Desperate Flies in Tangled Webs

This story was originally written for the Wet Screams 2025 anthology. I'd never written any monsterfucker stuff before, and it turned out to be an interesting experience. Since it wasn't accepted to the anthology I figured I'd upload it here.

Hope you enjoy.

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There were stories about the woods, because of course there were. There were stories about most everything, Fiona had discovered, but they seemed to cling most to the dark places. The woods were the darkest, most dangerous place Fiona knew of, so the stories about them were some of the most common she heard growing up. A few were pleasant, friendly things, but most were warnings: of wild beasts and things that fed upon the lost, and the Fair Folk. But there was one story that was told more than any other, when the children needed to be scared into line or when the adults needed to be reminded that there was always someone stronger, no matter what you thought of yourself. And that was the story of the Spider Queen.

If she had another name, no one knew it. All that anyone knew was that she was monstrous, a terrifying creature, half both woman and spider. She ruled the forest--those places she chose to claim, at least--and it was only the incredibly foolhardy or the incredibly unlucky that ever saw her. Most who did were never heard from again.

Most, at least...

Fiona felt her foot catch on something and she stumbled, catching herself on a tree before she fell to the dirt. She'd never been in the woods alone, and never set foot in them at night, and doing both for the first time had proved more terrifying than she'd expected. The normal landscape had been repainted in shades of black and silver, familiar yet strange. For the hundredth time, she told herself she was being a fool and should turn back... and yet again, she decided to continue on.

Fiona frowned, running her hand over the bark of the tree she'd caught herself on. There was something wrong with the texture. It was cool, silky, and something clung to her fingers when she drew her hand away. The strands glowed silver in the moonlight as she turned her hand first one way, then the other, examining the webbing she had stumbled into.

Around Fiona, the quiet noises of things hunting and crawling and climbing and living in the woods around her abruptly died away to nothing.

"Well, well, what have I caught this night?" said a voice in the canopy above. Fiona felt her stomach drop with fear, and other things. No story, even the ones only spoken in whispers by a very few, could have prepared her for that voice. The words were familiar, spoken in the same language her people used, but the way the words were shaped was all wrong. Like the jaw and teeth and tongue of the speaker hadn't quite been built with words in mind. The voice hissed, and chittered, and purred, full of harsh vibration and strange harmonics. It was inhuman, and terrifying, and alluring.

There was a pause. Fiona had the oddest intuition that the Queen was expecting her to run, and probably to blunder headfirst into some trap or other set for just such a purpose.

It was one of the bravest things she'd ever done, but Fiona stood her ground.

"Interesting..." mused the voice from above. "Let's see what you are, then, little fly."

Something happened very suddenly, and Fiona's perspective flipped and spun, the change so quick she didn't even have time to feel afraid. She was staring at green-black grass crisscrossed by silvery strands of web as she was raised steadily into the air by unseen efforts, dangling from the cord of silk that had tightened itself in a noose around her ankles. She swayed and bounced from side to side, and all of a sudden there was a scream fighting its way up her throat to meet the warm night air, but when she opened her mouth to release it, something soft and clinging pressed itself very firmly against her mouth, locking it inside. Beginning to panic, truly panic, Fiona reached up to pull the web away, only for more strands to appear from out of the darkness that surrounded her. They looped around her wrists and forced her arms to her sides, wrapped around her legs so that she could barely wiggle, tightened around her chest so she could feel the pressure against her ribs with every inhale and--for better or for worse--they left her eyes alone, leaving her free to watch as she was hoisted higher and higher in the same steady manner, watching as the greenery around her was subsumed entirely by a thick layer of web.

Her ascent came to a stop so gradually that it took Fiona a moment to realize she had arrived. Twisting her head from side to side, Fiona searched desperately for the Queen. She was here, she knew, somewhere, but where?

Something moved in the darkness.

It was just a flicker, a single moment, but it froze Fiona in fear because it was huge. A massive shape, darker even than the darkness around it, there for a moment and then gone again. Fiona's eyes, one of the only parts of her she could move as she wished, searched frantically for any further sign of the thing's presence, but there was nothing at all. The web was still. Until the shadows mere feet away from her shifted, and drew closer still.

