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 Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 5:53 pm
 Stain
A wayward glare was cast at the cat as she crossed the threshold between the junction of hallway and the path of floor that led to the front door on one end and the living room on the other, but other than that and a flare of her spindly assets did nothing to the kitten. She would need to be provoked to outright attack the small animal, but it never hurt to make it clear she was able and to keep her dominance over the house pet. A smirk rose up on her red lips as she caught the cat slinking away to Zeke's room again out of the corner of one eye, but that view was soon covered by the wall as she floated into the kitchen. Immediately the heat she so desperately needed overtook her and her skin greedily sucked it up. Given the kitchen's tiny size and the fact the walls only parted by that empty frame heat had a hard time escaping and could leave the kitchen sweltering unless a fan was running. It was a pain to Zeke; delicious to Anastacia. But still not enough.
Zeke was blocking access to the stove, the raver bopping between the frying pan he had on the lit coil, the toaster, and his empty but ready for food plate. There was a crust of toast between his lips that was disappearing as it steadily moved inward. He was hungry, what could he say? Dinner had been a bit too light, so he had woken up with an appetite almost as large as his Raevan's and he was in the mood to treat himself with his limited cooking skills. This included cereal, toast, scrambled eggs, fruit salad - homemade by him to boot - some cottage cheese, and maybe a bagel (that he was still debating on though) with a glass of fruit juice on the side. Given his tasks to make such a meal, his concentration was solely on what was before him and he was only vaguely aware he was being watched. Given he lived with a cat and that it was still early, any feelings of not being alone were attributed to Dust Bunny rather than Anastacia. In Zeke's mind she was still sleeping and had proven time and again that she held on to more than a few traits from her soul - including being rather nocturnal among others. It was this thought that would prove to be the catalyst for more than one thing in regards to his stoic charge and make living with her just that much more terse for the days to come.
Neither of them knew that of course, but what both did know was that they were hungry and needed to eat as soon as possible. Anastacia was already bullheaded but the need to feed only made her more so and worked at the nerves directly stuck to her agitation level. As Zeke bopped and moved to the beat of his own drum and continually blocked off her food source - and didn't seem to realize she was in his presence no less - the nerves were tugged and twisted in time with the flickering pangs from her rune. Feed yourself it seemed to say once more and as Zeke finally settled down to pour some red liquid into one of his favorite cups, she didn't idly hover by any longer. She moved, but at the last moment so did he, and then everything went to hell in a matter of seconds.
Zeke moved left and Anya moved right and with that in effect they met in the middle. Zeke was mid-turn, glass of cran-raspberry juice in hand, and the sudden appearance of the spider Frei right there made him utter a shocked cry and jerk back from that shock. His hand slipped on the cold-slick glass in his right, but it flew straight out of it when his elbow came into contact with the slightly jutting lip of the counter. The sound from his lips took on a lilt of pain and some fast 'ah ah ah!'s came out to warn his charge of the airborne glass. It'd shatter. It was moving in slow motion before his eyes; juice arching out of the top almost like it had been fired from some sort of cannon. For sure, it'd shatter when it hit the floor and Zeke was already wincing and tucking his chin against his chest in involuntary preparation.
On Anya's end of the spectrum things were moving just as slowly. Zeke's sudden turn into her line of direction and appearance before her eyes had also startled the femme, prompting her wings to rotate to make her come to a stop and back away before they collided. Her body went back, but both of her cuff-less arms swung forward with the motion of her wings, and both of them were moving in what any movie or game buff would call 'bullet time'. It was almost surreal, seeing her motions significantly slower than what her brain was firing off, but with that slow-mo in effect she saw everything that transpired. Zeke hitting his elbow, the glass come flying out of his perspiration dampened fingers, the glass coming toward her, the contents of its innards exploding out much like said bullet would come out of its gun, the way time suddenly jerked into regular speed as the liquid came into contact with her spiderweb-marked arm...
The crash of glass hitting and then spreading everywhere as it broke across the linoleum made both man and Raevan flinch visibly. It was so loud! The splash of the remaining juice soon followed and made much more than a puddle in and around the shards and was just as noisy as it came to rest. Anya's motions just before had pulled her across the kitchen until her back thumped against the wall, making her jerk and shake as well as open the two lavender eyes she owned though she really needn't have given the four functioning ones on her brow. Her neutral expression was broken as the glass - lips parted in surprise and 'normal' set of eyes widened as well. Her right arm was thrown up and to the side at an angle while her left arm was out before her. The former was clear and clean as ever but the latter...It was red. From wrist to nearly the crook of her arm was completely red. The webbing mark that started at her wrist and ended midway to that crook was filled in and dripping down her skin as gravity dictated. What wasn't splashed was becoming streaked and she could only ogle it as it happened. What had happened? The suddenness of it all put her and her guardian into momentary shock, staring at the spots closest to them with disbelief on both faces. It was Zeke that pierced the stunned silence.
"Ah-Are you okay, Anya?" His eyes left the mess on the floor and came to a rest on his Frei. If he had been thinking any faster, he would have been taken aback by the loss of that stern neutrality and the appearance of nothing less than utter surprise. Instead, however, his parental nature was shining through and it was like the cup had a homing beacon attached to it that was set to aim right for his Raevan. Was she okay? She didn't appear hurt but she had gotten splashed...
From her spot against the wall Anya continued to look at her arm, slowly turning it over to expose the underside of it and her wrist. Those trickles of redness slid with the motions but before her very eyes they quickly became nothing more than dry-looking slides and crisscrosses of what had been. Against her pale skin it was so bright! It just screamed red, red, red, red, RED to her senses and all she could do at the moment was gawk. Though time had resumed its normal pace, her mind was still stuck in bullet time. Zeke's words passed over her ears in similar slow motion and somehow seemed far away and synthesized but eventually they triggered her. All six of her eyes flicked up and met Zeke's gaze, though instead of that sharp, flat gaze there was nothing but befuddlement and wonder.
"...What?" The word that came out held the same qualities as her eyes that soon fell to her arm once again. Zeke gave his head a shake to clear his senses and then focused his gaze on the same spot as Anastacia. Even across the kitchen that cran-raspberry red drew him instantly. A soft 'ah jeez' fell from his lips and - carefully despite slippers - he made his way over to her. His fingers ghosted over the spot, but before they could go too far that arm was recoiled to Anastacia's partial chest. Eyes took on a wary quality as her mind came back to speed; still very much against touching even with her skin made a mess of. Zeke gave her a shaky smile.
"I'll get this cleaned up. You go on to the bathroom and wash up in the sink." She didn't move yet, looking at him reproachfully. "I'm sorry Anya, I didn't see you until the last minute I swear!" He took a couple steps back, hearing glass crunch beneath his rubber-covered heel. He made shooing motions with his hands at her then, thinking better of it, held out one arm towards the door. The gentlemanly way. "Go on Anastacia. If you don't get it washed off fast, your arm's gonna be sticky all day." A simple, knowingly effective warning but he didn't get to see it work. The scent of burning filled the air and with a gasp Zeke turned from his ward, hopping over the mess to grab the frying pan and haul it off the burner, turning the stove top off with a snap from the knob on the rear panel. Anastacia left the room without a second thought. Sticky? Her? No thank you!
She flew as fast as she could in the confined spaces and with the sharp turns around the corner and into the bathroom itself, throwing the faucet open with one harder-than-normal twist on the individual taps at one time. Water gushed from the metal mouthpiece into the basin and immediately down the drain. It was there that Anastacia paused despite the severity she was facing for doing such a thing. Water, sinking into nothingness, gushing with force from the tap before pooling slightly and then being sucked down the hole in the middle into oblivion. From someplace deep inside; a feral, not fully understood place that effected her more than she knew, Anastacia shuddered. It started small - at her core - but grew enough that the downy hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She didn't like that - the shudder or the water in the sink - but forced her arm under anyway. Lukewarm heat and hard pressure greeted her and she pulled a face as she let her appendage soak beneath the jet. The heat was nice, but there was just something wrong-feeling about the water on her skin. Her untouched hand gripped the rim of the sink, keeping her steady and there despite the dislike and almost-fear she was feeling. She was bigger than it, why was she feeling funny? Anya didn't linger on the thought though because she was quickly aware the water hadn't taken on any of the redness her arm had. It came out of the tap bubbling white, turned pinkish as it reflected that red color, but when it fell from her arm and down into the basin it was still bubbling white that turned clear as it was sucked down.
"What?" The word fell from her lips again but unlike the first time it wasn't reflecting the split-second stupidity the actions Zeke had let happen caused then. This time it was hard-thinking puzzlement, especially as she could remember watching Zeke wash his hands free of dirt and grit in the kitchen sink one day after starting up what he affectionately called "window-box gardens". He had stuck his hands under the crash of water and even without any sort of motion quite a bit of brown-black soil had come right off. That soil had clung to him for the few hours he had been working and had come off without any effort. This juice had just splashed her not even two minutes ago and not even a tint had fallen from her arm. What was this; witchcraft or something? She couldn't begin to understand, but with that past scenario in mind she felt some agitation that it wasn't working out the same. Juice, dirt...different things but it seemed the latter was thicker than the former at a glance. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this was a side effect of the sticky. Ugh! She couldn't let that happen and despite her reservations she thrust her other hand under the tap and started scrubbing - hard.
