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Ruth

"You don't have to go, Ruth," Redge said. "You can stay here with Owl, Ruth, Me. We'll keep safe, Ruth."

Ruth shook her head sadly. "It needs to be done."

"Why?" said Redge.

"Because there's an evil out there, and we won't be safe until it's gone. So... Are you coming with me?" She felt energised. Like the slow sun in the Owl's grove had replenished her energy. She also felt angry - mostly at those who had caused her pain, but also for her lost friend, Toad. She had resolved to set out and find him. Knowing that she was now able to recover from even the direst wounds, Ruth felt she needed to do something with this gift.

Redge sighed, then shook his head sadly.

"It would be amazingly courageous if you did," Ruth said.

"For Ruth, it is courage, Ruth," Redge said. "To Redge, Owl, it would be death."

She scoffed. "It is no courage to face peril knowing you'll be fine. It is courage to face the danger."

Redge simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled sadly.

"So be it," she said. "I will be back."

"So long, Ruth," Redge said sadly.

She could have asked the Owl for directions, Ruth realised, or she could have made some effort to orientate herself knowing what little of the forest she did. Something else was pulling at her though, and instead she followed her instincts. She felt like a part of her knew exactly where she was going and that somehow any direction she choose would be the right one, and so she set off. She ran from the serene light of the yellow mistlebells and the forest swallowed her up just as it always had before, until the light from that sheltered place faded behind her, lost behind the broad tree-trunks. On, she pressed, following each little turn of her mind, trusting in her instinct.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" came a voice in front, making her slide swiftly to a halt. "What do you think you're doing?!" She looked around, not seeing the source for a few moments, until she realised it was coming from a giant snail just a little way on the path. It spoke a lot faster than it moved, inching forwards slowly. She realised she must have mistaken its large shell for a rock. "What do you think you're doing?!" it repeated. "Zooming around like your house is on fire. You almost ran right into me!"

She looked at the snail sceptically. She figured that by the rate he was travelling, maybe, she thought, if she waited a half-hour or so he might have been slightly in the way. "Sorry," she said, all the same, "I didn't see you there. Where are you headed?" she asked.

"Across the road there," the snail said. But as she was about to suggest she help he interrupted "No, no, no - you've done quite enough scaring the life out of me. I don't need your help, Hare."

"Alright, alright. No need to be nasty."

"Me? Nasty?" The snail shook his head, his antennas wobbling side to side. "Here's a tip to you - why don't you run over to that side of the road and jump off the other side."

She folded her arms and let out of a huff. "What's even over there anyway?"

"Why don't you take a look," he said. "Maybe a running jump."

Ruth gave him a long hard stare, but then her curiosity got the better of her and she hopped over to the bracken. Before she reached it she could hear a dull roar, and as she squeezed through the dense thicket that concealed what was beyond the edge of the road she almost overbalanced as she discovered a steep, rocky drop on the other side. She caught herself, and was immediately glad she had. Below, down a short slope, there was an object quite unlike anything she had ever seen. It spun so rapidly it blurred, forming a figure of eight with constantly shifting colours. She felt herself falling forwards, and gripped even tighter to the branches she had managed to catch.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" the snail said. "Every day I make this journey, across the road and back. You feel it?" he said. "It's the call of the void. Knowing that destruction is moments away and that sudden urge to jump into it. Thrilling, isn't it?"

She did feel that urge, not knowing why. "It wouldn't destroy me."

"It would destroy anything!" the snail declared. "Even me with my big old shell. Torn to ribbons. Spinning around endlessly around a little strip forever. I think we can only see it at all because of the tiny dust that's all that's left of anything that fell into it... But if you want to try it, be my guest."

"I don't think I will," Ruth said.

"That's the first sensible thing you've said or done since you arrived here!" the Snail said.

"Why do you travel over here?" she asked, ignoring his mocking tone.

"Well, I mean..." the snail began. "Just look at it... Swirling around there."

Ruth did. It was quite unlike anything she had ever imagined, and she marvelled at the constant, blindingly fast flow of dust.

"Hypnotic, isn't it?" the snail said.

"Where did it come from?"

