"I can't kill my friend."

Teysa took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Matron. I just can't kill my friend. I thank you for your offer, but if this is what it takes to join your warren, I am not up for it." She sighed. "If you need me to, I will bear your children, and nurture them as best I can. We both will. But I won't become a murderer."

The drider matron was silent for a time. Then she nodded. "Very well. Hyou dissssappoint me, child. I had high hopesssssss for hyou. But if thisssssss is hyour will, sssssso be it." She hissed something, and two of the gauze-veiled drider servitors approached the sands. "Hyou will be taken to the nursssery. Hyou are our honored clutchmotherssssssss. I charge hyou to raissssse the young onesssss well." She smiled slightly. "Teach them strength, and teach them compasssssssssssion."

The driders led Teysa and Aliara to a small, high-ceilinged cave. Inside they found two webs strung up like hammocks, a stone table, and a pool in the corner fed by a waterfall. The floor was webbed wall-to-wall, and a few spiderlings skittered out of sight as the women arrived. Each of them picked a hammock and settled into it. For a long time, neither spoke.

"I'm sorry, Tey," mumbled Aliara. "I cost you your chance. You could have gotten out of here."
"No, no!" replied Teysa. "It could have easily been you, Li. But it was wrong."
"I suppose they're going to breed us again."

"Probably. For all that pomp and ceremony, we're still prisoners. I doubt they'd let us leave. I doubt they let anyone leave."

Aliara scowled. "That's not right! They're animals! They may pretend to be civilized, but we're just prey to them." She kicked at the dirt. "This beats hanging from the wall like a sack of meat, but I know a prison cell when I see one."

Teysa thought about this a long time. "Who knows how many other captives they have?" she finally asked. "How many they've taken over the years? Just because we haven't met any doesn't mean that they're not there. There have to be others. I've never heard of anything like this, have you?"

"No," admitted Aliara. "When I was... in the drow city, they mentioned the driders, but they fear and hate them. They didn't know what was going on here. There were some colorful guesses, but... no."

"So they don't let their prisoners go." Teysa's voice was quiet and pensive. "They just... use them up. Until they're too worn out. Even if they've decided we deserve more respect than that, how many dozens didn't?"

Aliara's eyes grew wide. "We have to escape, Tey! We have to get out of here. That's not going to be my fate. I promise it won't." There was a hard edge to her words, and her eyes narrowed. "I won't be a prisoner again."

Teysa shook her head. "Maybe we could escape. And then what? They just capture two more women, fill them with eggs, and hang them off the wall. That's all they do because that's all they've ever done."

"No!" Aliara rolled her eyes. "That's all they do because they're animals."

Teysa stood up. "Li, what do we do if we leave? We find a couple of other companions and go back on the road? Fighting for gold, chasing orcs away from some farms and then coming back next season to do it again? I'm sick of that life. I'm sick of being rootless. I'm sick of nothing I do lasting longer than a week. That's not why I became a paladin." She crossed over to Aliara's hammock, where the half-elf was staring at her with wide, frightened eyes. "I want to stay here. There's another way. The driders understood when I explained mercy to them. They understand nurturing. They're doing things this way because they don't know that there's a better alternative. Stay here with me. Help me show them."

Aliara gaped at her. "You can't be serious! You can't! You want to volunteer to be a... a brood sow for these things?"

Teysa gripped Aliara's hand in both of her own and squeezed. The half elf was trembling, whether with anger or fear Teysa couldn't tell. "I'll never make you stay with me, Li. But I want to stay. I want to show them that they have a choice. They aren't animals, even if they look like it."

Now it was Aliara's turn to think in silence. Her mouth turned down into a pensive frown. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and level. "You know that they'll stick that thing in you again. You'll have to go through... pregnancy again. And again. However many times they want."

Teysa smiled shyly. "Yes... but, you know, maybe it won't be so bad the second time."

Aliara's mouth gaped open in a silent O. Before she could say anything, Teysa held up her hands protectively in front of her face.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I wish she'd, you know, take me to dinner first or something. But nurturing a life... that kind of felt nice. I felt proud of myself. And my babies were so healthy and strong."

Aliara propped up her head on one elbow and covered her mouth with one hand. "Tey, I didn't think you could surprise me. Are you saying you liked it?"

Teysa turned bright red and looked away. "It just felt... weird, is all. Bad, but also... not bad. Sort of. I don't know!" She threw up her hands in exasperation.

"Well," replied Aliara, "it's not like with a guy, that's for sure."
"I wouldn't know," mumbled the paladin embarrassed.

Aliara giggled. "Really? Never? That's rich! Are you saying... your first time was..." she clapped a hand over her mouth. "It's horrible to laugh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't. It's just funny."
Teysa chuckled. "I guess it is. Doesn't seem likely I'll find out now, huh? I'll have to take your word for it."

The half-elf yawned. "I'm tired, Tey. It's been a long day." She looked up, eyes bright. "I never thought... I mean, you think you know someone... Tey, you're a better person than me. Not that that's hard, but... I dunno. But I’ve been a **** once. I promised myself never again." She leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

“Tey, I have to know. If I decide I need to leave here, and they try to stop me, will you help me? Will you leave with me if the time comes?”

The thought was a pit of ice in Teysa’s stomach. Would she abandon a mission, even one as strange as this, for her friend? She made herself nod. Wherever she goes, I go. I know that now. “Yes, Li,” she said aloud. “I promise.”

The next morning they were awakened by a scuttling outside. Two of the gauze-veiled servitors entered and drew back the curtains. The matron herself followed. Teysa swung herself out of the hammock, adjusting her silk robe. Looking up, she saw the matron's hair was up in a long ponytail. Her face was as impassive as ever, but her breasts seemed to have expanded-- the nipples looked engorged and dribbled small streams of ambrosia. Aliara was as irrepressible as ever. "Is it breakfast time already?"

The matron leaned in, holding up her breasts, one in each hand. "Drink from me. Then we will sssspeak." She knelt down so the shorter Aliara could reach. Each woman took one massive mound in her hands. As she raised the nipple to her mouth, Teysa noticed how swollen it seemed. It looked like the matron's breasts were full to bursting. She bent her mouth over the nipple and suckled eagerly. The milk began to flow right away. Teysa circled the areola with her tongue. She sucked in great mouthfuls of delicious ambrosia, relishing the taste as she swallowed. Each gulp hit her stomach like an explosion of light and warmth that spread through her body and suffused her with energy. After an eternity she relented and released the nipple. The matron's bosom was still tremendously enlarged, but it no longer seemed about to explode. Aliara licked her lips clean and looked up expectantly. The matron addressed them both.

"It isssss my time. I have need of one of hyou. I come to hyou assssssking. Will hyou bear my brood?"