Familiar Faces

Nalhriir watched the traveling party with intent ruby red eyes from the safety of his hiding place. He had been tailing this caravan for several days now, and he was getting hungrier with each passing moment. He had spent so much time tracking and hiding away from the caravan's view that he had not done much hunting at all for himself, not with the prospect of such a large meal dangling in front of him like a carrot. 

He was absolutely ravenous. 

And the feral instincts that were always itching and pulling at the corners of his mind had now reached a crescendo. It was getting harder for him to think straight, think intelligently.

He shouldn't have waited so long to eat, even if there was the promise of a good meal at the end of this hunt. He should have tried for something smaller sooner. 

He needed to eat soon and he intended to pluck a few of the caravan members from their bedrolls that night and do just that. 

He watched intently as the caravan stopped and readied camp for the night. His spider abdomen wiggled in barely contained excitement at the thought of food coming to him soon. And his legs tapped the ground excitedly. He scanned the area with his infrared vision, taking note on how many people were there from the lights of their distinctive body heat. It looked like a total of twelve, and luckily for him several were straying close to the edge of camp and placing their bedrolls. He'd be able to easily pick a few off. 

He swallowed as he watched, switching back to light vision, his eyes momentarily squinting at the torch's light. He noticed, suddenly, that there was a drow there. From how she was dressed and what he remembered of home, she was a warlock. That spelled trouble for him if the warlock caught him. But Nalhriir was a well seasoned ambush predator, 260 years surviving alone in the underdark would do that to someone.

He ran his tongue over his fangs, he could almost taste the blood coming and it excited him even more. Normally his mind would have been disgusted by his eagerness to kill, but his drider instincts were so at the forefront of his mind he barely registered his disgust. 

He watched as they readied themselves for bed, now all he had to do was wait. And if there was one thing he was good at, that was waiting. 

------

About two hours after the caravan had fallen asleep, Nalhriir finally deemed it long and safe enough to move from his hiding place. His stomach grumbled at him and the haze in his mind was all encompassing. All he cared about at that moment was feeding, and his feral instincts were more than content to pilot his eager form for the time being.

He slowly crept up to the edge of camp and focused on a human who slept the furthest from camp. With his first target picked he walked on feather quiet feet closer to his quarry. 

He would have to be fast, bite his prey quick enough so that his venom could paralyze quickly and the human wouldn't alert the rest of the camp. 

A small 'click' sounded off in the air as he unhinged his jaw, the hidden spider fangs that stored the majority of his venom coming to the forefront. And in speed startling for his size, he lunged onto the human and without a seconds notice, sank his second set of fangs into the human's shoulder. His chitin covered hand covered the human's mouth as an extra precaution. The human startled but couldn't do much else as the venom began to work. 

Prey in hand, he skittered quickly back away from the camp, not wanting to eat right at the edge, that was just inviting danger. Safely about fifty feet away, he needed to eat quickly. Nalhriir was testing the limits and even in his feral haze clouded mind he realized this. 

He sank his main set of fangs into the paralyzed human's neck and began to drink his fill. Already he could feel the haze in his mind begin to clear, it was like someone had pulled back a curtain from a window, and he sighed contentedly through his nose. 

His ears perked suddenly as he picked up on a sound, but too late to dodge the thick vines that curled up around his form, wrapping tightly around his torso and thorax making him drop the human. He hissed and chittered angrily, but having finally eaten something, he was far more lucid. He looked around franticly for the castor and he saw no one. It had to of been that warlock! He had been in such a state he completely forgot about the stupid warlock! 

He gasped and hissed in pain as the vines that were wrapped tightly around his midsection and thorax tightened even more. He clawed in vain at the restraints, his claws leaving deep fissures in the vines, but not deep enough to cut through them. His legs scrabbled against the dirt in any attempt to get a better foothold but he came up short. Loose strands of silver hair obscured his face in his struggle. 