"No one knows."

"Why is it here?"

"No one knows," the snail said.

Ruth took a deep breath as she stared into it. She felt tense, like her legs were ready to leap, but not quite knowing why.

"The question I want to know the answer to," the snail continued, "is why it makes me feel like I want to dive in to it."

"Call of the void, huh?" Ruth said.

"It's not like any creature wants to die, but we're all obsessed with it, one way or another. It's nice, sweet and comforting to know there's always a way out. When life gets... Too slow. There's always some oblivion to look forward to after the longest days."

"Obsessed is a strong word," Ruth said.

"We're more obsessed with death than life. We understand life, or at least our bodies do. We understand there's mountains of happiness and dips of sadness, and that experience is fleeting, and we are only who we are in this moment, but we still look at death like a frontier we can't help but wish to explore. Maybe not us, right now, but some future us. Someone with less future in front of them, and many worthwhile things to leave behind."

"You talk about dying like it's a good thing," Ruth scoffs.

"Life is just full of unexplained riddles," the snail said knowingly (and, in Ruth's opinion, pompously). "Death is a certainty which renders all mystery moot."

"Of all those I've met under these trees, you, snail, are the worst," Ruth said. She felt like being mean. She felt like being angry and violent.

"Everyone else around here will give you puzzles," the snail said. "I hate puzzles. I prefer answers."

"You... You're infuriating," she said, but her heart wasn't in her words, as she still felt the pull of that void.

"To answer your question, I look into the abyss to feel like I'm alive. I can't run a marathon like you, or fly amongst the mistlebells, or spin complex webs between the trunks. I am a machine that cycles slowly, ever so slowly, from eating to sleeping to moving and back to eating. I exist only by chance, and only continue by my own instinct."

Finally, Ruth tore herself away from the vortex, squeezed back through the bracken and back on to the road. The snail had barely moved. "There is always purpose, snail," she said, faithfully. "Even to thoughts such as yours. They remind us of how precious our time is when we do enjoy it."

"Bah, even when you're spoon fed the answers you still fight against them," the snail said, his stalk-eyes wobbling as he wiggled ever forwards. "What makes you so sure of yourself? Don't pretend that you've shared the same suffering as everyone else. Don't pretend you've got answers when you know nothing about me, or this place."

"I've suffered more than I care to share!" Ruth said.

"Nonsense. If you had, you'd understand."

"Maybe I don't share your specific pain, snail, but I've learnt a lot about all of this. You don't have to be in love with the idea of death. You don't have to swoon at annihilation. You don't have to be a dramatic martyr. You can fight it even to your last breath." She sat down in front of the snail, her eyes coming level with his stalk equivalents. "Maybe one day you won't take this trip to the void, and you'll go somewhere else. Maybe you'll run into a hare who will show you that there are other options, even when all seems inevitable. Maybe you'll see that the traps you fear are ones you've made yourself, and should life bring you suffering it will be new and more interesting suffering for the trouble."

"And you think that would be a good thing?"

She shook her head. "I don't think it matters. You should not rely on oblivion to comfort you. You should rely on experience to challenge you. Are you so afraid that your vortex will leave you? Are you so terrified at the idea of permanence that you chase that final ending like a scorned lover? There are beautiful creatures all over this forest, and I for one intend to do all I can to support them."

"Your answer has no ending," the snail snarled. "It tells you nothing about the future."

"It tells me everything about right now," she retorted. "Some would say that's what actually matters." The snail responded with silence so she continued. "It's good to flirt with the ending, knowing that every story ever told ends somewhere, and every person's tale will finish with its own ending, but you should never lose sight that every ending is also the present for something far more real than any character. If you have a present which is present at the end, then that means it's not the end at all."

"Away with you hare," the snail said at length. "I am done speaking with you."

Ruth nodded curtly. "Good luck, my friend," she said.

"I'm not your friend-" he shouted, but she was already running, and moments later Ruth disappeared from his sight, and silence once again reigned in the undergrowth. "Such nonsense," the snail muttered to himself.