Even so close, Fiona couldn't see much of the creature that stalked her in the dark beyond the suggestion of legs, the vague shape of the massive body, but she thought the Queen was examining her. Measuring how much of a meal she was, maybe.

"Little fly, little fly," the Queen murmured in that wonderful, horrible, inhuman voice. "Stepping into my domain without invitation, and not by mere accident unless I miss my guess. Are you afraid, little fly?"

Fiona did her best to nod despite the fact that she was still upside down.

The Queen stepped to the edge of a band of moonlight that pressed against the night like a river against the bank. A shape broke slowly into the current, like a hooked fin warning prey to run. A single leg. Thickly haired, the size of Fiona's thigh, yet somehow delicate despite that. It ended in a heavy hook of chitin which gripped the web beneath it gently while still giving the impression it could slit Fiona open with a single movement. It was monstrous, and, in its way, beautiful.

From the darkness came another leg, as deliberately placed as the first. And another. And another.

And then the Queen herself, in all her glory and horror.

Her lower body was purely arachnid. Eight delicate legs projected out from the forward segment of her body. Her abdomen was large and swollen, which made it all the more horrible when she moved with easy, graceful speed into the light. More horrible even than any part of her lower body, though, was the part of her that was as far from a spider as Fiona was herself; the place near the front of the spider's body where coarse-haired exoskeleton smoothly transitioned to a human upper body.

She was beautiful the way a weapon was beautiful: best kept at arm's length, and while taking care to never forget that this thing could kill you with laughable ease. The Queen's monstrous nature wasn't hidden; it was in every aspect of her appearance, from the arms and fingers that were too long for the rest of the body, the eyes that were black as a moonless night from edge to edge, the freckles on her forehead and cheeks which Fiona realized were actually a sextet of other eyes, beady and lidless. Her smooth skin was patterned with the same coarse hair as the spider body, and she wore no clothing to cover her chest, which, even given her current circumstances, made Fiona blush to see.

The Queen stared at her unblinkingly with those strange eyes. And then she smiled. It was cold and hungry, and was as lacking in humanity as the rest of the Queen, but it still made something twist and leap in Fiona's chest that had nothing to do at all with fear--well, less to do with fear, perhaps.

"Are you only afraid, little fly?" asked the Queen of Spiders. As her full lips parted, Fiona saw that her teeth were fangs, needle-thin and wickedly sharp. That thing inside of her, the desire that had sent her out into this foolishness, curled inside her again like a flickering flame.

She couldn't answer the Queen's question, of course, gagged and bound as she was, but the Queen seemed to take no notice of her silence. She circled around Fiona, her legs moving in smooth concert. "Why are you here, I wonder? So late in the night, and all alone?" the queen mused from behind her. "You've heard the stories I'm sure, little fly. I rarely look favorably upon trespass." A hand ran down Fiona's back, and she could feel the sharpness of the nails through webbing and clothing. She shuddered.

"Did you come looking for me, little fly?" The Queen asked from beside her now. Straining her eyes, Fiona could just see the edge of her silhouette far above her head. She tried to twist her hanging body around, but the Queen's hand remained on her back, casually preventing Fiona from turning to face her. "Sometimes people do try and find me. Usually to try and slay me."

She laughed, rich and humming, and just a little cruel at the edges. "I'm sure you can guess how those stories end."

She moved again, quick, quicker than Fiona would've thought possible for such an intimidatingly large being, and she was in front of her. She stared down at Fiona, imperious and regal. "If I thought that was your goal then you would already be dead, little fly. Do you understand?"

Fiona nodded frantically, and the Queen smiled, evidently satisfied. "I may still kill you, of course," she added almost as an afterthought. "You understand that too?"

Fiona, trusting her instincts, nodded again.

