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The body was where his Master had promised it would be, give or take a few leg spans. Its flaxen hair was soaked through with the tide, its skin pale and nearly blue in the moonlight. He knew humans were not supposed to look this way; he recalled such from the last time, and the time before, but the understandings passed down to him through these experiences reminded him that this was expected, this was right, for this moment: for his task. He was to bring it to the Temple, where it was to be cleaned and prepared, and made anew.
He inspected the body. In this form, his multitude of eyes allowed him understandings of its dimensions with minimal surveillance. Its limbs were all intact, save for the phalanges which were shredded and bloody. Raising his front two legs, he reached out with his sense searching for smells, its identifying pheromones, any indication of its last moments: the way the iron tang of blood inundated the air, the sweet aroma of fear mingled with savory sweat. His own predatory senses reacted—but no, he was a faithful servant. He would bring the body to the Temple.
With the tiny spines on the tips of his legs, he could detect its heat signatures—fading, but still warm and—
The body spluttered liquid from its orifice—the mouth, his understanding—lurching upward with the propulsion of stomach contents diluted by sea water, and then it—she, for it was a female, he registered too late!—rolled over on the rocks and into the surf and gasped air. All he could think was that it—she!—would drown with her book lungs in the water, but humans did not have book lungs and how fortunate for them to lie belly down in the surf—
It was alive. The body. She. Was alive.
He scuttled back in the sand. The husk of a body was one thing, a live female anything was entirely another. Even though his body in its current state was easily twice—perhaps thrice—the size of hers, that instinctual submission thrummed within him at the overwhelming pulse of her pheromones reaching out for him.
She was struggling. The tide came in and the tide pulled out, and dragged her tiny frame with it, and her limbs were too weak, her phalanges—fingers—useless as they clawed for purchase, and a sonic vibration that was both unpleasant and shrill in frequency erupted from her mouth. He sensed distress, terror, but—female! live female!—what was he supposed to do?
Bring the body to the Temple.
Bring the body to the Temple.
He was a faithful servant, and he would bring the body to the Temple.
With all of his courage, he scurried over the body and as soon as his front legs touched her torso, she let out that high pitched wave once more, and on instinct he squirt her with silk. In her weakened state and being unable to gain purchase without causing herself pain, she was much easier to wrap than he thought. And so he did, spinning her delicately and with great care despite her writhing.
She smelled treacherously feminine and deliciously afraid, and he was very confused by it.
But he was a faithful servant. And he would bring the body to the Temple.
It had all been a fever dream, she told herself. When she woke, she was warm, and encased in the softest blanket she had ever felt in her life. Nothing she had been allotted at the rectory had ever felt so fine against her skin, and the fabric smelled faintly sweet, like a honeysuckle nectar. She wondered briefly if the priests had taken pity upon her when she—
—had not died.
She remembered. It came back to her in pulses: being tied to the pillar in the pit, along with the other girls, the sacrifices; practicing holding her breath between her screams as she had watched the viscous liquid rise around her feet, then her knees; thinking to herself I don’t want to die but not being able to tear her eyes away from the glowing orbs on the wall, growing brighter…brighter—
She had not died.
It was unheard of.
Not only had she not died, but she—wait, where was she?
She recalled the beach then, clawing her way to the surface and tumbling down the rocks, the pain her body endured as she hit each jagged edge, and fell into the surf. And she recalled that there, she had hoped she would meet her final rest.
Maybe she had died. How many times? That, she could not recall, could not understand.
She tried to turn her head under the blanket and found that she was entirely encased in the luxurious material, and if she had not been in so much agony she might have curled back into the comfort and willed her wakefulness away once more. A gentle rocking motion—back and forth—attempted to lull her into a complacency, but with no visual to aid her other than an opaque light attempting to penetrate her capsule, the lack of context only heightened her anxiety. Was she…being carried? Rolled? Dragged?
She made to cry out, but realized the fabric covered her mouth. Better judgement told her not to, but she darted her tongue against it; it was fibrous and soft like cotton, but finer, like the treats she had eaten at festivals as a child. Like silk.
Filled with fear and panic, she writhed violently in her encasement. She screamed—or tried to with her mouth clamped shut—once, twice, her lungs shuddering from the effort.
The rocking motion stopped, just before her body thudded unceremoniously against what she hoped was the ground.
It—she—was awake.
