“So what?”
Arachne turned back into her human form, still with Eva in her arms, as she walked through her lair’s corridors. The cave mouth opened up into an expansive almost palace. Almost.
It was fanciful and enormous, carved almost entirely by hand, or claw, over the course of millennia. Tapestries, woven by herself of course, adorned key spots along the main hall. Some were simple images, other depicted legends–mostly hers.
Eva’s blindness was a travesty that Arachne intended to return tenfold and tenfold again on the necromancers.
“If Juliana can’t summon you, or something happens to me with the necromancers, you could be stuck here for a very long time.”
“Your point, Arachne?”
“Reconsider taking my hands.”
There was a short pause before Eva said, “alright, I’ve reconsidered.”
Arachne set Eva down on her bed. It was a rather normal bed for her. She didn’t sleep often, but on the occasions she did, it was usually in her human form.
It was a good thing Eva was blind. There were several tapestries hanging around the room. Most were of Eva, though one was of Devon–Arachne must have been ill that day–and the rest were all scenery.
The scenery ones she might have shown off.
“You agree then?”
“No.”
“Eva, I am not going anywhere without you having something you can use as a weapon.”
“I have this,” Eva said as she tapped the crumbling bloodstone hanging from around her neck. She’d already vanished all the blood, it had grown too old to be used properly before her story finished.
“That is going to do you no good Eva, and you know it. It is barely holding together as it is. I know nothing about blood magic, but that can’t last more than another hour of use, can it?”
Eva said nothing.
“You can’t see right? You’re telling the truth?”
There was a bit of nervousness when Eva answered. “I can’t see.”
“What if you were asleep?”
“I think I’d wake up at my hands being torn off.”
Arachne grinned. Her domain, her rules. Mostly. “Human doctors cut up people all the time while they are asleep. Just say yes, Eva. Agree to sleep in exchange for my hands. A contract.”
“You’re forcing another contract on me.”
“No,” Arachne said as she took a seat on the bed. Eva shifting away from her pulled at something in her chest. Arachne shook it off. “No. If you don’t want to, I’m not forcing anything.”
Eva sat there. Thinking? Considering? Hopefully about ready to agree.
“If,” Eva started, “if I say yes…”
That was as far as she got. Eva slumped over.
Arachne gently caught her and laid her down on the bed gently. There was a brief thought about moving her off the bed. Arachne banished it as quickly as it came.
It was a rare opportunity to infuse her bed with her Eva’s scent, after all. She wouldn’t mind sleeping in her Eva’s blood. There shouldn’t be much of it if Arachne did this properly and quickly, in any case.
All of her extra limbs sprouted from her back. They couldn’t form into the fine fingers she used, but she was dexterous enough to overcome anything for her Eva.
With Eva’s arm held steady, Arachne placed her own hand inside her mouth. A sharp and firm bite severed her hand just behind her wrist. She pulled it out with her other hand and quickly snapped down on Eva’s wrist in the same spot.
She was in too much of a rush to enjoy the taste of Eva’s skin. Arachne quickly spat out the squarish pad of meat. It might come in handy later.
Her Eva’s wrist was much squishier. Maybe she’d accept a full arm later.
Arachne pressed her severed hand against Eva’s stump. She slowly channeled magic into the spot where they touched.
If there was more to it than that, Arachne didn’t know. Eva might wake up without working hands and then hate Arachne for a lot longer than she would if she woke up with working hands.
The trick she’d pulled, if she could call it that, would anger Eva far more than any issue with her hands. Arachne knew that. But Eva was about to say yes. So surely it wouldn’t be that bad. If she’d said no, the contract would have just dissipated.
Eva’s wrist made an odd noise. It almost scared Arachne into stopping the magic. She continued, not wanting to risk stopping and restarting.
Her bone stretched outwards to meet the edges of Arachne’s hand. A weird thing to watch. Arachne’s hand stretched over the bone in turn. Holes appeared in the bone and veins and muscle stretched through the holes, presumably connecting to something inside the hand. The black exoskeleton stretched over the openings in her wrist about half way to her elbow.
That was a good sign. Hopefully.
Soon enough, Arachne’s magic felt like it was being wasted, vanishing into the void. She stopped channeling and inspected the new limb.
It looked good. The exoskeleton dug into then slowly merged with her skin as it got to her elbow. She gave it a light tug–a very light tug for Arachne–and was pleased to find it didn’t budge. She could see the tendons moving in the skin part of Eva’s arm when she wiggled the fingers, another good sign.
Happy with how it turned out, Arachne repeated the process with Eva’s other hand.
It was a bit tricky getting her own hand out of her mouth with her legs. Something she was glad Eva was both blind and asleep for. It couldn’t have been pretty.
Once the other hand was attached, Arachne gave her a full once over. The hands weren’t quite symmetrical. The part that merged with her skin went up to about the same spot, but the designs formed large curls as it merged. The curls were different on each arm.
Overall, Arachne thought it looked good. Hopefully Eva would think so too.
Eva’s feet, Arachne couldn’t do much about at the moment. Their contract was only for hands. Even if it was for feet, Arachne wasn’t sure she’d go for it right now. Not with her hands needing to heal. If she was going to enter battle before long, she didn’t want to cripple herself too much.
Perhaps later, Eva would consider allowing Arachne to chop off both her entire legs and the rest of her arms. She’d have to be careful moving at full strength while her torso was human, but she could at least have extra partial strength.
Maybe if the unthinkable happened and Eva found herself captured, she’d be able to escape with Arachne’s limbs.
For now, she’d have to deal with and adapt to her lack of toes.
And eyes.
Arachne had no solutions for eyes. Eva would need all of Arachne’s eyes to have proper sight, and even if it was only her two humanish ones, they wouldn’t fit in Eva’s eye sockets. Something similar to what happened on her arms might fix that, but that left the issue of the other eyes.
Perhaps the hel would have a deal on eyes that wasn’t horrible. It left a bad taste in her mouth even thinking of the creature, but the hel seemed at least mildly interested in Eva.
Something to think on later. For now, she could adapt and deal with her vision.
Arachne sighed. She ran a leg over Eva’s hair and another over her cheek. It might be a while before the girl let her near.
“Eva,” Arachne said, “contract complete. You can wake up now.”
Her black-haired girl groaned. One of her new hands slowly rose up to Eva’s head. Not to be inspected, but in the way humans cradled headaches.
Arachne moved to stop it. She didn’t want her Eva’s opinions on the new hands to be marred by a pierced skull.
“Arachne,” Eva groaned. Her groan had a sharp edge to it.
“I’m here. Everything went perfect.”
“Arachne. What went perfect.”
Arachne didn’t respond. She watched as Eva flexed the hand caught by her legs. Even the extra joints flexed; not something Arachne even thought about when she started.
“Arachne,” Eva snarled, “what did you do?”
She winced back at Eva’s voice. She expected it, and it was much better angry than sad. Arachne just wished the anger was directed somewhere else. “I completed our contract.”