Chapter Text
Waiting. Waiting.
It all came down to waiting.
To find a spark among the darkness. To feel the language of curious taps against her web.
For the right moment. For the right little light.
For her.
She called the first a daughter and it was good.
One was lonely. She knew, for she was one up until that point, and she would not have her beautiful new daughter experience the same. She did not have to wait. Not for anything. All she may need, the Great Mother gave. Silks. Spilled blood. Sisters. With wants of their own. They cried out for every moment they were made to wait instead of understanding a sister was having her need met first. She gave, and she gave, and she gave.
They took. Everything. Even her body. Even her senses. Even her mind.
And oh what they did after–
But even asleep, she was powerful. They built a cage around her to be a body fueled by its imprisoned heart.
Dreaming, she had them brought back to her in cages of their own.
This was slow. This lasted lifetimes.
Waiting.
Made to sleep forever, waiting was all she could do whether she had the patience for it or not.
She dreamed through her silk, which was used, spread, pulled and drawn out from her by those that wanted her forgotten and worse than dead. This greed was their error: They could not commit to her destruction.
She manipulated threads beyond her sleeping form. To see more. To set traps. To spin new children.
She could not wait for the right moment or specimen in this gilded citadel. These were different times to before in these lands.
Still, she waited for these daughters too.
Only to find one, then two, incompatible to those before.
One should not mourn the treacherous. The cruel.
Life constructed from nothing rather than from a bleeding creature with its own tiny, dim Soul to spin the silk of was entirely different. She called the constructs daughters and this time, it was not good.
All of her experience with her Weavers meant nothing in the face of these children spun from her Soul and her Soul alone. Nor were the ways in which she could give to them all that they cried out for. She was not free. She had only dreams and whispered down threads. She was within a cocoon and could keep her new child in the Cradle, but not cradle her in her arms as she might have for the spiders. They heard her through sleep, not waking hours. They were given anything they needed through the many hands of the Haunted, not their Mother’s own. They would have to wait for that.
But other than herself, the god knew of none at all capable of that patience.
This existence was unacceptable. She must awaken. She must have all of her own returned to her. It was her turn to take.
The Weavers must have noticed their hubris was unfounded. She would wake. In their petty spite, they tried to ensure she never get such life back. Even at the expense of their own.
Despite their efforts, she could feel when there was still life related to her silk. No matter how caged or far away her daughters hid their daughters.
She found. She felt. She called.
From there, existence revolved around the same function.
Waiting.
She waited for each search party’s return. She waited through each messy process as one by one her rebirth failed.
She waited for the one who would be-
In came the last. Not in a cage. With a needle. A half-god. A Wyrm-spawn. A Weaver embroidered with the spiteful dead’s power.
They had her Bind with them. The child would be able to bear this Binding, then. That Pale blood ensured it.
She caused a fair deal of damage to a kingdom that should belong to her. She wasted time with pilgrims and allowed those blasphemous citadel-rulers, melody-manipulators to live. These were issues the Grand Mother could fix.
She slew the rare still-living Weaver-blood and treated cut silk like a reason to celebrate. That wasn’t how it was meant to go. She was meant to be brought before the sleeping god. Direct. Safe. The one that spoke to her so constantly while spreading loyalty in a silken town- who could never hope to free the Great Mother she worshipped so much, but who the god intended to correct when no longer limited to dreams- wasn’t meant to die. She was not Weaver enough and she could not even weave with the blessing the Grand Mother gave only to her kind, but the Monarch was no stranger to imperfections. Being a disappointment did not erase adoration. She would have kept all those who loved her, ruined or made flawed or not.
She damaged the girl who only thought to stand between her Mother and a killer who claimed to be here to slay the one above. A misperception. The Weaver was meant to ascend and try. She’d never been meant to postpone this arrival by somehow breaking the cage at all. But Lace was not spun well enough. Constructing life from her silk instead of a living Soul was trickier than expected. Much more work and still wrong by the end. Loyal and lovely and assuredly her child, but she’d not be making more that way despite a lonely ache of nonfulfillment.
The child misunderstood and her playful nature warred with that immature possessive hostility which didn’t care to share, culminating in this attempt to ‘save’ her Mother that saw her left unraveled and wretched upon the ground. This was still something the Grand Mother could fix. Awakened, free, with the well of power the Pale fledgling god would gift her, she would easily make Lace whole again. They were not injuries to a bug with blood. She’d not be dying on that field.
Issues caused or not, this Weaver hadn’t done anything to ruin herself, or her plans.
She was perfect.
Finally.
Finally
she did not have to wait any longer.
She was free.