Back in the kitchen Zeke was cleaning up the mess he accidentally made. His eggs now sat in the trash bin - burnt like most every other thing he tried to make - and would soon have more than a few pieces of glass joining them. Paper towels sat on the floor and looked bloody as they soaked up the juice, but were also had their job hampered in spots by larger bits of glass that rested beneath the white paper-cloth. No matter; he had to mop anyway. Now he just had an excuse to not procrastinate any more, bully for him. Whistling a tune he had heard on the radio, Zeke moved a chair and got back to sweeping. There was already a small pile of glass made with lines of juice around it and moving toward their center, but there was so much to go plus the threat of teeny-tiny fragments that the broom couldn't pick up and instead somehow always managed to stick right in your heel when you walked into the clean looking accident zone. Well, that's what he had a vacuum for after all! But still, how had he not had a firmer hold on that glass? He could have hit Anya with it! That was another thing - where was the girl? He turned his head and looked at the clock. He couldn't be too sure, but she'd been in there for at least five minutes, maybe more. It shouldn't take that long to wash some juice off! Maybe she was having trouble; she was rather perfectionist in regards to her appearance and the juice had been really really dark on her skin. Sweeping what he had accumulated into the dust bin and tipping that into the trash, Zeke placed the broom to the side and went to check on his ward.
"Anya? You okay in there?" No reply but a soft sound of frustration, almost not heard over the sound of the tap on full blast hitting the white ceramic of the sink. The bathroom door was open wide, but Zeke still gave a respectful wave of his hand before the opening before he took the step to stand in the same spot. "Hey," he said softly, "d'you need some help?"
Anastacia's head only just turned toward the sound of her guardian's voice and second question. Help? What help could he give? Scrubbing her other hand against the offending mark under the warm water wasn't doing anything when it should have been gone by now! If she couldn't get it off by herself like this, what could he do? Still though, for what it was worth, he did know things; even she couldn't deny that and she knew well enough he wouldn't leave her midst so easily when she wasn't her same self. The fact she could be called in some sort of trouble or situation would keep him lingering until it was set right. And she did want this set right. She didn't like this red mark, not one bit, so maybe she'd have to put hop off her high horse this one time - but this one time only! - and let him give his sage advice or easy-fix solution. Once she knew how to take care of such things like this, she'd be sure to keep him from meddling. She could take care of herself, surely, but even she knew that she didn't know everything yet. Some help required, much to her disdain, as her growing aggravation wouldn't help her in the long run as well. Fine, he could help. She gave her nod, watching him through the reflection in the mirror.
"Yes."
Zeke didn't even ask what the polite way was, instead happy she was receptive to the offer without any scowl directed at him. He gave his charge another light smile and took a couple steps in, tilting his head to see if he couldn't take a gander at her arm. The rushing water didn't help.
"Okay. First I'm going to need to see your arm Anya." There was that reproachful look; concerned he'd try to touch her and perhaps make it worse, but he shook his head. "I won't touch your arm, I just want to see it."
"Won't touch?" Her eyes narrowed at him. Even if she was allowing him to help, she wasn't going to let him touch it. Skin on skin contact...Urgh, it wasn't right to her at all. She got the same smile back at her, coupled with an assured nod.
"I won't touch. I promise." He made a crossing motion over his heart which made Anya's brow raise up in that puzzled way. What did that mean? Regardless, he wouldn't touch; promised in fact - and a good man kept his promises, even if to her Zeke was a 'meh' sort of man. Maybe he could earn a 'decent' if he did as he said. But fine, he'd get to see so he could solve the problem. She still watched him warily as she did so, but soon her arm was out of the spray and both could see that the only thing that had aesthetically changed about the Frei's forearm was that it was now wet.
The color was undiluted.
Zeke's brows raised and Anya could only huff at it and her guardian. Nothing. Not a drop or trickle had come off her skin and the beads of water now making their way down her arm only seemed to make the juice mark stand out all the more. Zeke took a couple more steps toward her and the sink, prompting the Frei to distrustfully float away from him to the otherside.
"I won't touch Anya."
"No?"
"No. I promised after all, and I keep my word." She slowly turned her arm out toward him. Zeke looked at it and could tell that no soap had been used thanks to the lack of any of its perfume in the air. He plucked the bottle off the top of the sink, holding it out. "This is liquid soap. If you rub some of this on your skin while you have it under the water, I'm sure it'll come right off!"
But the dirt...Zeke hadn't used soap for that. But this wasn't dirt was it? Zeke could sense her hesitation.
"Here, hold out your right hand. I'll put some in and you can wash yourself. It won't make your mark any worse and it'll do a lot better than just plain water alone."
Better than plain water? That sounded ideal to the Frei. She looked at the bottle of white stuff in Zeke's hand and slowly held her palm out. As Zeke made to put some in her hand just quivered as though it was going to recoil, but otherwise remained still - watching him like a hawk with all six eyes. Zeke pressed the head of the bottle down twice, feeling that was enough to clear off that juice but still puzzled as to why it hadn't come off as soon as it was doused. That was strange, but then again, Raevans were strange beings. Anya took her hand back and sniffed the white gel that was spreading out over her palm, wrinkling her nose in disgust at it. It smelled clean. Not animal hospital clean, but still clean. Anya had never gotten dirty before now (she didn't sweat like humans, didn't muck around at his workplace, and hadn't taken any interest into Zeke's window gardens after all), but what humans considered 'clean' was something that made her feel ill. Either way, Zeke said this would work and with that presence in her mind she could overlook that just this once and turned her hand over onto her arm to start rubbing.
"Try putting it under the water while you do that," Zeke said helpfully, "because that way you can make lather. That's the real way soap works at getting your skin clean."
Anya did just that with no quarrels, the soap on her dampened skin sliding on and around in a very unappealing way. It was wet but not water-wet and it was thick and cold! Gross, but once the water from the tap was added, the thick goop melted into foam that hid the red beneath a thick growth of white bubbles. That was better, sort of, but again there was no tint of red or pink falling into the sink. Her brows knit and she rubbed harder without being prompted from her guardian; fully ignoring the man now despite his usually annoying hovering. Had he lied? Or was he just dumb? She knew she was a 'Raevan', like Zul, and he was a 'human' like Alex, so how different did that make them besides aesthetically? She would never know for now but kept on scrubbing.
Zeke peered into the basin as Anya kept scrubbing and also saw the lack of pink or red. His brows furrowed. Raevans were not like humans in a lot of ways, but surely some juice could come off just as easily right? He moved from his ward's side and instead went to the tub, taking the washcloth that was neatly folded in the caddy out and returning with it. He held it out to Anya.
"Sometimes spills can be tricky," he began, "and they need a bit more than just your fingers to get out. Here, use this." The Frei kept the actions up but her head turned enough to catch sight of what was being offered. A small towel? "It's a washcloth. Humans use it to get the grit and sweat off their bodies, but it works just as well for juice on your arms." Another smile and he gave the blue cloth a gentle push toward his Raevan. Her wings flared out to tell him he was too far into her comfort zone but she took it all the same. Zeke took the necessary steps back and watched as she got more of the soap for herself and repeated her present actions, albeit with the cloth added to the mix.
There was no change. Three times in and not a change. Anya washed the bubbles off completely and the juice mark glared up at her. The friction she had made only made the offending mark feel hot and that in no way cooled her own head. In fact, it increased it. The femme gave a low hiss - it was almost mocking her after all! - and despite her reservations about the water and that churning drain, she shoved it back under once more. She was just doing it too lightly on herself. That was it. She had some little fear about marring her skin more and her strength hadn't been put behind it. She hadn't gotten anywhere because of that, but not anymore. No more fooling around. It'd be gone, she'd be happy and if not? ...Well, she wasn't someone who took being lied to with grace.
Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing...
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
As he watched his charge cleaning away furiously at the bathroom sink with no apparent luck or quick result even with the washcloth, a thought came to mind. It crept into his mind - came up like a sudden epiphany or obvious hindsight - and, along with his smile vanishing, his eyes widened just a touch as it sunk in. Not common knowledge, but as a man of science he should have realized it sooner, especially knowing exactly what went into his Raevan. It was simple and yet...So, so damning. He'd done something like it before in college, just...not to the extent of most scientists or with the exact microorganisms that made up one half of his Raevan--
They stain viruses with dye in Petri dishes... He ogled his Frei as though seeing her for the first time again, jaw slack as it fell open. Her skin stains.
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 3:42 pm
Two for the Price of One
Participants: Anastacia, Dou, Vivi, and Zeke
Location: Vermillion Bakery
Type: {PRP - FILLED PICK UP}
Status: Complete
--- Summary ---
Zeke and Anastacia travel to Vivi's bakery in order to pick up two filled Soul Glasses and the Essences that go along with them!
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Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:27 am
Under the Sun - Summer Beach Party 2010
Participants: Everyone!
Location: One of Isle de Gambino's Beaches!
Type: {ORP}
Status: Complete
--- Summary ---
It's time once more for the annual Lab 305 summer beach party! The day starts out with fun and sun but ends up taking a sudden and mysterious turn for the worse...
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Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:47 pm
Down Came the Rain{July 17th, 2010} After some of the exhaustion and grogginess had worn off, it hadn't taken Anastacia long to figure out what had happened and why she was in the place and predicament she was in. The sounds of the storm outside had since filled her ears in a manner similar to someone turning a stereo from the lowest setting all the way to the highest in a single, forceful wrench of a turn. It hurt. The roar of the winds, the crashes of thunder and foliage, and the relentless pound of heavy rain all filled her already throbbing head and drowned out any other sound in the room or adjacent ones that surrounded it.
Freak storm. Her voice whispered in her head and against her own ears; a sharp jab at the maelstrom outside that wasn't giving up nor slowing down the longer she looked at it. She felt it in her rune and the cloud that surrounded it - this was not a normal storm. This was abnormal. Inhuman. Not right. Freak of nature.
In - and because of - her illness, the Spider was livid.