He had made enough ground while she had been unconscious to evade the worst of the predators through the scablands, at least those that hunted by day. She had not been as heavy as he thought she would be; he had carried heavier, smaller things for his Master, and for longer distances, but none of them had been this wriggly. That—he supposed—was the awful complexity of the body still being alive.
This was a complication. A body was only generally expected to be delivered with most of the torso and maybe the limbs intact. A body was expected to decompose and somewhat disintegrate during the journey to the Temple. A body he could toss out of the way during a battle, or cram into a crevice while hiding from the behemoths and Devourers that were watching the roads and laying traps in the treeforms. But a live creature—a breathing, pulsing human—might have different expectations attached to it. Attached to her.
He wondered if his Master was aware of this complication.
He had chosen the nearby clonal colony of quaking aspen to camp for a reason; the root system was vast, which meant the tunnels beneath it were as well from centuries of work by his own predecessors, and would make for a fast getaway if needed. With all of his legs to the ground, the mild vibrations alerted him that the closest predator he could sense was many leagues off, and no Devourers in the area, which made things much simpler, at least for the time being. With all of his eyes to the West, he supplanted the bundle of silk from his back and began the climb up one of the aspen trunks, trailing gossamer behind him.
He would send a signal, and Master would send word on the wind, and so he set to work building the network between the aspen spines, weaving and spinning his anchors before detailing the finer work—the hunting. If he was famished, he wondered if the human would be as well. What do humans eat?, he paused to muse, and then decided a human would eat whatever he brought it if it was hungry enough. He would rifle through his understandings later for answers.
Or, perhaps, he might rifle through hers.
That was a thought; but to do that he would have to get near—truly near—to her. Live female! His carapace shuddered. Carrying her with a barrier of his own silk between them was one thing. Sharing bodily fluids was another thing entirely; none of his male brethren would dare.
Then again, none of his male brethren had made it to knighthood for the Master. They did not have the honor of completing the most imperative tasks for the Temple. They did not dare brave the wilds and earn the scars, or build back the limbs lost in the battle for the greater good.
They were either all subservient to their respective females, or they were dead.
When the network had proven sturdy and complete, he dropped down carefully from the boughs and crawled over to the small, squirming bundle. It felt absurd to be so wary of something so tiny in comparison to himself; he had procured food bigger than he was. That was a way to think of it—she was no more than food. …But he did not know what she had already survived.
Another reason for him to probe her understandings.
Cautiously, so cautiously, he approached her threshing form. He tapped what he thought was the head of her with the tip of one foreleg—hello—while the tip of the opposite foreleg touched what he thought might be the end of her, along the length of her human legs.
The bundle floundered furiously, the silk sack making that shrill vibration that rattled the hairs lining his body, and by the Masters was there any way he could keep her from making that noise? He had such a limited understanding of human anatomy and biology, given his task. It was obvious to him now. A sharing of fluids was no longer a thought, but now a crucial requirement.
With the greatest of care, he used his pedipalps to tap out a message to her upon her arm—I intend you no harm—though from the way she tried to writhe away from him he was sure that she she did not grasp his words. His eyes scanned the area as he crawled over her, above her, before using his fangs to slice through the silk, exposing the female’s throat and shoulder. Her casing—skin—had lost much of its tinge of decay, and she radiated much more heat than before. He could both see and feel the pathways of life pulsing through her, the perfect byway for the Exchange.
He tapped her softly—it will be over soon—and reared back, sinking his fangs into the soft flesh of her shoulder.
He was immediately overcome with her shrill thrumming, her wild bucking, the tang of her fear but he would endure this wild female! He rallied all of his courage and strength and held her down against the earth, and at the first taste of her life in his mouth he injected his venom into her, along with his most precious understandings.
Her lifeblood tasted odd, and young—less sweet than that of a fattened farm pig, but less bitter than the beastlings of the Riegelwood, which were gamey and hard to digest, and only meant for sustenance as a last resort. He had to remind himself to only take a sample, and to give only a sample in turn, enough to keep the rest of the journey from becoming preposterously unbearable for the both of them. He would assimilate her understandings to inform his next molt, whenever his body determined that would be.
It would be over soon.
As she stilled, and slipped once more into unconsciousness, he scuttled back to the base of his network—to study her, to await word from his Master, and to prepare himself for the inevitable change.