After frantic attempts to pry my horse from her web coating and get her hooves back on the ground, Warrick laid a gentle hand upon my shoulder to garner my attention. He can be incredibly tender at times and with my heart swelling thickly in my throat, I needed a wiser, more objective mind to point out a simple fact which had escaped me.

It was getting dark. The shadows were lengthening and soon enough we both would be in a predicament, outside at night in the Gloomy Woods. Out, when all the predators bent their heads, fangs and claws to hunger's grindstone.

I never felt so guilty in my life as I did leaving Calliope to her fate but at the Necromancer's urging, he hurried back to his house. He was right, after all. I was injured, bearing a sticky scrape along my ribs to match deep bruising and the scent of a wounded animal spells out a free meal for the night life of the forest.

We hurried back to the safety of his quaint home but hadn't even settled in when a passerby rapped upon the door. You see, she had come across the helpless mare and had freed the beast when neither the dark magus or I could. I was relieved.. at first.

But congratulations were short lived for you see, all we managed to do was bring an army down on our heads. A many-legged army of arachnids, their sheer numbers rivaling the forces of many a power monger kingdom. They blotted out the green of the wood. The forest floor could not be glimpsed between the overlap of furry, rustling legs. And it was deafening, the cachinnating whisper of their hordes while they marched, led by one behemoth web spinner who snatched Calliope up in its forelegs... and carried her away.

Warrick.. he tried to hold onto her reigns, and kept a hold of them until he dangled, ironically appearing much like a spider depends from its toe line . And when that failed, the man tossed me over his shoulder to haul me inside. No questions asked and permission would have been pure garnish. I did not argue with the man. He put himself in harm's way twice now for me and it was time for this red head to shut her yap.

[0 petals fell]