The Webs We Weave: Araknafine's Tale [Side Quest 1]

           The Webs We Weave:                             Araknafine's Tale

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Among my people, I was considered an otherworldly beauty of silken grace. I was the only Marbled Orb Weaver within the court. My legs were red as roses, my body as bright as spun gold. I was loved by everyone...but the one I loved most in the entire world. Then, one night when I had nearly accepted my fate to be wed in an arranged marriage to the ruler of wolves, a massive Horde King. Grand Grey, a sovereign twice my age, a Wolf spider of many wives and many tales, none quite so sweet as the fantasies I dreamt of in my youth...a miracle transpired. Bathed in moonlight, as I knelt in fervent prayer, my body grew hot, my mind went blank. And when I awoke, I had been transformed. My God had not forsaken me.

I tapped gently against the walls to wake my brethren. When the entire court had gathered, I showed them my miracle. To my dismay, my people shunned me, and I was banished from my hearth forevermore. But I told my mother I would never leave this home, and that I would always watch over my people--banishment or no. She bade me farewell with tears in her many eyes, holding back my tiny little brother that wanted desperately for me not to go.

Unshakable in my resolve, I found clothing to cover myself with, and crept to the door. When I found my way outside, an entirely new realm was mine to behold. I would greet my knight come the morn. But for now, I hid among the trees and tested my newfound gifts. To my surprise, I was able to transform back into a spider of any size I wished. And just as easily, I could revert to my elegant human form. I had hair as red as fire, eyes like the golden sun. And once I figured out how human currency worked, I knew for damn sure I would buy as many yellow dresses as I could. How I loved the color so. 

Sleeping in a silken hammock of my own making, I sat back in my new human body, wrapped myself in the warmth of my webbing, and smiled as the first human sounds I'd ever made billowed forth from my lips in the form of beautiful song. I had heard Elias speak for so many years, listened to his mother's scoldings, grimaced at his poor attempts at whistling and watched his lips move as he spoke that human language came incredibly naturally to me. As did sewing and many other household chores.

I fancied myself a weaver in my spider life. And so that would become my chosen occupation. I'd decided. I would befriend Elias, become a weaver, open a shop for refined and elegant ladies young and old, and live a humble commoner's life here in the home of my birth. Unfortunately, elegance and grace have never been my forte and so my first meeting with Elias began with a door to the face as I mustered up the courage to knock right when he decided to head out for the day's hunt. I stumbled back, fell hard, and looked up to see horror in Elias's ashen gray eyes. He scooped me up into his arms without a second thought, rushed me into the sitting room to lie on the quilted sun bed he and his father had built into the windowsill. 

My nose was bleeding, the webbing I'd draped around myself to create a form fitting dress had become tattered and torn, and my fall had left me achy and bruised. In short, I was a disheveled mess in front of the only man I vowed to ever love. And to make the whole scenario just a bit more unsettling from Elias's panicked perspective...I was grinning like an idiot. My secret joy stood before me, bathed in an angelic halo of sunlight and his first words to me, oh how I shall never forget them, were..."Are you concussed?" In my daze I responded, "I'm not a Countess, I'm a Princess." I’d completely misunderstood what he’d said."Yep, you're definitely concussed," he'd concluded. 

And so it came to be that a human nursed a spider back to health. Once I was all cleaned up and given a change of clothes thrice my size by Elias's mother, it was insisted upon that I rest. I couldn't tell them I'd slept in a cozy spider web all night in the forest just outside their home, so I closed my eyes and tried to drift off. Elias asked his father to do the hunting, it was only fair he tend to the injuries he'd caused me after all. Though he'd surely end up down on his luck since I sent a telepathic warning to all the forest dwellers to beware the big man with the musket heading their way.

And wouldn't you know it, the sun bed was so warm and soft that I ended up going into the deepest sleep I'd ever had in my life!I dreamt the most vivid and vibrant dream I'd ever dreamt, probably because it wasn't a dream, but a message from the Creator of all things great and small. It came to me in the form of a diamond spider. A female Goliath Bird-Eater. A Goddess that towered over me, strong, stoic, and serene. She spoke and the golden clouds surrounding us shook from the sheer power of her booming voice.