The snail slid forwards, then quietly looked around across the empty trail, the hare gone from sight. He frowned, glancing back the way she had disappeared, staring thoughtfully at the trees and the turn of the path. He paused a few moments, contemplating the way it spun off, out of sight of his two stalk-eyes, then, eventually, he shook his head. "Nah," he said, and continued on his way.

The lake was dry. Before, it had been muddy but now it was barren. Only the hardened earth, unmarred by vegetation, remained. The ground was coarse and cracked, the dryness making it seem brittle. All around was otherwise as it had ever been. The trees stretched high, and the mistlebells shone softly. It felt all too calm as Ruth arrived. It was all too gentle a place for the violence it had once held. She slowed to a jog, then to a faltering walk before stopping at the edge, just beyond where the shallow waters had once broken her fall. There, before her, was Toad.

She felt tears in her eyes as she looked upon his body. Scattered around the great reptilian body of toad were other victims of the clash. The husky remnants of spiders were little justice when seen in the shadow of the great scaley body of the toad. She felt no comfort in seeing they too had suffered losses. She thought sadly to herself that all that she could see was waste.

She thought of wasted futures with her brief friend, and wasted strength of the spiders. Most of all she thought of the waste of life which this ending had wrought, and her own part in bringing it about. She stepped forwards again.

"Oh, toad," she wept. "What horrible fate has met you?"

She placed her paw on his chest, feeling the dryness of his skin. "So dry," she murmured. "So soon after you left. I would have known you better." Slowly she closed her eyes for a moment, pressing the palm of her paw to his chest, but when she opened them again she recoiled a little at what she saw. Her paw was glowing, and the toad was too.

She felt that radiant blue light spread forward from her touch, creeping over the toad's body until it had stretched across the entire body of the toad. Ruth backed away further, cautiously, then in the next moment that shimmering, glowing form came to life, leaving the dry husk behind and hopping forwards. Ruth yelped in fear, but was cut short as the toad began to speak.

"Dead, am I?!" he said, "The nerve! How dare they strike down an artist!"

Ruth watched wordlessly as the toad shook about, with far more energy than she'd ever seen him display.

"I must tell you I really am livid. It's not every day a bunch of spiders decide to nip you all to death!"

"Uhm," Ruth said.

"It really is a liberty. First they take the lake, then the trees, then my life to boot! It's insult upon insult, it really is."

"I...-" Ruth said.

"I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. They never could stand my music. What happens now, eh? Come on then, death. Where are you hiding? I've got a bone to pick with you. Maybe all of them, if I'm so inclined." The toad continued, before finally noticing the wide-eye'd terrified hare in front of him. "Oh. Hello," he said.

"H-hello," Ruth said.

"You're a funny shape for death," he said.

"I don't think I am," Ruth said.

"Trust me, that shape is funny for the all-powerful inevitable force of death."

"I meant death. I don't think I am death."

"Oh... Well... Wait - I remember you."

She nodded. "And I remember you too, Toad."

"Ah... the hare with no name... But I see you found one. Ruth, is it?"

She nodded again, smiling a little.

"Good show, good show," he said. "But... What happens now?"

"I think... I think I have to take you with me," she said.

"Take me with you?"

"It's been happening a lot," she said, a little nervously. "But I think I know what I need to do now. It's getting clearer." She said, stepping forwards.

"Well, my friend, I'd trust you with my life. Hah! See, what I did there?"

"I very much did," she said, stepping forwards again, and raising her paw.

"Was I... Good at the end? Did I... Do the right thing?" the toad said.

She pressed her hand to his chest, and the toad glowed brighter than ever, shining until she had to close her eyes, until all at once he was drawn into her, a sudden burst of light glowing white as he shrank into her palm and into her body. She gasped as she felt a hundred verses of untold song reverberate around her ears and a thousand paintings flickered in her eyes, until finally the cacophony left her, panting by the toad's husk.

Ruth wept then, collapsing to her knees, her tears covering her arm as she sobbed, overwhelmed, shuddering and alone in the clearing by the lake.

"You were..." she said, in time, an answer to the toad. But she said no more. She could not find the words, so she said nothing.

