fight
“Well… hello, little one…”
She isn’t sure what she’d expected, at the gates of Erebus.
Perhaps nothing. The lost souls of the dead were difficult enough to deal with, after all. And there was no reason to find some great warrior of Chronos so early in her journey.
But she’d learned not to expect the best. So perhaps she wasn’t really surprised, either.
“Hello… er… less than little one,” she said, staring up at the darkness before her. At the great, tangled tapestry of webs, spotted with the glimmering of rainwater and lumps of something wrapped up inside.
And at the great, terrible spider perched upon it.
The figure moved slowly. Almost gracefully. Creeping down its web like it was much less than its massive size, massive weight, massive presence.
And its presence was everywhere. In the webs, in the darkness, in the scuttling just beyond the places where Melinoë could hear.
She was in the den, and she could feel it. It was making the hairs on her neck stand on end.
“I know all the Gods,” the voice of the spider said. Though attributing such a soft, pleasant, sonorous voice to such a great, terrible beast was grating against Melinoë’s mind, like blade on whetstone. “But you… your scent is new to me.” Her tone was almost curious– but only almost.
“How do you know I’m a God, then?” she asked, holding her staff a little tighter.
And the beast laughed. It was not a laugh that filled the den; it was a quiet, almost melancholic sound, clinking together at intervals that were just a little too long. Windchimes on a quiet day.
“It’s in your spine, little one,” it said, slowly, a taste of mocking in its tone. “You can always tell a God by how they stand.”
“Do you have a quarrel with my kind, er,” she had to fumble for a term for the beast – “less than little one?”
The beast laughed again. Slow, quiet. Sharp punctures of sound through the veil of quiet.
And then, in a tone that had not changed one wink: “Yes. I do, little god.”
Melinoë tensed. “This does not have to be a confrontation unless you make it one, large one," she said, gripping her staff tighter.
“Arachne,” the beast said, voice suddenly devoid of all mirth, all amusement. It fell, flat and cold, like a blade clattering to stone. “I am called Arachne. And your kind made this a quarrel long ago, little one. Mortals against Gods… isn’t that the great story of the new age?”
Melinoë sneered. Ridiculous, she might’ve said; might’ve named all the mortals who didn’t hate the Gods; might’ve named all the great heroes who were the subjects of Their favor.
But she just said, “Fine, then.” And then, glaring out at the darkness that did not frighten her, and the beast that almost did; “See what happens when you insult my kin.”
And the beast moved.
The beast – Arachne’s – voice slipped through the quiet, like a blade between ribs. Almost startled Melinoë.
“I thought I had you, last time.” The soft, sonorous voice was impossible to read. “I had nearly wrapped you up. But you slipped away.”
“Hm,” Melinoë peered up at the darkness, and made her voice flat. Unimpressed. “Perhaps you simply aren’t fast enough.”
The beast’s voice came out sharp, sudden. Unpleasant and grating in a way that it hadn’t been before. “I am the best hunter these woods have ever known.”
Melinoë scoffed. “Please,” she said. “Artemis herself hunts in these woods. And hunts game much larger than your little prizes, I’ll add.”
She heard the wind blow. The quiet skittering of legs in the darkness, too quiet, too many to be Arachne’s.
And then: a laugh. Slow and soft again. “Artemis,” the beast said, tone once again draped in that quiet amusement that showed nothing underneath. “Just more Gods standing together against mortals, hm? Artemis may be… somewhat impressive, but… if you pay attention to the tapestry of history; the children always usurp the elders.”
And, without giving Melinoë the chance to respond, it was moving again.
“I’ve been told of your story, you know,” Melinoë said; puncturing the quiet before the beast could speak, this time. “Did you truly think challenging the Gods themselves was wise?”
The den, for a moment, was very, very quiet.
And then, Arachne’s voice, no longer amused, softer than velvet wrapped around a blade: “Is that how they tell it?”
“I have no pity for you, beast,” she said, voice not even hostile enough to be called flat. “You earned this fate.” She sneered. “Your hubris is a stain against all mortalkind. Your only rival in the field is Bellerophon, and he tried to take Olympus itself.”
Arachne’s voice, grating and guttural from the dark in its suddenness, in the bluntness of its anger: “I didn’t ask for your pity, God.”
Melinoë looked at the darkness. Tongue lashing against the roof of her mouth, already eager to retort:
But Arachne spoke first, voice leashed again. “And if you’ve already made up your mind about me… well… let’s see who’s the superior on this battlefield, hm? The hubristic beast… or the arrogant, foolish little God.”
When the beast moved, this time, Descura rose from Melinoë’s hand to meet her.
“Isn’t your quarrel with the person who cursed you, first?” Melinoë looked up at the darkness, voice mild, vague. No true interest; just an honest attempt at reason that she already knew wouldn’t succeed. “Why must this be a fight with all the Gods? Why throw your lot in with Chronos?”
That laugh again. Soft, musical, almost wistful. Utterly at odds with the thing Melinoë knew was in the darkness. “Do you think any of the Gods,” it said, slowly, almost tasting the words, “rose a finger to stop her, hm? Do you think they didn’t do the same to so many mortals like me?”
Melinoë heard the monster move, in the darkness. The voice didn’t stop, though; it kept filling the den whole; kept advancing, just as the beast was. “Do you think that Athena’s wrath,” it said, so softly, “is any different than Hera’s? Zeus’s? Aphrodite’s? Poseidon’s? The Fates’?”
