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Marianne giggled to herself as she zipped down the hall of Bog’s castle, on her way to the kitchens at top speed.
After a quite enthusiastic ‘afternoon delight’ session, she and Bog found themselves pretty famished, so Marianne had suggested a race to dinner. A race she deviously began by distracting her goblin lover with soft necking and strokes down his spine, so she could tangle him up in the bed sheets and grab herself a fantastic head start. She could still hear his shocked protests echoing after her.
Just as she dashed around the last corner before she’d reach the stairs, her glee dried up like a raisin as she instantly caught sight of something blocking the corridor. A sharp gasp left her throat and a lightning bolt of fear struck her stomach as she flared out her wings and reeled her arms to stop her momentum and ended up skidding her legs across the floor before she could collide with the sticky barrier.
Stretching across the walls of the passage, like a sort of grotesque door, was a massive, silvery web, and when the top right section gave a slight jiggle, Marianne’s heart jumped in her chest as a dark brown and white spider scuttled down onto it from the ceiling and hissed at her.
Scooting away on her hands and backside, Marianne struggled to her feet and backed away, shaking and choking on dry air. She planted herself against the wall and slid back around the corner, trying to regulate her pulse and erratic breathing. So caught up in her task, she nearly shrieked when Bog suddenly appeared beside her, saying something about how he’d make her pay for her nasty little trick.
But as soon as he saw the look of terror on her face, he dropped the playfulness.
“Marianne?” He placed a concerned hand on her shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“There’s…th-there’s a…a…,” she growled at herself for being so tongue tied, but it just couldn’t be helped, “…over….o-over there!”
She gestured around the corner and Bog’s brow furrowed as he leaned past her to see what she was referring to.
His eyes widened a fraction before glinting with irritation.
“Aw, bloody hell!”
He grumbled and stepped around the corner. Marianne poked her head out see him march right up to the web and cross his arms.
“What do ye think yer doin’?” He asked…
…the spider?
Bog then extended his arm to the creature, palm up.
“Get down.”
When the spider didn’t move, he snapped his fingers at it.
“Come here, now.”
It took another moment, but Marianne felt her jaw drop when she saw the spider finally crawl off the web and onto Bog’s arm, where he sort of tucked it into his side with his wrist and the crook of his elbow. With his other hand, he shredded the web with his claws and shook the tattered remains out a nearby window. Then he held the spider up with both hands and looked at it straight in the eye.
All eight of them.
“How many times have I told ye not to build yer webs inside the castle?”
Marianne’s guts churned with nausea as she watched the spider gently tap its two front legs all over Bog’s face.
“Yeah, yeah.” The king cooed at it, with an indulgent smirk. “Yer just bein’ a little trouble maker, aren’t ye? Ye wee devil! Ye know better than that. There’s tons o' trees an' bushes outside fer ye to use. Is this how we ask daddy fer crickets, hm? I dorn’t think so.”
To Marianne’s horror, he then kissed the spider right on the center of its cephalothorax and cradled it in his arms as he turned and started moving in her direction.
“Come on, buddy. There’s someone special I want ye to meet!” He looked up at Marianne with a face full of cheer and not a hint of what was wrong with this picture. “Hey, Marianne! Come see-!”
“Whoah!” The princess shouted, scrambling backwards with her hands held up in defense. “Whoah-whoah-whoah! Bog, stop right there!”
Thankfully, he did, and blinked at her in confusion.
“What’s the matter, Marianne?”
Her eyes darted back and forth between him and the spider, which was staring at her in the unsettling way only a spider could. She could deal with webs; nature's fine thread. But their spinners? Hell no!
Appearing to catch her drift, Bog glanced at the arachnid and let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“Oh come now, Marianne. Yer not really afraid o' Pip, are ye?”
He took another step forward and Marianne retreated an equal distance with a snarl.
“Don’t come any closer to me with that thing!”
At that, Bog recoiled from her as if he’d been punched, and covered the spider’s abdomen with a protective hand.
“Thing?” He repeated with a touch of wounded offense. “Marianne, he is my pet!”
“What?!”
“I’ve had him since I was ten.” Bog explained, lightly scratching the spider’s back. “Mom gave him to me. Actually, he’s Pip VIII. I had his great-great-great-great-great grandfather first, but I raised them all from birth. He’s my friend. Haven’t you ever had a pet?”
“Of course I did, Bog!” Her pill bug, Mr. Tickles, from when she was six. Her sweet, silly, absolutely non-deadly pill bug. “But mine wasn’t dangerous! How can you have a pet like that?”
“What do ye mean? What’s wrong with spiders? They make great pets!”
“What’s wrong with-? Are you kidding me? Bog, spiders bite! They’re venomous! They can kill you!”
She’d seen it happen before!
Bog’s eyes finally lit with understanding and he gazed down thoughtfully at Pip.
