Spinner had always been a chimeric creature. Her original form had a spider’s head and body, a humanoid neck bridging the two, six spider legs, two arms that had things close to hands, as well as a tail studded by lightning spines. It did not come together to make a particularly pleasing image. Now?

  Still chimeric, certainly, but in a more refined way. Cleaner. There was no more tail or incongruous mixing of body types. Spinner’s new lower half was entirely spider, eight legs and a concealed spinneret that had incorporated smaller versions of lightning spines to retain some control over elemental lightning.

  That was a relatively tame change compared to the upper half, which was that of an avianoid. Mostly. And a female avianoid, it had to be said. Actually, more female than any other had been, and if the chest didn’t make that obvious there was the fact that the upper half didn’t join with the lower until around the mid thigh.

  Willow hadn’t expected Daniel’s hesitation to have undersold the madness that was what spiritual evolution could bring. Beside her, the Artificer was hiding his face after unintentionally getting a full glance, Khare had gone dead still, and Tlara paused for breath. She was vaguely aware of that cry having drawn attention, but anyone coming to investigate a possible monster attack would probably be just as confounded by the sight as they were.

  With what might have been a mistaken assumption, Tlara turned to Daniel. “Why the fuck does she have tits!?”

  “I, uh,” Daniel stammered. “I didn’t do that!” He was still looking anywhere but Spinner’s direction. It wasn’t as if the awakened monster was that offensive, feathers were doing a good job covering what they’d never needed to before, but the area where avianoid met spider was perhaps too revealing.

  “Does this form displease you, Mistress?” Spinner asked in a worried tone, which reminded the three that, yes, she could talk now. It was honestly the least shocking thing that had happened. “I can do everything I was able to before. It isn’t because we lost our connection, is it?”

  Tlara had stiffened at being addressed and let out a shaky breath before replying. “Don’t call me that!”

  A far louder, yet somewhat sleepy voice echoed across the courtyard. “Is everything ok…” the dusker’s voice trailed off as she rubbed at her eyes. “What?”

  “Just, uh, go back to bed Khiat,” Daniel replied in a strained voice as he dug around in a bag of holding. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Fuck that, she’s-“ Tlara’s beak moved wordlessly for a few moments before she stormed off. “Fuck this!”

  “Is that Spinner?” Khiat asked, still as bewildered as everyone else but also groggy. Daniel was still deep in his bag too.

  “Tlara, what are you doing?” Willow shouted after her sister, noticing that Spinner had frozen in place. But her words had no effect on the departing Beastmaster, who launched into the air only to re-enter her room.

  Daniel finally found what he was looking for as he pulled out one of the spare cloudburst cloaks, it being the only thing big enough to cover what needed to be on Spinner. “Here.” He levitated it up to her while keeping his eyes averted, and the cloak was numbly accepted by the spider woman whose attention was more on where Tlara had gone.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked, just holding the cloak rather than covering herself with it. Spinner’s new eyes were kind of like Khiat’s in a way, human pupils with enough around the edges to remind everyone of their origins. The two mandibles nesting in the corners of her mouth would have done that if they hadn’t, to say nothing of the lower half of Spinner’s body. “I thought this would be better.”

  “You chose to be like this?” Daniel asked, both askance and curious.

  “Not exactly,” Spinner replied despondently. “I… I thought she would like it. I heard how ugly I was all the time and thought Mistress would like me better if I was pretty. Would want to keep me, especially if I looked like her.” Now that Spinner said it, Willow could see the resemblances. It wasn’t as if someone had taken the upper two thirds of Tlara and grafted it on top of a spider, for several reasons, but she would say there was a familial resemblance in both face structure and feather patterning. “I didn’t know I would change, I just wanted to be better.” Spinner hung her head and, tears forming in her eyes, asked Willow, “What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Willow quickly assured, before adding, “Though you should put that on. Like I’m wearing, see? We can look into getting something fitted for you later.”

  “Oh,” Spinner sighed, finally acknowledging what she was holding. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, I haven’t needed this before!” It hurt to see how fervently Spinner defended herself, as if the simplest thing would get her kicked out and left to fend for herself.

  “Spinner, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Willow said firmly. “I’ll talk with Tlara and straighten this out. Daniel, Khare, can you stay and talk with her?”

  Khare didn’t reply, still fixed on Spinner. She would have expected him to ask about the Grafting by now, but the young gestalt was holding back for some reason. Shock, maybe? The Artificer nodded however, now looking with sympathy at the awakened monster. “Yeah. Someone should also explain things to anyone who comes by. I don’t think anyone’ll buy the Druid lie this time. What’s wrong with Tlara, something with her injuries?”