"Interesting," the Queen murmured. She appraised Fiona. Her numerous eyes traced the shape of her and, despite her clothes and the web that bound her, Fiona felt horribly, wonderfully exposed beneath her gaze. She squirmed as much as she could, trapped as she was, and the faint edge of a smile flitted across the Queen's lips. Fiona's heartbeat quickened, and the Queen's smile widened; she wondered if the Queen could hear it beating.

Suddenly, Fiona was moving, her body turned this way and that like a doll. She let out a shocked squeak, but there was nothing she could do. She could see the Queen's legs moving in smooth concert, thick strands of web hooked around them like a marionette's strings, Fiona herself the puppet. When she came to rest again, she was upright, still held in the air, but cradled, her back and hips supported by the web.

"Well, let's have a closer look at you, little fly," the Queen said. Even suspended feet in the air the Queen still towered over Fiona. A single arachnid leg reached towards her and traced itself down her front. Wherever it passed the webbing that bound her, and her clothes beneath, parted. Fiona wasn't harmed, but the move still served as a vivid demonstration of how easy it would be for the Queen to kill her. It would barely take a thought. Inside Fiona, something twisted tighter.

Delicately, the Queen reached out for Fiona and tore what remained of her dress aside, leaving her naked beneath her gaze. It was strange, Fiona thought, that she could still feel embarrassed when she was probably going to die. Nevertheless, her cheeks grew hot as she watched those dark eyes rove over her with interest and--was she imagining it--approval?

"Mmmm," the Queen hummed, her eyes roving up and down Fiona's body without restraint or shame. "You are a delectable morsel, little fly. I could just swallow you whole." She smirked, her wicked teeth just barely visible between her full lips. "Would you like me to try?"

Fiona shook, and it was only slightly out of fear.

The Queen trailed a hand delicately against Fiona's exposed stomach, tracing delicately up and around her breast, sliding higher to come to a stop gently cupping her cheek. Fiona's eyes fluttered shut. The gentleness combined with the overpowering fear--it was simply too much to meet with strength. She could only yield, and hope.

"Yes," the Queen murmured above her. Her voice was low, and seemed to have grown closer in the darkness behind Fiona's eyes. "Yes, I think I'm going to enjoy you, little fly."

Blind as she was in that moment, there was nothing to warn Fiona before the teeth, thin and sharp, sank into the warm flesh of her neck. Her eyes shot open and she screamed, the gag catching and mangling the sound down to a feeble, desperate gasp of shock and fear. The pain was as pointed and honed as the Queen's fangs and she could feel each of those individually where they parted her flesh The pain arced through her body, set stars bursting behind her eyes, and made her pussy grow wet. A moment later Fiona felt the fangs lengthen slightly, the tiny bit of additional depth releasing another hot wave of pain, before something warm poured into her veins, and she could no longer hold herself in check. She moaned into the webbing that still covered her mouth.

The Queen pulled away, her lips and teeth now stained red. A too-long tongue slipped out of her mouth and licked Fiona's blood from her lips, and she let out a hum of satisfaction. She smiled, fangs bared and bloody, as she stared down at her prey. Fiona could feel blood dripping down her neck as her heart surged in her chest.

"You taste sweet, little fly," the Queen murmured. She reached out a gentle hand and ran it across the mark she'd left behind. "I wonder how sweet other parts of you taste."

The hand slid down from her neck.

The Queen's skilled hands reached her breasts and pinched her nipples sharply, and Fiona let out a moan, formless without her lips and tongue to shape it, but the Queen didn't stop there. Her hands slid lower, long nails scratching fine red lines into Fiona's stomach as they descended. Each mark burned like a line of fire laid against Fiona's skin and made her want to writhe and scratch and beg for more. She wished more than anything that the Queen's hands would move lower, faster. Or that she would bite her again. Or both.

After an interminable wait, the Queen's long-fingered hands hooked into her thighs, talon-like nails sinking into the soft flesh of her shut legs, and the Queen frowned at that.

"Are you going to spread your legs for me, little fly?" she asked.