The more she watched, the more she came to realize this was the cause of her misery. This...Howling, churning, drowning mass that ruined not only the day but her as well in more ways than one. This...This was the source of all her woes, pains, blank draws of memory, exhaustion, and all around sickness. With her mind set on 'certain' of this as a fact, all six of her eyes looked out the storm-battered glass and slowly, surely, her upper lip pulled back in a snarl. Her placidity was shattered and in its wake was a look of pure rage and disgust mingling and mixing together within one sharp-featured oval face. Should anyone have walked in on her, they'd have likely seen the danger behind the elegance in that moment especially as, for the first time, Anastacia's fangs slid from her longer than average canines - short and black syringe-like needles sent down through minute holes in her teeth on muscles that reacted much like a trigger of a gun in that instant. For their first appearance, she was not aware of them as her entire being and ire was focused on the storm that was outside and out of her reach as well as the knowledge of all that it had done to her. Had they not been bound within the cocoon of cotton and polyester she had been wrapped in when unconscious, as well as being sick-heavy all the same, her wings would have flared as wide as they could, completing the display of hatred the Spider wore on her face and felt throughout her partially developed form. Anastacia found her voice then, and only for then at this time of her life, and the words slid past her lips and fangs on an audible, vicious, yet frighteningly steady hiss: "You freak."
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Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:05 pm
Let The Light One In
Participants: Anastacia, Jezabroux, Luka, and Zeke
Location: Lab 305
Type: {PRP - PICK UP}
Status: Complete
--- Summary ---
Jezabroux arrives to pick up his newborn Raevan - a cheery Satyr named Luka!
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Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 10:47 am
Nel "All right Anya, I've gotta talk to someone about this order, but since that might take a bit and be boring for you, you're allowed to poke around by yourself." Zeke turned his head, looking at the Frei who had been looking around but was now looking straight at him with her brows raised enough to give her normally unemotional face a look of surprise. This was most certainly new. "But there's one condition," the man with the bi-colored hair raised a finger as he continued, "you have to stay in the store, okay?"
The freedom to float around as she pleased without Zeke's eye on her wasn't something she was going to squander. The Frei gave a nod: curt but agreeing to the terms. Staying inside - not that she desired to go back outside into the overly hot and humid air at the moment - was a small price to pay for such a new experience and she was eager to try it despite her otherwise apathetic look. The nod wasn't enough for the vet though.
"Anastacia," he said, giving her one of those parental looks and using a tone that she knew was trying to get her to give him her word, "in the store." Not that he didn't trust her, he did since he'd leave her be at work for a couple of appointments at a time and she'd been good all those times, but this was the first time he was doing such a thing without other Raevans or guardians or coworkers about to help hold some security in his mind. Still though, she was nearly five months old now and clearly showed she was mature for her age, plus there were many security cameras, he'd be nearby, and he was sure the man or woman he'd be talking to wouldn't react well to a spiny looking quarter-body staring them down with an apathetic but intelligently sharp gaze. God help them and him if the employee had even a twinge of arachnophobia as well if she was floating just behind or off to his side.
"Yes." She said in her cool tone, agreeing to the terms. She didn't show it, but she was eager.
"In the store?"
She rolled her lavender set of eyes at him. Yes, you fool, they said, though she knew she'd have to repeat for him to let her off the hook and the sooner the better. Easy way - despite her actions - this time. "In the store."
"All right." That satisfied him, and although like any parent he didn't like that roll she did at him, he attributed it to this new found near-freedom and gave her a beam at the agreement before pointing out toward and ultimately past the registers. "I'm going to be over that way if you need me. Hopefully this'll go fast, and if it does, I'll come find you." When he turned around, Anastacia was already floating away from him, not wasting any time. She wasn't too far but Zeke still cupped his hands around his mouth to call to her. "Okay Anya?!"
The Spider Queen's still-stained left hand raised half way to show she recognized he had been talking to her, but already she was leaving the end of Zeke's mostly one-sided conversation in the dust. One thing remained in mind though; Zeke's message to stay in the store and the allowance to "poke around" as she pleased. She felt a bloom of delight in her chest and both her crown and her wings stretched out once she was away from the automatic doors as though shedding the feeling of being near and chained to her guardian's footsteps. So this was freedom? Even though there were people in the aisles and amongst the stands of the pet store, she still felt the rush of being untethered from the man who watched over her. It was nice and she liked it, and she definitely wasn't going to waste the opportunity. While she tended to scowl or inwardly mutter against Zeke's ideas and actions normally, this...this was something she would do without question or defiance.
If I stay inside like he said, he'll let me do this more. The words echoed through her head with certainty. It'd happen. Prove it once to him, and it'd stick forever like super glue. If it didn't...Well...Now that she had a taste, she wasn't going to be the sort to snub the entire piece, was she? Not at all. She'd just float off if she wanted to, say or no say, and Zeke wouldn't be able to stop her. That was that. A small smirk raised her cherry red lips and Anastacia moved from the front of the store into the nearest aisle of pet toys and chewies. So far she was liking this freedom though the hall-like stretch she had wandered into was full of things that did everything but hold her interest. She didn't like toys, especially those designed solely for dogs and - ugh - cats in mind, but she continued straight down rather than turning around. A woman at the far end she was headed for gasped and hugged the shelves with her front as she ogled the Raevan as Anastacia came upon her and passed without acknowledging, prompting the Frei to hold her head that much higher and give her wings a haughty shake. Yes, she knew she was beautiful. Thank you for only stamping that in more.
Let's see... She still had eyes on her back but paid them no mind past a furl and twitch of her wings. Anastacia looked in opposite directions, weighing which one she wanted to go in for the moment but quickly settled on the right. After all, Zeke said he'd be "over there" which was opposite of the way she had headed in the first place. So left. She went right.
Her chosen path lead the virus Raevan down between a high case of shelves laden with animal food both canned and packaged on her left and more of those toy and treat-laden aisles on her right. At the end of some of the latter were short, white metal cases or twirling stands of books, magazines, and other paper-products about proper pet care and information on specific breeds of all obtainable species. She paid them no mind as well: not interested in owning or learning about hamsters, dalmatians, or what this month's Horse Fancy had to say in regards to saddle sores, cold weather covers, and tack. Instead, she was drawn to the end of the tall rack of animal chow where the noise of many birds was. When she turned the corner, the white and windowed room stood out like a sore from the wall it was attached to at the back and its forward facing walls were lined with cages, a few small toy stands, and pallets and piles of bagged seed. Curiosity got the better of her and only grew as she strayed close enough to see colorful darts of hither and thither through the windows. These were very much unlike the ones that waddled and pecked around outside and as she watched a blue and red bird hop around in its cage behind the glass, she wondered why these ones didn't replace those black, brown, and bleak gray cousins. They'd make the city streets look better in her opinion, but she soon got her own answer as to why that was.
While the noise outside the bird room was loud enough to make anyone in the vicinity aware the pet shop sold birds (and lots of them), even with the door open wide as it was the sound was practically muffled by the walls. When the Frei floated through the door her hand immediately flew to her ears to press into them and she quite clearly cringed. They were so loud! And it wasn't just tweeting and chirping - from some cages came screeching and screaming with the latter sound akin to a cat being strangled. Anastacia barely glanced around before she retreated, cursing her prior wondering and now knowing full well just why these colorful, Zeke-like creatures weren't outside like the sparrows and the pigeons.
Once she was outside the room again Anastacia pushed the door shut with her shoulder and quickly fled the spot: attempting to fly as fast as she could with her fingers still in her ears and on her unsuitable, almost clunky, wings. She took off between those warehouse-sized shelves of canned and dry food and only slowed and dropped her hands once she reached the end of the alley they made. She turned around then too, scowling down the shadowy passage. Colorful, but annoying and way too chatty. Zeke in a tiny, feathery body really so no wonder he liked that big "cockatoo" thing that was always perched in the lobby of the animal clinic. They were practically related! The spider femme gave her wings an irritable shake and raised her hands to right the crown that was in cringe-caused disarray atop her head. At her touches the spindly legs and pedipalps seemed to come back to feeling and she moved them until they were seated as she felt was right. Anastacia decided she'd avoid that area back there for sure, but at least the sound was all the more muffled by her actions when she departed.
Now that the bird room was experienced, dealt with, and marked off, the virus Frei decided not to linger. Who knew when Zeke would be back and there was still a lot more to explore of this place. She wasn't planning on wasting this gift, and so she gave her wings a flick and coasted out of the alley between the two high shelves. The end of the aisle opened up into a decidedly cooler part of the store. The wall she was met with was lined with glass panels, behind which were many kinds of fish. Signs on either side of the wall declared both 'Tropical!' and 'Freshwater!' in bright red Sharpie. Despite the difference between the two sorts of fish, the air in this part still had that water and scales scent that came with any aquarium. Anastacia wasn't phased by it and with the silence that came with this area she made her approach.
In each tank was a multitude of fish of same species. Some held a mix, but most were segregated. Little laminated placards hung from the bottoms of the tanks and each one had a picture of the fish inside as well as information on that sort. Water temperature, food, lightning, if they got along with other fish...It was all there but the spider femme didn't look at those. Her attention was held by the fish that swam around inside the glass, as well as the ones that floated against the surface either on their sides or with their bellies straight up in the air. The latter were few and far between from what she could see and had soon moved from the farthest side of the wall down to its end. She noted that some of the fish were colorful like the birds, but were mercifully silent save for the electric whir of the bubblers in their tanks. These were much better and more pleasing than the cat at home. Perhaps, she figured, Zeke would get her one or two of them for her if she pointed them out to him. Just add water, from what she could tell, as well as some rocks, a bubble-making device, and a little castle, and they'd take care of themselves! Yes, that sounded right. A pet of her own. Zeke had Dust Bunny, but she had nothing. That wasn't fair!
The shade from the large shelves faded as Anastacia reached the end and she floated upright once more. Yes, she'd lead Zeke back here and make it known she found something she wanted. He was all for spoiling her wasn't he? Yes, yes he was, so a fish she would get. For now though, more exploring. The wall continued on toward the front and, like the fish portion of it, there were spots lined with glass panels. She soon found out what they held, and it wasn't something she was quite expecting.
