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So in a dream that was more than a drea her Queen how the new caretakers of the world would be able to travel safely through the Darkness: shih that vastness…pathways that could be reached from the Realms

She could not say why the beautiful syly inside her, but the iony that clawed at her flesh Nor could she say why, as she drifted between visions and drea sift

She would have enough tih tiive

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Light-tih… tree Hard… scale Dark Wet… blood Meat…

Sorrow Pain Longing Need Hope… dragon

She… spider Small Golden

Mohts, the spider returned to her housekeeping, rolled up the tattered re with the discarded prey, then spun a fresh web She did not spin in order to catch prey She spun to keep other things away fro to her about things she had never known existed The World kept shifting as she absorbed the Weaver, showing her new things in the familiar

Showing her ancient things in the familiar

Showing her a Need for Weavers who could spin dreams into shapes that could walk in the World, for Weavers who could spin dreams into flesh

She did not understand this Need, but it flavored the flesh her venoht, when she was safely tucked beneath the scales in the hollow created by her feedings, she drifted on the tangled, silken threads of the dragon's longings and dreaan to learn hoeave a different kind of web

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Perhaps the other Seers were right Perhaps her particular gift was too dangerous to give to the new caretakers of the Realms Perhaps there was no other race that could, or should, take the deepest heart-dreae for those dreams to become flesh

But those dreams would be needed in the world She knew that with unshakable certainty They would be needed…and it was unlikely even the simplest of those dreams would ever exist because she hadn't reached the caves as she'd intended She wouldn'ther scales into Jewels that would serve as a reservoir for the power the new caretakers could not contain in their smaller, weaker bodies The Jewels that caift and would have changed the wearer into a Seer that could shape dreams into flesh Now…

Did her ? Did her sire, the great Prince of the Dragons, sense her fading presence in the world? Would they feel disappointto pass her gift to a solden spider?

She should have stayed in the dark mountain that was the lair of the Prince and the Queen She should have curled up in one of the deep holloithin that mountain and followed the rest of her race into the forever sleep Instead she had followed a vision of a cave filled with dreams—a vision that would never come to pass

Soon now Soon Her body was failing Her poas fading Soon she would be free of the world Soon

Closing her gold eyes, she drifted on dreams

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So ave the flesh a bitter taste, but the spider re deeper beneath the scales for meat that still seeped blood, was still fresh And it wasn't all bitter When the daring ness to on's flesh had been tastier that day, as if thehad draeeter memories to the surface