And, in a moment, all of Melinoë’s reason became scorn. “Does your pettiness truly extend so far?” she asked, deadly cold. “Fate itself?”
She could almost hear an expression in the beast’s mandibles. Almost. “Do you know why the Fates cursed me, little God?”
Melinoë could hear the warning in the creature’s voice. She readied her staff, against the impenetrable dark, and said, unimpressed: “I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”
She heard mandibles click together, in the darkness; and a voice, almost beautiful in its wrath:
“Because I wove better.”
Even with all her preparation, she wasn’t able to catch the beast halfway, this time.
“You don’t have much life left in you, little God.”
Melinoë held a hand against a heavy gash in her side, and didn’t bother trying to find the voice in the darkness. “Don’t be disappointed,” she said. “You wouldn’t have gotten a taste regardless.”
The beast laughed that soft, awful laugh. “What is it you Gods call your blood?” it asked, almost lightly. “Ichor? I’ve never tasted it, you know.”
She glared up at the darkness. “And you never will,” she promised, gripping her staff tighter.
She could almost hear the creature’s head tilt. “So much fight for so little blood.” It hid its emotions well; but she could hear the hunger in its voice. “I’ll just have to bleed all that fight out of you, hm?” And then, voice almost musical; “I can’t wait to find out what you taste like, little God.”
Melinoë didn’t try to look for the beast. She just braced herself.
But – for some reason – it didn’t pounce yet. Letting the silence, the tension, hold them for a beat; until Melinoë could almost taste it, so thick was it on her tongue.
So, Melinoë raised her staff, and broke the bubble holding them both. “Do your worst,” she said, glaring as best she could.
(And, oh, did it.)
“I could hear you singing before I entered, you know,” Melinoë said, brazenly, as she entered the den this time. She had grown almost used to the atmosphere; almost felt like she belonged there, amongst all the tension, all the death and decay and darkness. “Yet another field in which Artemis surpases you, I might add.”
A moment of silence, that almost made Melinoë smile. That got you.
When the creature spoke, its voice was barely leashed. Flat and angry. “For such an impudent little God,” it said, “your combat prowess still proves insufficient, doesn't it? Especially for one claiming to be an such an expert, on matters of the hunt.”
“When I eventually surpass you, in one of these battles,” Melinoë said, earnestly curious, “will you finally admit that your hubris on the battlefield is utterly unearned?”
This time, the beast responded instantly. “If,” it said, soft and musical again. “If you surpass me, little God.”
“You’re growing predictable already, beast,” she said, brandishing her staff. “But if you insist; let’s see how long you can keep winning these fights.”
She was more than ready, this time, when the beast plunged from the dark.
This is their exchange, on the night Melinoë finally bests the beast:
“Do you know how I died, little God?” it asked. It was that tone of voice that was utterly impossible to read; to glean anything but the words from.
“Someone struck you down for your boasting, I hope,” she said, flatly.
Silence.
Melinoë had grown used to pauses from Arachne. She relished those pauses, in fact; those breaths in which she knew she had said something that had caught the horrible thing off guard. She relished them nearly as much as she did those moments when Arachne lost all of its calm; when its anger made it sound like the beast it truly was.
But she had never heard Arachne fall truly silent before.
There was a moment, in the dark, in which Melinoë was uncertain.
It passed quickly.
“You can’t make me pity you, Arachne,” she said, colder than the darkness that followed rainfall. “If you were anything in life like you are in death, then this form isn’t some horrible curse. It was merely Athena showing the world what you always truly were underneath. You’re a monster – with monstrous aims and monstrous allies.” She sneered. “You do not pity monsters. You slay them.”
The darkness consumed the den. Digested them both in its rapturous quiet.
“Just as inflexible as any other God,” Arachne said, softer than the silk she’d once woven. “Didn’t I already tell you, little God?”
Melinoë already knew what was coming. She raised her staff, and kept an eye open for flashing mandibles, as Arachne finished:
“I don’t want your pity.”
The fight is bloody, long, and underhanded. Melinoë had never thought she’d stoop to these lows, in combat; but Arachne… the beast brings out the worst in her.
It’s Zeus’s blessing she wields, this time. And it makes Descura crackle with lightning as she lashes out, again and again and again, at the soft underbelly which seemed to be the only place upon Arachne’s forms that hits landed true. Lashed out despite the fire that began to lick along every spiderweb nearby; despite the wounds, seeping poison, that Arachne left all over her; despite the slowness which came with terrible pain, the sluggishness which came with exertion almost too great for even a God. Lashed out until the air smelled, tasted, of ozone so harsh only the God of the skies himself could’ve conjured it.
She finds it somewhat fitting, then, that it was the most prolific God that helped her best the beast.
She knows she’s won when Arachne speaks.
“Cheater!!” is what she wails, high and terrible as she scuttles away from Melinoë’s staff. “Cheater, cheater, cheater!!! Your nasty little tricks, all your boons and aid and allies– do you see any allies alongside me?! Do you taste divine boons upon my mandibles?”
And Melinoë can taste blood in her mouth when she spits; “Oh, just shut up already.”
(And, when Descura falls; it does.)
(Arachne screeches when it loses; but when it dies, for the first time in an age…)
(It does not make a sound.)