Whereas the fish portion of the wall had been cooler in temperature, the farther away she went the warmer the air got. Water didn't fill the tanks along the wall and there was no transition from that clear liquid to sand, rocks, and mixes of earthen components within. Quite the change, especially as the animals went from fish to squishy-looking amphibians to scaly lizards, turtles, and snakes. Those had varying degrees of interest to the Frei, but what really caught her eye were the creatures that graced the near end of this wall. The tanks were devoid of the plantlife that most of the lizard tanks held. Soft earth lined the bottoms of these few pens and on opposite ends of each there were two items inside that acted as hiding holes. Like the fish and the tanks before them, these ones also had plaques at their bases but instead of showing off a picture of a skink, box turtle, or boa constrictor, the laminated papers were graced with images of large, fuzzy tarantulas. Oddly enough, she couldn't see any in the tanks she was looking at. Puzzled, she floated close and looked inward.
A fat clump of dirt shot out of half an overturned and hollowed out stump of wood and smacked against the glass. It made the Frei float back in surprise at the sudden action, but she quickly dipped forward again, peering into the case. Another piece came out but fell just short of its mark and despite the gloom within the impromptu den, the black widow could see the tarantula within. It was pressing itself as far back against the back wall as it could with its pedipalps and front legs raised in a stance of fear-created aggression. She felt a kinship to the large-eyed tarantula within and a funny, almost familiar feeling about the display, but couldn't understand why it was directed at her. She had just floated over...No matter. There were other tanks along the wall, but as she rose up and peered into the one on the shelf above, the spider inside scurried inside its hideaway, though unlike its neighbor below it didn't raise any part of itself in any manner toward the female. A crease appeared between the Frei's brows and she moved along, but each time, each tarantula made off into its den to hide as though frightened of the femme. She attempted the foreleg and pedipalp raised stance with her crown when another tarantula did it to her, but that only made the other chicken out and huddle back in a quivering mass of legs like the rest.
What's with them? She questioned their actions aloud in her mind as she turned at the end of the spider portion of the enclosures. Anastacia started back, watching the row that was eye level with her but no tarantula had come or came out and likely remained shoved as far back into their hollows as each one could. The Frei gave her lavender head a shake and decided to go back down toward the fish again. Zeke could find her there, and she could pick out the ones she liked the best in the meantime.
"Feh. Males."
Anastacia paused in her float with her brows knitting on her face. To her left, there was no one close enough to speak without shouting and the words spoken were definitely not shouted across the store. In fact, they sounded quite close by, if not sounding a little like the speaker was at the bottom of a well. "Who...?"
"Down here." The Frei turned around, looking down the remainder of the aisle that, like the rest of the general vicinity, was vacant. "No, down here. C'mon, you're a female, I know you're smarter than this."
The spider femme spun around again, but this time her gaze fell from the eye level tanks to the ones that would have been lined with her lower stomach if she had one. Looking back up at her from the center tank was a tarantula. Like a few of the ones that hid when Anastacia came near, she was black with a lot of red-orange color on her legs. A ring of the same color surrounded her head and fell just beneath her small, but glittering black eyes that were focused right on Anastacia's partially developed form.
"Well, well, well! You can understand me!" The tarantula's forelegs tapped against the glass she had angled and pressed herself up against, and the way she had positioned herself made it look like she was window shopping through a particularly sun-washed glass. "This is a first," she stated, sounding amazed, intrigued, and delighted to this turn of events in her otherwise mundane day. Anastacia sunk low until the tarantula's tank was level with her face; 'kneeling' before it as if she had legs. The spider within backed off her window to the outside world but didn't retreat into one of her own hiding holes like the rest had done. "Hello there."
Anastacia's brows flew up as she grasped the fact it was this creature that was addressing her. Chittering laughter accompanied the look but it wasn't from the Frei. The spider that stood before her separated by a thin panel of glass had laughed. It...She, because she spoke in a feminine lilt of all things...was speaking to her, and Anastacia could hear her as plain as day despite the blockade.
"Who...?" She said again. Though her mind said 'what', her mouth spoke a different word entirely, blown away and out of her normal face by this revelation. This was new, definitely new.
"My name is Nel, and I think you might be my new best friend." The tarantula tittered excitedly, the hairs on her bulbous abdomen trembling with the emotion. "And what luck - you're a female too! Like I said before: males, feh. Idiots, every one of them, but their reactions are of no surprise to me, given what's on your back."
"My back...?" Anastacia questioned intelligently, reaching a hand behind her to touch just above the sloping back of her armor-like top.
"Yes, your back!" The tarantula didn't hold any negative assumptions toward the Frei. It was quite clear this was her first time having a bonafied spider chatting it up at her and she was allowed to be a little slow for the first go around. "Those touching triangles don't lie, you know. A red hourglass?" There was a blank look on Anastacia's face, making Nel both curious and concerned. Surely she knew what that symbol meant? It was only the mark of the most infamous of spiderkind! She waited, but there was no change in the Frei's face save for a knit of her brows as the question was left open and unanswered. Nel gave a sigh that made her fangs quiver. "A red hourglass," she repeated, "is the tell tale mark of the black widow spider."
"I'm a Raevan." Anastacia said bluntly and pulled her hand away from her birthmark. That blown away look disappeared as quickly as it had come and now Anastacia was looking into the glass tank with scrutiny. Was this some sort of joke? Was there someone hiding in the next aisle or behind the wall, giving this creature a voice in order to make a mockery out of her?
"Never heard of a 'Raevan' before," Nel stated, "but that mark doesn't lie, and you've definitely got some similarities to me and my kin." The large pinions jutting out of the human-looking female's back and the group of similar, but smaller sized ones coming out of the back of her head were just two of those shared traits. It was apparent, so how could the lavender haired female be so disbelieving? "Besides, you couldn't understand me if you weren't. Humans can't hear me - us - when we speak, but you can."
Anastacia remained silent. She had looked at herself enough in the mirror to know what she looked like and what came out of her where. She couldn't, however, deny that the array on her head shared the same number of legs with the tarantula in the tank, and the eyes through which she saw the world were clearly not human - in number and in appearance. Hell, the armor across her breasts had four spines jutting up from the edge of each cup and each spine looked like a miniaturized version of her spindly bits. But she was a Raevan. Not a human, not a cat, not a dog, not a bird...A Raevan. Similarities were not definites.
"I'm a Raevan." she said again and the tarantula had a feeling there would be no winning this war.
"Okay, a Raevan. But you can still hear and talk to me can't you?"
"Yes."
"Well then that...that's good enough for me, at least. It gets boring and rather annoying being the only female red knee on this wall." Nel gave her second left leg a shake and cast a disdainful look into the tank on her right before looking at the Frei again. She realized something then - she had given the name she went by, but didn't get the lavender-haired female's. "Say...I don't think you told me your name."
Anastacia blinked, realizing that fact too. Zeke wasn't around for introductions, which was standard fare for the Frei to give her name to any other and always came first in any conversation with him nearby. The suddenness of this whole situation pushed propriety from her mind but in any case she highly doubted he'd introduce her to a spider and might think her crazy for chatting with the tarantula at all. Would she finally have to speak for herself? Then again...Hadn't she been doing just that up until now? Did she need Zeke to speak for her? No. Did she prefer it? Most definitely yes. This was odd, but then again, what part of talking to a tarantula in the middle of a pet store wasn't odd?
Hmm... Perhaps this new freedom came with a bit more than just being allowed to float around as she willed. Her lips set into a frown as she debated, leaving Nel to stand in silence inside her loam-bottomed home. This was quite the thing for Anastacia. She hadn't realized she might have to direct herself in conversation, but then again, she hadn't expected to be pressed into it with anyone, let alone a tarantula.
"How about this," Nel finally piped up after a moment, "we started off a bit oddly, didn't we? Let's try this again...My name is Nel, what's yours?" She was well aware of introductions, having seen enough of them taken place in front of her tank in all the years she'd been here. If that didn't work...Well...Maybe this particular creature wasn't her new best friend after all.
"Anastacia." The terseness in the Frei's voice was gone and was instead back to that cool, general tone she used. She decided, so long as she was in conversation, she'd have to play nice and speak when spoken to. And, she reminded herself, she wouldn't have to say more than she felt was appropriate. Nel might be chatty, but she wouldn't bend for something so much smaller than she was, especially when she didn't bend for those the same size or larger.
"Anastacia," the tarantula repeated, testing the name and surveying the owner of such a long one, "it fits your face."
"Thank you...?" She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, ending her reply as a questioning rather than a statement. Nel made that chittering chuckle again, prompting Anastacia to give her a look. What was so funny?
"It's a compliment, don't look at me that way." She watched the Frei's brows relax again and the lines vanish from around her human-looking pair of eyes. To Nel, Anastacia could deny it all she wanted, but this female before her tank was a black widow. Just...Diluted and in a different form. Somehow. It was the only explanation as to why she had someone finally paying attention to her in an extended manner who wasn't tapping on the glass with sticky fingers. And she wasn't about to lose that. "So tell me, what brings you to this place?"
"My guardian." Though the raver was less a 'what' and more a 'who'. The naivety of this response earned the Frei another bout of chuckling from Nel.
"Cute," she said, "but I mean...What are you doing here yourself? Browsing the aisles? Maybe...Looking for a pet yourself?" There was a treble of hope in the spider's voice. She was nearly six years old now - fully grown - and she had spent five years of her life in this very tank in this very store. Her kind weren't cuddly and cute like hamsters or even rats and weren't "pretty" like the fish or birds, so time and again she was passed up. She was older now and she was beginning to resent this place and the people who were both employed and came in. She wanted out and she wanted a home.
