as a maiden she tiptoes shy with her light...

Thothaga's dark shape sat high up in the boughs of the Divine, sheltered from the light drizzle that had started to fall. She had been like that for days, stewing in her own despair. It was painfully clear that Algol was avoiding her now, and the spider blamed no one but her horrid looks; too many legs, too many eyes, a soulless expression not even the Crystal Mother would love. She should have foreseen this. He appeared in the Masked Masked Merchant's cave-of-lies, an illusion made to trick her into jumping in a pit of spikes. She saw through it, and like a fool, she jumped anyway.

However, his vagueness left Thothaga with a strong, dangerous yearning. It left her heart hopelessly ensnared in a web of desire. Divination had failed her to show her a path to take, the right path, to win his admiration, and the spider witch had grown more and more frustrated by the day. Thothaga had never been one to let prey slip away easily. She just had to figure out the right trap...

"Thothaga speaking."
Thothaga thinking.

@Khloros @Aries

"Through here." Aries said as he pushed through a wall of cattails. The Divine towered darkly over head; the gathering rainclouds had blotted most of the light. The ram's golden eyes stood out against the gray as he scanned the shadowy canopy. "Spellweaver!" He called out. "Spellweaver are you here?"

Aries hopped on the tree's great, gnarled roots. With solid ground beneath him, his limp became more clear, but it did not seem to bother him while he searched.

He began sticking his head into the many dark crevices formed by the twisting roots, calling out her name, but only getting his faint echo in reply.

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Khloros // OOC:

Khloros paced after Aries, floundering now and again in the thick liquid of the swamp. Its dark water slicked his coat, streaking it pale where mud clung to it.

His long head swivelled a little, this way and that, his ears rotating as he listened for any sign of this 'Spellweaver.' But his mind was elsewhere. He was remembering long-ago things: his fight with Aries, the ram's courage, his broken bones. Khloros' seared hide.

It is strange, how things have changed. And yet despite their battle, despite Aries' near death, the ram had accepted him now without aggression.

Khloros found that he admired him, for that; many beings were stubborn, prideful, unforgiving. It wasn't that Aries had been in the wrong--far from it; his intentions had been noble and that, perhaps, made it even more surprising that he wasn't acting on a grudge. At least, Khloros hoped that he wasn't.

But perhaps he felt, as Khloros did, that more important things were at stake here. The ram had designated himself a protector, and if the horse was right, the caves sure as hell needed protecting. I only wish you had been clearer, he lamented, in his thoughts, to the white being that had come to him in death.

Still--perhaps Thothaga could tell them more. And so his attention drifted full circle, now returning to the swamp.

Khloros raised his voice, adding it to Aries' own. "We seek you," he cried, as loudly as he could, despite the crack of disuse in his voice.

@Thothaga

as a maiden she tiptoes shy with her light...

The voices calling below pulled the spider from her web-of-thought, much to her annoyance. WHOMST?. Her eyes burned bright red.

Thothaga was in no the mood for visitors. She was too busy sulking and scheming. Still, thought it better manners to acknowledge them then shoo them off instead of pretending she's not here (unlike a certain horn-head she knew).

After a moment, the branches rustled and the dark shape of a giant spider descended from the shadowy boughs; its many, glowing, red eyes glaring down at them. The blue crystal points on her bulbous abdomen glinted faintly in what little light there was. The Spellweaver had came into full view, climbing down her silken tether. Her eight, spindly legs splayed as she neared the ground, making her appear even larger than Khloros. "Why do you seek me?" The rasped harshly. Her subvocals fluxed with a hint of impatience. "What is it? What do you want?"

Her vampiric, red eyes glared at the duo for a moment and she shuffled her fangs. The black had... a familiar shape.

"Thothaga speaking."
Thothaga thinking.

@Khloros
@Aries

His stomach sank.

He remembered this one.

Disappointment roiled through him, his hopeful attentiveness at once fading into that same dullness that had claimed his mind much as the swamp had threatened to dull his body with its slicks of rank-stinking muck.

He spoke, quietly, first to Aries--softly enough that the spider would, he believed, be quite unable to overhear. "This one sees nothing. She was present at my death; her beliefs are blind imaginings." It was not said with malice, or disdain, but with that quiet emptiness that spoke of his own disappointment.

To Thothaga, he spoke more loudly. "We had come to ask a seer questions, but now I know that we have already met." He looked to Aries again. "Did you have your questions to ask of her?"

For now, this was all that he said.

@Aries

The first thing Aries saw when he turn around was a eight, glowing red eyes staring back at him and too many legs He gasped, stumbling back. Nobody told me she was a big-ass spider!

Aries quickly composed himself and cleared his throat. "Lady Spellweaver," He greeted, dipping his head respectfully.

