Runaway
“I won’t come back until I’m bigger and prettier than Cho.”
That was the last feeling Bin left me with.
Apparently she’d decided that since I seemed to dote on Cho more after Cho got bigger, she was going to become even prettier than that.
I sent my feelings a few more times, but Bin didn’t even answer anymore.
Things between us had been frosty, sure—but I never thought she’d actually pull a surprise runaway.
Hwa-eun staggered under the shock of Bin’s disappearance, so I steadied her and sat her down in a chair.
“Calm down and sit for a second, Hwa-eun.”
Then I tried to pin down exactly when Bin had vanished—so that if she hadn’t gotten far, I could go haul her back right away.
“When exactly did she disappear, Hwa-eun?”
“She was definitely with me right up until we went to bed. Then I got this strange feeling and opened my eyes, and she wasn’t beside me. I called for her, but there was no answer… The door was cracked open, and that same odd feeling made me ask the guards on duty outside. They said she’d crawled out of my room and headed toward your quarters, So-ryong, so that’s why I came looking.”
“My quarters?”
“Yes, So-ryong.”
At the news that she’d come toward my place, I asked the other kids.
“Any of you see Bin come by?”
—Guk-gu?
—Tsuurrrr.
—Shaaaa.
Seol and Bing the lizards, Cho, Hyang, and even Yeondu the snake—all of them were nocturnal. They were always awake while I slept, so I asked if any of them had seen Bin. Every last one shook their head.
If Bin had actually come by, there was no way they wouldn’t have noticed. She probably never made it as far as my quarters.
I turned back to Hwa-eun.
“Hwa-eun, about what time did you fall asleep last night?”
She thought for a moment, then counted on her fingers.
“The Hour of the Pig.”
“The Hour of the Pig…”
If Hwa-eun had gone to bed around the Hour of the Pig, that put it roughly between nine and eleven at night. It was only just past the start of the Hour of the Tiger now—call it three in the morning.
That meant Bin had been gone for at least four hours, maybe as long as six. Even for a short-legged centipede, that was more than enough time to get a long way off.
And after her molt she’d gotten absurdly fast. There was no telling how far she’d gone.
“She’s probably long gone by now.”
“Sh-should I wake the whole household guard!?”
Like any mother whose child had left home, Hwa-eun was desperate enough to rouse the entire family—but this wasn’t a case of someone who’d just stepped out a few minutes ago. Four hours gone, in the dead of night. I couldn’t exactly go banging on doors and ask everyone to help hunt down a pet venomous creature.
So for now, Hwa-eun and I decided to look ourselves.
“It’s late. Let’s search on our own for the time being. She’s already far away, so waking people now won’t do much good.”
We’d confirm the direction she’d taken, and once daylight came we could use friends who flew a lot faster than anything that crawled. We had the Golden-Haired Bee King, after all—and I intended to lean on that help.
Ordinary bees foraged within about three kilometers, though they could fly as far as twelve. The Golden-Haired Bee Kings, more than a hundred times larger, could search several times that area with ease.
“Have you by any chance seen Bin?”
“Bin?”
So the first people I checked with were the guards watching the gates and paths. Bin was an arthropod, but she was also a kid who was constantly out and about with me. She was far more likely to use roads and doors than some narrow, damp corner—so I started by asking the Tang Clan guards at the checkpoints and gates about her whereabouts.
“Ah—one of the centipedes I raise.”
Asking by name only got me blinking stares. Once I explained I was looking for one of my centipedes, one of the guards pointed toward the mountain peak.
“Ah—earlier, one of them crawled off along the path that leads up toward the summit.”
“The mountain?”
I was still tilting my head at the word mountain when Hwa-eun’s scolding cut in.
“Why didn’t you stop her!? No—why didn’t you at least tell us!?”
“Ma’am? W-well… Young Master So-ryong’s venomous beasts all understand human speech so well, we figured she’d just stepped out for a bit and would come right back… Forgive me, Young Lady.”
“Easy, Hwa-eun. The guards couldn’t have known whether a kid was running away from home or just going for a stroll.”
Bin’s disappearance seemed to be tearing Hwa-eun up even worse than me. Once we heard she’d headed for the mountain, I ran back to my quarters and plucked the thread by the window.
—Ting.
If anyone had moved around at night, there was someone—well, some venomous beast—who might know where they’d gone.
That someone was Yo-hwa.
She had her spider silk stretched all over the floors of the Tang estate; if someone had traveled by night, there was a good chance she knew about it.
—Thump.
The moment I plucked the signal thread, Yo-hwa came sailing through the air and landed in front of us, looking as if she were asking why she’d been called.
—Kishit?
“Yo-hwa, Bin’s gone missing. Any idea which way she went?”
—Kishi!
“Oh—looks like she knows, Hwa-eun.”
“Where, Yo-hwa?”
Answering our questions, Yo-hwa scooped me up and set off at once. She clearly knew exactly where Bin had disappeared to.
“I’m coming with you, So-ryong.”
Hwa-eun followed on Cho, and the place we arrived at was the front of the courtyard where Yeongyeong was staying—right along the path that led up the mountain.
—Kishit!
Yo-hwa pointed upslope, showing us the direction. That seemed to be the last spot she’d been able to confirm. Her web coverage probably ended around here.
“Looks like she went up the mountain from here.”
With Cho and Yo-hwa’s help we climbed to the summit, but the only thing near the peak was a single owl, foam at its beak, lying dead. The melted flesh around the bite marks had Bin’s handiwork written all over them.
