sensation, which, while being bearable, isn't all that pleasant. And when you came sneaking around the corner and I turned to face you, you saw nearly all of them at once. And immediately were influenced by the spell."

And now, Miranda suddenly looked concerned and... contrite. "You actually had really big luck. Because you lied yourself down moments before the petrification began, nothing bad happened to your body?"

"Nothing bad? What do you mean, nothing bad?"

Miranda looked at Hana apologetically. "When your body changed to stone, its composition changed. And its weight. And its elasticity. For a human body, that's not of great concern. For your spidery body... well, if you still had stood on your legs, your thin legs would suddenly have been pure stone. And would have had to support your main body's weight, also stone. Which, quite probably, would've shattered all your legs. And all the damage you receive while being petrified gets transferred into your normal body once you change back. That would've been... ugly."

"Wow... big luck indeed." Hana whispered, shocked at how close the bullet she'd dodged had been. But there was still one thing. "You said you changed me back... how? And why was I still somehow aware... despite that I was, as you said, carved out of stone."

"Um..." Miranda stroked her chin, thinking. "That's hard to explain for novices in magic, but I'll try to make it easy: A living body is like an anchor to your immortal soul. Once the anchor disappears, the soul is freed. Freed means, that it's gone. Going to Nirvana. Heaven. The other side. Another dimension. Another world. There are many concepts, but none is fact, since we simply don't know where souls go when their anchor is gone. We just know that they are going. And that, in order to 'cross' over to whatever objective they're going to, they are traveling through some kind of boundary between this world and the next. Now when someone is petrified by a Gorgon, by normal standards, his living body is gone, the anchor's broken and the soul's released. You with me so far?"

Hana nodded, but she needed to concentrate intensely to follow.

"Well, what actually happens is, that Gorgons are changing every atom, every quark, or whatever human scientists name the things matter is made of, into that of another material. Granit, marble, crystal, you name it. Yes, Gorgons can change living being's flesh into an inanimte material of their choice, as long as it's above a certain hardness. But at the same time, they infuse a kind of backup, where each and every change is written up. Like a construction manual. So tapping into this 'construction manual' lets us change the body back into living flesh. In order to conserve the manual, we have to embed it into part of the victim's life energy - ki, chi, the holy breath - again many words for the same concept. This has a nice side effect - the ki is also acting as the soul's anchor. But it's not for eternity. Without a living body to refill it, the ki will be dwindling, and the soul's anchor-line will become longer and longer - it will gradually cross into the boundary zone, which will also diminish the soul's awareness of this world."

"So the... awereness of my surroundings, which wasn't quite seeing, or hearing, or whatever... that was how my... soul perceives the world without my living senses?" Hana asked breathlessly.

Miranda nodded. "Essentially. In a normal living body, the soul's anchor is so massive, so strong, that it's blotting away the soul's perception of reality. Therefore it appears to you as if you're ONLY seeing with your mortal senses. What happened to you today was something in the middle between a petrification with a strong, induced anchor and one with a very weak anchor. It's kind of a 'default' setting which happens when we Gorgons don't start a petrification process willingly. Had I actually concentrated on changing you, and concentrated on inducing as much ki as possible to preserve your 'construction manual' for as long as possible, you'd have started with an awareness which tops your human senses slightly, and a timespan of nearly two years until the anchor-line would've ripped. As it was, I only managed to infused you with enough ki for slight awareness and a timespan of not more than one month."

She looked into Hana's eyes again. "Does that suffice for an explanation?"

"Yes." Hana whispered, while her mind was buzzing with new concepts and information. "You said... concentrating on changing. So you still do... change living beings... people?"

"Yes, we do." Miranda said calmly, but then frowned upon Hana's face. "Oh hush. Only if they consent, of course. My aunt Amanda is actually trying to make some kind of business out of it. You probably noticed that you had reached a state of utter peace during your time as stone?"

Hana nodded confirming.

"That's another side effect from being 'only' a soul, without having a mortal body distracting you constantly. So aunt Amanda thought about offering this peace of mind to stressed people on a money base. They pay to get turned into statues for a short time and in turn experience peace. Until shortly we'd only done this with our male family, but my aunt Amanda is confident in her business plan."

Hana's ears pricked up. "You said... male family... are there only female Gorgons?"
"Yup." Miranda said and Hana beamed.

"Then we have one thing in common. There are only female Jorogumo as well."

"Oh, interesting. Jorogumo, so that's the name of your species?" Miranda asked interested. "I've talked about my species for so long, that now you should talk about yours. So you're a giant spider. Considering your name, probably Japanese. What's your story?"