His ear flicked as Khloros whispered into it. Aries raised a brow and glanced at the large spider. He leaned in with a hushed quip. "Are you sure? She has eight eyes."

He was curious though. What did Khloros know about the Spellweaver that he did not? From what he was told, she was little like Giggle, except her mind seemed less.. fragmented, and there were no bones involved. Was the lack bone-throwing the reason Khloros distrusted her?

Aries stepped forward. "Yes! I have come to ask you about Hydra. I know its deadly, but do you know anything about it? It threatens the Bonebound." He paused, recalling the memory of Eythan, doing his best to comfort his son, Eli at the ceremony; which wasn't saying much. The poor kid had been feeling blue ever since his sister left without saying goodbye, and Vinnie's death wasn't helping. "Also I need help on locating a lost gembound, Elyon is her name, have you seen her? She's really big, muscular, covered in chiton, has six limbs." He wasn't sure if that was much to go on, but maybe the spider could surprise him.

He glanced up at Khloros, wondering would still want to ask about his.. death experience.

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: // OOC:

as a maiden she tiptoes shy with her light...

The red glow faded from her eyes when the ram bowed. She chittered in amusement, pleased with him. "Ooh, how chivalrous!" Thothaga touched the ground and her cut her tether. Perhaps it won't hurt to here these lads out. She rested her abdomen again the roots and waited to here what they had to say.

They began to whisper amongst themselves and Thothaga stared. She could tell from the ram's glance that it was about her. She flicked her abdomen and shuffled her fangs self-consciously, somewhat annoyed.

When the black one spoke to her, that's when it clicked. The spider's eyes lit up. She knew this one. "Death Carrier?" She gasped. "Is that you?" Thothaga scurried over to the black horse to get a better look. His coat was clean and healthy, no boil or blister in sight; from what her poor sight could tell. "You no longer carry death." She sensed fire from ram, but from Khloros…

"You carry nothing.." She peered at him, her eyes black as the deep. She had questions for him as well.

Thothaga turned her attention to ram when he asked about Hydra. "Ah, Hydra." She hissed. She tried to bargain for answers from the Collector about the purpose of Hydra and he ditched her. Then, the ram mentioned the Bonebound. Thothaga paused as an idea formed in her brain. Perhaps, if she helped this ram, the Bonebound would help her draw out Algol. After all, they seemed a bit against him living in Canis, and for the moment, she was a miffed at him. "Oh, yes, that horrible cave, I regret helping the Masked Merchant open it." She waved her front leg as if shooing away the memory. "I can't imagine having to live next to that eye-sore... oh, poor Giggle." She sighed and swayed her body in a way that mimicked a head shake.

Thothaga tilted to one side. "Elyon? I can try." She stroked her fangs thinking of ways to divine the gembound's whereabouts. She could try threading together the future. "Perhaps I can tell you where she will be."

Thothaga snapped to Khloros and pointed. "And YOU, Death Carrier, there is much I want to know from you."

"Thothaga speaking."
Thothaga thinking.

@Khloros

Well.

He decided to give her the information--all of it; but in neat, short format. He didn't entirely hate the spider, but there was nothing about her that he liked: she had only gotten in his way, and argued nonsensical things about a "mother" in the Spire itself, blind beliefs that held no basis in fact. There was none of Aries' awe as he spoke--merely dull, factual speaking, despite the topic that Khloros addressed.

"You watched the stag kill me," he began--bluntly--as if to remind her. He hadn't expected her to help, not at all--but it was good to begin where they had last stood, compared to one another. "You believed in a Mother in the stone. There is none," he added, "but there was something beyond. In death. If it is linked to the Spire I cannot say. It held a gentle face, a white body, and there was nothing but white in this afterlife: nothing to see. Only blank nothing. She--it; I do not know--held me in an embrace, gentle; as the pain faded, they told me to help others to see as I do. To be reborn. And thus I am," he added.

"I do not know which part she wishes me to pass on to others. To help you to 'see as I do.' But I know that this was as close to a holy being as one can have--to a 'mother,' as you put it--but it was not the Spire that spoke to me. The Spire tore me apart. It was something beyond that. We are trapped here--stone and magic, in these caves--like it or not."

He ended his little speech abruptly, and fell silent, dropping his head to graze around at the wet grasses here. Let her and Aries speak of Hydra, and of this Elyon; his story was told, and he had little more to say.

@Aries

rewrote cuz I'm a big dum dum

as a maiden she tiptoes shy with her light...

The spider shuffled closer to the horse, listening intently. She had not expected Khloros to answer so suddenly, and with a lecture of all things.

