Sumi - First Memories - Parts II and III

Part II

Through the narrow crack in the webbing that surrounded her, the spiderling could see the light change, flickering as the Man carried her. Was he called… Iorgas? The concept of a name was strange, but Mother had one as well, and in her mind, it felt right to identify one’s self as different from Other. Why not use a word for this? After all, she had named ‘tree’ and ‘Man’, so naming herself wouldn’t be strange.

As Iorgas carried her, jostling occasionally against the egg holding her brother, he talked. As he did, she tried applying the words to herself, to see if any of them fit. After all, trapped as she was, she could do nothing but think. This was how she learned of ‘love’. She even tried using the word as a name for some time, but found that it fit far less than ‘skeleton’, which she rather liked for a day or so.

Iorgas ‘loved’ Calliope (a name which she dismissed immediately) and wanted to marry her. What, exactly, ‘marry’, or ‘worthy’, or ‘necromancer’ meant, she didn’t understand at all, but she listened, and took in the words nonetheless.

Iorgas’ near-constant speech broke the silence that she was used to. She had been born to the sounds of rustling leaves, and the click and vibration of battles, daily fought to the death. Over time, his voice became almost soothing, since he only stopped when he had to fight. When total silence fell, she knew bloodshed would soon follow.

Distantly, she knew she should be hungry. She should want to eat the defeated foes he so carelessly left behind, but no hunger or thirst touched her. She was nothing but sight, and hearing, and thought. Soon, it seemed as if she could predict what he would say before he even said it, though her comprehension lagged behind.

When the darkness of the forest fell away to the first full, bright day she had ever seen, she was nearly blinded. Her egg rested in Iorgas’ arms, gap side up, so her eye stared into the sun. She was utterly unable to turn, and so, for the first time, she tried to communicate with him.

Move me, she thought. There was no response, so she tried again. Move me! The light burned, and Iorgas continued to talk about his Calliope’s ‘moonlight locks’ and the way her ‘laughter’ sounded like ‘bells’.

Move me, she tried again, as spots swam in the light that swallowed her vision. Move me, move me, move me, <Move me!> she screamed, instinctively understanding that darkness would soon take that eye, and never lift again.

Iorgas stopped. Stopped talking, and stopped moving. His head tilted, until his two yellow eyes looked down at her egg, thankfully blocking the glare of the sun. “Did you… talk?” His voice was faster, and higher-pitched than usual, and she wondered what that meant. He poked at her egg. “Was that you? You want to be moved?” His expression shifted, and he lifted her egg up, high over his head, so the light burned into her eye again.

<No!> she screamed. <Move me!>

Instantly, he lowered her back down, shifting the web so it covered more of her eye. “I’m sorry.” Now his voice was lower, and slower, and she wondered if that meant he regretted tormenting her. “I had to be sure.” He poked the other egg, which laid, silent and still, in his arm. “I’m beginning to wonder if this fellow is still alive. I could try [Animate] I suppose, but it might hurt him, if he’s not dead.”

He shook his head, puffing air out through his soft mouth.

“Still, if you can speak to me, then…” He knelt, placing both eggs in the dirt. Hers rolled so she could see nothing but grass and dust, but she heard him raise his voice.

“Atae, great Goddess, I am ready to try the next step. Please, aid me!”

Coldness flooded the spiderling, and she would have shuddered and shrunk away, if she could. The voice of the thing that had commanded her mother came to her. “This is my final warning, Iorgas. If you do this, you will be tied to these creatures for the rest of their lives, and yours. If they die, you will suffer greatly. They will each hold a piece of your soul that you cannot take back.”

“They won’t die,” he said firmly. “And as long as they’re alive, I can still access those soul fragments as if they were still mine, right? But they’ll grow faster than they would if they were still, ah, in me? I mean, they’ll allow me to grow stronger, faster? Strong enough that even Duke Geral won’t be able to deny me?”

A long silence fell, and the spiderling wondered what, exactly, was happening. Something fell into the dirt beside her, though she couldn’t make out what it was. When Iorgas spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper, and he sounded… pained? “I live to serve you, great Atae. All of my strength is yours.”

She felt herself lifted and rotated. She saw Iorgas. It was his knees that had landed in the dust, and he rubbed his forehead with the hand that wasn’t holding her egg. The Goddess was either gone, or not within view.

Iorgas looked back at her, meeting her eye through the crack in the web that held her, and one side of his mouth lifted higher than the other. “She’s just worried for me,” he whispered, and then embraced her egg and closed his eyes.

Nothing happened, except that her world grew dark as she was pressed against his chest. Then something… tickled? It felt like a vibration in the most distant part of her web, as though it had traveled so far to reach her that it was all but gone. The vibration grew stronger, and it began to tug at her. It pulled like she was caught in some other spider’s sticky web, and instinctively, she struggled against its grip.

An image appeared in her mind, where no other images had appeared since her mother bound her. She had been afraid, so afraid, that she was done, that she had somehow grown as much as she could, and without these images, these goals, her life would end. After all, she grew strongest when she obeyed.

But this image! It showed her, wrapped in a web made by… Iorgas? She hadn’t known he could spin! In the picture, she spun her own web, weaving it together with his, to make a single, rather tangled mass.

It was far from perfect, but it bound them both, and it was strong. And wasn’t that the true goal of each of them? She wanted to be strong enough to live, and Iorgas wanted to be strong for his Calliope, but the end was the same. If this was the way for her to achieve the strength she craved, then this was what she would do!

Something inside of her relaxed, as if feeling her acceptance, and she no longer felt trapped by the web, but rather safe within it. Much as she had spun a web around herself when she molted, this web would keep her safe as she changed again, though in an even more fundamental way.

