Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

How is that possible? the butterfly wondered for a wild, mad moment.

But of course it wasn't possible. Adon knew he had not actually killed two knights—or any knights. He tried to center himself, remain calm. He couldn't afford to be slow or naive right now. He couldn't spend too much time on reflection or trying to understand what was going on. He needed to think faster than he had ever thought before, and take immediate action. He could feel his survival was on the line in what happened in the next few minutes.

A mob was beginning to surround the arthropods, and only Rosslyn stood in their way.

Adon quickly reached into the dark plane where he tapped into magic, found the mental magic statue, and grabbed a tight hold of it. He engaged in a frenzy of thought, leaped to some conclusions that felt right based on the totality of the evidence that he had at that moment, and then began shooting rapid-fire Telepathy.

The enemy is using illusions, Adon sent to Rosslyn, Goldie, and Samson only. The others aren't going to believe me right now if I tell them. The three of us have to get out of here. Rosslyn, I'll try and find the actual monster behind this after we get away from here. Don't believe everything you see—and maybe not even everything you hear, I'm not sure—while I'm gone. Anything and everything on this floor is suspect now.

What are you saying?! Rosslyn's thoughts were loud and sharp, but Adon thought—perhaps a bit optimistically—that she was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Her body language seemed to support that. She was visibly nervous, but she still kept angling to place herself between the advancing members of the party and the arthropods standing on the cliff's edge.

Out loud, she spoke words of reassurance to the others.

"Calm down, please, we will find out exactly what happened, I am confident it is not what you believe you saw, remember how Adon and the spiders have helped us…"

Adon did not immediately recall whether the Princess typically used the word "please" when speaking with people of lower social rank than herself, but the tone of her voice when she said it spoke volumes to how dangerous the situation was becoming.

Inside her own head, the Princess was frantic: Just earlier today, you were saying that if you and the arthropods left the rest of us alone, we would be vulnerable to sudden attacks, from an enemy who was only detectable with your Telepathy. Now you want to abandon us? I know two people just disappeared, but if you tell William and Frederick what you just explained to me—

They won't listen. Adon cut her off. We don't have time to argue right now. I'm the mind-reader, so please take my word for it that nobody is in the mood to listen to me, not when I deny what they think they just saw with their own eyes. The Dessians aren't like you anyway. Even at the best of times, they saw us mystic beasts as barely distinct from monsters—if we even qualified as distinct.

Damn it! Rosslyn's inner voice sounded strained almost to the breaking point. This is the time you choose to—to do this, huh?

Adon knew what she meant but was unwilling to fully articulate, even inside her own head.

After all the times she had told him that he should be more selfish, Rosslyn was thinking—bitterly, it had to be noted—that this was the time he had decided to actually do it. And it felt painful and inconvenient. She was sticking up for him, asking the others to hear his side, immediately and instinctively believing him over her own senses and the views of the others around them—and he was saying he was going to take off.

Adon understood her point of view. In the moment, the Princess could only see her own position—how Adon fleeing even as she defended him would look to the others. She would appear to have been defending a traitor and preventing the others from capturing and interrogating Adon. The only thing that would protect her from being removed from a position of command was her high birth and the fact that the party was still within her country.

Rosslyn couldn't understand that the arthropods would be leaving the group as much for her sake as for themselves. Adon would genuinely want them to do the same thing for him, if he was in her position.

In the moment, yes, it would make her look foolish to have defended him, but over the longer term, it might save her life. It would at least save her from having to watch her own and the arthropods' backs for the rest of the level until the enemy was identified and killed.

It was better to be a friend of the traitor who ran away than to be the perceived protector of the traitor who simply dwells, relaxed and comfortable, in your own camp, presumably plotting his next betrayal—his next murder. The latter situation was effectively an invitation to mutiny, but Rosslyn couldn't see it yet. Adon only saw it because mental magic had accelerated his thought process to several times normal, allowing him to fast forward through most of the emotional reactions he had to the situation and get to the hard analysis.

We're going, Adon? Samson verified as the Princess backed away closer to the cliff, her stance still defensive of the arthropods.

One hundred percent, Adon replied. Just doing for ourselves and the Princess what I would want her to do for us, if the shoe was on the other foot.

The butterfly sensed that the Princess was trying to understand what he said—perhaps she would need a minute more to work out what he was thinking, given the paucity of clues—but he did not stay to find out.

Adon poured mana throughout his body, flapped his wings, and flew up over the cliffside, getting away from the increasing tensions in the air around him. At first, he just aimed for a bit of horizontal distance, but after the first few seconds, he directed his body higher in the air, until with combined vertical and horizontal distance, he was confident that he was out of reach of human leaping.

Adon gauged his position using the artificial sun—it was fixed in its place right overhead, about a hundred feet above his position—and decided that he would head toward one of the collapsed areas of wall. At least there would not be anything hiding and waiting to jump out of any tunnels if the underground structures all around had been fully buried.

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That was when the first spear came his way. It was hard to say who threw it. Adon's back was turned to the others, and although he could see behind himself to a great degree, it was not nearly as precise as his vision looking forward—especially not at this distance and angle. From here, the party was just a faceless mass of flesh and armor.