"Heed me well, new child of Man. I have heard your prayers and given in to your desires. Your persistence moves me. Your love for Elias intrigues me. I want to see you flourish in your new life. I want only for your shared happiness. But as I have done for you, you must now do for me this one small thing." "Yes, Lord, I will always abide by you," I heard myself say, kneeling atop a peach, sun-crested cloud.

"Never, Princess Araknafine, never ever are you to breed your hybridization into the bloodstream of Man. Promise me this and you shall find joy everlasting long after death doth you both part." "My word is my bond. I give you my oath." "When you awaken, you shall call yourself Araka. Be blessed always, my child." The Goliath Goddess dispersed with the clouds, and I awoke with a jolt at the sensation of having fallen back into my body.

I had spoken to God. I was amazed, I was in awe. But I felt a deep inner knowing that I was not meant to tell anyone. I theorized that God was not truly formed in the image of a spider, but that the Supreme Creator was able to appear before their subjects however said subjects wished to view them. God was everything. God was everyone. I always knew in my heart this was true, but having proof felt spectacular. In my zeal, I leapt from the bed to weave a christening gown for myself. I'd set my mind to a baptism in the human church around these parts. Surely there was one, right? I'd have to ask Elias since I'd never been outside this house except for last night. The forest surrounding us was beautiful. 

The sunlight that I'd only ever seen through the window would feel wonderful on my shoulders. But as I rushed to get off the sun bed, I was pulled back. Elias had fallen asleep watching over me. Had he been holding my hand all through the night? The sun was up when I'd dozed off and now it was the dawn of a new day. I pinched his face to wake him."Have you been sleeping in that awfully uncomfortable position all night, Elias?" He mumbled as he stirred. Then he squeezed my hand tighter, "How did you know my name?" Oh no. What should I say? I'm psychic? I'm a spider with royal blood that threw away her prestige and wealth just to see you smile? Nope, the truth always ends in heartache and rejection in the fairytales I've read.Let's go with this. "I heard of your hunting exploits from the animals in the woods. 

Ahhh. That was all true, but it sounded just as ludicrous as the full truth. Many animals had come to me seeking council on Elias and his father. Their hunts had killed even the Deer King, whose son was now presiding over the forest in his place. The Foxes wanted the hunters to die, as did many other forest dwellers. However, I decreed that no harm should ever come to anyone in this family. They were only doing as all hungry beings did, feeding to survive. But I swore on my honor that I would find a way to make them eat as I had always chosen to. I'd never trapped a fly in my life. I fed on the fruits and vegetables loved by my teacher Mistress Bagheera Kiplingi ever since I was a hatchling. My Elias would become an herbivore with me, come hell or high water. 

"...iss...Miss? Hello? Are you not fully over your concussion? Do you need to rest some more?" 

"No. No, I'm fine. Forget what I said, I must have been dreaming. I heard your mother call to you yesterday. That's how I know your name, good Sir."

I lifted the hand he'd held all night, that he still held even now, and motioned for a rather violent handshake. He was taken aback by my strength. I'll be damned if I wasn't, too. As a spider, I was the smallest of my kind and rather weak to boot. No amount of sword training could knock the girlishness out of me. But now? I felt as though I could move mountains with my bare hands. But all that would have to wait!

"Elias, take me to the town's church. I wish to be baptized. Today is the most special day!" 

"What's special about today?" 

"It's the first day I get to communicate with you, to hold you, and to tell you I love you." At this bold admission, my poor Elias lit up like a Christmas Tree. He coughed and stammered and eventually he said, "But we've never met. I've never seen you in the town. Why I....I don't even know your name!" I grinned and shook his hand again. Then pulled him in close for a warm embrace. 

"Let me formally introduce myself. I am Araka. A fallen angel sent from the Creator of all things big and small to brighten your life and become your wife!" He must've fallen hard for me right then and there because he fainted. BAM. Crumpled right to the floor. I stood up, gathered him into my arms, princess carried my cute prince right back to the sun bed I'd just risen from and iced the bump on his noggin with a cold cloth his mother gave me 'til he came to his senses about an hour later. That was plenty of time to weave together my christening gown. 

