Chapter Text
Looking warily around him, the King walked down the winding road to the Distant Village nestled in the heart of Deepnest. God, this place gave him the creeps. Not only that, it made him uncomfortable on a fundamental level to see so much life occupying every nook and cranny, not controlled or made presentable. He took massive pride in how pristine he kept his palace, and frankly, thought Herrah was massively uncivilized for not doing the same with her domain. As he reached the gate, the two Devout standing guard at the threshold moved aside to let him pass. He wondered why Herrah hadn’t given him a time estimate to announce to the public for when he’d be back.
Straightening his robes, he looked expectantly at Herrah as she cleaned up and readjusted her headdress.
“Well. I expect I’ll be going now, I have more important matters to attend to.”
The spider turned to face him, grinning with false placidity behind her mask. “One moment, Wyrm. I have some issues to discuss with you… come with me, this way.” She skittered off, beckoning him deeper into her chamber where the silk was less like a constructed room and more like a web. She slowed her pace as he reached the other end of the room, putting herself between him and the doorway.
“What are your concerns?” He didn’t like the way she was eyeing him almost like a predator, coming closer and backing him up against the wall.
She didn’t respond, pulling her mask off and displaying her fangs glistening with venom as she inched ever nearer to him.
“...Herrah??”
The spider narrowed her eyes, sneering. “Goodbye, little Wyrm.” And she lunged.
The King struggled and attempted to escape, but all was futile in the end as Herrah sunk her fangs into his carapace, hearing the sickening crunch of broken shell as his neck snapped. It was partially instinct and partially hatred, leaving her cathartically satisfied as she dropped his body to the ground, his head swung back and lolling to the side at an awkward angle.
The deed was done. But her body still ached for sustenance, and she turned her eyes to the corpse of the king.
There was no use in wasting it.
As she snapped up the last morsels of pale shell and wiped his iridescent blood off her fangs, the queen felt a sensation of pure, electric power radiating from her core all throughout her very being. She jolted back in shock, not understanding at first what was happening to her body. The feeling was far from unpleasant- she felt better than she had in years, like she could do absolutely anything. Was this what having magical potential felt like?
The realization hit her. By consuming the king, she also had absorbed his power.
She was now, for all intents and purposes, a god.
Though she didn’t feel frightened over what could possibly occur as a result, she was practically bursting with the need to tell someone what had happened. Though her children already worshipped her as their queen, she felt there was only one bug in all of Deepnest she could confide in now.
Humming quietly to herself, Midwife prepared to retreat into her hidey-hole near the bottom of the Distant Village for the night. That is, until Herrah showed up at her doorstep, almost glowing with something she struggled to perceive.
“Oh! Hello, my queen, what a surprise! I must say, you look different, though I can’t quite pinpoint how… heehee.”
Herrah came close to her, almost making her shiver with… a feeling she couldn’t quite place. Yes, her queen was certainly different… it almost felt as if she had some new power. She suddenly remembered something Herrah had told her recently.
“My queen, if you’ll permit me… if I’m not mistaken, you carry a godly child now?”
“Yes, you’re correct… but that, however, is not the source of the power you sense.” She brushed her cheek with one hand, looking down at her, her face unreadable.
“May I ask what it is?”
The spider grinned wide, her eyes squinting in triumph. “I’ve absorbed the king’s power… and by that I mean… well…” She trailed off, well aware of what her words implied.
Midwife’s eyes widened behind her mask, and she let it slip away, revealing her worried face.
“You’ve… Oh my gracious…” She looked up at her. “My queen… what will they do to you once they discover this?”
“What can they do? Certainly not much more than they did to their late king when they disagreed. By all estimates, I’ve just become a god.”
“A god…” Midwife repeated, taking in the queen’s full form for the first time since she’d come in. She was elegant, regal, strong… She felt her face begin to heat up, and quickly closed her mask around it again, looking down at the floor.
“And now that I have no need to follow the norms of the nobility… do you know what I want to do first?”
“Do tell me, my queen, I would really like to know…”
The spider queen clicked happily, taking Midwife’s face in her hands and tilting it upward to face her own.
“I’d like to stay with you .”
“I… what do you mean, exactly?” She couldn’t possibly mean what she so desperately hoped she did, she reasoned.
“Midwife, my sweet, caring Midwife… a Queen needs a consort, does she not?”
Her face completely red, Midwife slid her mask open again, looking Herrah in the eyes and desperately searching for any sign of trickery. “You… you really mean it? You’d have me?”
“If you would take me as yours, my dear.”
Skittering up close to her, Midwife melted into her arms, sighing happily. “Of course I would… always, my love.”