Fiona wanted to. She had never wanted anything more than to grant the Queen access to her body, to allow her to do whatever she pleased, but her body would not obey her. Even her lips and tongue were frozen in place so she couldn't explain her misfortune, and though she knew she should have been terrified, the realization was foggy and distant. Fiona wept, not out of terror, but in frustration, and at the thought of disappointing the Queen.

The Queen, for her part, looked down upon her frozen prey... and looked deeply pleased.

"That was rather fast," she remarked lightly. "Though the fear does help the venom spread faster. As do other things that cause the heart to race. I'll assist you, little fly."

A pair of the long spider legs arched up around the Queen and thrust sharply forward on either side of Fiona into the webbing that bound her. Fiona couldn't see what they did next, but she felt the web that still clung to her legs draw tight as she was moved once again by the Queen's will, her legs slowly opening for her.

Before she had felt the Queen's teeth in her flesh, before whatever venom the Queen carried had kissed her blood and fevered brain, Fiona might have been embarrassed at the wetness she knew the Queen must surely see as she looked at her, but there, in that moment, she could only fervently hope that the Queen would be pleased with what she had wrought, and that she would be kind enough to grace the creature beneath her with a modicum of the pleasure her body so desperately craved.

Deprived of her words, deprived even of the ability to move, Fiona's eyes found the dark voids that were the Queen's and pleaded silently with her, trying with a tear-fogged stare to communicate a level of distress and need that she doubted she could have explained to anyone even with the power of speech.

The Queen leaned in very, very close to her. Her beautiful, sharp face, with its many dark eyes and its cool skin and full lips, filled Fiona's vision, filled the world. And the Queen leaned closer still, and a long, curling tongue stretched out from between the cage of her needle-sharp teeth, and licked the tears from Fiona's cheek.

And as she did so, one of her clever hands finally made its way to the burning center between Fiona's legs, and pressed unyieldingly down against her cunt.

Fiona howled.

The Queen's hand ground down again, the palm angled to press against Fiona's clit, and again Fiona wailed. Nothing in all of Fiona's life had felt as good as the Queen's hand against her clit, and that terrified her, because the Queen, she knew, would not be satisfied with a few simple touches.

Another slow, grinding press and Fiona groaned again. The Queen laughed, the sound staccato and wrong, punctuated with clicks and chitters that belonged more to the lower parts of her anatomy than the upper. "Eager, little fly? I know my venom does its work well, but that's not all that's at play? You wanted this even before my gift."

Fiona could only moan in reply as the Queen changed her angle subtly and renewed her careful assault on Fiona's body.

"Yes, I thought so," the Queen answered as though Fiona had been perfectly articulate in her reply. "I could taste the lust rolling off of you when you entered my domain, intermingled with a delectably pungent fear." The Queen breathed deep, nostrils flaring wide, and sighed contentedly. "Much more lust than fear now, little fly, but there's still some fear there." She leaned closer, the line of her nose brushing Fiona's cheek, her mouth opening to allow teeth to gently graze skin.

Fiona held her breath.

"Good," the Queen whispered. Two fingers, long and overly jointed compared to a human's, teased at Fiona's folds, offering, taunting. Fiona moaned out a plea, helpless and hungry and at the Queen's mercy. She could feel the Queen's knife-sharp grin against her skin, her fingers against her cunt.

The Queen's fingers slid inside her at the same moment her teeth closed around the hollow of Fiona's neck for the second time.

Fiona's vision went white.

She wasn't sure how long she spent insensate and overcome with the tidal wave of sensation that tore at her body. All Fiona knew or cared about when she came back to herself somewhat was that the Queen's fingers were still inside her, gently stroking the walls of her pussy, and her teeth were still a sharp ring of stabbing pain in the meat of her neck and shoulder. She came again, just as suddenly as the first time, the roll of pleasure made strange and disconnected by being unable to move her body, unable even to bear down on the Queen's finger. All Fiona could do was hope the Queen would not stop.

Mercifully, she did not.

