Authors note: Thanks for reading my story, also if you want to please leave reviews! But I will only accept CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND ADVICE, not harassment!
August 5, 1998
Newly eighteen years old, Annabelle strode through the sands of the Sahara Desert, heedless of heat and unhindered by the sand itself, a magically enchanted sunroof floating along over her head, and a circulation of cool air running through her cloak and swirling around her body.
She came to a halt in front of a line of three dozen goblins, all cloaked and all with swords sheathed. "With every respect," she began calmly, patiently - as Ycu had taught her to be so long ago. "I'm here to speak with Nyllia on her very own invitation. You aren't, and so your presence here won't be as welcomed by her as mine. I'd suggest you leave her territory before she gets here and makes you."
"Drop your pretense, human," one goblin barked out at her. "You know we're here, not for her, but to stop you from getting to her!"
"Right," Annabelle acknowledged - and obliged - with a simple nod. "Why are you here to stop me, then? Why've you guys been following me all around the world? You attacked me back in South America, in my own hotel room, for...what reason?"
"The goblin nation won't stand by and let some human amass a personal army of highly dangerous creatures," another goblin spoke, a snarl in her tone. "They may be stupid enough to be brainwashed by you, taken into your cause, but we aren't going to fall for it! And we won't let you use them for your own ends! You humans, you'll throw away their lives like nothing, just to suit you! No!"
"Okay," Annabelle said slowly, looking down at her feet, and noting the subtly shifting sands there before raising her eyes to the goblins again. "Well, you won't be persuaded out of your opinions on me and my 'agenda,' so I'm not even going to try. No denying, no lying, no convincing you. So, that means the move is yours. What're you going to do? Kill me? Kidnap me? What's it going to be?"
In response, several of the goblins drew their swords. A few others just raised their hands and pointed their fingers at her - they were preparing to use wandless magic of their own kind's variety.
*Nyllia,* Annabelle sighed, shaking her head and dropping it to her chest. The sand shifted again, much more visibly this time. *I hate to ask something of you when we've only sort of just met, but I'm about to be murdered by some goblins just to prevent me from meeting with you, and I don't think that I can-*
BOOM!
Nyllia burst out of the ground, fifty feet tall and twice that wide, from right under Annabelle's feet, carrying her and the goblins very, very high up on her armored, dusty backside. Annabelle applied magic from out of her palms to stick herself to Nyllia's armor, as all around her Nyllia used her arachnid magic to create and control several magical tendrils of sand. Nyllia's magical sand tendrils twisted and weaved in the air, and she even conjured up huge waves of sand. They washed over Annabelle, but none of it was burning, none of it was hurting - it was just passing over and around her. The goblins were not so lucky; Nyllia directed six of her sand tentacles to wrap around two goblins and turn to glass around their waists, and she then hurled them out across the sand like a person throwing a baseball as hard and fast as they could. Another of Nyllia's magical sand waves washed over four other goblins, leaving them screaming and crisping over in a way that had Annabelle turning away and puking. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the help of awesome spider magic - of course she did! - but that was just...extreme.
Nyllia suddenly heaved, like a bucking bull, and four goblins were thrown off to fall a very, very long way. She lurched to one side, swung her whole body around to the right, and let out a screech of pain as some goblins near her abdomen got their bearings and started slashing right though her armor like it wasn't even there, leaving huge gashes and causing green blood to come spurting up out.
Annabelle unstuck one hand and thrust it out at the distant goblins. Her magic slammed into them, transfigured them into rabbits that then slid right off Nyllia's body - the swords followed after, glistening in the hot sun's light. She drew her wand out of her cloak's folds and jabbed it into the face of a goblin who had taken a hazardous leap right for her. Her spell was nonverbal, and the first one she could think of: Reducto. The goblin turned to dust even as they fell on top of her, and the dust mixed in with all the sand. At the same time, she felt the knife they'd been holding stab right into her stomach to the hilt. She gasped, feeling more surprised than actually hurt (but she was sure she'd feel that later, after the adrenaline and insanity of the situation was all gone!), and immediately spun her wand toward the injury and began chanting out a healing spell.
The spell was interrupted by three goblins stumbling their way toward her, ducking and weaving around the tendrils of sand that tried to snatch them up! Two of them lunged at her with swords swinging, while the third stayed back and lashed out at her with some kind of magical fire whip that crackled scarlet. Annabelle rolled left with one of Nyllia's latest throes, stuck her hand against the curved side of her body and hung there between two of her giant legs. The goblins came over to the edge and hurled their swords down at her. She closed her eyes and disapparated to the ground. Immediately she was set upon by the surviving goblins down in the sand with her.
