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Webby cradled Hannah’s body, the corpse long gone cold. A slash in her stomach too similar to the slashes on Webby’s entire torso on the fallout. Her face, once ethereal and white, now stricken with grief and flushed with the black tears streaking down her cheeks. She looks up, sorrow and an empty, blinding rage as she looked at Lex. No, “Lexie”. What a fucking joke. How could she look so dazed and confused and so, so horrified when she practically paved this fate for her own sister.
She guesses her older brother only chose people like him as his prophets, after all.
Traitors, traitors, and promise breakers.
“…Banana?” Lexie croaked out, kneeling, cold, practically soulless, green eyes having the audacity to look hurt. She tried reaching out a hand to her long-gone sister, but Webby swiped it away with a slap.
“You hurt her enough, prophet.” She spat out, more venom in her words than the actual venom her spider form produced. Six black eyes bore into her soulless green two.
“I don’t-Wiggly told me…”
“My brother doesn’t have an easy streak of keeping promises.” Webby glared at her further. Maybe in another timeline, another, more merciful, universe, Hannah would only be napping, and Webby would look at Lexie like she was still Lex Foster, with love and care. But the universe hasn’t ever been that kind, now, has it?
(The whole memory flashed back in her mind. Webby screamed in horror as Hannah was struck down, hazel eyes with gray web tints and full of light going dark, dark brown. Ukulele falling with a loud ‘thud!’ followed by an ear scratching ‘crack!’ as it broke under the sheer force of hitting the ground. But she couldn’t bring herself to care about the instrument as the girl she labeled as her prophet went limp and hit the ground even harder. Under the gaze of the shell of what was supposed to be her caring older sister. A scene repeated from the past but with two mortals in an open field instead of two gods in a throne room. The last look Hannah gave was one of pure betrayal and pain towards Lexie.
‘History repeats, even when it tries not to.’ She remembered Tinky telling her while fixing a prophecy vase, while she was weaving a tapestry of the future.
She thought she understood that full statement.
Now she sees she doesn’t.)
“I didn’t mean to…” Lexie’s voice cracked, pure grief and horror and regret of what has already happened staining their words like a parasitic liquid. She covered her mouth to muffle a sob.
“But you did.” Webby states, despite her own tears not stopping. She rose up to her full height, almost seeming like she was about to strike Lexie. She doubts they would try to stop her if she did. It would be so easy, to disintegrate this shell of a human like she did to a certain witch in a web.
But she didn’t.
Hannah would be shattered, even if Lexie had carved this fate for her with their own bare hands, she would be unconsolable if her big sister was destroyed.
Webby guesses that made two of them.
(Webby remembered hovering over her sleeping, promise breaking, brother’s form. Black claws dangerously close to his face. It would’ve been so, so easy to take him down. So, so easy to get revenge for both her and earth and everybody and everything he had ever hurt.
But she was completely still, dread filling her lungs and suffocating her worse than any pair of hands around her neck could ever imagine doing. She stared as he started muttering in his sleep, slowly turning to full blown begging then sobbing. And horrible, absolutely terrible sympathy and pity filled her. Taking away any sense of comfort that she wouldn’t feel remorse for the one who hurt her. She knew this hope was fruitless but seeing it in real time was worse than just knowing it.
She remembered curling beside him, letting him hug her in his sleep and stain her hair and dress with black tears, and feeling pure and utter hatred. Even worse, it wasn’t for him, but for herself. She hated herself for not hating him. For fearing him but still loving him, for not being able to bring herself to destroy him like he destroyed her to the point of sobbing from pain as she ran, practically crawled, to the White, with slashes on her torso as marks of a broken promise and bond.
She thought back to seeing Hannah, looking at Lexie crying, even after the prophet of her brother had left her mark by hurting her and Wilbur, Hannah still pleaded to console her.
Webby couldn’t let her, no matter how much it pained both of them.)
Webby turned around and started walking away, cradling Hannah, her Yellowjacket, her Banana, like her own baby. Rocking the cold corpse as her black tears fell onto the already crimson stained yellow jacket. It shouldn’t be too hard to know what to do now. She wrapped enough people in web made coffins to start her own spiderling cemetery.
“..Where…” Lexie tried standing up, but their grief made their legs wobble as they fell down again. In a state more pitiful than her corpse of a sister. Her baby sister who she swore to protect just like a young octopus did to a young spiderling all those years back. Parallels shook in Webby’s mind as her face unwillingly contorted to pity.
“I’m going to give her a proper funeral.” Lexie gave her a pleading look, one begging to come with, to see her sister one last time.
And Webby couldn’t bring herself to say no.
Webby sighed and turned around again. Lexie winced, but Webby didn’t move.
“Are you coming or what?” Webby spoke harshly, but somehow maintained her patience.
Lexie’s eyes widened but they quickly scrambled and got up, stiffly walking beside her to a white swirling portal.
They went into the White, Lexie stared as Webby kneeled while carefully weaving a web casket for the dead girl in her arms. Something too familiar to her if the dozens of caskets for the very same girl all strung together by a black tear-stained web was any indication, if not also her quick precision. Lexie wondered how many caskets she indirectly made. How many promises she’s broken all because she was too fucking stupid to hold back on her own sister, her baby sister. Her Banana. How terrible of a person was she to let being the Prophet of Wiggog-fucking-Y’Wrath go into her head enough for her to hurt Hannah?
How did they stray this far from themselves?
They did not want the answer.
“…How many…” ‘-did I kill?’ went unsaid, but Webby understood.
Webby also understood that Lexie would not want the true answer, even if they pleaded otherwise.
“…” So, she left it unsaid, but it was clear there was more than there should be. Lexie felt their stomach churn in horror. Tears long cried out with her soul threatening to spill for the first time in a long time.
How could she be so careless to do this to her own sister?
A thread of humanity, the final sign of Alexandra Foster, appeared in her eyes, as she broke down sobbing. Lexie-no, this was Lex-nearly collapsed in regret and grief, trying to punch the unsolid ground.
Webby walked beside them, staring before also kneeling beside them, wrapping her six arms around them. Lexie tried pushing, but Lex was starved for any kind of comfort or sympathy. She wrapped her own arms around Webby and wept into her chest. Webby allowed them.
The wails echoed through the White, even citrus would be sweeter than knowing the truth.