"Finally caught you." The castor of the spell finally said walking into the light. She was a petite drow, with long silver braided hair and pale red eyes. She has several moles on her face and her expression was...disinterested. "I knew you had been tailing us for a few days now. You driders are like cockroaches. Always sneaking around and crawling out of the woodwork. I've been waiting for you to get close enough." 

Nalhriir chittered, a sound deep from his throat and continued to struggle. His instincts screamed at him to flee, he had been caught. He lost out on prey and now he needed to run. But the vines prevented that and held him fast. 

"Let me go!" Nalhriir snarled baring his fangs and the hidden spider fangs in the back of his mouth at the drow. She simply chuckled and tightened the vines. Nalhriir whimpered in pain and his legs kicked and twitched. He struggled and continued digging his claws into the vines. 

"Let's get a look at that face..." the woman said approaching him slowly. But she stayed far enough out of his reach that he couldn't claw at her. 

As she approached him she was finally able to see his face better and she audibly gasped when she did. She stumbled back, a look of abject horror on her face. 

Nalhriir watched her in confusion. Had she never seen a drider's face before? He knew he looked different after being cursed, but he knew that his face didn't look that much different from when he was a normal drow. When he was whole. Well, besides the fangs, scars and extra eyes, of course.

"Nalhriir...?" The woman asked hesitantly in disbelief. 

Nalhriir narrowed his eyes and he stared at the woman, no look of recognition crossed  his face. But somehow he felt he should know who this was...so he searched his memories through the hunger clouded haze and came across his siblings. This wasn't his brother, or older sister, this was...! 

"Faera?" He said suddenly as the memory of her face and name came to him through the lessened haze of feral and instinctual thoughts. 

"You remember me!" She said, sounding relieved. 

"Of course I remember my twin." He said pointedly. "How could I forget you after you so kindly turned you back on me at the test?" 

"Nalhriir...I," she started but her words died in her mouth. How could she tell him that she didn't want what happened to him to happen to her? That she would do anything to make sure it didn't? That she had decided, in that moment, that her continued safety was more important than his? 

As she mulled over what to say, she couldn't help but stare at Nalhriir's new form. She hadn't really paid him much heed after the test, as she was too disgusted by what he'd become to look closely. But being this close her mind wandered. His carapace was black with red accents and held up by delicate but strong legs. She notice several deep looking scars in his chitin, no doubt acquired from his time in the underdark. He truely looked like a giant spider from the waist down. She also noticed that he had scars now, when before his skin had been unblemished by anything but freckles. She noticed that even his face was scared. 

"Why are you staring at me for?" Nalhriir growled. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with! Don't make me wait for the other shoe to drop!" 

"What?" She asked suddenly pulled from her thoughts. 

"You're going to kill me, right? Get it over with!" He snapped. 

"What? No, no! I could never kill you, Rii, you're-" 

"Don't call me that!" He snarled. 

"You're my twin. I'd never harm you." She finished her sentence. Nalhriir's main set of eyes narrowed dangerously and he bared his fangs. 

"Oh, now you care about me? Where were you that night, huh?! I needed you! My life had just crashed down around me and what did you do? You called me disgusting and turned your back on me! You're my twin! You're supposed to have my back!" He snapped pointing a clawed finger at her accusingly. 

"Nalhriir, please, understand! I couldn't show any emotion towards you then in front of our siblings and parents!" 

"Afraid of losing mother's precious approval?" He sneered. 

"I didn't want to end up like you!" She yelled. Nalhriir froze and frowned at her words. 

"I see." He replied simply, his body still and shoulders slumped.

"Please don't misunderstand," she said holding her hand up. "I felt sick at what happened to you that night! Father should have never made you take the test of Lolth! I just...I just didn't want to be cast out too..." 

Nalhriir's ears drooped a bit and he sighed. He was angry with Faera, yes, very much so. But he couldn't bring himself to hate her for her decision. It was how they were raised, that one's self is more important than anyone else's. No matter what he just couldn't bring himself to hate his twin. 