“Well……yes, I suppose that’s true. I guess I just never had to worry about it because o' my armor……but spiders only bite when they feel threatened, Marianne. It’s how they defend themselves. I know Pip wouldn’t harm anythin’ but a fly, as long as he knows he’s safe with ye.”
Marianne didn’t laugh at his joke. Instead, she just kept nervously eyeing the spider.
Bog chewed his lip for a long moment of silence while he looked over his lover and his pet.
“I can see why yer scared. With thick, leathery skin an', in my case, an exoskeleton, we goblins have never really had any problems with spiders. Even if we do get bitten, it’s rarely ever fatal. It just hurts like hell.”
He traced a finger over the spider’s left pedipalp.
“But I meant what I said, Marianne,” he went on, “a spider never bites fer no reason other than to protect itself, or paralyze its prey, an' I can assure ye, yer not his prey.”
Marianne rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a pitiful attempt to dispel the goosebumps.
“Ye know, if we’re gonna be thorough about danger, then technically, I’m much more dangerous to ye than he is.”
“Oh, come on, Bog…”
“Look at me, Marianne.” He instructed holding up a single clawed hand and baring his fangs. “I’m literally armed to the teeth, an' a hundred years ago, my kind used to eat fairies an' elves just fer fun, until my grandfather put a stop to it.”
The room felt abruptly larger and colder. Marianne did indeed know about the ancient days, and also about what happened to the handful of foolish rule breakers that dared to cross the border during the Love-ban. Heck, she’d almost been one of them. She bore no grudge against Bog, nor his subjects, for that. The fairies had done their fair share of bloodshed over the centuries. The law was the law, but it still made anxiety and awkwardness permeate the air, even though Bog had already given her his word that though he had killed fairies and elves without mercy at one particular point in his youth, he had never consumed their flesh.
“But ye were able to look past every single physical trait that makes me a predator. Despite my race’s reputation, ye weren’t afraid o' me; not even from the beginnin’.”
Return the Love Potion by moondown, Tough Girl, or ye’ll never see yer sister again.
I’ll have your head on a stick!
She couldn’t help the small smile that bloomed at the memory.
“Ye trust me, even though it makes no sense by nature’s standards, ye do anyway.” He looked back at Pip, then up at Marianne again, this time, with an openly hesitant expression.
“Ye dorn’t have to be best friends……but he’s very important to me, Marianne, an' I promise ye, he is a good spider. He’s very docile, an' except when it comes to buildin’ webs where he’s not supposed to, he’s pretty well-behaved. Could ye…? Could ye at least say…hello?”
Marianne’s heartrate beat in her ears and her palms began to sweat, but she forced herself to stay calm and think rationally; to put herself in Bog’s place. In Bog’s view, the spid-...Pip, was just an adorable pet, and since she knew Bog had had a rough childhood, Pip and his fathers before him must have been a huge source of comfort. So it was clear how much the little fellow meant to her goblin consort.
Then she remembered something she’d thought she’d forgotten ages ago. When she’d tried to introduce Mr. Tickles to a two-year-old Dawn and she’d screamed and ran like her hair was on fire. Dawn had hated Mr. Tickles, and it didn’t matter what Marianne did to try and make them get along, her little sister insisted that her innocent pill bug was creepy and gross, and poor Mr. Tickles eventually got so stressed out about the whole thing, he’d curl up into a ball whenever he was in Dawn’s presence. He died three months later.
Marianne had felt awful then and had refused to get another pet. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Bog in a similar way.
So, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she cautiously crept closer until she was only a few centimeters from Pip.
“Just relax an' take it as slow as ye need to.” Bog encouraged with a whisper. “Show him he doesn’t have to be scared o' ye.”
Focusing all of her energy to keep herself from trembling, Marianne held out her hand and raised it palm-up before Pip’s front legs.
“H-Hi, Pip.” She stammered in a tiny voice. “It’s n-nice to meet you.”
She almost, almost, flinched when Pip languidly stretched out his right front leg and laid it across her hand.
It sure was a strange texture: course hairs covering such a spindly limb, yet Marianne could feel the strength hidden in it. Plus, the stripes reminded her of some stockings she had back home.
Then Pip’s left leg went up and touched her cheek and Marianne forgot how to breathe.
“Dorn’t move.” Bog reminded her, as if she could recall even the most basic of motor functions.
Pip’s pedipalps carefully flexed twice and then he retracted his legs as smoothly as a snail.
“Good boy, Pip.” Bog praised, patting his head again and grinning at a now fully amazed Marianne. “He likes ye.”
Emboldened and flattered, Marianne reached out and mimicked Bog’s attentions, giving Pip a loving pet of her own. Maybe, with enough time, she could learn to appreciate him as well as Bog did.
When Marianne and Bog looked out the window the next morning, there was a brand new spider web, glittering with dew and suspended between a fallen pine log and patch of Queen’s Cup lilies.