Left

Teysa paused for a moment before turning left. The passage curved away sharply before leveling off. Water dripped from stalactites above and formed pools in the stone floor. The caves here were less traveled than those above, and since the installation of the broodmothers, other driders had taken pains to avoid them.

Sound traveled strangely here. Teysa thought she heard a brief snatch of conversation echoing off the walls. That wasn't too unusual, unfortunately; some of the remaining broodmothers talked to themselves, moaning or crying or wailing at intervals. This didn't sound like that, though. The voice sounded almost happy.

Aliara clearly heard it too. She held up a hand and craned her neck. There it was again. Teysa could hear a low murmur, followed by a pause and a giggle. The answering voice was deeper, huskier. One hand went to her belt before she realized that she had left her mace in the caverns above. She gave Aliara quizzical look, and the half-elf responded with a curt nod. She sprang forward and crawled across the floor in eerie silence.

El'keth seemed lost in all this. She leaned down over Teysa's shoulder and stared with her brow furrowed. "What is happening, Teysa?" she asked. "You just stopped, and--"

Teysa raised one finger to her lips. El'keth cut herself off abruptly and scuttled backward. One of her feet landed in a puddle and made a tiny splash.

Aliara soon returned. She had the strangest expression on her face. She looked from Teysa to El'keth, then beckoned with two fingers and pointed ahead. She set off again, still moving like a shadow. Teysa tried her best to move silently. She had been improving under Aliara's tutelage. El'keth was hopeless; her feet seemed to inerrantly home in on puddles or loose rocks for her to kick.

Still, the sounds didn't change. As Teysa crept along they grew clearer. There were two voices speaking, both feminine, one high-pitched and one low. Up ahead, Aliara pressed her body flat against a thick stone pillar and pointed around it. Teysa held up one hand, palm out towards El'keth, and gestured stay there. She stepped forward to the pillar and slowly peered around the corner.

The passage terminated in a small, round cave. One end was dominated by a wide, shallow pool, ringed by stone columns. The floor and ceiling had been mostly cleared of outcroppings. The room seemed to be under construction-- its surfaces were a jumbled mix of raw and smooth stone. Luminous fungus clung in patches to the walls and reflected off the surface of the pool, filling the room with pale, twinkling light.

Sitting by the pool was a drider. By her size, she was one of what Teysa had come to think of as the "lesser driders." This one looked familiar. Half of her scalp was bare, and her long white hair tumbled down the other half like an avalanche. Most of the driders wore their hair up in the same style as the Matron, but for whatever reason, this one had chosen a different look. Perhaps they're showing some signs of personality after all, Teysa thought.

Like most of her sisters, this drider was nude. Shimmering light danced across her pale grey nipples and glistened wetly from their peaks. Her name tumbled into Teysa's recollection: this was Jy'ven, one of the ambrosia mothers who kept the spiderlings fed. Not just the spiderlings, either-- Teysa and Aliara regularly supped on ambrosia, despite the awkwardness of drinking from a drider's bosom. It was just the way things were done around here.

Nor was Jy'ven alone. She was sitting on her abdomen, her legs piled up beneath her. In this position, she was about the same height as the drow standing in front of her. Teysa squinted, but there was no mistaking that figure: it was Lil'esh, the boldest and most confident of Teysa's drow recruits. She was wearing a loose grey robe that cinched at the waist and her hair was drawn back into a ponytail. Lil'esh was a terror in the arena-- whatever frustration she had at being sent as ambassador to the driders, she took out on her fellow trainees and Teysa. Now, though, her face was serene and happy. As Teysa watched, she smiled and reached up towards Jy'ven.

"Try again," she was saying. Teysa felt like a spy, but she couldn't help it. She was fascinated. What have I stumbled into? She wondered if she would have to tell the Matron about this. She supposed she should watch for a little while longer-- if only to make sure that Lil'esh wasn't planning anything sinister.

"I ham fery pleas-ed to make yur ak... yur akwa... to make yur..." Jy'ven's voice was low and husky and thick with an untraceable accent. Still, Teysa clapped her hand over her mouth. None of the other driders seemed to have the least interest in learning Undercommon.

Jy'ven lapsed into frustrated silence. "Can't," she said. Lil'esh reached up and patted her on the cheek.

"You can," the dark elf promised. "You were doing so well. 'I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.' It's what you say when you meet someone. Try again."

"I ham... fery pleased... to make yur akwantance." Jy'ven bowed and flourished one hand in front of her like a courtier.