The Queen's fingers were slender and long, but she did not press them deep into Fiona's body. Instead, she worked them smoothly against the upper wall of her cunt, rubbing gently at a spot which Fiona had never reached with her own hands. Her motions were careful, deliberate, almost gentle, but that gentleness was sharply contrasted by the movements of her mouth, which released Fiona's neck only to shift to her shoulder and bite down again. Fiona could feel each distinct fang splitting her skin. She could feel each rapid beat of her heart push blood from the new wounds and warm the flesh around those places the Queen had moved on from. She could feel the Queen's tongue drag itself luxuriously over her skin, drinking of her blood and her sweat and her fear and her lust, and that sensation pushed Fiona into her next climax, rippling through her in waves of pleasure.

The Queen's lips curled against Fiona's skin. Her mouth lifted free again, pressing a kiss to the mark she'd left behind. Then she moved lower, trailing kisses down Fiona's collarbone, over her ribs, until she was just above her heart. Then the Queen opened her fanged mouth wide, took Fiona's breast into it, and bit.

Fiona screamed again.

The Queen's fingers were soaked as she pushed Fiona through another climax. When she drew her mouth away and gently removed her fingers from the clutching grip of Fiona's cunt Fiona could do nothing but beg without words for both to be returned. She whimpered, wailed, begged, with animal noises and desperate eyes, for the Queen to put her delicate hands to work once again, and she saw that the Queen knew what she wanted. Her eyes were cold and emotionless as always, but amusement made its home in her lips and the set of her brows.

For a long, torturous moment, while Fiona begged her captor and object of worship for release, the Queen stared at her, unmoving and unmoved. One of her hands moved to Fiona's thigh and rubbed soft circles into her skin. Not a promise of anything, not even pretending to move closer to where Fiona desperately craved her ministrations. Just a reminder of what the Queen could do, if she so chose, as well as what she could choose not to do.

The Queen's fingers, suddenly more claw than hand, sank into Fiona's thigh. This touch was different, Fiona felt, than those that had come before. Before, the Queen had explored her, enjoyed her. This was a message. A reminder. The Queen's nails were sharp, meant not for kindness, but for killing. Fiona, through a haze of lust, realized dimly that the Queen could kill her at any time. She had almost forgotten about that in everything that had happened, but the Queen hadn't. And the Queen wanted her captive to remember.

If whatever venom the Queen had filled her with had been absent, Fiona knew she might have regretted her actions. With it, and after everything she had felt, she didn't regret anything. Her only fear in that moment was that the Queen might leave her there without granting her the pleasure of her touch again.

Fiona's ragged pleas trailed off into silence as the Queen observed her, and considered.

"Little fly, little fly," she murmured absently. "I wonder how you taste..."

Fiona felt the strands that bound her pull taught once again as the great spider's legs worked with precision. Her legs were brought together, her arms folded over her chest, and she spun in the air until he was lying down on her back a few feet above the ground. The Queen moved over her in silence, and Fiona could see how each leg moved in concert with its neighbors to do as the Queen wished. She could see where each leg ended in the Queen's underbelly. And she could see the thick strands of web those legs began to pull from the Queen's body to enshroud her.

As the first sheet wrapped itself around her torso and she felt those horrible legs begin to turn her, gentle and implacable, Fiona's fear returned in a sudden rush, mingling with lusts both natural and induced until the fever pitch of emotion felt like it would rip Fiona apart. The webbing kept coming, and with every new layer Fiona felt her own death closing in tighter and tighter. Her eyes--the only part of her body that would respond to her panic even still--rolled frantically, trying to find some way out.

"Are you coming to your senses, little fly?" the Queen's low voice hummed as Fiona spun, as the web pressed against her inert form. "Have you remembered exactly where you are, who and what I am? Has your foolish mind finally remembered it is supposed to run from creatures like me?" That strange, chittering laugh echoed in Fiona's head, somehow cutting through the dull padding of the web that pressed on her ears. "Too late, little fly. Far too late. I've already tasted you, and I want more. I want to devour you."

Fiona stopped. She was utterly encased. The world had been subsumed by a blanketing expanse of white silk, but she could still feel the Queen's eyes on her, roving her silk-sheathed form. The discomfort was intoxicating.

