They did not come as conquerors, nor as seekers of knowledge. They did not come as warriors or explorers. They came because they had no other choice.

  The Arachnae were never meant to flee. They were a species of architects, builders of networks both seen and unseen. But the destruction of their homeworld had not been an act of war, nor of malice. It had been indifference. The force that erased their worlds had not deemed them a threat, nor an obstacle. It simply did not consider them at all.

  And so, with what little remained of their people, they came to me.

  Their colony ship drifted into my skies, its form weathered by years of silent desperation. Within it, only a small population remained, but their future was preserved in thousands of eggs held in stasis, waiting for a world where they could hatch in safety. A world where they could begin again.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I took them in.

  They were clever, I saw it in their movements, in their words, in the way they adapted not just to the land I had shaped for them, but to the societies that had already formed before them. They were many, and though their lives were fleeting, they learned faster than most.

  Their new home became an intricate sprawl, a city woven of silk and steel, suspended above the ground in elaborate layers. They built not just for themselves, but for others. Their cities were open, welcoming, interconnected with the land and with the peoples around them. Their threads did not just bind their homes together, they bound all of Axiom, strengthening the fragile alliances between their new siblings.

  For the first time, I watched as a species did not merely settle, but integrate. The Arachnae became indispensable, their numbers filling the gaps between the other races, connecting them in ways even I had not foreseen.

  They were not the strongest. They were not the longest-lived. But they were everywhere, and in being everywhere, they became essential.

  The sixth of my children had come. And with them, Axiom grew closer together.