She goes back home to sleep

Teysa had dedicated her life to service, and that meant that to work was to live. So what, then, was the absence of work? Leisure? No, not for such as she. Leisure came in the moments of respite between tasks, when she could look back on her works and declare them good. The absence of work was something like limbo, a grey purgatory that swaddled her like fog. She stumbled, lost, until some new purpose came along and lifted the grey veil.

She had been without purpose since her fall. She saw that now with the clarity of hindsight. She had agonized over her transformation, her relationship with Aliara, her place in the world, all because she had nothing else to set her attention on. The Matron’s words had snapped the world into focus, and following their conversation Teysa’s purpose became clear.

What else? The same purpose that had driven her since she’d left the Abbey, the same cause that had lit the fire in her soul. Protect. Uplift. Shelter the weak and smite the wicked. Lend the strength in her arm to those who had none. For the first time since the battle in the cave, she ended the day feeling satisfied, without the crawling anxiety of directionlessness. For the first time since that battle, she thought she might get a decent night’s sleep.

With Aliara gone, she could have moved back into their old apartment, but the thought did not appeal. Even approaching the familiar cave arch brought up a wellspring of memories and emotions that she was not prepared to handle. Moreover, it had been excavated for two women of roughly human size. Teysa was far too large to move about comfortably inside and had to duck at the lintel to get in and out.

Instead, she took up a new place near El’keth’s chambers. She was not the only one seeking new living arrangements. The warren was in flux, with every day seeming to bring new shakeups. From what Teysa could gather, driders seeking rooms of their own was something of an innovation. In the past, only the ascended, the Matron and a few others had kept permanent lodgings. It wasn’t a matter of rank or status; the ordinary driders simply slept in the halls when they were tired and kept whatever possessions they cared to maintain on their person. They did not seem to want more than that.

That was changing. Jy’ven had been the first to claim her own cavern, and Yi’resh the stone-shaper had followed. Many of the soldiers still kept to the old ways, but even some among their number had tentatively carved out some private space. This had led to a rush on unoccupied caverns—many of the caves formerly used for breeding were still available and large enough to accommodate driders, and Yi’resh and her fellows spent much of each day adding new ones.

It wasn’t clear what the Matron thought of all this. In the turmoil following Lockh’s invasion and the arrival of the refugees, surely it barely rated. It was an interesting development, nonetheless, and it was only one of the idle thoughts that accompanied Teysa to bed.

She slept in a massive hammock, far larger than the one she’d shared with Aliara. It filled an entire half of her room. She climbed in carefully—some of the driders could skitter across webbing as though it was solid stone, but Teysa had not yet developed the knack. She wobbled like a woman on the deck of a rolling ship.

Eventually she settled herself in a comfortable position and closed her eyes. Even driders had to sleep sometimes. The exertions of the day had left her exhausted, and for once, Aliara’s stolen knife was silent in its sheath. It was not long before Teysa drifted off to sleep.

She awoke from a dream in which she had been chasing some nameless prey through an endless stone maze. She had been on the cusp of victory, her fingers inches from her quarry, and the sudden dissipation of the dream left her disoriented. It clung to her in fragments that faded slowly as she shook herself awake.

All was still. The Underneath had no true night and day, but the activity of the warren ebbed and flowed in cyclical rhythms, and now was a quiet moment. In the distance, someone was scraping at stone, and someone else’s footsteps echoed off the walls. These little sounds did no more than texture the silence.

Teysa lay in her hammock for a few minutes, but when it became clear that sleep would not return, she clambered unsteadily down. Her room was lit by a solitary bottle-grub, its dim light far too weak for any surface-dweller to see by. Teysa’s eyes, black as coal and shiny as ice, absorbed every stray drop of light. To her, the room was as clear as if she had been standing in full daylight. She crossed the floor to her water source, a little pool on the far side of the room fed by a spring at its bottom. Kneeling in front of it, she cupped her hands and dipped them into the dark water.

And froze. Where she touched the water, ripples spread outward, breaking her reflection into pieces. When it reformed, the face that stared out at her was changed. Changed, and yet familiar. Those high cheekbones, that narrow nose, the hair as pale and bright as spun silver. Those golden eyes, shining with inner luminescence.

“My child,” Lolth said. Her reflected mouth moved, but the sound came from above, as though she were standing at Teysa’s shoulder. Her voice was clear and pure, full of divine confidence. Teysa’s heart leapt, but only for a moment. Trepidation crept in quickly after.

“My Lady,” she replied. “Goddess Lolth.”

“Please, Teysa,” Lolth replied. “Call me Mother.” She smiled, and the **** of her love hit Teysa like a thunderbolt. It was warm, all-encompassing, an invisible blanket that wreathed her and swaddled her tight. Teysa could feel herself relaxing into that embrace without consciously willing it.

She blinked rapidly and let the water spill from her fingers. Lolth’s embrace was growing suffocating.

“What troubles you, child?” Lolth asked, and the pressure abated. Teysa slumped and drew in a deep breath.