She felt the webbing that enshrouded her press inwards against her thigh until there was a quiet pop, and Fiona could feel the tip of one of the Queen's sharp nails against her skin. Carefully, it rose higher, tearing a perfect slit in the silk, right by her pussy. Fiona's arousal, which had never faded away entirely, suddenly rekindled with force as she felt the Queen's inquisitive finger brush against the meat of her ass. She was almost disappointed when it silently withdrew.

And then the Queen's tongue pushed through the slit in the web and made a long, slow pass across the entire length of her pussy.

Fiona's whole body tensed, then slowly relaxed into the sensation. The Queen's tongue was longer than a normal person's, thicker, and was--as she discovered when the Queen pressed closer for another painfully slow lick--shockingly dexterous, as it circled carefully around Fiona's clit before withdrawing again.

Fiona's hips bucked backward at the absence, pushing against the Queen's steadying hands on her hips. She could hear her low, chittering laugh as the Queen watched her plaything writhe and shake, suspended in the air without any way to get the stimulation she craved. Thankfully, the Queen took mercy on her captive; after a moment, Fiona felt warm breath against her thigh, and after another muffled plea and as much of a thrust backward as she could manage, bound as she was, she was gifted with the Queen's tongue again. She started at Fiona's clit, flicking it lightly in a way that made Fiona shudder before she moved higher, parting Fiona's folds and tasting her wetness. The Queen seemed to enjoy what she found there, because her tongue pressed deeper into Fiona's pussy, wriggling as it reached further and further into her.

Fiona gasped, her body shaking in its bonds. The Queen's tongue was very long indeed. She could feel it inside of her, moving deftly, caressing her walls and teasing spots the Queen had already found with her fingers. At first the Queen was exploratory in her motions, gentle in a way that made Fiona want to fist her hands into the Queen's hair and pull her mouth against her cunt. Trapped as she was, the best she could do was continue to buck her hips towards her, encouraging her to push deeper, to give her more. The Queen wasn't in any hurry, though. She was methodical, her tongue moving with long, languorous flexes that Fiona felt as one continuous touch filling every inch of her, the dexterous tip constantly probing until she found the right spots to press.

When at last the Queen was satisfied she had learned everything she needed, her tongue withdrew slightly. Fiona began to protest again, but before her cries could be more than half formed the Queen's tongue returned, no longer careful and curious, but purposeful, and just as skilled. As she was filled a gasp was forced from between Fiona's lips, followed by a moan, long and rising higher, as the Queen did something Fiona hadn't imagined even in her wildest dreams: the Queen began to fuck her with her tongue.

Fiona had never felt anything other than fingers part the lips of her pussy and fill her, and right then, taking everything the Queen's mouth could give her, she knew that whatever sex with a human might be like, it could not possibly compare. The Queen's tongue was strong and firm, but also soft and flexible. It snaked its way into her, curling in just the right ways to rub just the right spots. Fiona was soaking wet from the treatment, bound and helpless and ravaged, and she could hear the Queen's delight as she tasted her juices--a purr of satisfaction was just as constant as Fiona's cries of pleasure. When the Queen pulled on a thread to shift Fiona's cocoon in the air to allow her to press the base of her tongue to Fiona's clit while she continued fucking her, Fiona came in an overpowering wave that made her cunt clench on the Queen's tongue and coat the agile muscle with even more of her cum. The Queen's pleasure only seemed to increase in turn, and she, somehow, continued to work Fiona's clit while fucking Fiona deeply with her tongue. Fiona's first orgasm hadn't ended before the next one was upon her, and the next after that, and after that.

Time became a blur as Fiona surrendered herself to her bindings, to her Queen, to the writhing tongue and the ever-present pleasure, to everything she had hoped for and more when she had left her home the night before. And it had been the night before, a fact Fiona only realized when the Queen's mouth gently drew away from her sore, well-used pussy, and her eyes opened reflexively in protest. It took her a long moment to understand what she was seeing, distracted as she was by the Queen's withdrawal, but eventually her hazy mind pieced together that, through the web that still veiled her face, she could see the first rays of the dawn--rays that became steadily brighter as the layers of silk were removed, one by one.