"Very good!" Lil'esh squealed and clapped her hands. "I'm so proud of you! Here, I promised." She reached down and picked something up off the ground. Teysa narrowed her eyes. It looked like a clay pot. Lil'esh dipped two fingers in and they came out white and dripping. "Hold still, now!" She reached out and rubbed her fingers across the drider's face. The angle was wrong, and Teysa couldn't see the results, but the drow seemed pleased with herself when she stepped back.

"There, look at yourself in the pool," she said, pointing. "Normally we'd use a special ash mixture, but I guess clay works. They're special dye tattoos. That one is... is for a friend." She looked away quickly, and Teysa's heart skipped a beat. Not just a friend, I think. What is going on here, Lil'esh?

There was a brief sound of scuttling, and then Jy'ven gasped. She burbled something in the drider dialect, but without the aid of a translation spell, Teysa couldn't understand it. Lil'esh seemed pleased. "I'm glad!" she said. "I think it looks lovely on you. Careful that you wash it all off before we go back, though. You don't want to have to answer inconvenient questions."

More burbling. It was hard to discern tone from the driders' strange language, but she sounded hurt.

"No! It's not like that at all!" Lil'esh threw up her hands defensively. "Of course we're friends! Isn't that why I'm here? To make friends with your people? I like all of your sisters!" She paused. "You most of all."

Jy'ven hesitated, then nodded. She settled back down into a seated position and clasped her hands underneath her chin. Lil'esh held out her arms. "Oh, come here, you." Jy'ven settled herself down lower and rested her head against Lil'esh's chest. The drow wrapped both hands around it and began to stroke the drider's exposed scalp. She ran her fingers through Jy'ven's waterfall of hair and gently rocked her back and forth. After a moment, she began to sing. The words were in drow, but Teysa didn't have to understand them to get their meaning.

Jyven pulled back and murmured something. Lil'esh looked up at her and nodded. She looked deadly serious for a moment, then her face cracked into a sunny smile.

"Well..." she said. "I'm a little hungry, as it happens..."

Jy'ven knelt before her and held out one perfect breast in both hands. Ambrosia swelled from the blue-black nipple in a fat bead. Lil'esh bent forward and her lips descended on the soft bud. She began to suckle eagerly.

Teysa had seen enough. She pulled back and Aliara followed her. El'keth filled the corridor ahead. She was staring at both women with a quizzical expression on her face. Aliara shushed her with a finger to the lips and pointed the way they had come. The three of them picked their way along the corridor, careful to make as little sound as possible, until they arrived at the crossroads where they had first turned off into this cave. Aliara turned to Teysa and put her hands on her hips. "Ok, what the fuck, Tey? What the fuck did we just see?"

"You saw everything I did," Teysa said. "But I think you know what it was."

El'keth looked from one to the other. "What?" she asked. "What was it? I heard voices... was one of them Jy'ven? I thought I recognized her."

"Yes," Teysa nodded. "And she was with Lil'esh, the drow. And they were... I dunno..."

"Canoodling?" Aliara asked. "Flirting? Shacked up?"

"Wait a moment, Aliara," El'keth said. She was staring wide-eyed. "Are you implying that there was some kind of... romantic connection between those two?"

Aliara rolled her eyes. "Well, I didn't see them sucking face, but..."

"Hush." Teysa frowned at her partner. "So what if they were being romantic? That's their business, not ours. Li, I seem to recall you enjoying the odd canoodle in these caves."

Aliara shrugged. "Busted," she said. "I guess you're right. It's weird, though, isn't it? El'keth, I thought most of you were like... well, you know, drones. Present company excepted, of course. I didn't even know driders could fall in love. Or whatever that was."

"They can't," El'keth said promptly. "I am the way I am because I was born fertile. I will be a Matron someday. My sisters were born to serve. They do not have..." her voice trailed off. "mayaruk? I do not know if there is a good translation. Spark? Emotion? Individuality? Something like that."

"Well, that may not be as true as it once was," Teysa suggested. "You saw her hair, too. Things are changing all over. Maybe they're changing in the warren, too." She said it hoping it was true.

El'keth stroked her chin with the fingers of one hand. "Perhaps," she said eventually. "It would be a significant change. I think my mother should know."

"El'keth!" Aliara said. "Come on, we can't rat them out. You never snitch. If Jy'ven is feeling new feelings, she should explore those at her own pace. She can't get Lil'esh pregnant... uh, eggnant... or anything, right?"

El'keth shook her head emphatically. "Even I cannot, yet. She would need..."

"See? No worries," Aliara said. "Just let her figure herself out and don't say anything."