Erny?k did his best to catch up with her, but how? She can literally dive into the shadows of the forest!

  "How am I supposed to catch her? Even though I'm faster she still has the turf advantage!"

  Erny?k complained whilst pointing at the spirit fused laimian child who was coiled around a tree branch.

  "You have to be more patient, you can't just tackle everything."

  Ge'trak, the other named strider, he was the one who beat the lake spirit and the reason they've been chasing that child for the last three hours. He noticed that both the striders and arachnids aren't very capable of hunting anything that that runs or hides. So when he confronted Komutzu about it he made the mistake of suggesting that they 'train', which has just been a frustrating game of tag.

  "Then how would you catch her?"

  "Like this."

  Ge'trak lifted all of his four arms and in a net woven around all his arms there was the rascal child caught in the web.

  "How?"

  "Be more patient, how will you hunt if your prey knows you better?"

  Then he released the lamian child with unnaturally dark scales, much to Erny?ks dismay.

  That's bad, very bad.

  I hid under the leaves of the tree I was on, not moving a muscle. The sharp cry from above is still echoing through the valley.

  Ever since I made sure that the little lamian won't just run away (I promised her that she would never need to hunt or fight ever again) I have been exploring. And now I'm in danger, I didn't expect to find a harpy nest so close by.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It's a female and if I had to guess I would say her egg didn't make it, considering she's attacking anything that moves. Unlike us harpies raise their children and are very attached. So it's natural for a harpy mother to go on a rampage after the death of its child.

  Usually if a harpy goes on the offensive against a spider-kin the latter would come out on top and the same goes the other way around, but not this time. Something made the mistake of moving not far away and just as expected death came from above.

  I couldn't make out anything about her whilst she dived down on the poor fool that dare move under her gaze. The next thing I know was that a tree feel over and she was standing on top of it. The reason why I have to wait for her to leave became even more apparent, she stood tall at about 2,5m or 2,6m, her wingspan 5-6m, not taller than the average striders 3m mind you. But its her feathers that set me of, snow white with a black spiral pattern.

  She's a snow owl of the dying tree or in other words the most efficient winged hunter. So I'm pretty much fucked. However I don't think my theory about her dead child is true, now that I can actually make out details it might be something else. Also, this isn't her natural habitat, no, she's looking for something.

  Ah, she's looking at me.

  This one is easy to fool.

  The other always catches me in his webs but this one is just an oaf, he's fast and strong, I'll give him that but that's it. His webs are easy to predict and it's not hard to find him.

  He's already back and I'm already gone. If he wants to catch me he'll have to come up with something. This is kind of fun you know, how did I come to know them again? My memories have been kind of sluggish you know, not everything's where it should be and a lot has been lost. There also seems to be more than there should be so I got rid of most of it.

  Ah, I got carried away. The oaf almost caught me! This time I for once jumped towards him, which he didn't expect and his surprise allowed me to dash past him.

  I could hear aggravated hisses that probably are curses or something. I should try to learn their language at some point.

  I never got to see the leader in detail before because hid nest is just so dark. But now I can see in the dark just fine for some reason, sluggish memory of mine. I actually would like to see his face. Is he handsome? Is he graceful? Is he scary? Is he ugly? Is he cute?

  I would like to know.

  A string isn't enough.

  Strings are easily cut, worn out and burnt no what I need is rope. I kept weaving over and over again but I only added. I didn't give it any shape nor purpose just the same motion over and over again.

  I'm not sure how long it took me but after a long time I had a deep yellow rope of acceptable thickness.

  And I know where to attach it too.