"Zeke will get me some fish." The fish had all but been forgotten the moment this conversation started, but with Nel's mention of a pet, they came right back to Anastacia's mind. Her words were spoken as fact and as though it were already decided by both parties, rather than just herself. That was what she had been planning on getting anyway, but the note in Nel's voice was not lost on her at all. Anastacia wasn't a pitying creature by nature, but she couldn't deny that lingering feeling of kinship with the spider despite her assurance that she wasn't one herself. She couldn't imagine being cooped up in a spot surrounded by idiots...Well...Maybe she could, honestly, but she had her knitting and books and other hobbies to keep her sane. What did Nel have? Her eyes flicked about the contents of the tank - two hideaway items, a small, shallow dish of water in one corner, and a stone placed nearly dead center in the middle. Nel had everything she needed...Yet nothing at all and it was clear to Anastacia that she had been here for a long while.
When the Raevan made mention of what her guardian would be getting her, Nel scowled and shifted with irritation. Always the fish. Or the hamsters. Or the birds. Occasionally the rats, but never the spiders. Never her. She continued to shift and mutter, but none of her words were openly tangible. It was clear her mood had quickly fallen by body language alone.
"You want out."
The flat, point-hitting tone of this statement surprised Nel. She turned her gaze back up, focusing hard on the face of the black widow Raevan with surprise, curiosity, and a pinch more of that hope.
"I do. Out of this tank, out of this store...I've been here for five years...I don't expect you to pity me and you don't look like the sort of female to do such a thing but if you ask me...Between fish and me...I'm the better option."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Convince me." She definitely looked unforgiving and hard as a stone, but it was clear through her gaze the cogs in her head were turning. "Tell me why."
If it were possible, Nel's jaw would have dropped. She scuttled to pick herself up and raised herself into her highest position possible, dizzy with even the prospect. Convince her? She could talk, but could she break that steadfast face? If she wanted her freedom from this place and these idiots around her...She'd have to try.
"It's easy, really." Nel shook her abdomen, feeling jittery for the first time in such a long time. "And easy for you too. I'm easy. You can understand me, right?" The Raevan nodded. Yes, yes she could. "Well...That's just it! You and I can understand each other. You and the fish? I bet you couldn't even hear them when you were over there."
It was true, she couldn't.
"Fish might seem easy, but they're tough and finicky. Trust me. I've seen people leave with a bag of them one week, then come back the next for more because the first batch went belly up. Most anything can be tough, sure, when they don't have a voice you can hear. But you can hear me. I can tell you what I want, what I need and maybe I can help you out at times too."
Anastacia's head cocked at the last part, but the rest of what Nel had said seemed reasonable. It was true. She could hear her, talk to her, and she hadn't heard anything but the bubblers back in the fish area.
"How can you help me?" That was an intriguing addition.
"No matter how much you deny it," Nel was feeling brave. Anastacia didn't have a pitying face and she already knew it was quite unlikely to convince the Frei she was a spider no matter how many times the Raevan looked into a mirror, but dammit she was gonna try! "And no matter how much or how long you won't believe me, you're a spider in some way Anya. I can feel it and you share traits with me. I also feel like you're young. I can help you unlock your potential."
The spider Frei frowned ever so slightly as Nel mentioned that she was a spider again. She was a Raevan, dammit. Besides that fact though...Nel had a point. Pets needed care, as Zeke had stated over and over, time and again, but pets couldn't speak. When Zeke got those sample foods, it was trial and error to see what Dust Bunny liked and what she hated. It was a guessing game between him and that cat all the time, no matter what the case. Troublesome, she realized now. But Nel was a rather sizable shortcut around such stupid guessing games. She liked that thought, and she was curious to this "potential", spider or most definitely not.
Nel watched closely as Anastacia thought this over. That was all she could offer, other than companionship or an amusing - if not possibly gross - afternoon when she was feeding. Now, imagining those gears in the Frei's head turning, all she could do was hope.
"Fish sound unappealing." It was stated simply, almost lazily, but plainly all the same. The idea of having something easy to take care of was most appealing to her, but she did so like the idea of 'unlocking her potential'. Her potential in knitting perhaps, for that was the only thing she could figure out. The fact she could actually communicate with Nel seemed almost moot, but then again, she wasn't as talkative as she was leading on. It was also amazing though, even if she didn't show it.
"You really think so?"
"Yes. You shall be mine." A firm decision was made.
If only it were possible to do backflips! "Thank you," she murmured, "thank you so m--"
"Hey there Anya, whatcha lookin' at?"
Zeke's voice came up behind her suddenly enough that it made the Frei jump. She turned around quickly, wings flaring in that manner that said she was startled and going on the defensive. When she saw the man with the two-toned hair standing there, they retracted and attempted to relax. It'd do her no good to look aggressive or agitated toward the man, would it? She adjusted her wings back behind her again, ignoring the chittering chuckling from the tank and looking up at her guardian with that placid face of hers as he took a step toward her again. He knew what that display meant and saw how those wings could pierce through wood flooring far enough to get Anya stuck, so flesh would be like a hot knife through butter. He'd clear his throat next time, for sure.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." There was no reply of yay or nay - as always - but she didn't look too offended to the twenty-six year old. A smile graced his features once more and he gestured to the tanks the Raevan was perched before. "Find something interesting, Anastacia?"
"Yes," came the soft reply and the Frei pushed herself back from the wall far enough so her guardian could see Nel. She reached a slender finger out and pointed to the female red knee in the glass who had remained silent up until this point. "Her."
"Hello." It was obvious only Anastacia could hear her, but Nel extended the greeting anyway, turning her large, hairy body toward the man who had addressed the spider queen. She wasn't exactly skipping that Zeke was male, but if Anya's firm decision held water, Nel was certain she could take a shine to the man who clearly held the coin in the family.
Zeke squatted down with only minor pops from his knees, one hand resting with his fingertips against the cool linoleum floor. He looked into the tank his ward pointed at, meeting Nel face to face. After a moment of studying the creature behind the glass, he looked to the Frei, whose vision was focused both on the tank and her guardian. She didn't show much on her face, but Zeke knew she had taken an interest in the large arachnid. Like with that mirror of hers and the way she looked the first time he saw her knitting, her eyes shined in that certain 'I like, and I want' manner.
"Anya," Zeke started in a calm voice, "You want this spider, don't you?" It was phrased in a tone that was more asking than it was assuring the Frei she would have the tarantula in a questioned manner.
"Yes," she replied, turning her full gaze onto the man at her side. She gave him a curt, affirming nod once all six eyes were on Zeke with a regal raise of her head that declared she was proud of what she found. "She is mine."
The affirmation made Zeke release a breath on a soft sigh. Mostly Anya didn't ask for much - most things didn't seem to grasp her attention like a child in a candy store - but when she saw something she wanted, she had to have it. He took up the widow's gaze in his own, looking at her hard and long. Though her own look was reversed on her, she didn't flinch, balk, or turn her eyes away. She stared straight back.
"Pets are a lot of work, Anya. Some even more than others." He nodded at the tank, directing that last statement at Nel.
"They can be," she replied, "but she will be easy." This made one of Zeke's piercing laden brows raise in intrigue.
"How so?" The question made the Frei hold her tongue for a minute, not wanting to come off as crazy to the man who took care of her, especially when she seemed so close to getting an approval on what she wanted. She looked to Nel, who was looking between Anastacia and her parrot-colored guardian with no discernible expression. She had told the tarantula she was a Raevan. She was not human, so would that mean what was not normal for them was normal for her? "Anya?" He was waiting.
"She talks to me." She said it with a fast bluntness that made Zeke's other brow join the first. In a display of defensiveness despite her inward questioning, Anastacia crossed her arms over her chest - unwilling to take any laughter or comments about this fact.
"Is that so?" Zeke looked mildly surprised, but wasn't looking at Anastacia as though she had two heads. His smile was light and he was pleased to find she had a power so soon, and had become well acquainted with the different sorts that could manifest, thanks to the Lab's records. It didn't seem out of place at all to him though the vet was quite unaware of his charge's two other abilities - both passive - that had been around since day one. "Makes sense..."
Anastacia cocked her head slightly with a faint frown and Nel muttered "spider" under her fangs.
"Ah...Nevermind." It was said quickly and with a wave of a hand from the man. Like he told himself long before her birth, he'd keep Anastacia's components under wraps for a while - until she was ready and/or old enough - and five months wasn't quite there yet. Though...If she could talk to spiders...Maybe she'd figure one half out on her own. That half wasn't so...Stigmatized...So maybe that would be okay for her to learn about at a younger age. Just...Not now though. "So it talks to you?"
"She," Anastacia corrected pointedly with a look, "and yes."
"She." He made sure to repeat it. Zeke looked to the glass case and the tarantula within it again, smile flickering to a neutral face as he debated. Seems she had done well enough on her own in the store to warrant him letting her do such things more, but a pet...That was a whole 'nother level of maturity altogether; ability to understand and communicate with the tarantula or not. Then again, a pet could be the thing she needed to open up a bit more, talking aside. Learning to care for a creature like that could help her learn to care for others outside herself, which would be a boon to all. Decisions, decisions...
It took several minutes for Zeke to muse and ponder. Slowly though, he dragged himself out of his thoughts with a proper idea in place.
"Anya, I'll get this tarantula for you if," and he made sure to emphasize his words to let her know she wouldn't be getting Nel free of charge, "and only if you both take care of her and take on some chores." He was a relatively clean man but shelves could use dusting and floors could use sweeping now and again. He couldn't rightly ask a five month old to take on a job to pay him back for the cost this creature and all she would need, so it'd be a fair trade in his books. He gave his ward one of his recently found parental looks. "Take care of her completely and do the chores I list out for you, and she's yours."