When he awoke, he did as I'd asked and walked me into town. He tried to bring his hunting rifle, but I refused, reminding him that I was an animal whisperer and that no wolves nor beers nor wendigos of legend would dare do us harm as long as I stayed by his side. And so it went that all in one busy afternoon I was baptized, employed within the ranks of The Weavers Guild, and proposed marriage to the man of my dreams. 

Spoiler alert, he accepted. 

And you would think that's where my story ends. And oh, how I wish it had ended then and there just like that. But it was my unparalleled joy that ultimately fogged my memory and dulled my senses.Years and years had gone by in no short amount of harmony. Elias's mother and father had garnered so much abundance from my work as a top tier wedding gown maker that they'd decided to give this home to us so that they might find their peaceful retirement one Kingdom over from ours in Radzamir. They'd always dreamt of becoming adventurers scouring exotic lands but impoverishment had always been their lot in life, and they'd remained tethered to Aranya Kingdom. Until I came along of course. They loved me too, though never quite cared for my nicknames Baba and Yaya. These were the formal names for in-laws in spider culture, but they couldn't know that, of course. Elias, being a wealthy farmer now, also offered to whisk me away to far off lands in search of adventure. But I refused in honor of my own little Hearth Kingdom, the world I'd left behind but refused to abandon! We never changed any part of the humble little cottage we lived in on my request. That way my people could continue living as they always had. 

Learning from a Hearth servant of an upcoming event, I shooed Elias into town several days prior to pick up some seeds and supplies for the Spring harvest festival coming soon. But I could honestly care less for this year's festivities at all because this was both my little brother's coming-of-age ceremony and his coronation day. He'd kicked up a bit of a fuss after I revealed myself to everyone, but I convinced him after a short while that my banishment did not hurt me and that he would make a fine ruler to the spiders of Hearth. And so now, seeing him decked in fine jewels being sworn to his people all these years later brought tears to my eyes.I transformed into a large spider, akin to my human size, and watched at a distance. Everyone saw me. Everyone snubbed me. Except for my mother, my father, and the newly appointed king. We smiled knowingly at each other for a long time until I heard the door creak. 

The ceremony was hushed and hurried away into the cracks and crevasses in our old home's walls. I rushed to sit at the rocking chair my husband had recently built for me, fully back in human form. My heart was pounding so very fast, but I read those rapid beats as a sign of my undying love for Elias and nothing more. We hadn't seen each other in what felt like ages, as he'd taken and returned with a cart full of goods some seven or eight days ago. It was the easiest way to keep him busy while I prepared for the coronation. I swept and cleaned, leaving every cobweb I found in pristine condition, mind you. I polished the hearth until it sparkled. I even laid out a velvet strip of felt for my brother to walk across. 

Though Elias's swift return had brought an early end to the ceremony, all in all my week was well spent and my family looked hale and whole. That mattered greatly to me. It had always hurt me that I had no choice but to lie about being an orphan girl who was raised by the creatures of the forest. But I always found a healthy balance between my human life and my royal past. I regretted nothing, however, since fate brought us together in such a way that might not have been possible had I been born into human royalty or Elias into spider society. Our worlds had somehow collided, and I wouldn't change a thing.

 It wasn't long after Elias's return that I learned the most exciting news of my life. I had fallen so ill that I had to be taken by carriage to the town apothecary for a nausea tonic. It was there in the apothecary shop that I collapsed from fever and the apothecary's wife asserted that in all probability I had become pregnant. We immediately changed course and headed to the town's clinic, the apothecary and his wife agreed to join us for moral support while the doctor confirmed the shocking news.The two men sat in the waiting area discussing fatherhood and what it might mean for our future. The kindly wife held my hand as I explained my sudden onset of symptoms. I hadn't realized I'd been shaking until she and the doctor both squeezed my hands and told me it was going to be all right regardless of the outcome. After the examination ended, I returned to the waiting room where all three of my carriage companions sat in fervent anticipation.I could not speak so the doctor laid his hand on my shoulder and delivered the news for me. 