“She made it this far, at least…”
I prodded the owl’s carcass with a stick, then looked back at Hwa-eun. She buried her face against my shoulder and spoke in a small, broken voice.
“What do we do, So-ryong?”
Normally with a runaway, a little suffering outdoors is enough to bring them home…
If the runaway had been a person, the moment hunger hit and thoughts of home crept in, they’d slip back of their own accord. I would have said we should just wait a little. But a spirit beast, a little girl, and a centipede? That combination left me without a clue.
So all I could do was keep sending my feelings toward a Bin who never answered.
At the very top of Tangjia Mountain, where the Tang Clan of Sichuan made its home, a single centipede was wriggling her way up the highest rock.
In the moonlight, this was no ordinary centipede. She was far larger than a normal one, thick as a man’s forearm, her yellow body marked with striking blue spots.
Yes—this was Bin, who had left the Tang Clan of Sichuan behind.
Having crawled all the way up the mountain, Bin climbed onto the tallest rock and gazed down at the slopes below.
Far-off lights entered her vision. The moment her parents’ home came into view, her antennae drooped without her meaning them to.
She hadn’t even gone that far, and already she was thinking of Mother’s embrace and Father’s voice. She’d never once been apart from Father since the day she was born—so of course her antennae would sag.
A thin, pathetic sound slipped from her mouth before she could stop it.
—Tsur…
“Aigoo, our Bin is so pretty.”
But the second Father’s voice rose in her mind, the hurt surged up stronger than the longing, and Bin’s antennae trembled.
—Tsurut!
She still hadn’t gotten over how Father had hurt her feelings, after all.
To steady her resolve, Bin decided to drag up every single grievance she held against him. She’d sworn not to go home until she was bigger and prettier than Cho—but she’d barely left, and already her heart was wavering. So she would recall every slight.
How he’d only ever called Cho “big sister.”
How after Cho ate the Flying Divine Snake’s inner dan and got big and pretty, he’d kept saying only Cho was pretty.
How he’d praised only Cho for being able to shoot killing intent.
How when the bad people came, he’d only ever asked Cho for help.
How he’d flown through the sky with Cho and said Cho was the best.
And to Bin? Nothing but lies.
Bin could feel the killing intent aimed at Father just fine, so of course she’d thought she could fire it too. Naturally she hadn’t expected to make whole flocks of bats fall out of the sky the way Cho did—there was a size difference, after all. So she’d started with one little bat. Then that stupid man.
And thanks to Father’s lies, Bin’s confidence had grown bit by bit—until, in a moment when Father was actually in danger, she’d done something idiotic and tried to fire killing intent, hadn’t she?
She’d only wanted to freeze the woman charging at Father so he’d praise her…
Just thinking about it made her antennae quiver all over again with hurt.
If she’d gotten it wrong, Father could have been hurt, couldn’t he?
And none of it might ever have happened if Father hadn’t grabbed Bin and Hyang during the fight over the inner dan in the first place. All of Father’s praise could have been Bin’s—and that made the hurt cut even deeper.
On top of that, he’d even brought her Cho’s discarded shell and told her to eat it.
The more she chewed over every fresh grievance that surfaced, the higher her drooping antennae rose, stiff and straight.
—Tsuurrrr!
With her resolve restored, Bin launched herself lightly down from the rock—heading for a place she remembered visiting with Father.
Bin’s adventure was anything but easy. She’d had to make a worthless owl that dove at her thinking she was prey foam at the mouth, and then fight a bloody battle with a hedgehog that charged in with the same idea. Neither of them had been a match for her, of course.
After several hard scraps, Bin finally found the place she was looking for, guided by half-remembered nights and a distant sensation.
—Tsuurrrrr!
From the rim of a pitch-black pit, Bin glared downward and threatened whatever was below. Snakes came scrambling up the hanging branches and fled at top speed.
In the lightless depths of the empty pit, a writhing black energy caught her eye.
Yes—this was the Snake Cave Father had brought her to twice before.
Bin had come here because of an old memory. While eating that irritating shell of Cho’s, she’d felt something welling up inside her—and it had felt a lot like what she’d felt the time she threw herself into this place to thrash the snakes that were biting Father. Afterward her shell had turned black, and Mother and Father had fretted over it. That memory was still with her—so she’d sought this place out.
If eating Cho’s shell had given her something, she might be able to gain something here too.
Bin stared into the pit for a moment, steeled herself, and was about to leap—when Father’s feelings reached into her heart.
He’d only just noticed she was gone, then.
Father’s frantic feelings and the news that Mother was worried made Bin’s body flinch—but if she went back now, nothing would change. Cho would still be bigger and prettier than Bin, and Father would still love Cho more. He’d said he’d find her an inner dan, but those didn’t seem easy to come by.
So Bin shouted her answer into Father’s heart: she would not return until she was bigger and prettier than Cho.
—Tsuurrrr!
And she threw herself into the black pit—hoping with all her might that this hole would make her bigger and prettier than Cho, just as she wished.
—Tak.
The moment her feet touched the bottom of the pit, a vast power surged in through the tips of her antennae.
Just as Bin had hoped, something enormous was filling her up. Her antennae stood on end. Through the tips of countless feet, black energy poured into her body in a flood.
Bin’s chest swelled with joy—and at the same time her body darkened, and her consciousness slipped further and further away.
In that fading awareness, Bin hoped that when this sleep ended, she would wake with a big, beautiful body—the one Father would cherish most of all.
Because Bin loved Father best.
And so she wanted to be the one he loved best, too.