Magical blue rope materialized around her neck and squeezed tight, and two goblins tackled her. High above them Nyllia still stamped and screeched, her legs making miniature earthquakes every time they came stomping down. Annabelle lashed out at the goblins holding her down, slamming her knees into them wildly and trying to throw them off the normal way. Her magic acted on its own, sending out a burning wave that picked them up and carried them several feet. She turned her wand on the blue rope strangling her, cutting her skin open and making her bleed in spurts, and sent a nullification spell into it. It was enough to make the rope fade and vanish into particles, giving her relief. She focused on a healing charm, while at the same time keeping her eyes on the goblins who were getting their bearings again, and getting ready to come at her again.
She had to cut her healing spell short a second time to throw up a shield of sand-turned-to-glass, ten feet thick, to deflect the goblins leaping at her, and then she delayed her own healing further by whirling on the spot and enveloping herself in a glass cylinder that was an extension of the wall. It wrapped around her protectively, sealed at the top, and she was able to take ten long seconds to finish healing her neck up. She had started on the knife wound in her stomach when the goblins reverted her glass cylinder into useless sand. She flicked her wand at them and sent a Killing Curse at the nearest. It connected, and the goblin just dropped dead on her face. The other two goblins hurled magic at her with vicious expressions, and she used a levitation spell to send them shooting up twenty, fifty, a hundred feet into the air - well above even Nyllia - to give herself a bit more time to complete her healing. She'd half healed her guts when seven goblins came raining down from atop Nyllia to surround her; Nyllia got to them before Annabelle, directing some of her sand tentacles, now tipped with glass spikes, to impale the goblins, which then exploded into a dozen more spikes inside their bodies outward.
Annabelle focused on the remaining damages left in her, but they refused to go away. Why wasn't it-
Oh, right, Goblin metal, she realized. Takes in that which strengthens it. Probably poisoned or cursed. Which meant that nothing Annabelle did right now was going to fix things all the way. Great!
Annabelle slashed her wand at the goblins who had come back down from her levitation treatment, striking them both with Blasting Curses a second apart. The curses struck home, and tore the goblins apart. They were nothing but scattered limbs and bits and pieces of flesh and bone and organs. She turned this way and that, searching for new threats on the ground, but found none. She was preparing to apparate up atop Nyllia when the giant arachnid suddenly rolled over. She sprung herself up to one side with a massive explosion of magic, and rolled completely over! When she righted herself, there were dozens of splattered, messy scarlet spots all over the landscape. The goblins were all dead now, and the desert was silent again.
Annabelle had fallen flat on her butt from the rumbling earthquake Nyllia had just made with her roll; she swiped her hand over her face, and grinned up at Nyllia from the sand. *Thank you for saving my life. Can I do anything to help your injuries?*
*You are most welcome, Mrs. Potter, and you have my gratitude in return - but my magical power is enough that I can tend to my own wounds.*
*Of course. And, you can call me Annabelle if you'd like.*
*You've traveled far and through great and many obstacles to keep to your invitation, it seems,* Nyllia replied, a certain kind of warmth and humor lacing her voice. *I admire that kind of determination in a female. And your ferocity in defending me as much as yourself is so very much appreciated, as well - as is the concern for my welfare. I must say, for a human you seem to be quite desirable.*
Annabelle blinked up at Nyllia. Was she being hit on by a giant, sapient, magical arachnid? *I- Nyllia, I'm flattered to have the...interest of the greatest hunter on this continent - but I don't recall accepting an invitation of that when I...accepted your invitation.*
*So you did not,* Nyllia responded, not sounding disappointed or upset in the least.
*So I didn't,* Annabelle agreed. She hesitated. *But...invite me back here a second time, and I might be willing to make it a more pleasure-oriented visit.*
*Visit rarely, and you will be more loved,* said Nyllia - it sounded like a quote to Annabelle.
Suddenly, several kilometers of desert dropped. Like a natural elevator, the section of land fell down a rocky shaft. The speeds must have been hundreds per hour, and the depth miles upon miles, but Annabelle was unaffected. She did her best to keep her calm as she fixed her gaze to Nyllia still, who didn't look affected by the high speed falling either.
*You live by a proverb of this land: Believe what you see and lay aside what you hear,* spoke Nyllia, as they continued to fall, fall, fall! *I had heard before now, of you and your actions across the planet. In the name of all of us, I have heard what you have done. But now I have seen it. I have seen you, and I believe what I see before me now. And so, Annabelle Potter, I show you what none have lived to see but my own kind: our home.*
The land-elevator came to an almost instant stop. It shot down out of the shaft and plunged into the open air of a massive rocky domed place, and then it stopped in midair. It hovered, and Annabelle ran to the edge of the platform to take in everything around her. If the section of land she rode in on was huge for what it was, the dome size was downright impossible for what it was - magic, of course. The dome's expanse stretched for miles upon miles, until she could barely see the curved edge in the distance! The ground was so far below her that what Annabelle was certain had to be house-sized spiders (of Nyllia's type) looked so small they could fit in her palm!