"Congratulations, Mrs. Araka is undoubtedly with child. Being that this is such a new development, the gender has yet to be determined. I've scheduled an eight-month plan for her going forward. I understand you both need time to process this blessed news and so we will discuss payment at another time." Still shaking, I bade the kindly couple farewell after dropping them off at their shop. Afterward we made the long and quiet journey back to our home. Neither I nor Elias could bare to look at one another knowing the old coachman we'd hired for the journey could see and hear all through the tiny window between us. Once there, we bade the coachman good evening and headed toward the threshold. 

Just like on my wedding day, Elias picked me up and carried me gently inside and onto my coveted rocking chair. It was here, alone, that he finally expressed his true emotions on the matter. He was overjoyed. I was nervous. I felt as though I'd forgotten something very important but for the life of me I could not recall what it was. I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the new life I vowed always to protect.In the months leading to my daughter Akasha's birth, my appetite became unbearably strong. I was in a constant state of being voraciously hungry and violently ill. I kept this as well hidden from Elias as I possibly could by sneaking out in the dead of night to forage in my uninhibited spider form. 

Due to my condition I could not control the size at which I could transform and thus I was incredibly large during these particular outings. Luckily, I could communicate with the animals as to my true identity as the banished princess Araknafine and all in the forest dwelling let me pass. In my dizzied, hungering state I made a fatal error one night by crawling a little too far into town. I had been wanting desperately to drink one of the apothecary's nausea tonics...but his wife caught sight of me crawling out the rounded window of the shop at a sluggish pace. Of course, she screamed. 

I'd been human long enough now to understand how powerful their fear instincts were. My fear of humans wasn't much different back in the days of my youth. And to be honest, I felt myself fearing humanity then, as well. I wanted to scream in fright just as she had, but silence meant survival. Somehow, some way, with the help of the forest creatures blocking the path back to my cottage, I made it home safely. But the damage was done and come morn the whole town was buzzing about a demonic arachnid skulking about town, bloodthirsty with a taste for human flesh. That depiction of me stung but all I could do was lay low until these insatiable cravings and horrible headaches went away. Not long after that incident, my baby was born hefty and healthy. I loved pinching her chubby little cheeks while she smiled her gummy grin at me, nestled comfortably from within her cradle. 

The illness came in waves, and still I would have moments where my body would lose stability and control. I would shift in and out of my human and spider forms at a rather rapid pace. There had to be some reason for this. And I knew that it was connected to a distant dream I could never quite recall. There were words of advice in that dream but damn it all, I simply could not remember.Elias had gone into town to join the hunt for the enormous arachnid supposedly terrorizing the townspeople on a nightly basis in spite of my protests. In the quiet of the sitting room, I rolled the cradle to my rocking chair so that I could entertain my baby with a song.

I was tired enough from the recurring waves of illness that my own lullaby started to lull me into slumber. As I sleepily morphed from human to spider without even noticing, the loud, abrupt sound of the front door creaking open jolted me awake.Elias had returned far too soon for me to regain control of myself as Araka, his very human wife cradling their very human child. He saw my long spindly red legs rocking the cradle slowly as I cooed and sang to our beautiful Akasha. His face grew white as a sheet as he cocked the heavy blunderbuss rifle in his right hand and pulled the trigger with his left. He hit his mark, aiming mere inches from my heart. An odd mixture of blue-green hemolymph and red blood sprayed out everywhere. In my mind, I was speaking English clear as day. Begging for my life.Trying to calm the situation. Trying to explain the truth I'd been holding inside for far too long. But to my beloved only demonic sounds could be heard before he cut off my legs. Slowly. Agonizingly. One at a time. All my love for him meant nothing in my final moments. My words could not reach him. My feelings could not stop him. And yet, I do not begrudge him my nasty fate. Please, whoever's out there. If you're hearing this, it is my last will and testament as I lay here dying. I was a spider. I was a human. I was a wonderful mother. I was a doting wife. And no matter what, I loved my husband and child...dearly. Watch over my Elias. Protect my sweet Akasha.