Ruth stood, wiping the tears from her eyes. She felt brittle and shaken, but also anger rolled through her like a storm, washing from one side of her mind to the other. If there were to be justice, she decided, it should fall on herself. Now, she realised, she had the tools.

She made for the nearest mistlebell and began to climb. Up and up, again towards the spider's nest. She raised herself up, just as before, gripping the trunk with claw and nail as tightly as she could, one step after another.

Already, curious spiders had made their way down the trees, little legs clicking against the bark, coming close cautiously, before backing away again. The one thing they hadn't expected was the hare to return, and be climbing right up for them. Some scuttled away - probably to find their bigger, meaner brothers, Ruth thought to herself. Others would stay just out of reach, as if trying to intimidate her to go no further.

Ruth was angry, and that anger swelled up within her as she rose up the trunk. She ignored the strain as she pushed herself harder. She felt invincible, and unlike before where her clambering had tired her and made her doubt, this time she felt more sure of herself, and those same sensations filled her with a determination and fire she hadn't felt before. Within her, the hunt was calling.

One of the spiders darted a little too close, and she lashed out with an outstretched paw, her palm hitting the spider, who couldn't dart away fast enough. The little beast exploded in a brief flash of light as her touch connected, evaporating to nothing in an instant and sending a shock up Ruth's arm. She shivered as that sensation washed through her, but found herself grinning madly as the other spiders retreated at speed.

She took to her climb again, confident and sure. Her steady pace eliciting a horrified panic in the growing mass of spiders just out of her reach. Soon they were all around her, forming a wall of legs of many sizes as they watched her climb. Every time one would get too close she would punch out with a paw, and each time they would retreat in panic, and every time one was a little too slow it to was promptly evaporated into nothing with a flash. She laughed as they were caught. "Not so scary now!" she cried out.

She made it to the dense webbing near the top of the trees with her entourage of spiders surrounding her, stepping out breathlessly from the trunk. She felt giddy as she marvelled under the light of those big round mistlebells, and stretched her arms out wide, basking in their glow.

"What sinister beauty stalks my web?" said a spider, coming forth again. She recognised it instantly as the one who had led them before, and spun them into a frenzy. It's large shape towered over it's comrades, and as it stood up on it's legs it towered over Ruth as well. She was unafraid. She saw only retribution before her, and the opportunity to avenge her friend.

The spider continued, "Is this really the same hare who once threatened my people with extinction, come to exact her promise in person? She seems so slight. So vulnerable, and yet my people fear her. They fear you."

"They are right to fear me, for I bring your destruction," she declared.

"Why?"

"Recompense for the murder of Toad, and righteous retribution for his suffering."

"You'd slay a thousand of us for one of him?" the spider asked, as if genuinely curious.

Ruth faltered, but only for a moment. "One such as he is worth a thousand of you and more, you beasts!"

"Beasts we might be, but so was he. A thousand more he has slain in this corner than any single spider could ever harm."

"That cannot be true!" Ruth said, "He is... Was a kind and gentle soul!"

"Kind to the hare, perhaps, but the humble fly found many a grave in his stomach."

"But you eat flies too! That's not fair at all!"

"It takes a great many flies to feed a toad, but few to feed a spider. Do we not deserve more to live, for causing so much less harm?"

"You... You murdered him."

"We brought balance to the world."

Ladybird, ladybird,

Ruth shook. She balled her fists in rage. She wasn't going to let them get away with it. Their silver tongues belay a brutal reality. She wasn't going to accept it. She just couldn't quite find the right words.

"How many have you slain, dear hare. How many of my kin are not returning to the nest this day, I wonder? Each a soul. Each a body and brain.

Fly away home,

She saw red at the edges of her vision and growled. She would not be made the bad guy. She would not be made the evil one. She was simply doing what she must. For toad, and for herself. Ruth snarled, and then at the edges of her vision, she saw something that distracted her. The red was laced with black spots, and in an instant she saw countless ladybirds swarming around her. They were silent, but they were everywhere. She gasped, but she couldn't breathe. When had she last taken a breath? She realised she couldn't speak.

Your house is on fire

Ruth's lungs burned for breath, and before her the spider blinked.

"If we are to die today, my brothers, know we did, at all points, the right thing."

