Let me spin you a tale woven with my finest silken threads. Two songbirds sang different tunes, one at sundown and one at daybreak.
The nightingale woke every night as I snuck out of my den. I listened to him serenade his love as the mice scurried into their burrows.
During the day the lark took over. Her song filled the morning, reaching into the darkness of my den. I listened and squirmed deeper into the earth.
They sang of love and longing. A lullaby to help each other sleep, yet also a lament about never truly being together. I heard their songs night and day for far too long.
My nightly hunts were fruitless, my children grew irritable. I could never rest. So, one day, I approached the lark.
“I’ve been listening to your songs and have felt your pain. This evening, come to roost in my den. I will tell the nightingale the same thing when he wakes. There I will help you be together forever.”
She accepted my words warily—spiders shouldn’t be trusted—but I had given her something she had none of before.
Hope.
She came to my den and fell asleep. The nightingale woke up alone, worried and on edge. I told him where she was and he didn’t hesitate to follow his love.
Love makes you do foolish things.
Once they were both in my den, I spun my thickest threads to block their escape and click-clacked my pincers, waking my hungry children.
First published on the Apex Patreon on 19 April 2022.
Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems. His fiction can be found in Zooscape, Utopia Science Fiction, Crepuscular, and several Shacklebound anthologies. His debut drabble collection, Darkness Rises, Hope Remains, was published by Shacklebound Books. Support him at: patreon.com/kaidelmas and find him at www.kaidelmas.com or on Bluesky @kaidelmas.bsky.social.
No comments:
Post a Comment