"My story?" Hana asked nonplussed. Like, her life's story? That was easy. My life sucks. Hard. Period. But Miranda only rolled her eyes.

"No, dummy. Your species' story. There must be some kind of folk tale. I've yet to encounter a mythic who doesn't have one. After all, that's the reason why they are called 'mythics' in the first place!"

"Oh." Hana made a face. "Not much to say, really. Jorogumo are female spiders who change into beautiful woman to prey on unsuspecting, lovestruck men."

Miranda ogled her. "So you're basically a man eating monster. Oh girl, that's... just great!" she started to laugh that her eyes filled with tears.

Hanna glared at her. "What's so funny?" she demanded angrily.

"Oh, nothing..." Miranda gasped. "I just tried imagining you, you, the cute, shy girl, actually being a men-feeding femme fatale. That's too good, thanks for this moment, really, I appreciate it!"

"That's not funny!" Hana inserted angrily, while Miranda tried bringing her amusement under control. Failing at the task.

"Oh yes, it is. Whatever devine being created your kind knew what it was doing. If you put your heart in it, your beauty would be a death trap for any unsuspecting man - and for most of the suspecting as well. But if you don't want to think so, well, I'll stop."

It took a while until Miranda was able to converse normally again, all the while being glowered on by Hana.

"So, Hana, what brought you into the forest?"

"Hunting!" Hana replied fast, thankful for the change of subject. Only to realize a couple of microseconds to late, that this was exactly the wrong topic?

"Men?" asked Miranda with a dead-serious face, and began giggling again, as Hana's scowl reappeared.

"Okay, okay, I'll behave." she grinned and twinkled. Hana wanted to retort with a hot remark, but then refrained. Somehow... she couldn't be angry at Miranda, she realized. Somehow the other girl's cheerfulness was quite infecting.

"Yeah, okay..." she said. "It's a kind of touchy subject for me, you know? But... what were you doing in the woods? Besides letting your snakes freely fly in the wind?"

Miranda ignored her last remark and grinned even broader. "Reading. It's kind of cramped here in the caravans and there's no space for one to be alone and read. So I love to take my books into the forest and read there."

"Oh, that's great!" Hana exclaimed happily. "I'm also a big fan of reading books. What are you reading at the moment?"

"Do you know David Weber?" Miranda responded, and Hana pondered.

"Nope, he's unknown to me. But the name sounds German. German poetry perhaps?"

For the first time in their entire conversation, Hana now saw Miranda perplexed and dumbstruck.

"Poetry?" she coughed. "POETRY? Not even close!" she threw her hands up in exasperation. "He's writing military sci-fi!"

"Oh, okay." Hana said. "What's military Sci-Fi?

Miranda closed her eyes and seemed to count to ten internally.

"Military sci-fi is about conflicts between human powerblocks, about conspiracies and similar machinations, about backroom politics. Basically all those things which happen in Jack Ryan books, only in the future and mostly in space."

"Who is Jack Ryan?"

Miranda capitulated. "You know... why don't I just lend you one of his books, then you can read for yourself. What do you say?"

"Hm... sounds reasonable. Why not?"

Miranda beamed. "Okay, wait a moment, I'll be back shortly!" she darted away towards the trio of caravans which had originally spawned Hana's interest and disappeared in one of them. It took her less than a minute, until she came out again, holding a large, leatherbound book in her hand.

"That's On Basilisk Station, one of David Weber's earliest and best works." she explained proudly. "A 20th anniversary edition, leatherbound and handsigned by David himself!"

Carefully, Hana stretched out her hands for the book from Miranda's hands. "Okay... thank you, I'll be careful with it!"

"Wait!" Miranda said and held out a stopping hand. "There one thing I'd like you to do before." she said grinning.

"And that... would be?" Hana asked cautiously.

"I'd like to see you in your Jorogumo form again, would that be possible?"

Hana gasped. "What? Why? No!"

"Oh come on!" Miranda practically begged. "Please! I've only seeing you shortly before. I'd really like to view your true form again."

"But you'll be afraid! My true form is terrifying!" Hana retorted defensively.

Miranda disagreed. "Nope. You're powerful in your true form, granted. But I'm not afraid. After all, it will still be you, the cute, petite girl, only in a slightly different package. And before, in the forest, I came back. Would I have done so if I had been afraid of you?"

Hana sensed that she was losing the argument. "I'll at least scare your family!" she said desperately and gesticulated in direction of the bonfires behind.

