Aliara

Teysa stirred into consciousness, shaking off the vestiges of an already-fading nightmare. At first her disorientation was complete: she couldn't remember where she was, why she was so sore, or even which way she was facing. Her first sight was an expanse of pink flesh. Startled, she jerked her head back, fetching herself a nasty bruise as she hit the cave wall. She opened her mouth to curse, but only a brittle croak came out. How long had she been out? She swallowed once or twice. She was hungry and thirsty, very thirsty.

Answers came when her eyes refocused. The pink flesh was her-- her massive stomach, stretched and bloated with spider eggs. A shiver of revulsion ran up her spine as she remembered everything. The fight, the capture, and then... the drider, with her ovipositor slick with slime and stuffed with eggs. The soreness between Teysa's thighs made sense now. She wished she could see what shape her pussy was in, but her massive stomach blocked the way.

She took stock of her situation. She was, as far as she could tell, nude, hung from the wall in a webbing of spider silk. The bands of silk wrapped around her elbows, knees, ankles and wrists, with a heavy supporting band under each armpit. She was in a sort of squatting position against the wall, hanging down about six feet off the floor. It was surprisingly comfortable; she reflected bitterly that the drider had to keep her alive at least until the eggs hatched.

The cave itself was a warm, dry space about thirty yards across. It looked to have been cleared of stalactites and debris, and light came from patches of luminescent fungi on the walls. The room was dim but held enough light to see without straining too hard. Smaller spider webs covered the floor and stretched between the walls. Teysa could see spiders scurrying across some of them, so they weren't all the drider's work. The spiders ranged from the size of her hand to the size of a small dog. None of them crawled on Teysa's web, so she ignored them for the moment.

One wall of the room was open, but covered by a massive hanging web the size of a tapestry. It was thick, too, so thick that she couldn't see through it. Teysa supposed it was a partition of some kind. She didn't see the drider, so maybe she was off hunting somewhere in the cave, or in a different room of her lair.

A groaning from somewhere to Teysa's left shook her out of her reverie. Looking over that way she saw another vague lump webbed to the wall. As Teysa watched, it stirred and groaned quietly again. Another victim? In the dimness of the cave, it was difficult to make out any features beyond rough shape, but something about that voice...

"Aliara?" called Teysa. "Li, is that you?"

"T-teysa?" Aliara's voice quavered, and she sounded as raspy as Teysa, but there was no mistaking that tone. It seemed at least one other member of her party had survived the fight.

"Li! It's me! I'm so glad you're alive!" Teysa tried to go further, but a fit of dry coughing cut her off. She couldn't recall ever being this parched. How long had she been out?

"Teysa, I can't see. I think I'm blind. My head... I hit it during the fight." Teysa struggled to remember. She knew a few spells to cure blindness, but without her holy implements and incense she was helpless.

Movement caught Teysa's eye. The curtain of webs parted along a hidden seam and the drider scuttled into the room, clicking across the floor. Dread formed a pit in Teysa's stomach and she slouched into the webs. She couldn't risk calling out to Aliara; her best chance was to fake unconsciousness for a bit longer until she could marshal her resources. From the silence to her left, it seemed Aliara had the same idea. The drider paused, as if surveying her captives, then moved closer to Teysa. Her eyes were closed, but the paladin could feel her looming presence. The drider's odor was strange and musky: a kind of spicy, dry scent, like a desert tomb unsealed after thousands of years. Teysa felt those strangely hooked hands holding up her chin, and a hissing gurgle from somewhere above her. The sound repeated, and Teysa figured it must be some kind of language. She tried to remain limp, but the drider didn't seem to be fooled. Teysa suddenly felt a slight pressure on her left nipple, followed by a stabbing pain. She yelped involuntarily and her eyes shot open. The drider was pinching Teysa's nipple between two of her talons. She withdrew her hand, and Teysa was relieved to see that she hadn't broken the skin.