She tried to protest, but the swarm was everywhere, countless flickering red and black before her eyes, silent buzzing of a million insects. They flittered through the web like it was nothing, emerging from solid bark of the mistlebells like it wasn't even there.

"...And in all things," the spider continued, oblivious to the swarm around them. He must not be able to see, she thought. "We did it for the children."

Your children are go-

She had moved without thinking. Ruth dashed forwards into the crowd, leaping over the spiders that were everywhere on the web and diving palm-first at the biggest spider. She struck and in an instant her ears were filled with the sound of those countless ladybirds. She didn't stop when she hit the spider, instead pushing straight through the large beast and out the other side, pushing forward with the palm of her paw until she emerged from the other side of the beast to find a glowing form of the spider standing in front of her, looking bewildered and shocked, staring around in panic at the thousands of ladybirds.

She too was glowing, and the two of them glowed an ethereal white as they stood on the web. Ruth still couldn't breathe, but she also found she didn't have to.

The spider looked at it's glowing limbs, then back at her in wordless shock. "Am I... Dead?" it said, it's words echoing in the buzzing swarm, but somehow she could still hear them. "The ladybirds..."

Ruth glanced back behind her, and saw on the webbing the body of a hare and spider, both fallen limp. It was strange looking at her own form lying on the web, surrounded by cautious spiders oblivious to what was happening. At the back of her mind a thought emerged that she never realised how beautiful she looked, or how angry she must have been just a few moments ago. She shook her head, and turned back to the spider.

"No, you're not dead," at her words, the ladybirds turned and listened, their wings suddenly growing still. "you might be soon though, I'm not sure. We might both be soon. We don't have much time," she felt urgently that they didn't have much time. How long had it been since she took a breath?

"What is this?"

"I've been here before," she said then shook her head. "Not here, but somewhere like it. I recognise the storm, even though it looks different," she continued. She heard the wolf within her howl. "Last time it wasn't ladybirds. That must be your doing."

"What's... What's going to happen?"

"You're coming with me," she said. "I think I need you, and all your horribleness too."

"I'm not taking a single step," the spider said.

"I don't think you can anyway," Ruth said, stepping forwards.

The spider tried to back away, but his legs were caught in the same webbing that had supported him for as long as he could remember. "Stay back!" he shouted.

"With the wolf it was easier," she said, stepping forwards heedlessly. "I didn't need to worry about whether it was right or wrong. Whether I wanted him in me," she was barely speaking to him now. "But that storm was his curse, and this one is your vice. But then, I suppose I already have some of you, spider, or else I would not have come this far."

"Someone help me!" the spider cried out as she came within reach.

Ruth shook her head sadly. "There is no help for us... Only... Understanding." she said, and pressed her palm to his torso.

All at once the storm of ladybirds exploded outwards in a burst of black and red which disappeared into the trees. Around them the spiders popped one by one, a hundred sudden explosions into nothingness, then finally the terrified spider before her deformed and shrank into her palm, legs becoming wisps of energy and his torso bending and contorting as he was sucked into her arm. She grimaced as she felt the shocks surge through her body, feeling suddenly too big for her own skin.

Then all at once she was all alone amongst the web. There were no spiders. No ladybirds. Just her, her body and the glowing mistlebells above.

Ruth felt drawn back to her prone form, and as she touched it she sank through it, tumbling back inside, like falling into the arms of some special person, until all at once what she hadn't noticed was missing - feelings of touch and taste and scent - returned to her. She clambered to her feet, panting heavily, suddenly able to breathe again, and thankful for the fact.

Then the light from the mistlebells started to flicker, and she glanced up to see a wave of darkness encroaching from all sides. The mistlebells were going out. She looked all around, desperately trying to think of something to do, but the darkness came across her like a wave, and she was as powerless as a piece of driftwood in an ocean. Once more, Ruth found herself in darkness.

When she awoke she had been crying. She couldn't remember what the dream was about, but in the sudden darkness she could remember the tears. They were wet upon her cheek. She knew only that they hadn't been for her, but for some other person.

She wondered when she had decided that being alone would save her from the tears.