  Could be, Willow thought, aware Daniel didn’t know the extent of them. Tlara’s discolored eye was the only visible scar. “No, it would be too much to take that out on Spinner, even for her. I’ll go see.” She left Daniel at the mercy of his embarrassment and any hunter that stopped by as she trudged a war path toward Tlara’s door.

  The sparrow nudged at her, wanting to stay by Spinner so he could continue to observe her since he could only exist within a short distance of the Spirit Master. Willow ignored this at first, finally putting the sparrow back in the bottle with an admonishment. This, she decided, fell on the right side of the line. She wouldn’t force the sparrow to behave, but neither would she enable him.

  Finding the sudden willingness from the spirit to participate in Spirit Strike suspect as well, Willow put her mind off the two within her as she firmly knocked on the door. “Tlara!”

  “Fuck off!”

  Willow lowered her volume by about a third. “You don’t push me away anymore! You tell me things, remember?” her tone was scathing, and unlike other times they’d argued this got through to Tlara.

  With far less power behind her voice, Tlara responded. “Go away.”

  “Spinner is out there after what could be the most important moment in her life, and all she can think about is how much you hate her!” Willow tried the door and found Tlara hadn’t locked it, sweeping in before her sister could change that. The group of buildings the team had purchased had been made with a hunting team in mind since the good ones were among the wealthiest. Tlara’s bedroom was almost as spacious as the old one in the Wing Spire, if not as well decorated.

  Stepping inside, Willow found Tlara sitting on her bed against the wall crying. Compared to Spinner having grown near distraught when she’d left, these were, fitting for Tlara, angry tears. The Beastmaster seemed in active competition with her sadness but was unable to beat it.

  “I know you’re still upset about what Quala said about… kids,” Willow spoke carefully into the room after Tlara just wetly glared at her.

  “It’s not about that.”

  “It’s not?” Willow didn’t think Tlara was lying, but her sister was two levels above her. You could forget sometimes that she was the strongest by attribute value in the compound, though Spinner might be competing for that title now if she could advance.

  Willow’s approach to the bed went unchallenged. “If it’s not, tell me what’s going on. You aren’t petty enough to be this upset because I was right. I’ll even give you credit for most monsters not having spirits. I just don’t understand why you want nothing to do with Spinner.” She thought of the questions Spinner had asked and repeated one skeptically. “It’s not because of how she looks, is it?”

  “She could’ve grown a few more pairs for all I care,” Tlara scoffed morosely. “The problem is that she cares at all about what I think.”

  “But you aren’t doing anything to her anymore,” Willow countered, kind of seeing where this was going. “Daniel said the domination effect ended a while ago, and she’s fully regained her soul. Is it a bad thing if that person likes you?”

  “It is if I fucked with her head forever,” Tlara admitted, voice shaking a little. “When I took you to meet her that first time, I did it because I wanted to be wrong about her. Because if she was someone instead of just a monster…”

  Willow couldn’t help but comment, “I’m honestly surprised this what you have a problem with.”

  “What, because I’m a Beastmaster?” Tlara looked at Willow sharply, raising her head and pushing her away with the talons of one foot. “I got into it because I liked the thought that I could turn some mindless thing into my toy. I called them tools because that’s all they were, all they were supposed to be. I’d heard too many stories about people getting killed by them to ever believe your naive bullshit about how kind words could stop all the attacks. Sounded like a good way to get your face eaten off.”

  “But we were both right and wrong,” Willow qualified. “And either way, you didn’t know. I’m not going to say you have the moral high ground when it comes to our past relationship, but you can’t blame yourself for not seeing the truth when spirited monsters are so rare.”

  “It doesn’t change what happened. Look at that thing!” Tlara’s head poked out the nearby window and Spinner, as well as a group of distant, gathering onlookers, noticed her. The spider hybrid’s face grew briefly hopeful until she read Tlara’s expression. The Beastmaster retreated back into her room. “She’s a fucking mind slave and I did that to her! I told her to run when I was dying and she wouldn’t take that hint. My powers were supposed to make dangerous things safe, not do that to someone.”

  “You feel guilty?” Willow asked with hushed realization. “You?”

  “What, you think I wanted to end up like some control freak like Dad? Oh, he’d have loved to have been able to do this. He’d have mind controlled the rest of the Council in an instant.”

