Have you ever had a cat? If the answer is yes, then here’s another question: have you ever woken up, opened your eyes, only to find your cat staring right into your soul, demanding your attention while also impeding your breathing? Or even, woke up with their furry butt on your face? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then I find it hard to believe you ever had a cat.
That morning, Isse woke up to an unfamiliar weight on her chest. For a moment her sleep-fogged mind thought ‘Hey, did I finally get boobs?’, only for Siidi to say something on the line of ‘Idiot, you’re too young for that.’
She grumbled, then opened her eyes, and saw a face staring right at her.
She flinched and stifled a cry of surprise, hugging Anda tighter. Which woke her up. The moment she opened her eyes, she also saw the face staring at her. The eyes were brown and big as saucers, filled with childish curiosity, the same way Anda’s and, sometimes, Siidi’s, had been when they’d just been born.
What’s happening?
I’m as clueless as you, but I think she’s a newborn. She’s too curious about everything.
Indeed she was, because now the spiderling had moved from Isse’s chest, finally letting her breath, and scuttled towards her soulmate, looking at the place where their arms met and how some of their spider-halves’ legs crossed together, binding them tightly.
Was I that creepy when I was born?
No, you were just boring. But Anda here? Yes. No, actually, she was worse. Probably would’ve been even worse if she hadn’t decided to stick with you.
Hey, I wasn’t boring!
You just learned that Queen of the Tree is meant to be a game, not an actual simulation of war. You were boring and nobody can change my mind.
Meanwhile, the spiderling had now decided to sit on top of Anda to stare right into her eyes. Bad idea. There were zero chances of anyone winning a staring contest against those pits of endless darkness. You’d more probably fall asleep and forget your own name than beat the girl. She knew because she’d tried that a while back, and Siidi had actually needed to use [Recall Memory] to make her remember her name.
Isse moved a hand to shake the girl out of the stupor she’d probably fallen in, and realized something: the spiderling was small. So much smaller than her. As in, her hand was, right now, probably bigger than her head.
Was I that small too?
Yes. We’re really fast growers. Give yourself a month and you’ll get to feel the joys of puberty again!
… Please, Siidi, this is a very serious and extremely important question: will I get period cramps again?
What are those? Oh, oh… oh Stars. Your God must’ve been a sadist.
Never thought I’d say this, but thank you Death.
A chuckle escaped her lips, which made the little spiderling stare at her with renewed curiosity. The girl extended a hand towards her… and planted it right into her face. Bop!
…
Issekina.exe has stopped working…?, said Siidi uncertainly.
Don’t go Windows on me.
I have no idea how to react, okay?
Have you never had a cat?
Are you comparing arachne, apex predators that nearly destroyed every living creature on this planet, cats?
Well, in my world cats were considered apex predators once. And were also venerated as gods at some point. So they beat us there.
… At least we don’t go around batting things down from high places.
And that’s more or less when a Hanger, one of the arachne sleeping upside down on a branch, fell screaming to the ground after a spiderling had somehow managed to bat away her spider paws from the trees.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
You were saying?
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While the older spiderlings met their younger counterparts, somewhere in the forest a trial was taking place. To be more precise, in Grandmother’s clearing.
The elder was currently staring down a bound and struggling arachne warrior and her dozen or so associates and helpers. Those, though, were a bit more intelligent, and knew that struggling would only cause the ever-calm Grandmother to lose her wintery cool.
In the end, she spoke: “Desina Silksoul and associates, do you know why you are here?”
Her voice, for once, wasn’t her typical monotone she used with everyone, or the kinder drawl with a smile in its undertone she used during Isse’s lessons. No, it was frosty, like a wintery wind, and cut just as much. The temperature in the clearing had dropped by several degrees, but none of the arachne, except for the trapped ones, felt any discomfort, all thanks to Grandmother’s Skills.
Desina and her sisters, however, began involuntarily shivering. They tried to resist the, but it was too cold, and Grandmother’s stare was… something was happening with it. Piercing through them, examining their souls without actually Observing or Looking. It was not kind.