"Astraea frightened me..." She muttered softly. The memory disturbed her. Thothaga could still picture the malicious glint the stag's eyes. "-And you we're trying to kill us all!" She snapped back, pointing a claw in his face like she was scolding a gemling.

Thothaga stepped back looked over Khloros, perhaps, if she was humaniod, Thothaga would folded her arms. Then, her posture softened. "Did you really die, Death-seer? I watched you as the Spire stripped your flesh away, but a chrysalis formed before you were completely destroyed. Astraea seemed frustrated that it... saved you."

The spider's dark eyes stared at Khloros, deep in thought. "But you did see Her- the one in the Spire, no, of the Spire- or as you put it; 'beyond death'" she said. And She spoke to you.. fascinating." Thothaga felt a twinge of jealousy. She had tried for cycles to speak with the Mother-Spire, and all it took for the black horse was pressing his face against the crystals. Thothaga sighed wistfully. "Oh, what I'd give just to speak with Her.. just once. A sense of longing and melancholy washed over the spider. She knew Khloros did not see Her that way, but she did. Thothaga was born at the base of the Spire, born from and nursed by its magic. She felt the Spire-Mother's distinct presence even as a neonate cradled in her chrysalis. Yet, as a spiderling, the Spire-Mother frightened her. It gave life, but anything that got too close, it reclaimed. Khloros had vastly different definition of a "mother". Apparently they were supposed to "cherish" and feel "warm". She had no idea where he got that idea, maybe it was a vertebrate thing. She tried it with Aether and it seemed to be effective.

"If She is not in the Spire, then She is certainly tied to it." Thothaga pointed out. "Think what you will, but I know they are woven together like you are with Her essence. She was referring to the the butter jade, which was now streaked with veins of iridescence. She did not have to see it to know. Thothaga could taste the Spire's influence when he first trudged up to the Divine.

She stroked her fangs. "I thought I gotten it wrong, who the that being was. Astraea spoke of.. a He.. that we were born from 'this Spire's magic... that there was another who created..'" She paused, the muttered. "See as you do... reborn... what does she- could it be?" Thothaga didn't have all the strands yet to weave a definite answer. Until then, she needed to keep Khloros out of trouble. He was the only one, besides Wlder, to have been touched the Spire and lived. She flicked back to to he and Aries, eyes burning with new purpose . "You mustn't let Astraea find you." She warned. "I am quite sure he will finish you off, permanently, this time," Thothaga turned around and crawled on top of a high root overlooking the both of them. "The Divine and I can shelter you here, if you wish." She pointed a leg in the direction of the Heart. "Dragon and his 'Rot Children' may also be interested in hearing your story- do tell them I sent you." She tacked on that last part in friendly tone.

"Now, about Hydra,"

Thothaga paused to call upon her power of farseeing once again, this time, to see the different consequences of Hydra's reopening. According to Aries, it spelled misfortune for the Bonebound, but Thothaga feared that soon enough, everyone in the caves could be threatened; if not with trials, then by the beasts that lurked within.

"Thothaga speaking."
Thothaga thinking.

@Khloros @Aries

rewritten at pluto's rewrite / request

"Yes," Khloros answered, solemn, quiet, and blunt. "I died. There was nothing left. I know the stone... took me; but I was gone already, by then."

Aside from that, he remained silent. He had no idea if the being he had met was a "she," though sometimes he'd thought of them that way. Thothaga, though, had often been fixated on a father, or a mother, and for a moment, the horse wondered if she simply felt... lonely.

About the Spire's magic, he had nothing to say. He did not know if it were true, and there was little point in speculating. Whatever the magic was, it was certainly untamed. But he did blink, realizing that he'd... missed a piece. "When I reached for the stone, what reached back was unkind. I told you at the time, I think; or maybe I didn't." Memory, now, was a bit of a blur. "It was male. Purple, black. Enormous, angry, and full of smoke. Green... acid maw. It was destruction. The stag claims kinship with it, I think. That we belong to them. That we are made for a purpose. Do you remember-? Our stones, he said. Unwanted failures for whatever their purpose was." It was all said primarily with indifference, or rather, without much emotion. He was reminding Thothaga, so that she would not forget that he had seen more than a gentle face. That he had seen two powerful beings, and that one was not their friend.

That they were all pawns.

He was about to respond about the Children of Rot--and then realized that doing so would perhaps put them at risk. Admitting they were sheltering him was... unwise.

"No. I wouldn't want to get them into trouble," he answered.

He kept his distance, either way. He didn't feel much one way or the other about Thothaga. She was like some sort of religious zealot, to him; blindly arrogant in her beliefs, grasping at truths that she understood nothing of.

The irony was, perhaps, lost on him--but he felt no joy for being here, and still seemed to be waiting for Aries to get whatever it was he had come for.

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart