Spider, Spider Burning Bright
Silver boots click their heels before every watery distortion. Blue and white checker the toddler's small hood, while spurts of red hair poke out a little more with every hop. After several more hops, the hood falls down. Vader strides through the marshy grounds to pull the hood over his head, but he gets stopped by Armitage.
"Vader." The toddler points up at the strange tree directly in front of them. It takes a second for Vader to figure out that Armitage wasn't pointing at the tree but at what's hanging off its gnarled branches:
Silver threads of spider webs.
Thousands of little spiders work their tiny hooks weaving their nest until the strange tree is consumed by silver whiteness like a desert mirage.
"Spidey, spidey!" The toddler claps his little hands at the show.
But a mighty gust blows half of the webbing away. Some of the threads get caught on branches of other strange trees, but most ride with the wind. He looks down at Armitage to make sure he wasn't knocked to the ground and sees that a nest of webbing has landed in the boy's vibrant hair.
There are like a dozen spiders in his hair.
But Armitage just giggles.
When Vader pulls up in the driveway, he sees a hover car parked exactly where Hux's would go. He shuts his landspeeder down with a pull of the lever and quickly scoops up Armitage into his arms. He stalks to the front door and finds a young woman there. She wears a black dress dress with several stripes of different colored cobwebs and a very pointy silver collar. She turns around and reveals her heart-shaped face framed by light-brown freckles and short, ginger-brown hair. Her earth-brown eyes go wide.
"Shit, you scared me!" She exclaims and then turns her back on him to turn the key. She pushes the door open and then moves aside.
"Aren't you coming in?" She waves with a well-manicured hand.
"Who are you?"
"Maratelle Hux. Brendol's wife."
Oh. He does have one. I didn't think his wife would be pretty or young. Or living in the house where her lawful husband cheats on her daily.
"So are you coming in, or do you want those spiders to lay eggs in Armitage's hair?" She prods. He moves quickly, narrowly missing stomping on a glittering, purple heel. She joins in and then closes the door behind her.
"Cakey." Armitage demands and holds out his hands to her while in Vader's arms. She waggles a lady finger.
"You know what I want." Armitage pouts and pats on Vader's chest plate to be put down. Vader does this reluctantly and watches him toddle down the hall.
Click! Click!
Maratelle hops in place as she takes a heel off and then repeats her motion with the other shoe. She tosses her second heel on the floor just as Armitage returns with a pair of fuzzy loafers with socks stuffed in them. He puts them down gently right by her heels. She smiles and pulls out a crumpled napkin from her pouch. She kneels and hands it to him. He opens it up like a flower and finds a piece of white-iced cake.
"Cakey!" He gobbles the cake down like a little puffer pig, while she puts on her socks and loafers with little hops. She looks up at Vader who looks down at her.
"What?" She tilts her head to the side. "It teaches him that nothing in life is free and hand-eye coordination."
"Where are Rama and Brendol?"
"They always go to the cottage on the weekends, but I can get those spiders out of his hair. Every proper Arkanisian knows how to." She grins and then moves her long legs down the hallway. Armitage waddles after her like a duckling, while Vader prowls after him like a hunting hound.
Reds paint the house, while greens coat the kitchen. Mint green walls, tea green counters, and sea green cabinets take up most of the greens. The jade, plasticine chandelier hangs over the blue-green island and lights up the greenness. Tall, backless stools reside under the island, while an emerald stump sits under their long shadows. Maratelle disappears into the nearby pantry, while Armitage licks his fingers for any sugary residue.
"Would you mind brewing some caf? The distiller's by the sink." She hollers from the pantry. Vader goes to the copper sink and sees an older and far simpler version of Padmé's distiller. It took Anakin four terrible cups of caf before he made the perfect cup for his angel.
Maratelle emerges with a glass jar and a fine-toothed comb. She heads over to Armitage. She puts the items on the island and hoists the toddler up like a cat. She puts him on the impossibly tall stool. He rests his sticky hands on the counter and looks at Vader with cake crumbs all over his smile.