"...I do understand." He said after a long moment of awkward silence. "Once upon a time, I wanted our parent's approval too. Desperately so, I wanted to prove that I was worth something. Even though I'd never be a wizard or a warrior. My music gave me a chance at that, and even then it was never enough." He wrapped his arms around his midsection and sighed. His extra eyes blinked unsynchronously and he turned his head away from Faera. 

"You were-are-worth something, Nalhriir. You always have been. I'm sorry that mother and father couldn't see that." Faera said softly. 

"At least you and Aunty Thessa always could." Nalhriir said turning back to face Faera.

"I'm going to let you go," she said. "But you have to leave and you can't attack me or the other members of the caravan." 

"I've eaten something, so I'm in control of myself again. I won't attack you. Or any more of the caravan members." Nalhriir replied. "Unfortunately I don't think that humans going to survive. I drank a lot." 

"I'll blame it on a hook horror or something." She said. She chanted something and the vines loosened around his thorax and midsection before the retreated completely and he sighed at the relief of pressure. He swallowed and looked over towards the opposite direction, far away from the camp, and then turned back to Faera. 

"So...what is it like?" Faera asked slowly. "Being a drider, I mean?" 

"It's..." Nalhriir started and paused. "It's not great. My body hurts a lot, I mean in my back mostly. It's hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in without wrenching it. I have two stomachs, so I have to drink a lot of blood to satiate myself and even then sometimes the hunger doesn't go away. And then there's the instincts and feral thoughts..." Nalhriir paused and wrung his hands nervously. He looked uncomfortable. "The instincts they...sometimes they get to be too much. It's like I'm not in control of my body, when they get bad. Really it only gets that bad when I'm really hungry, like tonight. It's like...it's like there's a thick fog over my mind when it's at its worst. I can't think straight and I act purely on instinct." 

"That sounds awful." Faera breathed frowning. 

"It's certainly not fun. Thankfully I had managed to eat enough to get my sanity back before you caught me, otherwise I would have tried to attack you earlier." He said, his face looked ashamed. Faera couldn't imagine there being times when you weren't in full control of yourself, that sounded awful to her. And it solidified even more her strong desire to never get on Lolth's bad side. 

"You should probably leave now." Faera said suddenly. Nalhriir nodded in agreement. He had overstayed his welcome, and even then he didn't have that to begin with.

"You're right." He said starting to walk away. He stopped suddenly and turned around. "Thank you, for not killing me, Fae." He said softly, using the old nickname he used to use for her. 

"Of course Rii, I'd never hurt you." She replied with a sad smile. Against her better judgment and Nalhriir's surprise, she rushed up to him and wrapped her arms around his midsection in a tight hug. Nalhriir blinked stunned, but leaned down and returned it all the same.

"Be safe out there." Faera said letting him go and standing back a bit. 

"I've survived 260 years, I'll survive more." He replied with a chuckle. He then turned and began to make a quick get away, wanting to be away from any potential danger and desperately not wanting Faera to see that he was barely holding back the onslaught of tears that threatened to spill over. 

Faera watched Nalhriir vanish into the darkness of the underdark and sighed. She missed her twin, and she wasn't sure what was worse. Not seeing him for 260 years or seeing him again only to loose him once more. He had changed a lot from when she last saw him, and she knew that was because he has to survive and fend for himself in the underdark, a most unforgiving place. 

She sighed one final time and turned to the dead human. She intended to get rid of the body and protect her little brother. Luckily for her, Nalhriir had made a clean kill, so she wouldn't have much to hide. She'd say that he got scared and tried running, the others would be none the wiser. She quickly hid the corpse and went back to camp. Everyone was still asleep and she was thankful for that, if not, how could she possibly hope to explain letting a drider go? 

"Lolth watch over him." She whispered as she settled back down into her spot to watch over the camp. The rest of the night was uneventful, and for that she was thankful.