"Na, the fire's blotting away their nightvision. They wouldn't see Godzilla passing their camp by thirty yards."

"But I'll have to strip in front of you!"

"So? We're both girls."

"And it's dark, you won't be able to see me!"

"Gorgon's have very good nightvision."

The argument raged back and forth, everyone of Hana's arguments countered effortlessly by Miranda. Damn the girl, she was actually looking as if she was having fun doing this debate.

Finally, Hana gave in.

"Okay..." she said, stripping her clothing. "But only for a short time. I don't want any other human or mythic to see me!"

"Yeah, thanks." Miranda grinned.

Hana folded her clothes on a neat pile, freezing in the cold night. Then she made shooing motion in Miranda's direction.

"Please put some distance between you and me. My spider form is big."

Miranda obeyed and retracted a couple of steps and then eyed Hana eagerly.

Hana took a heavy breath. The whole thing was crazy! Changing in front of a stranger. On the other hand, quite many of her preconceptions had been turned upside down today, and it wasn't as if she could do additional damage.

She focused on the change, and in the next moment, her body was extending, changing shape, growing bigger...

Miranda watched fascinated as Hana's beautiful body seemed to distort, become something entirely different. She stepped forward and eyed the large spider which had taken Hana's place, squatting on the ground.

Hana herself waited warily while Miranda contemplated her form. She could feel her moving around, not see her. Her eyes were bad enough in the day. In the night, she was effectively blind.

But then she suddenly felt a human hand stroking her left forward leg's fur, and instinctively she twitched. Besides her mother, nobody had ever touched her spider shape, and the sensation of another hand stroking her fur was alien.

"Oh my, you're a touchy one." Miranda chuckled and looked at Hana admiringly. "But I have to say, you're quite a beautiful creature. So large and yet gracefully... and then your golden colouring. And your fur is so soft..."

Hana couldn't believe it. Miranda was actually complimenting her on her nightmarish form. Somehow, this innocent meeting was shattering each and every assumption Hana had ever contemplated.

"Not that talkative when in your true form, are you?" Miranda asked now. "Can you even talk?"

Well, of course she couldn't. But her mother had faced the same problem, and they'd devised a system to communicate. Hana didn't quite like it, but at least it was workable. And therefore, she now clicked both her fangs loudly together twice.

"Oh, my." Miranda said. "Those are some wicked claws. Was this supposed to be a no? Two times clicking no, one times yes?"

Hana clicked acknowledging and Miranda laughed.

"Well, that's great... because I have a question. May I climb on your back?"

Hana was dumbstruck. Climb on her back? Even her mother had never done this. She didn't even know if it was possible! What if she fell down after climbing up?"

"Oh come on, it'll will be fun!" Miranda exclaimed. "Just sit down on the ground and I'll climb on your back. I'll even remove my shoes!"

Grinning, she slipped out of her shoes and Hana sighed inwardly. Compared to whatever else had happened today, letting a class 2 sit on her back wouldn't be that strange.

So she complied and Miranda went to her right side, using her middle legs as a step ladder. She was climbing like a cat and soon making herself comfortable on Hana's sternum, right behind her eyes. It felt... strangely comforting having human feet treading her back.

"Wow, you're really plushy up here!" Miranda exclaimed and ruffled through her fur. "I wouldn't mind sleeping up here. So... do you think you can carry me?"

You bet, Hana thought snorting. How weak did Miranda think a spider of her size was? She stood up on all her legs and Miranda cried out happily, as she found herself lifted ten feet in the air suddenly.

"Wow, that's great!" she exclaimed. "Come on, let's make a short trip."

What? Hana thought. No! And denyingly she clicked her fangs twice.

"What?" Miranda asked. "Why not? You don't want to?" Hana clicked twice and Miranda furrowed her brows. "You can't?" Hana confirmed this assumption.

"Why can't you?" Miranda demanded. "Because it's dark? Wait, how good is your eyesight in the dark? Is it bad?"

As Hana clicked once, Miranda sighed. "Oh okay. That's understandable. So, how bad is it. Can you see anything?"

Hana denied with two clicks. While she could walk the night without seeing anything at all, using only her senses of hearing and touch, this wouldn't be a good idea in the direct vicinity of humans...

"Hm." Miranda said. "I have an idea. My nightvision as a Gorgon is quite good. Just go forward, you have lots of uncrowded space in front of you. And once there are obstacles coming up, I'll tell you how to evade."

Soothingly, she caressed Hana's back, and the motion had something warming.

"Don't worry, just rely on me. I'll lead you through the dark."

