Re: Condemned to The Night (Librairian)
((OoC: Here you go, Annie. I hope you like it. To tell the truth, I’m nervous about this. I’ve read so much of your stuff, but, as far as I know, you haven’t read any of mine. Please, go easy on me. You really kind of threw me through a loop with this one. I was stumped. Oh, and don‘t worry, you‘re doing it right.))
BiC: There are a few things that can awaken nearly any kind dark creature. When asleep, these things will bring them into an instant state of awareness. Their eyes will slide open in a split second, often times going unnoticed by the ones who would fall into danger because of them. Specters, ghosts, wraiths, phantoms, poltergeists, and more almost always start haunting something whenever one of those things wakes them up. These are the kind of things that instill fear and uncertainty in creatures of the light, particularly in humans.
One of the things that can wake up a dark creature is a scream of terror, especially if it comes from a woman, and even more especially if it comes from a child. Miss Spider’s eyelids fluttered open. The dark of the night was a different kind of dark than the shadow of her closed eyes. Somewhere not too distant, she could hear someone screaming. She knew why she was awake. A wraith, whether a Spider Wraith, or just another black creature, couldn’t sleep through such a thing. Someone was screaming, which meant a free meal might have been close by.
Rolling over, she let herself fall from the complex web she had been fast asleep in. She dangled about a foot from the floor, hanging by a thread she generated before she fell. In a dreary state, she put her feet to the ground, and severed the thread. Had the scream been perhaps a little closer to her ears, she would not have been in such a sleepy state. But there was little she could do about where the screams came from. As long as it meant someone would die without her having to kill them, the screams were okay no matter where they came from. She began to drift toward the source.
Unlike many dark creatures, the body of a Spider Wraith is not cold by nature. Miss Spider felt a sharp chill after walking out into the streets. It wasn’t windy; just cold. She trod her boots through the snow, moving perhaps a few blocks before coming to a halt. The feeling of her feet not firmly sticking to the ground made her feel somewhat uneasy. She trod her boots onto the nearest wall. With a quick morph, she sprouted her four hidden legs. If she jumped from wall to wall, then she wouldn’t have to walk through the snow. In her eight limbed form, it took about the same amount of effort.
Through moonbeams and snow flurries, she made her way to where the scream came from. As she traveled, it became obvious that the moon would not glow any less brightly. Despite the cloud cover, the wind was not strong enough to blow the ether into the moon’s path. Though she did fancy having a shadow at night, a bright sky meant she was not hidden by the cover of darkness. Whether it was night or day, if anyone saw her, she was in trouble. How many legs she had did not make a difference. Her appearance alone was enough to get the hounds called on her.
But she found where the scream came from quickly. It was a small family. They were all huddled together, shivering. From cold or fear, though, was not easy to tell. There was one adult, a middle aged woman. There were two children. One was a boy, although he was practically a young man. One was a girl, a very youthful girl. Miss Spider licked her lips when she saw her. Young blood was always the best tasting. Though she had a personal preference for boy blood, a young girl always beat a young man. Her knees bent as she prepared to leap upon them.
No. Regardless of how delicious the child’s neck would be, it was something she could not do. Her knees bent as a reflex to seeing such a tasty looking person. She did not intend to do anything to them. Her hunger did not demand that she feed that particular night. Indeed, the Rage was not even close. It was too sad a sight to see, besides. Surely, if one of them disappeared, the other two would follow. She was not the type of dark creature that would destroy an entire family to satisfy one of her needs She simply frowned and crawled onto the nearest roof.
The Spider Wraith eyed the moon. The snow was falling all around her, and Miss Spider stared up into the moonlit sky as the white flakes drifted by, not showing when they hit her face. She gave a small sigh as she listened to the huddled family support each other. It was sad for her. Her kind were torn between eating and feeling. Humans were her kind’s food source. What six legged bugs are to eight legged ones, humans were to her kind. Ideally, that was their relationship. It got a little more complicated. Two friendly, intelligent, cordial beings have a greater destiny than eater and eaten.
Two dark creatures, however, usually have a much simpler destiny.