"Sounds like a fair trade to me." Nel knew what he was angling at, she'd seen bartering and bribery happen time and again. This was the former, and this male was being very fair though she wasn't certain of the chores that would come with that second half. Either way, the payment was decent in her opinion and it was like Anastacia was getting off nearly scot free. So was she, really. "I'd take it, Anastacia."
The Frei listened to both speakers in turn, showing nothing but that neutrality all the while. Just take care of Nel (a given) and do chores (something she hadn't done yet) in order to get the female tarantula? She wasn't totally certain on the latter, but the former was outright. Nel was hers and, with the spider's promise to be easy to tend to, she would surely do that. Chores though...Zeke had once declared that when he had been sweeping the living room he was "doing chores". If it was just sweeping involved, that didn't seem too strenuous. Just a whisk on one side, a whisk on the other...She'd be off scot free! She looked between Nel and Zeke again.
"Okay."
"It's a deal? Chores and caring for her, that's all I ask." The veterinarian held out his hand, prompting the spider to look at it with barest traces of disgust on her features. She didn't have to touch him did she? "This is how people make deals, Anastacia. They shake on it."
She looked between the man, his hand, and the spider who was once again standing up against the glass like a window shopper. Chores, taking care of Nel...Plus a handshake. She wasn't sure she liked deals but...She wanted what she wanted and she was going to get it. Anastacia extended her right hand and touched Zeke's fingers with her own, flinching when skin touched skin.
"Deal?"
"Deal," she said, sounding both as though the touch would melt her skin the longer her hand was against Zeke's and as though this deal was the most obvious thing in the whole world. "Her name is Nel and she is mine."
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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:26 pm
The List{September 5th, 2010}
She set the basket of laundry down on the foot of the bed, eying the napping man with distaste and defiance. Zeke had printed out a short list of those agreed upon chores for her at Lab and had presented them to his ward once they got home. It now sat on the top of the mound of clothing; crinkled and covered with fine lines of pen that crossed out five of the six tasks she had been assigned. A doodle sat beneath the list - a scribble of a fat spider with an arrow and the name 'Nel' pointing at the caricature. It had been done sometime between chores as a small measure to remind the Frei why she was doing things she hadn't expected to be doing outside of the first and perhaps the fourth. Maybe she should have discussed the terms of 'chores' when the deal was made, but then again, she hadn't thought about what they could have been, had she?
No. No she hadn't.
She had little quarrel with those she had crossed off in some form or another. Sweeping, for example, was the only thing she expected to be doing. Putting the dishes away? Even though the sleeping man used them most of the time, he would heat up a plate for her if she was hungry and being in the kitchen allowed her to feed from the stove top during that time as well. Plant watering...Urgh, she hated going near the sink (the crash of water and its disappearing act down the drain always gave her the heebie jeebies), but Anastacia knew she could feed from plants at times. She'd done it once, though it was quite a bit trickier than feeding from the stove or any animals at the clinic. They'd need to be alive in order to get what she needed to survive. Cleaning her room was nothing short of a space-waster in her opinion as she was already quite clean. She didn't want to be stained again of course, but that time did provide her with a moment of rest in a place she was comfortable in. Now, shelf dusting was odd, but she had found a neat little knick knack that now resided on her bureau, so while she had been adverse to such a thing in the beginning, it had turned out well enough for her in the end.
This though...She wasn't going to do this. Not on her, Nel, or Zeke's lives.
'Fold the laundry', the paper read. The basket had been by the entrance to the hall - a mess of clothing that had been washed and dried in the laundry room down the hall during the morning before the Lab job. Zeke had left it there in his rush to get to his weekend workplace, but seemed to have decided it'd be a great task for his Raevan to do, especially since he was a relatively clean man himself and otherwise had grabbed at straws to make the Frei's first task list. To him it had been a decent idea. To her, it was not.
While for the first five chores she had some use for or shared each area, there was nothing like that in this one. All the clothing in the basket was Zeke's. Pants, shirts, socks, even - ugh - underwear...All of it was his. She wore no clothes outside the ones she had been born in so, in her opinion, why should she be made to fold his things? Nel or not, deal or not, she was NOT going to fold his laundry. She had a better idea and place for it instead.
The Frei gave her long wings a flick as she took the chore list off the top of the pile, pausing only a moment as the softly snoring man shifted. She watched him, waited for him to settle, and started to move again. He had taken a nap because he hadn't felt well all day. He wasn't the sort of 'not well' that drew her interests, but he said he'd be better after he took a rest for an hour or two, and luckily for her, it seemed he hadn't set an alarm. Alarm or not though, it wouldn't take her long to get her point across. And if he woke up? Oh well. She could deal with him and explain her actions well enough if he woke up, and would when he eventually did. He'd notice this for sure.
Once Anastacia was certain Zeke wasn't going to move again or wake up, the spider Frei lifted the dark green basket from its temporary spot. She moved along the side of the bed - starting at Zeke's feet - tilting the basket slightly and shaking its contents out over her guardian. Jeans, slacks, underwear of various leg-cuts, all sorts of shirts and socks...All of it was spilled graciously over the bi-color haired human from foot to shoulder. Zeke neither shifted nor woke, and soon the basket was empty. A pair of bright red and yellow swirl-patterned boxer briefs still clung determinedly to the rim, however, and to complete her masterpiece, Anastacia gingerly picked the underwear up between her fingernails and tossed it over her guardian's face without a second thought.
Voila.
"Fold your own laundry," the black widow said as she turned, discarding the basket carelessly onto the floor by Zeke's nightstand with a sharp plastic on wood clatter. She grabbed the list as she passed by it, carefully tearing her artwork away from the majority before deftly crumbling the rest into a ball and lobbing it into the wastebasket as she made her way out the door.
Chores - Done.
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 11:28 am
Fisticuffs{September 12th, 2010} Her guardian had finally gotten his vacation time for the "summer" and with his sights set on a week of both relaxation and fun, he was making sure to stock up beforehand. After his Lab job, Anastacia found herself dragged to the first Durem supermarket Zeke came across, but also found herself allowed to float around again.
This was pleasing.
"Just stay--"
"In the store." She knew the drill by now and was keen to be out of Zeke's eye once more. She never found a reason to leave the premises at any time anyway and she'd be good, yes yes. Anya was in a mild mood as it was though only ever so slightly irked at the detour. The day had been long, dull (as per usual in her books), and she was quite ready to go home and rest. Perhaps go to sleep early even, because it was just one of "those days", as the veterinarian called them. Yeah...Bed sounded nice, but until then, the freedom to float around the pleasingly sparse grocery store would do just as well. She could relax well enough on her own: bedroom, store, or otherwise. All she needed was herself to be truly content.
"I shouldn't be too long," the vet said just as Anastacia started on her way away from him, "but I'll come find you once I check out!" That way there would be no waiting on her end in one of those tiny check out aisles and it was a preemptive measure on his in case Anastacia happened to find something she figured she had to have. Bags in hand - or in cart as the case may be - were a sure sign in his childhood experiences that no more money would be spent at a particular place anymore that day. It was something she'd have to learn too, when the time came.
Zeke didn't have to be concerned about that, as Anastacia knew full well that this was a grocery store. It was catered to those with stomachs who could actually ingest the products on its shelves, and she neither fit the bill for that nor cared that she didn't. Human food was only interesting to her when it was hot and she was hungry and, starting off through the bread aisle, said products weren't the former and she wasn't the latter so many things were and would be deftly ignored. With the aisle empty and her guardian off getting what he needed to survive on his minimal skills, Anastacia let herself stretch out fully with a yawn before flicking her spindly wings to coast down the aisle and out its end.
So empty. Though definitely not a bad thing in her books. It was so wonderfully free of carts and bodies and it was silent save for the cheery music filtering down from hidden ceiling speakers. So to her liking. Certain it was like this in all stores every Sunday night, Anya's opinion quickly turned to the idea that Zeke should shop on Sunday nights more. Less riffraff and less likely a chance for her to get touched or bumped or some other manner of physical contact that was so gross to her. Yes...She liked this idea. He would have this preference made known to him.
That would be later of course, as she was quickly wrapped up in milking her floating allowance for all it was worth. The store was large, but a quarter of it was already cut out thanks to it being the frozen and general refrigeration-required food area. Only a few moments in there on her first trip to the grocery store with Zeke had rapidly had her feeling sluggish and sleepy, which now was far too similar to what had happened at the beach party for comfort to her. Cold and its ilk were to be avoided always - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She stuck to the temperate aisles, occasionally turning around midway and heading back down the way she came as she finally saw the wall across from the end was lined with a meat cooler or some such cold generating thing. Not again, not ever.
Thanks to the smaller radius, it was twice she came upon Zeke during her time away from him: once in the produce area where he was arms deep in the stands while fondling fruit and the second when he was in the very same bread aisle she had started off in, picking between the breads that were and were not on sale. He saw her the latter time, but as quickly as she came upon him, she vanished, and the veterinarian only caught the end of her spear-like wings dipping out of sight. It made him chuckle and mutter a soft "Kids," under his breath, deciding to let her be and not make chase. Nothing but sales over the PA (even if he did have his ear buds firmly planted in his ears), so there was nothing to worry about.
But yet there was, just not worthy of that PA system or even inside the store for very long at all.
The cause of any parental worry was just outside the long line of registers, which Anya came upon soon after abandoning Zeke for the second time. A heated debate was occurring between two men; the sort that made even the cashiers and baggers stop what they were doing to ogle the sight with the patrons in some form of embarrassed intrigue. The loss of the beeps and boops of items being scanned and the addition of raised, cursing voices jerked the Frei out of her already bored thoughts of where to go next. Curiosity gripped her again and, thanks to human bodies blocking her view, it wasn't long before she was coasting up an unoccupied aisle to get a better look.
