Discordant

Nalhriir laid down in the spider silk hammock he had made for himself in his most recent "home," and sighed deeply. He was hungry and a little cold, but his depression was bad enough that day that he couldn't will himself to move from the comfort of his little nest, or do much of anything, really. He curled up as tightly as he could, pulling his eight legs up closer to his thorax. The feeling of weightlessness still felt a little bit alien to him, but with his new body, lying in his own spider silk was the most comfortable position and material that he could find. 

He was determined to stay put, but as his hunger grew it began to be too hard to ignore. He sighed heavily, sitting up, and moved from the web nest he had made and picked his way down the cave wall. He  hugged his midsection and lightly walked over to the caves entrance. He poked his head out, scanning the area for any hookhorros or other such dangers, and only when he was satisfied that the coast was clear, and he was certain that he was safe, did he step outside. 

It had been several months since he had been cursed into a drider, and he had since learned what he needed to eat, and that was blood. 

A lot of blood, actually. 

He had killed more than his fair amount of living things in the last few months to sate his hunger, from smaller creatures to even other drow. Though killing and draining his first drow made him so nauseous that he just threw up everything that he had eaten anyway. Leaving him sick and hungry. 

But that had been about a month ago, and sometimes the feral instincts and hunger that possessed his mind did not let him think rationally when he ran into potential prey. So he had attacked and killed several drow scouts by this point. And he wasn't sure what made it worse, that he no longer grew nauseous tasting drow blood, or that he had grown to prefer it to other blood he had managed find in the underdark. 

Shaking his head of those thoughts, he came across tracks. 

"Travelers." He said to himself, the reverberating creak of his voice no longer startled him when he spoke. The idea of fresh prey made the feral part of his mind itch and squirm, and without giving it much more thought, he followed the tracks and stalked his prey. 

As he approached the traveler's camp, his ears twitched; he didn't hear anything that suggested anyone was even at the settlement. His curiosity getting the better of him, and against his better judgment, Nalhriir walked cautiously into the camp and was met with carnage. 

He felt himself growl and chitter in frustration and the loss of prey (his rational mind was revolted by this) and from the smell of it, they had been dead for a while. No sense in trying to get a meal from any of them, Nalhriir know that he would only make himself sick. 

Nalhriir noticed that the corpses were human, humans were fools to have ventured this deep into the underdark and expected any thing different. They would have met death regardless, and the fact that Nalhriir had missed a veritable feast annoyed him. 

As Nalhriir surveyed the camp, seeing if there was anything worth taking with him, his eyes fell upon a familiar object that laid half held in the hand of a dead bard. He frowned, he recognized the object as a lyre, the instrument that he had played so many times months ago. 

Taken by a sudden urge to reclaim what he had lost, the drider reached down and gripped the instrument in his claws. He picked up the lyre delicately, the weight of it familiar.  Fumbling it somewhat with his claws, he plucked a string experimentally. It twanged and the sound instantly calmed him, silencing the rush of feral and instinctual thoughts and urges in his mind. He sighed contentedly and held the object with more confidence. 

His ruby red eyes scanned the surrounding area with scrutiny, and not seeing any dangers, and seeing as whatever killed the people of this camp was long gone, he decided that he would do something he hadn't done in months, sing. 

Nalhriir inhaled, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth to sing something that he he used to sing quite frequently. The words came to him naturally, but the sound that came out of his open mouth was not his beautiful voice, smooth and even and almost lyrical in tone, the sound he had been expecting, but instead he heard a reverberating warble. It was abrasive and sounded like a screeching noise mixed with a clicking sound that came deep from his throat. 

Startled, Nalhriir nearly dropped the lyre but stopped playing immediately all the same. 

He stood there in the abandoned camp frozen for a moment. His heart thudded in his chest as his mind replayed the sound over and over again in his head. That surely hadn't been him, right? Surely that wasn't what his voice sounded like now, right? 

He cleared his throat and began to play the best that he could with the claws. And to his frustration he found that the act of playing was harder than it had been moments ago, and he kept hitting sour notes. He sighed and decided that he would sing without music. He began to sing once more, picking up the verse where he left off. But to his sinking horror, he heard the same atrocious sound coming from his mouth when he attempted to sing once again. 

Tears of disbelief and frustration stung his main set of eyes and his grip on the lyre tightened to the point that he heard the woods creak. In a fit of anger he screeched and slammed the lyre into the ground as hard as he possibly could. The instrument twanged discordantly and splintered on impact, snapping strings and splintering wood. 

Several of Nalhriir's legs stomped the ground, angry, and he chittered in rage, pacing back and forth and hissing. Before long he stopped and his upper half curled in on itself and he hugged his midsection. He began to sob, his messy bangs obscuring his face like a silver curtain. Not only had Lolth stolen his life and future from him, his ability to play, but she had also stolen his voice. The one thing that Nalhriir was most proud of besides his skills with the lyre. 

His tears stopped as his anger boiled to the surface once more. "Curse that damn spider bitch!" He snarled glaring up at the rock ceiling, as if Lolth could hear or see him. He knew that she didn't, she didn't care about driders. "Curse her to the seven hells!" 

He didn't do anything to deserve this! He had been a faithful believer, he had dedicated his songs to her, trumped rival bards at their own games for her, and what did he get in return? Exile, a body he was disgusted by, and eternal loneliness. 

"I should had forsaken you when I had the chance all those centuries ago! If Kar'niss hadn't convinced me not to, then maybe I would-" he shook his head at that train of thought. "No! No, I will not speak ill of my friend. He doesn't deserve that. He didn't know what would happen to us." 

His thoughts fluttered to his dear friend back all those years ago. He had been an even bigger follower of Lolth that Nalhriir had been. And what did that get him in the end? He made a mistake during his test, he rolled his ankle and that gave his opponent an opening. Defeated over a simple slip up, and decades of devotion and reverence toward Lolth meant nothing. Kar'niss had met the same fate that Nalhriir did centuries later. 

"Some goddess," he spat. "Treating even her most devoted followers with nothing but-but, this!" Nalhriir hissed gesturing to himself and then sighed. 

Suddenly feeling worse than a few minutes earlier Nalhriir sighed and ran clawed fingers through his hair. He was still hungry, and seeing as he wouldn't find any food here and nothing was worth taking, he turned to leave. 

Nalhriir glanced at the ruined lyre on the ground and frowned. He wished his anger hadn't gotten the best of him. He would have liked to take that lyre with him.