...for some, it's harder than for others

The freed mothers regarded Teysa like a barely tamed predator. Some offered her trinkets: bracelets, necklaces, things they had worn during their long months of captivity. She refused all of these gifts. Others looked at her with barely disguised contempt. The drow in particular would not meet her gaze. Teysa and Aliara showed them to the apartments the driders had prepared. They were spartan, but comfortable-- the driders had dug into their coffers for cotton quilts and iron cookpots, salted meat and fish and fresh bread. Some of the mothers tore into the food with gusto, others nibbled nervously. Teysa reminded herself that these women had had nothing to eat but ambrosia for months or even years.

Devto and Nyssi picked a cave on the edge of the warren. The half-orc helped Nyssi to the hammock and tucked her in, then came back to the mouth of the cave, where Teysa and Aliara were waiting. “So,” she said haltingly. “I suppose you came through after all, human. You surprise me.” Teysa nodded. “I had help. Aliara was with me the whole way.” She gestured at the half-elf.

The half-orc grunted. “You are lovers?” The bluntness of the question took Teysa by surprise. “Is that a problem?”

“No. There’s little enough love in this world. Take it where you find it.”

“And you and Nyssi…?” Teysa trailed off. She felt like she had crossed a line, but the half-orc snorted and waved a hand.

“Her? No. Not like that. I love Nyssi, and I’d die for her and her for me, but…” she sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like. She was right. You don’t know. You know a little, but… it’s those months, hanging on the wall, knowing that you have nothing to look forward to but a brief respite in between breedings. Some of them just retreat into themselves. That’s what happened to Tivya. She was always frail. She used to be so hopeful. She’d say that any day now, her people would come rescue her. Birthing was always hard on her. She’d bleed, sometimes for days. She slowly stopped talking as much. She cried a lot. One day she just… went away inside somewhere. I hope she’s happier in there than she was out here.”

She sighed. “Nyssi and I, we kept that from happening to each other. We made it a competition. She’d say I was a brick house, that I was probably so used to laying with wargs so I barely felt it. I’d tell her that she was one of those fancy courtesans and she was just angry that the driders weren’t paying her. Things like that. She told me about growing up in a city, I told her about my clan. We made plans for after we got out. Silly things. She said she’d make ME a courtesan, the first half-orc to attend a ball at the Chateaux de Hilliard. I told her I teach her how to spear a grux from a hundred paces. We never thought we’d actually get out. It was just a game we’d play. Now… I don’t know. Maybe I will have to learn to dance after all.” She looked up at Teysa. “Everything I said about you was true. I don’t take any of it back. You laid with them by choice. But… you freed us, too. So thank you. I can tell you have a warrior’s spirit. I don’t know why you choose to be a **** instead.”

Back at her apartment, Teysa sat on the edge of the hammock, her head in her hands. There was a throbbing in the center of her forehead that wouldn’t go away. Aliara sat next to her, massaging her shoulders. After a while, she stopped, and put one hand under Teysa’s chin. Gently lifting her face, she looked Teysa in the eye. “That could have gone better,” she said.

Teysa nodded. “I don’t know, Li. I don’t know what I expected. They’re right! Where do they go? What do they do? There’s so many ghosts here. How can I ask them to forgive the driders? How can I ask them to voluntarily carry the young?”

Aliara stood up and put her hands on Teysa’s shoulders. “Tey, I need to ask you something. I don’t want you to answer reflexively. Really think about it. This is… this is important to me.” Her voice wavered. “What Devto said. Do you want to be a ****? I mean, deep down. Is it just easier that way?”

“I-” Teysa began, and stopped. She took a deep breath. God, but her head was really pounding now. She tried to focus and clear away her distractions. Aliara was staring gravely at her, with an expression halfway between fear and hope. Teysa closed her eyes and **** her breathing to slow.

Finally, she spoke, each word coming slowly and carefully. “No. Aliara, I don’t want to be a ****. My choices are important to me. I choose to stay here because the driders need me, and because I like bringing new life into the world. I feel like… here, I can make a difference. All I ever wanted was to make the world a better place for having me in it.” She opened her eyes. “And I’d be lying if I said that… you know, the breeding… if I said that it didn’t feel kind of good. In the right circumstances. So I want to stay. I want to help them. I want this life. With you, if you want to stay.”