Fiona had grown so used to having her body moved at the whim of another that it caused her no concern as she felt herself descending. More jarring and strange was the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet, and--as the last bits of webbing were removed and she was supported by nothing more than her own tired muscles--gravity tugging insistently on her limbs. Fiona stumbled, then collapsed to her hands and knees, automatically breaking her fall with arms that were able to move once again, though still more sluggish than was normal. It took her a long moment to remember how her body was supposed to work without strings to guide her, without a sure hand to move her. She struggled to her knees, grabbed a tree with fumbling hands, and pulled herself shakily to her feet.

She was... alone. Fiona circled the tree that was doing as much to keep her upright as her legs were, turning her stiff neck in every direction. She saw warm brown and green, a world slowly coming awake and alive as the sun began to caress it. Like someone in a dream, Fiona reached a tentative hand towards one of the beams of light that broke through the canopy. The warmth poured across her skin and sank deep into her flesh, soothing her aches and making her feel more herself. Risking releasing her tree, Fiona stumbled a few steps forward until her whole body was in the sunbeam. She let out a heavy sigh as the light covered her, pushing away the night and the fear and everything that had come with both.

Fiona trailed her hands across her body, feeling the rounded shapes of bites on her neck, shoulders, collarbone, breasts, thighs, the aches in what felt like every one of her muscles, the soreness in her throat and the dull ache between her legs. Her dress hung off her like a robe, a neat line splitting it down the middle. Her touch lingered on the bites most of all. The pain there had dulled, but pressing her hand to them brought an echoing reminder that made her shudder.

Suddenly, Fiona was giggling, the laughter hysterical and unstoppable, rushing through her in a giddy wave. She was alive! That hadn't been a certainty, after all. But she was! The Queen had spared her, and, more than that, had given her everything she desired.

And now?

Fiona turned another slow circle, now entirely under her own power. The woods around her were empty of life, still.

She was gone.

The sun had risen, and with it, a sense of direction. Her appearance would be enough of an explanation for her absence. She would simply tell the story people expected to hear. Fiona oriented herself towards home, pulling her torn dress around herself as she prepared for the journey.

She stopped after taking only a few steps. She turned again towards the woods behind her, so quiet, so empty. Purposefully so.

Fiona didn't know exactly why she did it, but like everything she had done leading up to this point, she didn't question it. She merely trusted her instincts as she lowered herself to the ground and knelt, hands outstretched in supplication.

"Thank you, my Queen," she whispered.

There was no response.

After a long moment of waiting, Fiona pulled herself to her feet once again and turned away.

"Little fly..." murmured a voice full of inhuman discord and vibration.

Fiona whipped around, eyes scouring the dappled woods, checking every shadow and finding nothing. But she was there, somewhere. Hiding in the darkness, her domain. Watching, waiting. Poised to strike at her whim.

"You came to me without invitation," the Queen said, her voice drifting from some source Fiona could not find. "If you are brave enough, or fool enough, to choose to return, you may have it."

Fiona stood in the slowly waking woods, clutching her ragged dress tight around herself, feeling the wounds of the night, feeling battering and delicate emotion inside of her flare.

She bowed as gracefully as she could manage given her ordeal, and said "thank you, my Queen."

There was no further reply but the silence of the trees and an even more marked feeling of absence. The Queen had truly departed now, Fiona knew.

To enter the Queen's domain once was foolishness. To return would be something far worse. Suicide. Or devotion. Though really, how much difference was there between the two?

Fiona started the long walk home, forcing her tired muscles to carry her as best they could. Regardless, she didn't have to choose right now. The Spider Queen would wait in the shadows for her prey to stumble into her web again, should it come to pass. And if her prey--if she--was foolish enough to fall back into the Queen's clutches, then she would know exactly what was waiting for her. And she would love every moment of it.