  “He wouldn’t-“ Willow bit off the beginning of an argument and pointed out the window. “So what? Spinner is your responsibility Tlara. You can’t change what’s done. I'm not saying it’s likely, but isn’t it also possible she adores you because you are the one who gave her this chance, rather than your domination still having a hold on her?”

  “Teh.” Tlara tried to come up with a counterargument to that but found no easy opening, and so instead said, “Every time she said ‘Mistress’ or looked at me with those fucking bug eyes looking for approval, it felt like I was getting stabbed in the gut again. I can’t deal with her if every moment is going to be a reminder of what I’ve done.” Tlara noticed at that point that Spinner had crawled up the opposite building with her spider legs, hoping to see into Tlara’s room. She quickly shut the curtain. “See? Maybe if I shut her out completely she has a chance at being normal.” Tlara let out one cry of laughter and added, “or as close as she can be.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You do that and you only hurt her more.” Willow let the sparrow out, knowing it would phase through the window curtain to see what it could of Spinner. “If I know anything about my class, it’s that you can’t help spirits without forming a connection with them. Whether it’s history or a Beastmaster’s touch, you are someone to Spinner. Who knows, if you ignore her that might cause her to regress.” Willow leveled a finger at Tlara and infused it with some of Wisp’s mana. “You feel guilty about what Spinner is? Change it. If you feel uncomfortable, well, not everything is about you. Find a way to help her be more independent or, at the very least, for the sake of the gods have an actual conversation with her so you know how she feels. Take some fucking responsibility.”

  Tlara was silent for a moment before, with a somewhat dry throat, she asked, “Did you just curse?”

  Willow gave a wry smile but didn’t ease up the intensity she was directing toward her sister. “I guess we can both learn from each other.”

  …

  All things considered, Daniel was the unquestionable expert when it came to dealing with awakened monsters in the region. Well, not counting the ultimate wild card that was Cloak. You’d think that would have prepared him for Spinner’s evolution, but no. While her changes had at least affirmed that Hunter’s weren’t outside the norm, they’d still shocked him.

  He wasn’t the only one either. The crowd gathering to observe the newest heresy against both traditional Octyrrum teachings and, perhaps more importantly to them, the avianoid form, was conversing freely on the matter having mistakenly assumed they were too far for him to hear. It was after the seventh variation of ‘that ain’t right’ that Tlara reappeared.

  Spinner detached from the wall Daniel had been unsuccessful in convincing her to not climb and instantly returned to the ground. “Mistress?”

  Both of Tlara’s hands clenched and she just stopped short of shouting again. “Spinner.” She took in the cloak that was now loosely covering the top half of what was effectively a bird drider, shaking her head at the bumps still visible through the fur. “What do you want from me?” That sentence seemed to take a lot from her, though whether it was to ask the question or do so without cursing Daniel didn’t know.

  “I…” Spinner’s lower legs danced on the ground as she shuffled in place, trying to make herself more presentable. She didn’t seem entirely used to the extra two legs. “Mistress, you saved my life. I remember people coming to hurt me. The past, before I met you, it’s not all there. My first clear memory was when I met you. I don’t want to take anything from you, you’ve already given me more than I could ever ask for.”

  Tlara’s titanic effort of will continued as she employed more patience, severely depleting her limited reserves in the process. “Those people were hurting you so I could control you,” Tlara said evenly with suppressed frustration, as if speaking to an annoying child. “Crest, I’m not even the one who named you.”

  “I know,” Spinner replied in a small voice, before finding what she thought was a better approach and rallying. “I’m grateful for what you did, Mistress! I was nothing before you found me. I lived only to eat and destroy. It was like a dream where someone else was in control. You woke me up and showed me how to be useful.” She grew increasingly nervous as Tlara’s stony face didn’t change and began clutching her hands together unconsciously, a response that lit a few questions in Daniel’s mind he was too distracted to ponder. “Mistress, I owe you everything. It was the greatest of honors to protect you when you were injured.” Spinner extended her hands to Tlara imploringly. “I would have died for you! I still would. Please, all I want is to stay with you. Whatever it is you want me to do, I will do it. Whatever you want me to be, I will be it.”

  Spinner, and the crowd, fell silent as they waited for the Beastmaster’s command. With her spider half Spinner couldn’t fully bow, but she tilted her upper half forward in supplication. I still don’t know what Tlara’s problem is, Daniel thought. Feels like she should be all over this, unless she’s actually changed. Beyond her hinting at some regret over her earlier behavior toward Hunter, in the weakest possible terms of course, Tlara had been just as much of a jerk as usual. Her initial reaction to Spinner had been atrociously in line with that, though not in the way he’d have expected. He’d been ready to stop her from telling Spinner to jump off a cliff since it looked like the drider would do that if asked.