Aliara stared at Teysa’s face with a pleading look in her eyes. “I want to believe that, Tey. I really do. But how can I be sure? How can you even be sure that’s how you feel? Do you feel free? I can’t-” she broke off. Her lip trembled. “I can’t watch you put yourself back in chains. If that’s what you want.”

“Aliara. I promise. That’s not what I want. All I can do is give you my word. Do you trust me?”

Aliara was silent for a moment that seemed to stretch out. Then she threw her arms around Teysa’s neck. “Thank you, Tey. You don’t know how much I needed to hear that from you.” She drew back. “I heard it too. When you were talking to the broodmothers, I heard what they’re afraid of. That you chose the life they just escaped. That you want to be a ****. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but… that’s how you sounded. Let me talk to them. I think I know what they need to hear.”

So the next day, they visited the broodmothers one or two at a time. Teysa stood by the door, shifting nervously from foot to foot, while Aliara spoke. “It’s easy for you to talk about forgiveness!” the dwarf shouted at her. “What have you lost? Nothing! You and her traipse around here in your silk gowns like you belong here! What about the rest of us? We had lives! People who cared about us! We know what freedom tastes like! It seems like you’ve forgotten.”

In answer, Aliara reached down to her waistline and began pulling down her breeches. She tilted her hip up to show the dwarf and pointed. “You see that? You recognize that?”

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a drow ****-brand.” Her eyes grew wide. “This is old. When did you get this?”

“I was nine years old,” Aliara replied. “They gave me a little hammer to break slag with. A child-size hammer. They took ten years of my life away from me. Don’t tell me I don’t understand loss. Don’t tell me I don’t understand freedom.” Her tone softened. “I know what you’ve been through is terrible. I know. We went through it too. Maybe not as bad as you had it, but bad. But… we are free. Every day. What I choose to do-- or not do-- is meaningful, because it’s my choice. It’s my choice to stay here with Teysa. I could leave if I wanted to. And every day I say… maybe I’ll leave today. But as long as I could leave tomorrow, I never have to leave today. Do you understand?”

The dwarf nodded. “I… think so, Aliara. Forgive these beasts? Maybe not in this lifetime. But I’ll go home. Back to my people. I won’t seek ****. At least… not today.” She gave a thin smile. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Oyanna was harder to soothe. She stayed huddled in her room, and wailed in terror every time she saw a drider. At first, Devto and Nyssi tried to calm her, but they soon gave up. “She blubbers like a warg with a thorn in its paw,” Devto complained. “There’s no iron in her. I told her I bore a dozen dozen clutches, and her eyes get all big, and then she starts crying again. I never met such a wet lass.”

She seemed terrified of Teysa, too. The paladin tried to visit her, but Oyanna would curl up in the corner and stare with big terrified eyes. She seemed to think that the Matron lurked behind every corner, waiting for her to slip up so that she could be returned to the wall. She wore the baggiest silk dresses she could find to hide the great curve of her belly and refused to be seen without them. Finally, Aliara sat down with her. She brushed the girl’s long hair with a silver-handled brush she had gotten from the Matron. Oyanna sat shivering, but allowed it, though she flinched minutely at every touch.

“It’s going to be ok, Oyanna, really.” Aliara spoke gently and slowly, like someone trying to soothe a spooked horse. “I know it’s scary. It was scary for me, too. Look at how tiny I am.” She gestured at her hips. “I did it just fine. You will too. I’ll be there for you the whole time. Teysa too, if you want. Do you want that?”

Oyanna hesitated, then gave a tiny nod. “But none of those things! Just you two! Promise?”

“I promise.” Aliara ran the brush through a particularly troublesome snarl. “Oyanna, you’re free. Once you deliver, I will take you back to the surface myself. Just you and me, if you want. I’ll make sure you get a horse. I’ll even see you to the nearest town. You’re going to be ok?”