The spear was not deadly to him at that moment, either. Adon tilted his body slightly, and the weapon, which would probably have failed to hit him anyway, missed by three feet and tumbled down into the canyon below.

The important detail was not in who had thrown the spear in Adon's direction or how poor their aim was. It might have been William or one of his knights. It might have been Sir Humphrey. The only one he was fairly certain couldn't have done it was Rosslyn.

What mattered was that the mood down there had grown hot enough, in a matter of seconds, that someone had felt it was within bounds to throw a weapon and potentially kill one of the party's apparent allies over something that could just be a misunderstanding—though, of course, Adon knew that what had actually happened had to be something much more devious than that.

I was right to leave, he thought. There's no way they were going to give me space to explain what happened, and believe me, and heal Goldie while I was spinning what would sound like a fantastic lie. More likely, they would kill all three of us for being collaborators with the enemy.

Adon, are you going to explain what just happened? Samson transmitted. Please?

Sure, Samson, Adon replied. Of course. Just need to find a safe place for us to land, and then I'll start healing Goldie, and after that I'll explain what happened.

Right, of course, Samson sent. The words came out in an I'm-so-dumb tone that made Adon feel a little bad for his brother. It wasn't the norm for Samson to ever be outthought by Adon in any sense.

But Adon didn't spare mental energy to reassure Samson just then. The butterfly was busy watching the ground below him, to see if the party was following them, and looking ahead for a good place to land that was distant enough from the group for safety. He was also trying to come up with a good explanation for what had happened and a method for catching the real killer—and Adon was therefore crafting a future in which he and the spiders would be able to return to the group safely.

Explaining things to his little brother would have to come later.

Adon finally settled on a rocky chunk of one of the level's collapsed walls that was positioned close to the ceiling. The caved in tunnels of the surface beneath their position had left many loose piles of rocks that now made up most of what constituted the wall.

It would be difficult for any human to climb the wall and reach them without risking falling through some unexpectedly unstable configuration of stones—though no humans appeared to be following them, thankfully.

The ants probably wouldn't have an easy time finding them there either. The Quugaarpaks were a different story, considering that they could essentially swim through solid earth and stone.

But Adon did not have reason to believe that those creatures were still coming after them, only the party and perhaps this mysterious monster that had seemingly framed him for murder.

Once they were settled on the rocks, Adon deactivated mental magic and began healing Goldie. She made some faint protestations about not needing it right then, given that they had more pressing concerns than her speedy recovery, but Adon quickly talked her into accepting his ministrations. And he began explaining what had happened to the two spiders. It was for his own benefit as much as anything else.

So, the first thing I noticed was that the group's mood was tense when we were flying back toward them, Adon explained. Then I realized that they were missing two people, just like the last time we were attacked by some kind of unseen enemy.

Then that enemy probably struck again? Samson sent.

I guess, maybe, Adon replied. Anyway, as we landed, the group started to become even more tense, and I needed to quickly find out what happened. So I read Rosslyn's mind. She was thinking about what they had just seen. And it was me, using my body to tackle two knights into a pit. You know how the ground was full of those, from the ants basically turning the ground into nothing but tunnel networks everywhere. These two knights, according to what the members of our party saw with their own eyes, are probably dead because of me. So they understandably wanted to attack us over that.

Why would they want to attack all of us? Samson asked. Why not just you? Not that we wouldn't want to go with you if you had to run away, just—

Because we're all only one step away from monsters to them, Adon replied. If one of us was a traitor, probably all of us are, because we're not human, and we're all the same.

I know that Frederick used to feel that way, Goldie sent. I do not believe he still does. Perhaps he could have interfered on our behalf if the group got closer to us and seemed about to engage in violence rather than questioning.

Maybe, Adon replied. I didn't check a lot of people's individual feelings when the party was surrounding us, thinking bloodthirsty thoughts. The only one who I know was on our side was Rosslyn.

The Princess has always been very reliable, Goldie agreed. I don't think she would have allowed any harm to come to you.

Adon noted that Goldie had not used the word "us" and wondered if that meant that the spider was confident the group would not have done anything to her and Samson, or if she was highlighting Rosslyn singling Adon out for special protection. But he did not ask her, partially because it seemed like a question that might spark unnecessary conflict, and partially because she was beginning to shed, and he wanted to let her focus on that for a moment.

Goldie's old exoskeleton crumpled away from her body and sagged to the rock just underneath her.

I am feeling much better now, Goldie sent. Sammy, if you are getting hungry, feel free to eat that skin. I think it may be a little while before we can hunt down a couple of those ants to eat. I am still not quite in perfect shape.

Adon was about to reply and promise to bring food, but his brother responded before he could say anything.

I'm on it, Samson sent. He dropped down onto the skin and started liquefying it and sucking pieces of it into his mouth.

Spider eating was still slightly gross to Adon, so he averted his eyes for a few seconds.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the attack on you two was actually a distraction so that the enemy could go after those two knights and frame me, Adon continued.

Then Samson interrupted his train of thought and said something that made Adon turn back.

I think I found something on this skin, Samson transmitted. It might be a clue about what happened to us. How it happened.