The drider held Teysa's chin and gently but firmly pulled her face upward, making eye contact. Those strangely blank eyes were still staring at Teysa, but there seemed to be something behind them this time; the drider was evaluating her. She spoke again, another one of those odd hissing noises. It had to be a language, but it wasn't one Teysa was familiar with. "I don't..." she croaked, then stopped. What were the odds the drider understood her?

The drider regarded her for a moment more, then came to a conclusion. She grabbed Teysa's head from behind, eliciting a hiss of pain as the paladin's bruise flared. The drider pulled her captive's head forward, her other hand holding up one massive grey breast. Teysa stared as if hypnotized. The thought of struggling never even entered her mind-- she was overwhelmed by pain, fatigue, fear and hunger. Up close, the drider's breast looked almost human, aside from the color. The large, dark nipple gleamed wetly in the glow of the fungus, and a thin trickle of some pale fluid leaked from the tip. Teysa's lips parted and the drider gently placed her nipple in Teysa's mouth.

The fluid immediately began to flow more steadily. It tasted sweet, like nectar, but flowed like water. As the first drops hit her stomach, Teysa's insides gurgled. She was hungrier than she had even thought. Teysa sucked greedily at the drider's breast, feeling the trickle increase to a flood of warm liquid. It coated her throat like honey tea and soothed her thirst. Dimly she was aware of the drider's hand softly caressing her hair as she drank, but nothing mattered but the taste. Teysa drank and drank for what seemed like half an hour or more, feeling her hunger and pain melt away. When the drider finally pulled away from her Teysa almost cried with relief. A thin film of fluid coated her lips and oozed down her chin, spattering her breasts and her hugely swollen stomach. The drider didn't stop to check on her but crossed over to where Aliara hung, and Teysa felt a pang of jealousy that her friend was getting to feed. After a few minutes, the drider withdrew from Aliara and, testing the webbing securing both women, left the room through the same door she had entered.

Aliara was the first to break the silence. "Teysa... Tey, are you still there?"

"I'm here, Li."

Neither of them quite knew what to say. "Tey... that was incredible. I mean... I've never..." she trailed off. "Tey, I can't see, but I can feel my belly. The thing, the spider-woman, she- she put something in me. Did she do it to you too? Teysa, what did she do?" Aliara sounded like she was on the verge of panic. Teysa swallowed grimly. "Eggs, Li. She laid eggs in us. I think that's why we're still alive. She wants us to hatch her brood."

Silence for a time. "Teysa, I'm scared."

"Me too, Li. It'll be ok. I promise we'll be ok."

Teysa quickly lost track of time in the cave. There was nothing to differentiate days and nights. The only break in their routine was when the drider came in to feed them. Teysa found herself looking forward to these moments for more than just the taste. It was her only chance to study her captor, to learn something that might help her escape. The drider never tried to communicate with them, but each time she visited her touch seemed to be more tender than the last. Her talonlike fingers were capable of great dexterity and gentleness, and she made minute adjustments to the webbing with each visit, adjustments that left Teysa more comfortable.

The eggs in her stomach were growing more active, too. Occasionally she felt a shiver from in there. If she ever got complacent, Teysa only had to look down. The sight of her immense belly demonstrated that she was still in serious trouble. She caressed her stomach with both hands. She had found herself feeling oddly protective of the eggs. In a perverse sense, she was almost looking forward to the hatching. She told herself it was only because she would finally be free of this affliction, one way or another, but that wasn't all of it.

Aliara had been growing quieter and quieter. The two had conversed plenty at first, but with so little to talk about aside from their shared predicament-- a subject both wanted to avoid-- they spent most of their time in silence. Lately it had been hard to get Li to respond to anything. Sometime after their latest feeding Teysa was awoken, all at once, by her friend's shout.

"Teysa! Tey! Something's happening!" Teysa craned her neck to see. Li was writhing in her restraints, and Teysa could just make out the half-elf's hands on her belly. "Tey, it huuuuuurts!"

The eggs were finally hatching.