“B-but what if they chew their way out of me?” Oyanna’s voice trembled on the brink of hysteria. “I sometimes dream about it! I can feel them biting!”

“Hush now. That won’t happen. Here, let me show you something.” She stood up and extended a hand. Oyanna took it and clenched so tightly that Aliara grimaced. “No driders?” she asked?

“No driders. I promise. Teysa will make sure of it.” She shot Teysa a look. “Let me show you the nursery.”

Teysa traveled ahead to make sure the path was clear. She twice had to shoo driders out of the path, but they obeyed her. Their strangely placid faces regarded her with something like awe. Was there something else there? Resentment? Fear? Reading their emotions was difficult, but they seemed to treat her with a wary respect. She didn’t have time to consider it now. She still remembered the path to the nursery, and it was there that she led Aliara and Oyanna.

There was a great scuttling as she arrived. She saw spiderlings diving for the nooks and crannies of the web. They scurried out of sight at the sound of footsteps. Oyanna looked around as she entered. “Where are we? What is this room?”

“The nursery,” Aliara replied. “Come. Meet the children.”

One by one, the spiderlings peeked their heads out. Topaz, Emerald, Ruby… the precious stones from which they took their names lined the cubicles that Teysa had painstakingly put together for them. As the first one-- Ruby, who had always been bravest-- scuttled across the floor, Oyanna looked down and shrieked with fear. She clung to Aliara, nearly knocking the half-elf over with the weight of her. Only Teysa’s timely intervention stopped them from falling.

“Easy. Easy! Calm!” Aliara bent down and let Ruby scurry onto her hand. “They’re tiny. They can’t hurt you. They wouldn’t hurt you! These are Teysa’s children.” Oyana buried her head in Aliara’s shoulder and whimpered. With a gentle but firm grasp, the half-elf detached her and stepped away. “Oyanna, I know this isn’t how you wanted to be a mother, but life is full of surprises. And they’re harmless, I assure. Look! They’re friendly. Ruby here wants to meet you! I promise you, it is going to be alright.”

Oyanna timidly held out her cupped hands. “Should I… pet it?”

Aliara extended her arm, and Ruby hopped into Oyanna’s hands. “Oh!” exclaimed the girl, and shivered. “It tickles!”

Teysa and Aliara watched silently as the girl and the spider regarded each other. Oyanna rubbed its back with one hand, and Ruby nuzzled her above the navel. She gasped, but didn’t drop it. The other spiderlings began to approach, and Oyanna bent down and gently deposited Ruby back on the floor. “It headbutted me!” she said. Teysa stepped forward. “Ruby’s hungry, I think.” She scooped Ruby up and opened the front of her kimono to expose one heavy breast. She held the spider up to her nipple and it immediately latched on and began to suckle. Teysa stroked the spiderling’s legs as it fed, her face lit up with a beatific smile. Oyanna watched her with her mouth hanging open. Aliara nudged her in the side. “It’s rude to stare, you know,” she said with a wry grin. Oyanna let out a little nervous laugh. “This is, uh, I mean, you look happy, but…” she turned to Aliara and whispered “It’s a spider!”

The spiderlings clustered around Oyanna. She learned all of their names, and Aliara showed her their webs, the creche where they had slept as newborns, the shelf where they stood to hear stories. “They’re spiders!” the girl exclaimed. “Don’t tell me that they can understand you! Don’t the driders do all this stuff?”

Teysa shrugged. “They don’t seem to care much. But I do. They’re my children, Oyanna. Not the children I expected, but still children. They understand, I promise you.”

The dark-skinned girl gave her an odd look, but nodded. She giggled as another spiderling scuttled over her foot. By the end of the visit, she seemed to have calmed down. She still looked askance at Teysa as she tucked the spiderlings back into their cubicles, but she said nothing. They walked back to her apartment together, and Teysa noticed that she was already holding her head higher.

