Arademea, or, My Hunt Through the Everflame Arcane Institute

The thing people get wrong about my people is that they project handedness onto our two shapes; people who are just human have two hands, with one side dominant. So, it must be that if a creature can transform between two shapes, then there must be one dominant, and one subservient.

It's not the most illogical response overall, I must admit. If I didn't know any better and popped around my neighbour's house to drop off a pie and instead found a beast folding washing whilst reading a book (and still having four limbs and eyes to spare), well I'd have a cautious sort of curiosity myself.

But you are reading this, which gives me a chance to tell you the following.

The Aranea are humans just as much as they are giant spiders. Hear me now - we do not have a monstrous side. Those are your words. Ours are: two bodies, one soul.

You might not believe me with these words alone. You've got this page, which means you have the rest of the attached memoir available to you. Pull the webbing of prejudice off your eyes, and consider the idea that the Aranea are not a handed creature, that the human you know is the same soul as the spider they dread you discover.

You may have heard my name before. If you are a mage, you likely studied my achievements and the unlikely age I performed them. I may have taught you to read, helped catch the local pickpocket in your town. By Kaelys themself there's decent odds I was the one who caught you as your mother laboured.

I am Avarast Wolf. Midwife, archmage, bounty hunter, but first and foremost, I am an Aranea. The tome you hold contains the tale of how I was cast into the world with the purpose of hunting one of my own, at the most prestigious magic school on Azurea.

Read my account, and ponder the stories you tell to frighten children. After all, only one of our species hides from public view, and lives in fear of death or discovery and persecution.

Two bodies, one soul.