When she got to the end of the check out lane, the argument between the two men had escalated from 'raised voices and shouting' to 'that plus shoving'. Gasps, calls to stop, and shuffling from the patrons and workers in the lanes started to arise and soon a heavy set balding man in a white button up, pocket protector, and tie was hobbling down toward the fray, followed by two equally sized security officers.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" One of the two hired officers hollered as soon as they broke off from their leader. Both men were grabbed with thick, hammy hands and pried from one another, but once that happened each one was set off and tried to free himself from the rent-a-cop who had gotten a hold on him. The security guard's bulk seemed to help keep the tides on their side because neither man broke free no matter how hard they tried.
Now, it had to have been too late at night or just that neither of the two hired hands wanted to deal with the two hooligans, but regardless of what the reason was, both men were half dragged, half led to the doors and "politely" tossed out without names or reports. A hearty double "and stay out!" was thrown their way, but once the sliding doors were shut once more, the two beefy shop cops wiped their hands of the situation and ambled back down to whence they came, eyes focused quite clearly straight ahead. This obviously caused some more shuffling and low voices from the shoppers, most of whom were muttering to their neighbors or family about what had transpired, but there was also some questioning if they should even shop here anymore if that's the only punishment combatants got. Anya paid them no mind. All of her eyes were focused on the blur of the sliding glass doors she and Zeke had come in through and that the two men had gone out through with legs flailing. She was...All the more curious, surprisingly. Zeke had never raised a hand to her and until now she had never witnessed any act of violence in real life, let alone so blatantly in front of her. Her only lash out had been in self defense of that detestable cat and she hadn't struck out again since, so their actions and reactions were new to her. Certainly they hadn't stopped...Right? Anastacia decided to find out.
She floated from the empty check out aisle she had chosen and floated down before the rest of them, adding just a pinch more surprise to those peoples' evening. She sucked up the looks she needed to make her all the more aware of her inhuman beauty, but ignored everyone and everything after that as she floated toward the windows. Some people seemed to get where she was going and why, but none tried to stop her. Perhaps it was because she was a sight that shouldn't logically exist or perhaps because she looked as deadly as she looked lovely, but no matter why, words stayed on the tips of tongues that were firmly clamped behind or between white teeth.
The windows were not the best for viewing the spectacle. The light from the overhead fluorescence caused a huge, equally white glare to form over the glass and both block and burn her sensitive vision. She rubbed at her lavender pair of eyes and shook her head to help clear the four she couldn't touch without smudging or making their vision worse. This wouldn't work. This wouldn't work at all. She hovered farther down the wall of glass but the blockade of burning white remained the same. Through a faint haze she could almost see figures moving about, and her curiosity kept growing. She took an interest and thus had to know. She arrived at the doors.
The spider queen had told Zeke she would stay in the store, but she knew he had a curious streak. In her mind, he would likely be doing just the same as she was, and what was good for the goose was good for the gander, right? Right. Plus it'd only be a minute; she just wanted to see and she'd be back inside before he noticed or checked out. Not that she would tell him she left at all, of course. Anya pressed forward as the doors somehow registered she was there and opened wide, letting her out onto the sidewalk.
The men hadn't fled since they were kicked out of the store. No, instead it seemed their tiff had escalated because of being booted and they were full on attacking each other in the parking lot. What had been shoving inside the store turned into so much more out on the black top. Aggression and hate radiated like heat off a stove top and it filled the immediate area with its taint, causing some people who had just pulled into parking spots to cower in their cars. Those who had come upon the scene via walking were shirking close to their carts or family members and one woman went so far as to physically place herself in front of her two small children. Despite that behavior from the onlookers, the men fought on without knowledge or care of being watched. Punches were thrown, kicks were landed, bodies hit the ground and struggled to rise, screams and shouts of rage were released into the still-warm September air...And all Anastacia could think as she watched this spectacle unfold was that these two men were not human. They were barbarians.
She floated there in front of the store in midair; not cowering or shirking, not rooting for either man, not aware of what the brawl was about, just watching with no discernible expression. Her curiosity waned the longer the battle went on and was instead replaced with repugnance. She watched as one man's fist collided with the other's cheek, watched as the hit man stumbled back, nearly fell, but then started to run full tilt at his offender with an angered, near primal bellow coming up from somewhere around his middle. She watched the screaming man tackle the hitter down, sit on his middle, and start driving his own fists home into every part and portion he could while the one now on his back cried out in agony and a rage of his own. They were barbarians. Animals. She had never seen violence before but even with this first taste of it - and not even involved at that! - she could plainly tell it was ugly. Vicious, barbaric, animalistic: everything she was not.
It was then Zeke made his reappearance into her life, grocery bags in hand, sweat on his brow, and her name on his lips in a lecturing tone until he saw just what had gotten his ward's attention enough to pull her out of the agreed upon floating grounds. Her name died and was instead replaced with a strangled half-gasp, half-yell and Zeke immediately started to fumble in his pockets for his phone like so many others coming in or out of the store were if they weren't just gawking. Anastacia turned her head away from her guardian and went back to watching them - watching this scene unfold before her in the parking lot of a grocery store - and felt disgust. Yes...They were no better than animals (filth) and she was far, far above them.
This was her first encounter with violence and the prim Spider knew that it was garish, unfitting, and beneath her. Animals did this. Commoners did this. Filth did this. She was none of those things. She was better, and with that in mind she lofted her periwinkle-colored head high and flared her spidery appendages. Anastacia cast the combating men a scathing glare down her upturned nose before turning to her guardian who was already on the phone with someone of a higher power than he who could properly deal with the rabble rousers.
"We're going home." Not a plea. Not a request. An order. He had his bags, he was surely done here and she most certainly was. She didn't give Zeke a moment to answer because once the words were spoken, the Raevan turned and floated toward the car, giving the battling men a wide, wide berth. Disgraceful. Never would she stoop to such...Extremes.
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:57 pm
The Itch It all started in the morning with little fanfare. Between Anya's shoulder blades started a peculiar itch, the kind that vanishes after a few moments rubbing and one chalks up to just another of those things that happen sometimes. Certainly, that's what she thought it was when it again cropped up an hour or two later and was again quickly dealt with.
By the afternoon the itch was coming more frequently and not only at that one spot. Anastacia discovered then that palms could itch, her scalp could itch, and even her wings too. But again, nothing to cause alarm. Zeke had noticed her scratching here and there and made a comment about the air in the apartment being dry. Perhaps her bedding needed to be washed with some fabric softener. He had gone about turning on a humidifier for his Frei and stripping her bed of everything, including the skirt that hid the one or two actual dust bunnies beneath her bedframe from sight.
The former helped. The air grew moist and soft somehow with the little machine humming away quietly on the living room floor. The sensation died off, offering her the chance to relax against the couch and split her attention between a movie Zeke had put on for her and the little scarf she had taken to making for herself.
When evening rolled around, however, things got suddenly turned serious. Zeke put the humidifier in her room and showed her how to turn it on and off should she need to use it, smiling his smile and saying he was sure that the change in the weather was what had caused her ills.
"Fall and winter are kind of crummy. It gets cold out and the air gets really dry, which makes everyone's skin dry out and get itchy. You must have sensitive skin but don't worry! This humidifier will help! You can keep it on all night if you have to, so don't worry about having to turn it off, okay?"
It was past her bedtime when he told her that, so he wished her a good night and told her he would see her in the morning. Anya bid him the same in her cool, regal tones even as the itching started up again in the short time between moving from one room to the next. When he was gone, she dug her nails into the back of her upper arm, scratching away like a dog with fleas. From there she moved to one palm, then the other, then pulled away the piece that covered her throat to get at her neck and shoulder.
"Urgh..." It was the first of many sounds of discomfort she would make, ones that would grow in frequency even as the night wore on and she was ready to pass out by 1am. Anya turned the humidifier on as high as it would go, camping in front of it as that misty air pumped out.
Her scalp burst into that crawling, prickly sensation. The itching on her arms went up, down, and all around spreading over her shoulders, down her back, and even into the areas covered by her chitinous top that connected to her ribbon and she couldn't rightly reach just yet.
She scratched and scratched, rubbing against the door frame, the desk, even her bedposts for the spots she couldn't reach with her hands or wings. But every time she thought she had relief, the sensation exploded again and doubled, then tripled in frequency and intensity.
1am rolled around. The spider queen had not yet even thought about sleep. Raking her nails along her face, Anastacia thought she felt something tear. She rose from the floor and fled to her mirror, heart in her throat and eyes seeking what she was now praying was just a trick of the mind.
A strip of skin had pulled away, no more than an inch long and no where close to an inch wide. Before her eyes, she watched the end shrivel and blacken, turn hard and shiny, then droop against her cheek as the rest started to go with it.
Deep within a place she did not know she had - Anastacia finally screamed.
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:47 am
Molt Her bedroom floor glittered in the light that reflected off a thousand small black pieces. Up until two days ago those pieces had been a part of her. Now they lay scattered here, there, and everywhere. The floor, the bedspread, even in odd places like her craft bag and the bureau no place was spared even a meager dusting of chitin. Anastacia lay in the midst of it all, curled up as best a body-less being could be on her bed. She shivered for she had cast the blanket aside the night before. It now rested in a heap on the floor, her back to it as if it didn't exist at all.
In some part, it did not. Not right now. Not when her skin was breaking away in chunks and splinters and flakes. Not when the paleness beneath was so soft. Even her sharp, always blackened bits were not spared. Beneath their dark coating they were in fact a dusty grey-brown and now the spears on her head and back were blunted and weak looking. Anastacia had seen this for herself and subsequently shunned her mirror. Across from the bed it had a sweater thrown haphazardly over its face, obscuring most but not all of the room reflected in it.
