A Thing Well Done

Episode Six.

Look, the children grow with haste. The spider had come down into the girder web from above, just off duty at her sentry position. She clung with apparent ease while removing armor with a few unoccupied legs, and combed her eyelids out with a palp. Now off duty she relaxed and watched the egg brood play, which consisted mainly of squirming. See the red one, it needs to dominate; not so loathsome as before, are they?

 The female’s mate blinked a couple lazy eyes in agreement. It had been a long morning with the brood. They were unruly and needed constant watching. Several times he had unraveled one or more from the sticky webbing stretched about for their safety. It would not do to lose any from a fall.

She looked up from the playing maggots. I will watch, I require nutrition now. The male blinked now more rapidly, and the female blinked back, once, with all her eyes. Chided, the male departed. Again, the female eased, and watched the egg brood with interest. She kept her biggest eye on the slightly larger red one to see what it might do next. There was prestige in raising a specimen of great ability.  The Atrocious One would be pleased. Well pleased, squeaked the spider as her mouth coxae fiddled eagerly.

 The male, smaller than the fearsome female warrior, came up from below carrying a webbed limb in her palps, and stuck it to a girder. The female pulled it off and with her pedipalps proceeded to feed. Delicious, it is still the pieces of the sneaky bastards found above?

 It is. I have saved the best and meatiest pieces for you, mate.

 I am pleased. She sucked at the limb with vigor, and then discarded the desiccated leftovers into the void below the girders. Look there, the red one has an adversary. At last… In a corner, by the webbing, a greenish maggot was squirming and shedding its skin. It emerged larger, and with bright yellow fangs. Small, pointy things scratched at the platform beneath its segments, and a horn poked up between its squishy knob eyebulbs. The red maggot bellowed, seeing the challenge, and threw its weight forward, charging.

 The male spider bounded forward, looking to separate the two, but the female warrior jumped to her mate’s side and put a staying leg on his abdomen. No, this is the way of things. They have this great hatred, it is innate. It is just.

 The male stepped away, though with a sadness only seen from the smaller, weaker of its species. It is just, I agree. His duty to the brood was over now, no matter how the struggle concluded.

 As the red maggot gamboled at its sibling, the slime of its infancy sloughed away and it came out scaled in rotating spikery, a slithering maw round with fangs. The brothers (or sisters?) collided and became a frenzy of blood and whipping tails. In their metamorphic phase they altered to the situation, and if one became embroiled in a pinched hold, it sprouted boney pikes that lacerated the enfolding limbs, and so pieces of the wrestling maggots flew about the platform and into the abyss.

 The warrior spider was so engrossed with the battle it forgot its duty, but her mate gathered up the armor and fitted her ably as the bout ensued. Finally, the red one slithered weakly around its foe, trying in vain to choke it, but the enemy’s serrated teeth were in the penultimate stage of ripping off its head. At the end the green maggot emerged the victor, and consumed what was left of its red brother, thus exiting its larval stage. It was now an adult, though still of an adolescent size.

 Bravo, and well done, look at this atrocious specimen! The green monster squatted tiredly on the platform, and then rolled over toward its pupae siblings, who were quivering with dread before it gobbled them up.  

 The warrior looked at her mate, as longingly as was possible for the ferocious Space Spider. She took the helmet from his offering claws and donned it. Mate, I will speak of you to the Atrocious One, who will be well pleased with your fostering efforts. This is a thing well done, loved one.

 Mate, then I am well pleased, and he jumped forward into the waiting arms of the pulsating green thing as it split from its skin, bloated from all the feeding.

Episode 7