...and they have a long-overdue conversation

Aliara lay on her hammock and stared at the ceiling. Images whirled in her head, fast enough to make her nauseous: Teysa, collapsing in her arms. The cocoon splitting and spilling the new drider out onto the ground. Thi’vo **** on the blood pouring from her neck. The Matron’s merciless gaze as she pinned Aliara to the ground and began to lay.

She wondered where she had gone wrong. Should she have run to help Teysa in her fateful duel? Should she have tried to stop her from fighting at all? Or was her mistake earlier? Should she have escaped the warren when she had the chance, with or without Teysa? Should the two of them have left after escaping the drow City, or before they ever arrived? She’d never know now.

Or had she failed at all? Had this outcome been predestined from the start? Was she doomed from the moment she met Teysa, doomed from the moment she fell in love? She had steeled herself against attachment for so long... but in her naïveté, she had imagined that the worse that could happen was to fall in love and have her partner die. How foolish she had been! There were worse fates.

A sound at the door shook her out of her reverie. It sounded like footsteps: scuttling, spider-leg footsteps, but robbed of their normal smooth cadence. She had gotten so used to the smooth clicking of the driders’ feet against stone that hearing this arhythmic beat grated against her nerves. She sat up in time to see Teysa duck her head under the doorframe.

It was still difficult for Aliara to process this new Teysa. Her face was hauntingly familiar. Her hair, her lips, the swell of her breast... these all called out to Teysa, reminders of the woman she loved, but then her gaze would sink to the arachnid body that sprouted like a tumor from Teysa’s waist. It looked like a separate, monstrous creature, a demon that was devouring Teysa from the legs up and had digested her up to the waist.

At least now she was wearing clothing. That made it easier, somehow, even if the blue blouse strained around her broad shoulders. The style was all wrong for Teysa, too; she’d never dressed in bright colors or fancy outfits. Aliara supposed that this was El’keth’s doing, but that did not make it look any less strange.

“Aliara?” Teysa asked, and there was that buzz again, a rasp just beneath her words. She sounded unusually timid. When Aliara didn’t respond, she tried again: “Aliara? May I come in?”

Aliara sat up and took a deep breath. Once again, she cursed herself for her cowardice. She should have gone to Teysa. She shouldn’t have made her lover come to her. She’s got to be hurting now, too, she told herself. She’s still in there somewhere. She has to be. Otherwise...

“Please do,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Teysa stepped into the room a bit hesitantly, as though afraid at any moment she’d be attack. When Aliara slid off the hammock and onto her feet, Teysa flinched. She settled down a safe distance away from Aliara and folded her legs awkwardly beneath her. Even in this posture, she was at least a head taller than she had been. Aliara had to look up to meet her gaze. Neither woman made any effort to cross the cave.

“I’m... happy you’re alive, Tey,” Aliara began. It was a fairly weak gambit, as such things went, but she felt as though she was still in shock. “I sat by you while you healed. I knew you’d make it, but I prayed anyways.”

“Thank you,” Teysa said. “I’m... I...” she swallowed. “I’m sorry, Li.”

“You’re sorry?” Aliara’s brow wrinkled. “For what? You didn’t choose what happened to you. You were so brave during the battle. I’m sure you saved our lives. I should be thanking you.”

“I didn’t... I couldn’t...” Teysa groped for words. “I hate this, Li. This body. It feels like a graft. It feels like someone stole part of me while I slept and replaced it with this... this thing.”

“It’s not your fault,” Aliara said. “I begged the Matron to save you. I didn’t think about what that might mean. I just wanted my Teysa back.”

“Well, here she is.” Teysa spread her arms out and laughed hollowly. “What’s left of her. Li, I saw your face when I hatched. Even now. I disgust you.” Aliara opened her mouth to object, but Teysa rolled on. “It’s alright. I understand. I disgust myself.”

“I’m not disgusted!” Aliara protested, though she knew it was at least partially true. “This is a lot to take in, Tey. It’s not like dyeing your hair.”

Teysa sighed. “I know. I just thought... maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe we could go back to the way things were, you and me. Maybe this is just a... a bump in the road. People change.” The hope in her voice was painful to hear.

Aliara’s mouth opened and closed. She tried hard to scrub the fear and disgust off her face.

“I don’t know, Tey,” she said. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I loved Teysa and will until the end of time. But when I look at you... are you her? Or do you just look like her and sound like her? I can’t tell. I don’t know.”

<I feel like her, Li,> Teysa replied. <I do. I feel like me.> She trailed off; Aliara's expression had twisted into a grimace of incomprehension. Teysa mentally replayed the last few seconds of conversation. To her horror, she had slipped into the clicking, burbling tongue of the driders without realizing it.

She tried again, forcing herself to speak in Common. It was hard. Part of her kept wanting to speak in the sibilant drider language. "I don't know, Li. That’s what makes this so hard. Part of me knows that this isn’t right. These aren’t my legs. This isn’t my body. None of this, none of this is right. None of this is fair.”

“No,” Aliara agreed. “It isn’t.”

They sat in silence for a time. Aliara could feel a gulf stretching open between them. They had been brought together by chance and circumstances and the shared experience of their captivity. Now she could feel distance opening up, a gap that could not be easily bridged.

“I still want to be her,” Teysa said quietly. “The woman you loved. I remember her. She loved you back, Li, so much it hurt. She loved you like she never thought she’d love anyone. She wanted nothing more than to be with you. I want to be her so badly. I can feel her spirit all around me. She’s haunting me. Maybe... with your help...” she sniffed. "Maybe together we can find her again." Her lips curled into a hopeless smile. "Please?"

Tears carved tracks down her slate-grey cheeks, and Aliara found herself crying too. She felt so tangled in her own thoughts it was hard to breathe. Love and devotion and duty and fear and regret and misery and hope: the strands crisscrossed like a spider’s web and tugged in every direction at once. Her heart thudded in her chest. It felt terribly heavy, an anchor that would drag her down into the abyss. She struggled for breath.

The decision was hers. She knew that much. She hated it with every fiber of her being, but there it was. Nobody could make this choice for her. She had to make it for herself. She took a deep breath.