"Molting" is what Nel had called it the night it had all started. It was a thing that happened to "those who are like me...and similar to you" she had said from her tank on the very same bureau that was now acting as a clothing rack. Anya had been in a fearful state that night. Waking Zeke with her scream, she had barred the vet from entering as soon as he tried to get in, leaving him with a strangled cry of "MY SKIN IS FALLING OFF!" to give light to the situation. He had knocked and begged her to let him in, but he could have been shouting it from another city with how little she had heard. Nel had heard though. The tarantula had let Anya have her screaming fit after her first attempts to call to the frantic Widow had been fruitless. Not to say Anastacia had calmed down much after the cries had stopped, but she was able to be heard and soon thereafter the lesson in the facts of arachnid life had begun.
"Why is this happening?"
"Because it must. You're growing and your body needs the room it doesn't have now."
"How long does it last?"
"For me...A few hours. Maybe a day. For you..." The tarantula had fallen silent then, but only for a moment. "For you I'm sure it will be much the same."
Anastacia had moaned at that and flown off to the other side of the room. She stayed there for a long time - how long, Nel could not say - but she did return. Her body made her.
"Does it always itch? I-I can't...I can't stop scratching!"
"Yes, always, but it will go away. And once you've shed your skin you won't need to molt again for a very long time."
"How long?"
"Years."
It had been two days since then. Nel had been wrong about the time it took, but she had been right about the itching. It was largely gone away now with her skin. Only a few small places were left to needle and squirm and once in awhile one place would slowly, surely, come to a stop. In the wake of that was the softness, a scarily real thing that meant her skin was now so easily dentable. Anya had done so with the lightest touch and the marks had taken hours to return to form. This, too, Nel had words for.
"Your new skin needs to dry. It won't be long now, Anya, you're on the up from here."
The spider queen raised her head from her pillow, looking at the tank her pet turned mentor called home. Her face was slack and all of her eyes glassy. She was so tired. So very, very tired. Anastacia moved her mouth as though to speak but words were lost on her now. She had no more to give.
"Just rest now, save your strength. Sleep if you can. The first time is always the hardest but trust me, you're almost done."
The Black Widow blinked her human set of eyes and even that action took effort. Slowly, heavily, she put her head back down. From there it was as if the pillow had been imbued with the Sandman's magic, her lavender eyes closing as if pulled down by an invisible hand. She gave another shiver and flakes rained down upon the bed from the back of her neck. They lay where they fell, unseen and thus nonexistant.
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Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:03 am
Research{September 2010} Zeke sat at the couch with no less than three books open with pages illuminated by the glow of his laptop screen. He held his head in one hand while the other fingered the scroll in the middle of his mouse, sending the page he was looking at whizzing upward as he continued to read a select passage.
It had been two days since Anastacia had cried out during the night, waking him from near-sleep and sending him thudding to the floor in alarm. He had gotten up immediately and ran to her door only to have her bar him from entering. He had begged her, pleaded, and with a shaky voice filled with raw nerves asked her what was wrong.
"MY SKIN IS FALLING OFF!"
The words lingered in his head even now. He didn't have to recall them - they echoed ever since she had screamed them from behind her door, which she had held shut to prevent him entrance. Over the course of these last two days he had gone to her door multiple times and asked for her to let him in.
If he could see what was wrong, he could help her.
He wouldn't even enter her room. He would stay in her doorway if that was what she wanted.
Just for a second, Anya. Please.
No dice.
She told him to go away. Leave her be. Her words were choked and her voice strained and on the brink of being lost entirely. He didn't leave right away, but after awhile he had to. He called Alex. The Lab. Even Brad. Each had provided words of wisdom and some comfort, especially in the case of the latter. The big Italian had stopped by with food and even tried his hand at coaxing the Widow from her den, but even he had no such luck.
So now he was here, sitting at the couch amid a pile of research with both ears out for any sound that meant Anya was in need or - hopefully - coming out of her room. Despite being a veterinarian and having enough sense to have taken a couple exotic animal courses in school, spiders were not his forte. He could tell you why a tarantula had a bald spot on her abdomen and why your toddler won't stop scratching and also that no spider can or will subsist off of raw chicken, but other than that and a few other common sense things when it came to that variety of critter? He was about as knowledgeable as most of the general populace. So research it was. Old college textbooks rescued from the far recesses of the closet and more open tabs than anyone could shake a stick at. The net was proving more reliable and so his attention was focused there. There were forums dedicated to spider rearing. Facebook pages devoted to arachnids and the people who loved them. And, of course, scientific studies and observations by the bucket load.
He started with Wikipedia and branched out from there, finding their page on black widows to be lacking immensely. Looking up 'spider skin' led him to more to explanations about what chitin was and the properties therein. He knew what it was and what it did for those species that had it. What he wanted to know was did it fall off of them? Google Fu was not giving him the right answers.
A grunt of frustration left him and the vet closed several of the tabs before cupping his face in both hands. He rubbed his eyes - exhaustion setting in and making them heavy. It was late, but he wasn't about to stop now. He just needed a new term to start the search anew, that was all. To do that though he had to think and his brain needed to work!
Inhaling deeply, Zeke turned his attention to the closest book. He flipped back the pages to the chapter's beginning. 'Arthropods' was printed there beneath a header of 'Chapter 13'. He stared at the word for a minute, waiting for his brain to restart.
Spiders were arthropods, a phylum which included crabs, scorpions, and insects in general. Zeke opened up a new tab and went back to Wikipedia. There he typed the word into the search bar and let the page load. It didn't take long. Soon there was the introductory paragraphs and example photos lined up to greet him, though his eyes barely skimmed the text. He went right for the table of contents, almost missing article 2.4 in his first pass.
2.4 Moulting
He clicked it.
Moulting
doopMain Article: Ecdysis
He did not need to go to the main article. In fact, he was unable to click it, not with the information he sought smacking him right in the face. 'Hidden in plain sight' could not even begin to describe it.
The exoskeleton cannot stretch and thus restricts growth. Arthropods therefore replace their exoskeletons by moulting, or shedding the old exoskeleton after growing a new one that is not yet hardened. Moulting cycles run nearly continuously until an arthropod reaches full size.
"Moulting..." The word was breathed out in an epiphany. The light bulb over his head finally lit up. "She's moulting."
But not like your average arthropod. Where a crab or a cicada sheds its old skin in one fell swoop Anya...From what it sounded like hers was coming off in bits and pieces. He couldn't even begin to theorize why and for the moment didn't even start to think past anything than a joyous realization that he had found the answer they had both been looking for. Zeke got to his feet and went right to his Raevan's room.
"Anya!" He knocked on the door and waited, barely holding his breath now. No reply. "Anya?" Another knock. Again no reply. It WAS late. Maybe she had managed to finally get some sleep after everything she had been going through.
"I-If you're awake I...I know why your skin is falling off!" He tried the handle. No luck there. "You're moulting, Anya! It's...It's not anything to be scared of! In fact, it's going to be over real soon, I promise!"
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Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:17 am
The First Six Months{Report} This is my first report for Lab 305 regarding my Raevan, Anastacia. I apologize if this seems rough around the edges but I'm not entirely sure how to do one of these exactly. A first time for everything though, right?!
Raevan Name: Anastacia 'Anya' Farris
Gender: Female
Age: Six (6) Months
Fel Essence: Self-Replicating Virus
Soul: Black Widow Spider
I've decided to do this report six months after Anya's birth in order to detail how she's been settling in. So far things have gone as well as could be hoped! Her first few days were bumpy with the process of settling in but she seemed to adjust very well, taking to our apartment (and her room) with gusto.
Development-wise she has picked up words quickly and reading almost as fast. I have found she is a Frei of few words, seeming to prefer being selectively mute until such a time that she feels they are poignant. Also, as it is worthy of note, she has picked up knitting as a hobby from my mother. I think it harkens to her soul in all the right ways as she knows her way around needles and yarn balls like a pro!
When it comes to Anastacia's Essence, so far there hasn't been anything of note, save for feeding. She feeds mainly from viral illnesses which, in perhaps the most laughably wondrous way, cures the afflicted rather than increases their symptoms and/or illness. This is not a fluke, I've witnessed this countless times when I take her to my office to feed off the sick animals. Heat also seems to sustain her but viruses provide the biggest boost to her energy levels by far.
Before I end this, there are three noteworthy things I feel I should mention as they pertain to Anya's rather unique biology, even amongst other Raevans:
1. Cold weakens her considerably. I first noticed this during the sudden temperature drop at the Lab's beach bash this year but as we work our way into the fall months, Anastacia shows definite signs of sluggishness and lethargy as the mercury falls. Bundling her up in layers helps a little, but I don't think she'll be able to last very long out in the open in the winter, even with proper outer wear.
2. She molts. I recently discovered that black widows undergo several molts throughout their lifetime, where they shed their exoskeleton in order to fit into a larger form. Anya recently underwent the same process, however with some slight variations. The biggest of these was that her skin flaked and chipped off rather than shed in one large husk. Said skin flakes and chips also blacked and hardened into what I can only imagine is the same chitinous material that makes up her wings and crown. During the molt she also becomes incredibly irritable and locks herself away in her room to ride it out. So far she's only had the one and it lasted a couple of days.
3. Her skin stains. If you were to put a viral, fungal, or bacterial culture into a Petri dish, you would add a colored dye to make the culture visible as it grows. Anya's skin seems to have a similar quality to it as we found when she accidentally spilled some juice on herself. She did manage to get the stain out eventually, but the time it took was measured in days, not hours.
And so far, that's all there is to that! While every day is something new and exciting I'm still eager to see how she progresses from here on out. I hope to make another report on or around her first year mark, but should anything noteworthy come up, I will be sure to make another sooner!
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