As they had promised, Teysa and Aliara were the only attendants when Oyanna’s time came. She sweated and strained while Teysa supported her back and Aliara reached between her legs, plucking the spiderlings free one by one and tucking them into silk pouches. Oyanna’s fear had been replaced by a grim determination to see her task through. Finally, when her stomach was flat again, she lay panting in Teysa’s arms. As soon as some of her strength returned, she asked to see the spiderlings.

“You should be proud of yourself!” Teysa beamed as she handed one of the newborns over. “They’re fine and beautiful!”

Oyanna cradled the spiderling in her arms and looked down with a quizzical expression. Then, to Teysa’s surprise, she handed it back. “If you say so,” she said. “You’ll take care of them, won’t you? My… children?” Her voice wavered on the last word. Teysa’s eyes widened. “Well, surely you will! There’s a comfortable nursery ready for you!”

Oyanna pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, Teysa. I thought about what you said, but I still want to have children one day. Human children. I’m glad that you’ve found something here for you, but it’s not for me. I have a life to go back to.”

In ones and twos, the broodmothers left the warren. Some slunk away in the night, others took the time for tearful goodbyes. Some left sullen and angry, others relieved, but none chose to stay. Devto and Nyssi were two of the last to go. The day after Nyssi delivered her brood, the pair found Teysa and Aliara in the armory.

“We’re going.” Devto was characteristically blunt. “There’s nothing for us here. I’m going to find my clan.” She paused. “Thank you, Teysa, Aliara. What you did for us… I don’t understand you. You talk a lot of nonsense. But you freed us, so thank you. I hope, whatever you’re trying here, you pull it off.”

Nyssi was more subdued. “Tivya,” she said. “What’s going to happen to her? She can’t walk, can’t even feed herself. What’s going to become of her? We’ve been taking care of her. What happens once we leave?”

Teysa put her hand on her heart. “I swear that Aliara and I will take care of it. We’ll wash her and feed her. We’ll keep her safe. Whatever days remain to her, she will spend them in comfort.”

“And will she be bred again? When her womb empties? The driders will ask.”

Teysa hesitated. She didn’t want to make a promise she couldn’t fulfill. “I-”

“Let them do it,” Devto cut in. “She can’t feel it, anyways. It’s all she knows now.”

Teysa stared in disbelief, but Nyssi nodded. To Teysa’s shock, there were tears in the corners of her eyes. “If that’s what it takes to keep this peace, then maybe it’s for the best. Just… take care of her. Tell her stories. Touch her. I don’t know how much of her is left in there, but I want her to know that there are people that care about her. People who know she’s still alive.” She was squeezing her hands into tight little fists. “Someone has to give a shit about her, now that we’re leaving.”

Aliara stepped forward. “We will, Nyssi. I promise. We’ll do the same for all of them.” The blonde regarded her for a long moment, then turned to Devto. “Let’s go. I want to see the sun again.”

After they were gone, Teysa exhaled and sagged. “Tivya…” she began. Aliara turned to her. “I know. And the others. There’s a few more. Tivya at least mutters. Some of the others… they’d fog a mirror if you put it in front of their mouths, but I don’t know if they’re alive. Not really.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Teysa stared at the ground. “I mean, we freed them! And then what? Their lives are all messed up. That woman who lost her family… I thought she might stay, but she just snuck off in the night. Where is she going to go? And poor Tivya and the others. I keep thinking that they’re going to wake up like in a fairy tale, but that’s not going to happen, is it? What you see is what you get. They’re gone.”

Aliara’s hand found hers and squeezed. “I know, dear. All you can do is give people a chance. You did your best. It’s not like these women would be any better off if you hadn’t shown up. Now Tivya can lie down, she has real food, people to bathe her… and maybe Devto’s right. Maybe this is just her life now.”

“But it shouldn’t be like this!” Teysa wailed. Her cheeks flushed and she looked away. Instead of chiding her, Aliara reached up and laid her hands on Teysa’s cheeks, turning her head until they were looking into each other’s eyes. “But it is. You play the hand you’re dealt, love. Now you can beat yourself up for not being able to save everyone, or you can get to work saving the people you can. Sometimes you do that with a sword. Sometimes with a sponge. Let’s go see Tivya.”

Hand in hand, they walked off into the warren.