She takes the comb and goes through the hair slowly. It finds three spiders, barely bigger than Armitage's freckles, while the jar catches them. They scramble against the glass, but it's too smooth for them to get a grip. They fall.
"No sugar in my caf, please." She says as the machine beeps like a defective Artoo. Vader looks in the cabinet above it and finds the mugs on the second row. He picks a plain gray mug and pours the black caf in. He puts it on the island, a few centimeters away from the jar. She reaches for it with one hand and takes a sip before putting it back down again.
"You could've used the Force."
"I don't use it unnecessarily."
She raises a fine eyebrow but says nothing for the next few minutes.
"There's no music." She states with a frown.
"Yes."
"I'm used to the kitchen having music because this is Rama's domain. He likes to sing you know. And Armitage likes to think he can."
"He'll learn to sing." I didn't know my Master's son could sing. Can my Master sing?
"Oh, he will. Brendol sings too, maybe not classically enough to be part of Rama's operas, but he can definitely sing. They can play instruments too, so Armitage is going to grow up musically inclined." In the Force, she emanates a dull warmth, while her mouth curls into a small smile.
"You actually care for them."
"Of course I do! Brendol's the best husband I could ask for."
"But he's cheating on you."
"We both agreed that our marriage would be one of convenience; it's even in our marriage contract. I married him for his money, while he needed someone to do all the societal crap that he hates so much." She gets the final, infinitesimal spider out. "Besides, we're not going to last."
"Why? You're both happy with this arrangement." He watches avidly as she puts Armitage down; the little ginger hurries back to his side and clamors at his mechno legs. Vader bends over and picks the little ginger up again.
"Now that you're involved in this family. How long can you keep Rama and Armitage a secret from the Emperor? At some point, the Emperor's going to ask why you're going to Arkanis so often. Can you really lie to him?" She looks into her cup and drinks more of the bitter caf.
Vader looks down at Armitage, feeling such a tightness in his chest, but the child doesn't seem to notice. He stretches up and plants a kiss on his grill.
I don't know when this will all fall apart, but I'm not going to let harm befall this child.
Author's Comments- Here are the links:
When Armitage gets spiders in his hair, I imagine Vader sounding so much like his Robot Chicken counterpart: a href=" watch?v=gI65rchfoBY"Link/a
Maratelle Hux is physically modeled after Kitty Pryde of this X-Men Gold cover, except she has freckles: a href=" . "Link/a
Maratelle's dress is inspired by Princess Mombi's dress in Return to Oz: a href=" . /villains/images/0/07/Princess_Mombi_Wearing_a_fake_ /revision/latest/top-crop/width/220/height/220?cb=20150325010536"Link/a
I just watched Return to Oz and I'm shocked by how much I liked it. I know it's based on The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz books, but I wonder about its faithfulness to the source materials since Disney did make this film. They understandably used the ruby slippers of the famous Judy Garland picture because they are far more eye-catching than the silver slippers. Funnily enough, they do use the silver slippers in Once Upon A Time for the shitty Oz arc in the second half of season three. Also, watch Willow because it's a unique fantasy with the delightful Warwick Davis! Both of these films are streaming on Disney+.
The title itself is lifted from Kraven's Last Hunt where "The Tyger" by William Blake is used throughout the comic, but tyger is replaced with spider for obvious reasons. It's also the only Spider-Man comic I own and love. In Legends/EU, there are trees literally called "strange trees" that exist on a number of planets and produce carbon. The Wookie provides no physical description, so I took to the liberty to make my own description.
As of now, the only notable think in the Wookie for Maratelle is that she's Brendol Hux's wife and was apparently friends with Enric Pryde aka the man who killed Hux in RoS. But since none of the Sequels (and most of the New Canon) get to happen in my stories that last part really doesn't matter. So I had a lot freedom to write her however I wanted.
The next planned one-shot for this series will be about Maratelle meeting Task Force 99 for the first time.