With acceptance came warmth, and with warmth, darkness.

Part III

When she woke, she was curled on Iorgas’ chest. Tattered shreds of web lay around her, and she stretched her limbs in the sun, seeing the fuchsia of her feet. She wondered if the rest of her body was as brilliantly colored as that of the Spider Queen. She would have to ask Iorgas for a mirror.

She paused. What was a ‘mirror’? But she knew. She held a thousand words she’d never have dreamed of before, and knew the meaning of every one. It was as though the power of her mind had magnified a hundred times, and concepts that had been vague ideas before now stood in sharp clarity.

Iorgas groaned, and one arm flopped in the dirt. His eyes blinked open, and his forehead wrinkled as he shut them again. Now she knew that this expression meant pain.

Quest: “Got Milk?” begun.

Your master is injured. Figure out how to produce Spider Milk and give some to Iorgas.

Success: 5% increase in the effectiveness of your Spider Milk. Experience. Improved relationship with Iorgas Penbrooke. Iorgas returns safely to his escort.

Failure: Iorgas recovers too slowly to meet his escort, and must return home alone.

Why she now had black marks hovering before her eyes, instead of images, she didn’t know, but what mattered was that she could understand them. She remembered seeing her mother stroke her own abdomen to produce the healing fluid, and copied the Spider Queen’s movements. Her limbs trembled as the milk flowed out, and she used careful feet to bring a few drops to Iorgas’ mouth.

At the touch of the fluid, his cracked lips parted, and a disgustingly slimy pink tongue emerged. She shuddered, and skittered back, but it was done.

Quest: “Got Milk?” complete.

Success: 5% increase in the effectiveness of your Spider Milk. Experience. Improved relationship with Iorgas Penbrooke. Iorgas returns safely to his escort.

Silver light shimmered around her body, just as Iorgas let out a shout and struck at her, sweeping her from his chest as he sat up abruptly, spitting liquid from his mouth. “Great Goddess!” he groaned, clutching his head.

Clicking her chelicerae angrily, the spiderling drew cautiously nearer. <Why did you hit me?> she demanded.

Redness rose in his cheeks as he looked at her, and she saw the lump in his neck bob up and down. “I… I’m sorry. I woke to find poison on my lips and a fist-sized spider on my chest. I reacted without thinking.”

<Poison?> She moved a limb to point at him accusingly. <I gave you some of my milk, so you would recover more quickly, and you claim I poisoned you? I begin to regret this arrangement already!> She didn’t, really. She felt stronger than ever before, and was abruptly, gloriously aware of how very wide the world was, and how much there was to learn. She had always been smarter than the others, had always been able to think a little faster, reason a little better, but this! This was like standing in the rain, when all you had ever known before were the barest drops of water, trickling between stones.

Aspen’s face grew contrite, as it should. He held out a hand, and it barely shook as she stepped daintily onto it, though his skin jerked beneath her sharp feet. “I truly am sorry, little one. I will never strike you again. But… milk?” He grimaced, and his skin grew pale at the thought.

She tapped one foot thoughtfully. ‘Little one’? Her body might be small now, but someday she could rival Araignee, and her name should reflect that. <Name me,> she commanded, scampering to his shoulder.

He hesitated, and she almost thought he chuckled. “Pinky? Blue? Magenta?”

She gently scratched at his ear with her toes, and he flinched. <No. Those are colors. And they are… not respectful.> How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but she was absolutely certain none of those suited her.

He scratched at his ear, then turned his hand to lay it flat in front of her. She hesitated and then stepped carefully into his hand. Her legs were too long to fit comfortably, so she extruded a few bits of webbing to make sure he couldn’t throw her again. Once she was firmly in place, he raised her before his eyes.

“Hmm. I doubt Callie would appreciate it if I named you after her, though her name is the most beautiful one I know.”

She stiffened. <I am me,> she said, firmly. <I will be named after no Other.>

This time he did laugh, but it was a warm sound, and through the invisible web that bound them, she sensed that he was pleased with her. “Sumi, then,” he said. “It means elegant, but it’s also a type of black ink.”

Sumi. She rolled the name around in her mind. <Yes. I am Sumi.> She lifted a leg to point at the other egg, where it lay, forgotten, in the dirt of the road. <What will his name be?>

Iorgas grinned wryly, leaning over to pick up the fallen egg. “I don’t know. His egg is quite a bit larger than yours. He’ll be strong, I think. Orion, maybe? It’s a constellation people call ‘The Hunter’.”

It felt… right. When her brother was born, he would be Orion, and they would grow strong together with Iorgas. She turned all of her eyes on the man who was now her master, and bobbed in agreement. <Orion, then. Quickly, hatch him!>

Iorgas gently placed her back on his shoulder, and tucked the egg beneath his arm. His stride was long and confident. “He can wait until I get back to Bright. Forming the Soul Bond with you took more out of me than I expected, and, no offense, but I’d rather drink a recovery potion than any more of your milk, lit- Sumi.”

She waved her pedipalps, but bobbed agreement. <Very well. As soon as we reach our… home, then.>

He grinned. “I can’t wait for you to meet Callie! She’s a little bit afraid of spiders, but I’m sure you two will be great friends!” He whistled jauntily as he walked, and the forest fell away behind them.

Sumi turned on his shoulder, looking back. A dark form lurked beneath the trees, eight eyes gleaming in the filtered sunlight. One leg lifted, longer than the trees surrounding her were tall, and Araignee waved to her departing daughter.

Sumi waved back, though she doubted her mother could see. Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll make you proud. You’ll see. She watched until the shadows swallowed the Spider Queen.