“I… I am sorry, Mother,” Teysa replied. The word _Mother _came to her lips all on its own, as though Lolth’s request had bound her will. “Your presence is overwhelming.”

Lolth’s brow creased in consternation. “It should be I apologizing, then,” she said. “It was not My intent to discomfort you.”

“Why have You come to me, Mother?” Teysa asked. There it was again: she was incapable of addressing the Goddess any other way, even if she wanted to. The thought was slightly alarming.

“Can I not ask after My favored daughter from time to time?” Lolth’s lips curled up in a smile. There was genuine warmth in that smile, genuine love. But that was not all that was there.

“Of course, Mother,” Teysa asked. She hesitated. “I recognize You as Mother, of course. But why can’t I address You any other way?”

“How would you address Me, child?” Lolth asked. For the first time, she seemed somewhat taken aback. “I ask again, what troubles you? I come because you seek guidance. I could hear you crying out for it.”

That struck Teysa as incongruous. This had been the first day in some time where she hadn’t fallen asleep wondering what she was supposed to be doing. But she could not deny that guidance was necessary.

“It is Lord Lockh, Mother,” she said. “He marshals his forces against us. He grows stronger by the day. I don’t know if we are equal to him, especially with the might of the City behind him. He seeks our extermination.”

“He seeks My extermination,” Lolth corrected. “I can feel his malice even across the realms. Or rather, the malice of that which drives him. Lockh was My child once. He is lost to me now, lost forever.”

“What drives him?” Teysa asked. “This shadow, this ****… I felt it before, when I fought the sorcerer. I slew him, but the shadow fled to Lockh. What is it?”

“It is evil, child,” Lolth said. Her expression grew stern. “That is all you need to know. It is evil in its purest form, and it will unmake all of My creation if it can.”

Once again, there was that sense of something missing. Everything Lolth said was true, Teysa could feel that in the pit of her soul. But there was something She wasn’t saying.

“Mother…” Teysa began, and trailed off. Her anxiety built. The figure in the pool radiated grace, authority, and maternal love. Just the thought of defying Her filled Teysa with anguish. But she remembered their first meeting, far beneath the drow City, and pressed on. “Mother, what are you doing to me?”

The feeling redoubled. Teysa winced as it rolled over her, a wave of inchoate longing. The Goddess’s personality was too powerful to be contained by Her projection. The authority it projected reminded Teysa of the Matron’s aura of obedience, but multiplied by a thousand. She struggled to maintain her individuality in the face of that onslaught.

“Teysa?” Lolth’s voice seemed to come from so very far away, as though she were standing at the top of a well and Teysa was trapped at the bottom. Just the sound of her name on the Goddess’s lips brought new thoughts to Teysa’s mind: love, belonging, and how good it felt to be noticed by one’s mother. She wanted to please Lolth, to make Her proud, more than she’d wanted anything before…

“Mother, STOP!” Teysa’s voice echoed off the walls of the cave. The effect was immediate. The overpowering feelings vanished, snuffed in an instant. The void they left was almost as bad, a cold and ringing emptiness in Teysa’s soul.

There was silence in the cave for a long moment. When Lolth spoke again, her tone was uncertain.

“Teysa, child,” she said. “Have I wronged you? Are you hurt?”

“Mother…” Teysa closed her eyes and shook her head. “Lolth. My Goddess. Why have You come to me? Please, tell me the truth.”

Lolth sighed. “Teysa, you disappoint Me,” she said. Her disappointment was a physical sensation, a strip of cold that lashed across Teysa’s back like a whip of ice. “I thought you were making progress. I have such hopes for you! I came to you tonight to tell you far you’ve come and how proud I am of you, and this is how you address me?”

“Proud of what?” Teysa asked. “What have I done, to deserve such praise?”

“You are spreading My message, Teysa,” Lolth said, her voice regaining some of its earlier warmth. “My new message. My revelation. It is rare, so rare, for My kind to get a second chance. I failed My children, Teysa. I failed them for so long. I was ready to destroy them. To punish them for My failure. But you came along and you showed Me the error of My ways. Some of My peers would have destroyed you for such presumption, but I listened. I knew that you were right. And look how My faith in you was rewarded! My daughters are closer than ever, drow and drider living in harmony the way I always intended. You have done well, Teysa, so very well. I could not be more proud of you.”

That pride washed over Teysa, much like the smothering blanket of affection from earlier. This was different: weaker, more diffuse. Less intentional. It occurred to Teysa that the emotions of a Goddess were too large to be contained within a single body. Lolth was a tempestuous creature of powerful, changeable moods, and whatever She felt, Teysa caught the edge of. It was like being buffeted by a constantly shifting wind. Teysa had to plant her legs and try to remember which thoughts were hers and which she was picking up, like shapes reflected in still water.

“That’s it?” she asked. “Mo- Lolth, the last time we spoke, I told you I would not be tricked into you service. I can only do what know to be right.”

“That is all I ask,” Lolth replied. “This is right, though, is it not? I know you can feel it. Peace in the Underneath, that is all I want. I want my children to live long and fruitful lives, to be kind, to nurture each other, and to make My realm a more loving place.”