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                        Epilogue

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I am Akasha, Queen of Hearth. I was born to a hybrid mother and to the man who killed her before my very eyes when I was only eight months old. In the heated moments of my mother's death, my uncle, the previous king, swooped in with an army of arachnid soldiers to save me from the same accursed fate. I was raised to hate my father. I was trained in the art of assassination in preparation for my uncle's revenge. He mourned my mother's death more deeply than any. Even those spider nobles and peasants who'd shunned her had openly mourned her terrible death. My uncle never took a wife; therefore, I became his natural heir by default.

 He told me this was his way of making amends to my mother for letting her go when he was a child. When all his senses told him her decision was ill-fated and reckless from the start. But he'd let her go because her eyes shone with a liveliness she'd never quite held in her years growing up in the hearth. But now that all was said and done, as current acting ruler, it was my uncle's dying wish for me to slay my father before the old former king drew his very last breath.In my spider form, I was a Desert Blonde. My entire body looked rough and fearsome yet soft and refined, like silk and sand. I beheld my subjects with eight stern and serious ashen grey eyes. In my human form, the form I despised so deeply, I had long blonde locks and two ashen grey eyes tinged with specks of gold with which I beheld my mother's murderer with great disdain.

On this night, to fulfill my uncle's wish, I stole one of my mother's old yellow lace gowns, adorned myself in a black cloak with a bejeweled, poison tipped dagger strapped to my side and made my way to the sun bed where my father wept every night before falling into a deep and sorrowful slumber. I pointed the dagger, which now shone bright in the moonlight, at my father's throat. I stood there hesitating for so long that it felt like time had slowed to a stop. I could hear the whispering of spiders in my mind telling me to go through with it.

But at last, I flipped the dagger back into the holster dangling at my hip and pulled out a letter I'd written in his native human tongue. I slit the wax seal open with one fingernail sharpened to a point and left the letter and envelope atop the windowsill where Elias had no choice but to see it. Afterward I returned to my place atop the throne of the Kingdom of Hearth and ordered my people to never speak of my past nor humankind ever again so long as I ruled.

Come morning, Elias found the letter which read: "Your wife was murdered, a runaway princess who'd paid the price for her treasonous sin of abdicating her throne. The Kingdom of which she fled from shall not be named herein for fear of backlash from the spies and assassins who were ordered to release a vicious demon upon your beloved Princess Araka. But due to the guilt and conscience of one said assassin, your daughter is still alive, smuggled across the borderlands and into the safe haven Kingdom of Radzamir. You must travel there if you wish to find her. Bring no weapons, travel on foot and tell no one, else you may never see your precious Akasha ever again."And so, the sickly man gathered his old, dusty hunting gear and set out on a fruitless journey to find no one. 

Akasha watched him walk out the door with little remorse, for she'd spared his life and lied for his sake. She'd told the tale to everyone in the kingdom that she'd ended his life the previous night and left him in the forest for the wolves and foxes to find. None of the forest dwellers could recall human features well enough to recognize the haggard old fool as he wandered through, desperately searching for his remaining kin.He'd been in such a hurry to go, he'd completely neglected to grab his remaining wealth, which had all but dwindled to nothing since his gambling debts began to pile up and his drinking habit ran his coin purse dry.

 He refused to stop. He would not rest until he'd reached Radzamir. But without the nourishment of food, his starving body no longer listened, and eventually stopped moving all together somewhere deep within the trees. His body lay on the forest floor. And he, now an unconfined soul, stared at himself from above. He stayed there for a while, hovering in confusion at his newly deceased state when finally, a beautiful spider appeared before him. Before he could react, the spider changed into a woman with a warm and loving smile. Her hair was as red as roses, her eyes as bright as spun gold, her body as translucent as frosted glass. She reached out her hand to him, offering to lead him somewhere. And yet once more, her form morphed into a bright white orb just like his. And together they were guided toward the glowing green light of the River Gaia, and they leapt in with a splash to rejoin the Creator of all things great and small.

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        THE END

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