Crisscrossing every which way around the dome were hanging arches from the ceiling, and arches that curved up from the ground! There were streaming sands like sideways waterfalls coming off the walls at sharp angles to meet the ground, and there were strange swirling whirlpools of sand everywhere, every few dozen feet, in different sizes and shifting at different speeds. And disconnected from the arches and the overhangs and even the sideways sand waterfalls, were great platforms of natural sand and rock that drifted around at different heights, like the one Annabelle and Nyllia were on - but some were actually different, with miniature domes of hard rock, and little openings in these domes that showed Annabelle that inside were several spiders doing who knew what!
And, last to catch Annabelle's attention, there were hundreds of tunnel entrances all over the dome, like spots, whose openings expanded and contracted for any sized spider to pass, as a constant stream of them disappeared in and out of them. The tunnel mouths were near the ground, they were all along the curve of the dome, and they went all the way to the very top, to the ceiling and its highest point. There were hundreds of spiders alone crawling on the walls and ceiling just to reach these tunnels that went who knew where.
*Oh my god, it's beautiful,* Annabelle breathed.
*Thank you,* Nyllia took the compliment easily.
Their platform shot down to the ground, finishing the journey, and melted into the rest of the rock and sand like it was always a part of it. The closest several hundred spiders, from ones as small as golden retrievers to ones as big as houses, all gathered around Nyllia and Annabelle, clicking their mandibles and stamping their legs, all their many eyes on them with an intensity and a curiosity that had Annabelle blushing on the spot as she finally stood up again.
*Tribedaughters and tribesons,* Nyllia began addressing them all, her voice magically carrying across the entirety of the vast underground dome. *This human is Annabelle Potter! She has kept her word, she has come to us, and she has risked her very life and limb to do so! Members of the Goblin Nation just attempted to end her life in order to prevent her from speaking with us, and from giving us the aid that only she can! She is as true a hunter as any of us, and I gave my personal aid to her just as I would to any of you who needed it! Know this: I take Annabelle, human hunter, ally of our kind, and ally to all nonhumans, into this tribe!*
*You would do that for me, right away?* Annabelle questioned, blunt, maybe inappropriately in front of a human audience to their leader...but not to arachnids. *Just like that.*
*Just like that, you've proven yourself to me,* said Nyllia with no hesitation. *Proven yourself worthy of the tribe.*
*Of course.* Of course, arachnids were always so...practical.
August 4, 1991
*We're under attack! Annabelle, please run this time, or I'll-*
*It's just the letters again,* Annabelle interrupted, weary as her relatives started freaking out over said letters - again. They were magic letters; the first one she'd gotten ahold of and read had told her so. She was a mage - a witch, to be more specific. Which might explain how she could hear spiders. But it didn't explain how Ycu could talk to her - unless Ycu was magic. Unless every spider everywhere was magical, and no one knew. That made sense to both of them. Annabelle brought her wrist up to her face, like she was checking a watch, and frowned at Ycu, who was perched there. *Were you about to say you'd bite me?*
*If it would have gotten you moving - yes,* said Ycu, not hesitating at all to say such a thing. In the past month that Annabelle had known her, she'd come to know that was how Ycu was, and also, how all spiders seemed to be. Emotions didn't really bother them, or cloud their judgement or anything like that. They were there, they had emotions, yes, but those emotions were fleeting and shallow, bubbling up and then dying down in a matter of seconds. They never lasted, not really like human emotions often did. They weren't capable of getting angry and staying angry for hours, or days - the same was true for grieving, sadness, and anything else. A spider wasn't physically capable of falling into a depression, for example. Spiders were...practical. *I know you don't have the instinct of run for your life, but I intend to give it to you. And if that means biting you whenever you need to run in order to get you moving, then I will. And you'll thank me later, when I say bite and you start running without even thinking about it.*
*I don't think that's how any of that works,* Annabelle said, shaking her head and lowering her arm.
*You're young, what do you know about how anything works at all?* Ycu teased.
*You use that against me too much,* complained Annabelle, entirely serious. *I'm young, but I'm not stupid - and I'm learning.*
*I don't have too many years left to teach you,* Ycu said. *I wonder if you can learn faster.*
*I can work harder! I can learn faster!* Annabelle said quickly, panic and horror bursting inside her at the thought of Ycu being taken away from her so soon! Too soon! How could she be? How could that- why- no! *Ycu, you can't- I mean we just met! Now you tell me you aren't going to be around after just a few years?! How many?*
*Two or three,* Ycu responded, her voice turning gentle. *I'm sorry, but I can't help my lifespan. But if you want a longer lasting "friend" after I die, you can go find some other kinds of spiders - I've read that some of them can live up to thirty years.*
*I don't want new friends, I want you! Forever, always! Ycu-*
*I can't help it,* Ycu repeated, cutting her off. *That's all there is to it, Annabelle. You can't help it, either. Find a longer-lived spider to partner up with after I die, that's all you can do.*