  Instead of giving Spinner an order, Tlara realized there was a gathering hanging on her words and shot a glare to the bottom of the steps leading up to the team’s compound. “Hey, all of you. Fuck off! This is a private conversation.”

  A level 2 Ranger at the front of the group winced as both she and Daniel saw they were the highest leveled Blessed among those that had shown up. Stronger ones had flown by, resisting his attempts to identify them, but they’d continued on their way once it was obvious there wasn’t an immediate threat. “We, I mean, uh, I’m on duty with the town’s guard today.” The Ranger said that like it was an apology. “We have general orders to report on any exceptional new powers or classes that develop and, well.” She gestured to Spinner, who was only partially visible from the Ranger’s vantage point, with a slightly disturbed look.

  Tlara took a moment to consider her options before yanking off one of her boots and throwing it at the crowd. Daniel raised an eyebrow at that, both because it was kind of funny and a waste of something he couldn’t readily enchant if someone grabbed it, when smoke began to pour from both that and the one still in her grip. Huh. Didn’t know you could do that, but I guess she is still holding part of the item.

  “I said fuck off! Next one is going for someone’s head.” Tlara watched as coughing townsfolk scattered, the more resilient Blessed persisting through the smoke effect that quickly cleared. Its effectiveness had decreased when split up, but Tlara’s aggression would have revealed a useful quirk of the wolf fur’s material bonus if Daniel didn’t already have smoke bomb as an item.

  The Ranger was the last to leave, staying up until Tlara pulled out a dagger. Whether it was to find someone stronger or not Daniel wasn’t sure. In either case, it’d be better if Tlara started talking to Spinner sooner rather than later before someone important showed up. It seemed the Beastmaster agreed, because she gave a frustrated sigh and turned around to look at the awakened monster awash with concern. “Nosy fuckers.”

  “If Mistress wishes, I could construct barriers of webbing to protect your home from the air,” Spinner offered, mistaking Tlara’s grunt to herself as something meant for her.

  “That’s not what I, agh!” Tlara shouted, Spinner wincing yet again as she had every time the Beastmaster raised her voice. “Look. Spinner. I don’t need a slave, alright?”

  It was what Spinner had been dreading to hear. “But Mistress-“

  “Stop calling me that! No, don’t-“ Tlara held out a hand as Spinner began to back away, stopping her. She took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. "I don’t need you.”

  There was an attempt by Tlara to put a reassuring spin on that statement, but, Man, she’s bad at this.

  “Mis-“ Spinner paused, looking lost for a moment. “Master?”

  “No!” Tlara glared up to her window where Willow was watching, but her sister didn’t come to bail her out. “Just call me Tlara.”

  “Tlara,” Spinner said hesitantly, “I don’t understand. Please, if you tell me what I’ve done wrong I will do whatever I can to fix it.”

  “You haven’t done anything!” Even Tlara knew how that sounded after it came out. “Fuck, that’s not what I meant. I…” Tlara looked like she wanted to throw something at Daniel to chase him away, but she kept her efforts centered on Spinner. “I never wanted to dominate something that could think. We all thought every monster was just a killing machine, and I could make you mine. If I’d known you had a soul or a spirit or whatever, I never would have done that.”

  Daniel looked up to Willow himself at that, aware that there was some kind of game being played, but the Spirit Master shook her head. Tlara was firmly at the helm of this train wreck. Either Willow’s secretly a masochist or… yeah, Tlara’s the only one that Spinner will listen to. And she was listening. At almost every turn Tlara had smacked down Spinner’s attempts to assert her loyalty and need for acceptance. The worst part was it was mostly unintentional at this point, and Spinner was holding back sobs.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to- Ah, fuck it.” Tlara walked up to Spinner, the top of her head coming to about where the navel was on the other. She raised what was meant to be a comforting hand but floundered on where exactly to put it since the shoulder was out of reach, and most of what was was spider. An internal debate raged in her mind as her arm moved up and down, eventually on where one of the black legs connected to the lower body. “I’m the one who fucked up. It wasn’t you.”