Still, through chattering teeth, Desina managed to answer: “W-we’re h-h-here because w-we wanted ch-cha- huff -change.”
No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to speak for long, the cold leeching the air out of her lungs, making her feel as if she was drowning. Short sentences were the best she could do.
Which was desired: Grandmother knew better than anyone that even a [Truth] Spell could be fooled, but that was extremely more difficult when the target could barely speak more than seven words at a time.
“Change…” she mulled over the word for a few seconds, tasting it, reading the meaning given to the word by the woman who’d said it. She dissected it like a surgeon did with a dead body to show a group of equally curious and disgusted students. She was good at that, an advantage of preferring silence over talking.
In the end, she nodded slightly, then twitched a finger in Makira’s direction.
The arachne nodded, walking closer. Strings were wrapped around her hands. She picked one out of the many dozen, and tugged. Immediately Desina’s bindings grew tighter. The air was pressed out of her lungs and blood stopped flowing to her arms and most of her spider half. Not enough to kill her, far from it, but enough to make her feel pain. Lots of it.
“You speak of change,” began Grandmother, “Yet you do not look at Consequences. You have endangered the clan with your actions.”
Her words physically hurt more than the strings hugging Desina tight.
Then Makira spoke: “You’ve attacked a village not four miles away from the forest. In one night you turned a settlement of over a hundred souls into a ghost town, killing indiscriminately and breeding with the men. Then you burned everything to the ground, but you most probably weren’t careful enough. You certainly left some kind of evidence you were there.”
“W-W-We,” she inhaled deeply, trying to get enough air to speak, “C-Carefu…,” she exhaled and tried to take another breath.
“That’s what you say, but you are no expert. You. Are. Young! You never left the forest to perform such raids. You and your sisters are not experts! I and my own sisters tried doing the same thing you did, and we were much more organized than this stupid crusade of yours! And still, we were caught!”
Makira sagged, feeling defeated, deflating like a pufferfish with its bladder pierced.
Grandmother stared down at the over a dozen arachne down on the ground. Together, they’d given birth to a total of fifty-seven spiderlings, who’d just hatched. The little ones had been left with the other younglings to keep them occupied while this happened. They’d be named soon enough, after the traitors had been dealt with.
Arachne justice was swift, and always right.
“[Your Punishment Has Been Decided]. You, supporters of this plan, will be locked out of your [Warrior] Classes and forced to do other jobs among us. As for you, Desira, who have started this, you shall lose your sword arm as well. If the other species will discover our existence and sent hunters and soldiers our way, you will be forced on the front lines to sacrifice yourself, to stop the enemy advance. Go.”
The moment the words left her mouth, all the bound arachne felt something like a veil fall on them, suffocating, binding, as strong if not stronger than mythril chains. They knew there was no way to escape this punishment. And, when that night they went to sleep, they heard the voice that gave Levels and Classes say this:
[Class: Warrior - Removed!]
Grandmother then turned towards Makira: “Execute the punishment, then bring the newborn. They shall be named.”
Makira nodded, then tugged on her strings once more. Desina’s associates were released and immediately ran away, thanking Death and the Stars that they’d not lost anything other than a Class. The main perpetrator, though, wasn’t so lucky. The strings around her right arm tightened and tightened. Screams filled the clearing, the air warming now that Grandmother had gained control over herself and her Skills anew. Not long after, the white clearing had a red stain on the ground where Desina had lain. A few minutes after that, the white had eaten away at the color.
Half an hour later, the newborn were brought in front of Grandmother, curious and scared, by a smiling Makira.
She’d fooled everyone into thinking everything was alright. Everyone but Isse and Siidi, who had seen how forced it had been, and wondered what had happened.
She probably lost too much at a game of dice. You know how she is every time that happens, said Siidi.
Isse agreed, since they had no actual idea of what had just transpired.
The world kept turning, the Stars not waiting, looking at the world, seeing everything and therefore nothing. Sadly, though, they weren’t the only beings with eyes. There were others. And they’d seen a village disappear from the maps.