A drow soldier

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 she could tell that her companion had also been filled with eggs. Teysa strained her eyes to focus. She was having trouble making out any details through the gloom...

The other captive shifted, and Teysa realized why she had seemed to be shrouded in shadow. Her "cellmate" was a female drow, hanging from the wall with her belly just as swollen with eggs as Teysa's own. The paladin hesitated. Most drow were unequivocally hostile to surface-dwellers, but maybe their shared plight would **** some cooperation. She called out a greeting in halting Seriny, the trade-tongue of the elves.

The drow stirred and looked at her. For a long time Teysa thought she wouldn't say anything, but when the drow finally spoke her voice was thickly accented with the burr of the Underneath. "You speak like a child."

Teysa resolutely ignored the insult. "I am Teysa. What are you called? Where are we?" The drow woman stared contemptuously at her for a while, but her expression softened. "I am Kyrness, of Voremtek." She corrected herself. "Formerly of Voremtek. We have been given to the arakeen. What you know as driders."

Teysa had known that much, although "given" was a strange way of putting it. "What will become of us down here?"

Kyrness shrugged, a difficult gesture from their current position. "We are clutch-mothers. After the hatch, who knows? None given to the arakeen return. They are outside our knowledge. We avoid the Blessed of the Spider-Queen, for they do not obey our laws." She looked Teysa up and down. "Were you captive? What House?"

Teysa was confused. "Uh, no House. The drider captured me. My friends and I had come from the surface."
The drow smirked. "Foolish. Duardek, treasure-thieves. You came to plunder. Found more than you bargained for, yes? Your friends?"

Teysa's face fell. She didn't want to think about that right now. "Gone, I think. I hope they got away."

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. 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 the paladin 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 Kyrness hung, and Teysa felt a pang of jealousy. The drow didn't hesitate but leaned in greedily, slurping from the drider's breast loudly and eagerly. Finally the drider backed off, tested the webs holding both women prisoner and exited the chamber.

"The ambrosia of the arakeen," said Kyrness. "We drink it in the city, but it tastes better fresh from the source." She smacked her lips obscenely. Teysa shuddered, but she couldn't deny the taste.

Kyrness was not great company, but she was willing to talk at least, and it helped pass the time. Teysa had no way of keeping track of time here in the darkness, but over the course of days or weeks they told each other about their lives. Kyrness, it seemed, had been cast out. For the crime of supporting a failed coup her House had tossed her into the drider caves. The driders themselves were figures of great mystery to the drow, who feared and avoided them. They were seen as cursed by their Spider-Queen deity; elevated closer to Her form, but cast from Her light into the shadows of the Underneath. Occasionally a powerful priestess would become a drider after failing some important rite or simply receiving a bad omen, and these unfortunates were chased out of the city. More driders lived in the caves than could possibly be accounted for by just these exiles, so they drow figured they bred somehow. There weren't that many, though, so Kyrness seemed pretty sure that there weren't drider eggs in them. To become a clutch-mother, arakeen-domuus, was seen as a terrible fate. It seemed Kyrness was a bit more sympathetic to the driders than the average-- one reason she had tried a coup.

After some interminable length with nothing to break up the monotony but the feedings, Teysa awoke to a burning sensation inside herself. It felt like something biting her inside, eating her up. She had to fight down the urge to panic. A sudden spasm of pain shot through her, and Teysa screamed. Her time had come.