  “No, I-“

  “Just let me talk.” Tlara patted the same spot and then took her hand away with a quirk in her beak. “You want to follow me around and do stuff, fine. If that’s what you want to do. But this knee-scraping ‘anything to please’ fuckery has to stop, got me?” The Beastmaster met Spinner’s conflicted gaze and had an inspired moment. “You’re a person now. You want to repay me for all the crap I did, don’t pretend this doesn’t change anything, and don’t tell me you aren’t fucking capable on your own. Did good enough when that fucking squid showed itself at the lake. You’re someone I saved, someone the rest of the world’s going to look at and tie to me like my name’s tattooed on your side. Look too much like me anyway.” Tlara took a couple of steps back and put a fist into an open palm. “So don’t fuck up this chance by being some sniveling weakling. You think I need you following me around? Me? I’m Tlara fucking Seliri. I don’t need anyone. You want to make me proud, you keep that in mind.”

  Not how I would have approached this at all, Daniel thought as Spinner considered those words and Tlara waited for her reaction, But that’s Tlara-logic for you.

  Spinner only needed a few more seconds after that to collect herself. There was some dampness remaining in the small feathers around her eyes, but she’d stopped silently crying. “I think… I think I understand, Mistress. Tlara. I’m sorry for assuming you, I mean…” Spinner closed her eyes and took a breath herself. “You want me to be strong. I should have thought of that, we have been attacked. I only thought about how this makes me weaker if I can’t accept your gifts anymore, but if you want me to stand beside you?” Her face fell. “I don’t know how to become stronger.”

  “It’s possible,” Daniel replied from off to the side, choosing now to speak up since Tlara wouldn’t have known about what had happened to Hunter. “You’re not the first person this has happened to. I know there’s some way to let you advance, but it could be tricky.” Cloak probably knows more. Damn it. “In the meantime, you just had some significant changes,” he added, not trying to look at some of the more obvious places while making his point. “You should get used to them first before pushing for more power. Right, Tlara?”

  Spinner’s eyes shot to the Beastmaster as Daniel said her name, showing that for all she’d taken Tlara’s words to heart, she still deeply cared about her opinion. “Yeah. That.”

  …

  Watching from above, Willow nodded to herself, satisfied with what she saw. True, the three mortals in the courtyard were all higher leveled than she was, but everyone had blind spots and specialties. This one was hers, evidenced if by nothing more than the power she’d awakened throughout the conversation. It had come from the recent advancement to her wisdom, she was sure, and the name was promising.

  Spirit Healer. Her first that didn’t directly interact with spirits she sheltered, given the way her intuition screamed at her to start using it on Spinner. She no longer registered the presence of a spirit in the spider woman confirming her soul had been restored, but it seemed there was still lingering damage that needed to be addressed. She resisted the impulse to run down there immediately as she sensed there was no danger of it getting worse.

  Oddly, the power didn’t give her the same feeling as Wisp or the sparrow. Either it wouldn’t work on them despite the name, or they were considered ‘whole’ right now despite having fractured souls. Only time will tell.

  Willow saw the ephemeral red bird hop from the window sill, fly around her hand, and perch on the palm facing toward her. “I told you I wanted to save you. That’s what it looks like.” The sparrow flapped his wings aggressively, and she got a slight sense of disappointment from him. “What, you’re saying you were already stronger than Spinner?” Willow frowned, remembering the strength from the fire aura that she’d only felt the edge of. “Strength isn’t everything, despite what my sister says. Yes, you’re starting from the beginning again, but you’ve looked at her haven’t you? Really looked?”

  In the courtyard, Sigron had finally returned from the developing church of the Hand in Pinion’s Point where his parents had been relocated to. The Knight’s eyes were practically bulging as, with Tlara’s prompting, Spinner properly introduced herself to him. She was nervous but kept her back straight under Tlara’s gaze except when she bent down to shake Sigron’s hand. Tlara quickly broke that up, perhaps afraid of what the Knight’s bond power would reveal.

  “She’s been growing into herself this entire time, we just couldn’t tell without being able to talk to her. What’s the point of power if you’re missing a part of yourself? As you were, you were no better than a tool of your god, as my sister would put it.” The sparrow pecked harmlessly at her hand and Willow took the point. “I am trying to help you, but not if that means creating another engine of destruction. I think you and Wisp have the opposite problem. You should learn from each other.”

  The sparrow gave an equivalent of a scoff and dismissed himself. Willow would have been disheartened if not for the briefest of glances he’d made at Spinner before disappearing. Leaning out of the window and feeling the breeze run through her feathers, Willow felt a building joy in her heart.

  Then, her eyes caught hold of something that made her stumble and fall to the hard paving stones below. Hunter had returned, and she could not only see his soul flame, she could see him.