un cadre de vie - quality of life, living conditions
A spider creeps down the hallway. Barely larger than a thumb, brown hair turned orange in the tinted light.
The spider dawdles. What a weird observation. How does a spider dawdle, after all? It sits and stops, studying things with uncharacteristic interest.
It ponders at doors, hides between dust particles that rain and wander through the house. Below the side of a camera watching a window and door with unblinking eyes.
The house is big, and the spider is small.
The spider leaps over a staircase, each step force from legs. Agile, silent, slipping through a dark wooden doorstep on a warm July morning.
Cold air circulates through the room. The air conditioning works on highest level and power to make that sure it stays that way. Electricity buzzes through powerlines. The spider feels the way it all vibrates. It feeds off this sense of knowledge. The legs are moving relentlessly. Work their way through all the information vibrating through the tiny body.
In its own unobtrusive way, the perfect spectator.
How does a spider see?
The set of its side eyes are the ones taking in the figures at a table now, on the other side of the door. A blurry, strange side, filled with wide angled, big figures. Men, women, and a girl, all dressed in green that blinks inside the spider's sight. They haven't noticed the spider yet, because their eyes are following a massive pile of fur coated bodies.
Below the table dogs snarl and yelp. Wild and harsh creatures. The spider slowly moves away because the dogs can easily kill it. It feels that, just as it feels the anger of the dogs. That anger vibrates through the earth, through the wood and stone that has build this room.
It is human anger. Nothing instinctual, not like the way the spider wants to hunt.
Sharp teeth yellow, white foam has formed on the dogs nuzzles. They bare fangs. Every fang is bigger than the spider's whole body.
The dogs could sleep under the breakfast table filled with glittering white and silver dishes. But one of the people on the table chooses not to let them. Ugly brute creatures, so much bigger than the spider is.
Their ears are flat, their fur is bristling. Their tails give away the pressure and the energy.
The girl does not move. That is why the spider sees the dogs so much better than her. Hands clenched around a plate, legs firm on the ground.
A spider does not care for servants. It does not care for any human being as long as it does stay far away from hunting grounds.
This spider intends to keep it that way. The fine legs move along the edges of the dogs. Creeping careful not to get under any boot, maneuvering through the room until it has rounded up the figures on the table.
Spiders do not have ears.
They still detect every word around them.
"She is late," a low, deep voice booms and shudders along with the fine hairs that sit on the spider's legs. The spider locks their eyes on them now.
The blurry, side angled view changes, and suddenly everything is clear and in color.
Movement is detected as the man lifts his fork, silver glittering in light falling through the windows. He sits at the head of the table. He is the owner of the dogs. The spider rubs its legs at his sight.
Next to him sits a man similar in age and attire, but the spider senses less anger, less of everything.
"She is not late," A higher female voice, young and thrilling, dangerous like birdsong to the spider.
On the screen behind her in the wall, the spider registers some flickering images, flashing crimson, deep black. The colors are irritating. They aren't something the spider can process and realize easily. Instead, the eyes are locked on the dark-haired girl. On the way she swats at the air, sleeve hitting the air like strings that sing to the spiders senses.
„Being late would insinuate she will come out of her room. Just let her be. I don't need her anyway. Everyone keeps calling her by that ghastly name. Merry widow."
The other older man does not have a booming voice.
A spider knows no father. Still, something inside the small body reacts to the voice of the man.
„She is your cousin, Atara, and you'll need every bit of assistance you can get the next weeks."
The dogs lurk, snap at the girl moving cluttering plates, and the spider stays wary. Another darker voice snickers for itself when the dogs' paws crush over the ground. A clapping sound that ripples through the hairs on its legs.
„Assistance? I know every bit of protocol, and it still two weeks until Queenstrial. Loren, stop." Long dark hair shakes along with her head when she speaks. „You'll just make a mess."
The dogs' yelp and snarl another time. The girl in grey has let go of a plate. Everything splatters over the ground. Liquid floods the floorboards. A drop for a human, a waterfall for a spider. With a heavy leap, the spider jumps to the side. Seeking shelter behind a cupboard filled with glittering metal that the small animal can't comprehend. Medals, trophies, honored gifts, memories.
„I told you to stop, Loren. You're an idiot." The girl crosses her arms. Another figure on the table moves lazily in the sunshine, the spider rubs its legs again. Loren, she says. The spider wants to bite him, attack him.
„Atara," the older man with the softer voice says. "You know how the traditions are. Daliah is free of all allegations and cleared of all charges again. And you need a female company after the trial has happened, whoever gets chosen for both the princes at it. You'll be a guest of honor. She can be useful. Train with her. Talk to her. Let her accompany you to the palace."
The spider decides to slowly retreat into the shadows. It doesn't like the fact that many dark shoes and boots fit under a table, and the dogs are close too.
Now that the distraction has passed, the spider doesn't want to test the luck.
No need expose yourself, no need to get smashed.
Or worse.
The girl named Atara stares at it a moment.
Her eyes are as green as all the fabric they wear, silk strings for spiders and humans, as it seems.
The spider scurries away from her eyes.
It sits behind the metal pole of the cupboard, silent and lurking.
After a moment, it starts to creep back through the house, a long way back for a small creature.
In the darkness of another room, shutters and blinds tightly closed, I sit on a soft cushion.
My eyes are half closed, and I breathe slow.
Reading your surroundings and making sense of sounds from the perspective of a spider is fascinating and artful. My jumping spider has excellent senses and I was lucky to not have any of my kin exposing my little trick.
It isn't like my ghost flies through the air and occupies the animals. I am still very much in my own head. But I still control and manipulate it, and it lets me read the world through its eyes.
Animosi get called animal scryers, but it isn't exactly a sight. It is their sense, their understanding of their environment. They are different from humans in what they feel vibrating through the air.
And benefiting my action is that I know where to step here.
Imagining this trick pulled in a bigger scheme is harder.
Not that I won't try.
My own body moves up now, swipes over my dark sleeves. In the darkness and dim light, everything is grey and black. A monochromatic world, when even spiders can see in colors somehow.
Merry widow.
I huff out a breath.
Indeed a ghastly name, considering the story and inclination behind it. A laughing, dancing widow.
I am a formidable dancer, but I don't laugh that often anymore.
And no one would ask me to dance.
Atara was not wrong about the way people treat me since I have returned.
But she is not completely right.
There is an invitation to Daliah Viper brought over from someone wearing silver and black.
My dress shifts and rustles on my body when I make it to the door.
I leave a short apology, nothing big, nothing substantial, all courtesy.
Giving a strand of my hair one last tug, I follow the hallway until the staircase.
The big door made of heavy wood lies to my right.
I step down, skirt ushering over the ground and make my way to the other side. Warmth flows over my skin, gets drawn to the black of my clothes by the sun. My skin already tingles and will burn if I am not careful.
I will not join my kin on the table. They'll see me soon enough again.