And somehow, she didn't know why, Hana totally believed Miranda. She could actually feel the other girl's sincerity. Miranda shouted in glee, as Hana started to move forward in a slow trot.

"This is great!" Miranda exhaled. "Come on, go faster!"

Hana obeyed and soon both of them were flying over the ground, her eight legs pounding the ground and Miranda holding on her back for dear life, but laughing merrily. "Hana, you're the best! Oh, careful, tree coming up, go left! Yeah, good, and now straight again!"

Hana felt a joy she'd seldom experienced while in spider-form. She was running blind, but it didn't matter, because she knew that Miranda on her back would lead her, would make sure that she didn't hit an unseen tree head-on. And therefore she only let her body run, jollying innerly for the exhilaration their ride was providing.

They continued to fly through the night, Miranda laughing and rejoicing loudly, and Hana doing the same, only silently. She realized that she was burning way more calories then normally, that this little excursion would force her to hunt soon again. But this time, for the first time in her life, she didn't care, didn't want to consume her energy to delay the inevitable hunt for as long as possible. Who cared about tomorrow, when right now was so much fun?

And for the first time Hana managed to really appreciate her spider body's powers. She had been running for 15 minutes now, with Miranda on her back, not even thinking about what was coming up ahead anymore. Simply letting herself led by Miranda's voice. 15 minutes at full speed, she'd never sprinted as long. And she only felt a slight fatigue creeping in her muscles. This pure feeling of power, it was gorgeous. It was really strange. For years she'd had this body, and only know she began experiencing its joys, joys she'd categorically confined. And only because another girl was showing her how to unleash this joy.  

"You're fabulous, Hana!" Miranda cried against the wind and patted her head again. "I think we have to turn around now, or we'll cross the state's border until midnight. You still fresh for the way back?"

Instead of an answer she couldn't give in her current form anyway, Hana braked hard, turned her body, and then darted explosively in the opposite direction. Miranda's exuberant scream of joy made her grin internally, and the uneven couple, spider and Gorgon, continued their charge back.

When they'd returned to the vicinity of Miranda's caravan again, Hana changed back after Miranda had descended her body. Soon she was a human girl again, breathing heavily. "That was great, Miranda!" Hana beamed. "I don't know when was the last time I had so much fun!"
"You bet!" Miranda beamed back. "You know, I always wanted a horse of my own when I was a kid. But a running spider? That's way more cool!"

"Um... well... thanks..." Hana murmured, somehow taken aback that someone would prefer her to such a magnificent creature as a horse.

"Okay... now here's the book, as promised before!" Miranda told her and handed the book over she'd fetched before. "Just read it, then tell me what you think of it. You know where to find me... by the way, where do I find you?"

"Oh, my..." Hana stuttered, taken aback by this request. "Um... you see that large caravan up there, slightly beneath this big group of trucks, illuminated by the third bonfire on the left? That's me and my mum's."

"Hokay! Well then... it's already past ten, so I think I'll be going. You should probably do so yourself. I'm 17, but you're younger, aren't you? What are you, 16?"

"15, but I'll be 16 in a few weeks!" Hana responded.

"Well... all the more the reason to not let your mom worry too much. Then... good night!"
"Good night!" Hana called and then started her way back to her home.

She opened the door to her caravan and immediately found herself face to face with her mother, who was eying her apprehensively.

"Sweetey!" she said concerned. "Where have you been? I've waited for you to come back for nearly two hours now. You've never been gone for so long!"

She didn't add the qualifier "On your hunting trips", Hana noticed, but after all she was right.

"Well... I met this girl... Miranda." Hana said, and her mother's eyebrows rose. "We kind of met in the forest... and then I met her again her in the camp. And we chatted, and somehow the time went by so fast, and the next time I looked on my watch, it was already past ten. I'm sorry, mum, won't happen again!"

She looked apologetically at her mother, but instead of being angry, her reaction was... different.

She pointed at Hana's breast, where she was still clutching the book Miranda had given to her. "And that is...?"

"Oh, well, both of us are apparently avid readers, so she gave me one of her books, so that I can read it and tell her what I think of it. Oh, now that I think about it, I have to give her one of mine, too..." Hana was babbling away, while her mother started smiling.

"Sweetey?" she asked softly, and suddenly Hana realized that, for the first time in forever, there wasn't any sign of concern behind this warm smile.

"Yes, mum?"

"So... you made a friend?"

Hana stared at her, comprehending her statement. But then realization dawned. And Hana started smiling as well.

"Yes..." she said slowly, and then, more happily: "Yes, I made a friend!"