Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumpelstiltskin never should have gone through the Spider Woods.

He’d known it was a bad idea. He’d known that taking the High Road was safer, even if the other townspeople frequented it and shunned his presence. He could handle their jostling and insults, their beatings and theft. He’d handled worse, after all, and he had enough of his earnings tucked away in his shoes and belt-pocket that losing the small amount in his coin pouch would not be too great a loss.

But the Woods were so much more peaceful - no one dared follow him into their shadowy depths - and he’d traveled them for so many years without incident…

He’d grown over-confident, too sure of his own safety among the trees.

And now…now he would not survive to regret it.

The telltale signs of the forest’s inhabitants; long strands of white webbing in the trees, gauzy sheets of silk stretching between the plants, and occasionally beasts trapped in fibers of silk stronger than any man; were usually huge and noticeable, the webs built right out in the middle of game trails or suspended in the trees above and easily avoided by anyone with the presence of mind to look up. The spider-folk, driders in the language of the north, spidrens to those from the west, were not usually subtle creatures, preferring a quick kill and stupid, slow prey. Though they had the upper body of humans and only the lower half of spiders (much like centaurs, but combined with a very different animal), they had no interest or attachment to their thinking cousins, and their languages were completely different. To them, humans were nothing but prey that was too small, too clever, and too fast to be worth the effort of hunting.

Which was why, when his staff snagged on something at ground level, Rumpelstiltskin thought nothing of it, merely flicking his good foot in a practiced motion to get rid of whatever pebble or root was in his way. It was only when that foot landed on something sticky - something that stretched- that he realized something was wrong.

Having his good foot trapped made him stumble and he tripped, keeling sideways towards the nearest tree. His staff did nothing to support him, remaining firmly stuck to the ground. And when he hit the tree, the breath whooshing out of him in a pained yelp of surprise, the hand that automatically shot out for support landed against a sticky silk sheet that gave with an odd stretching sound, until his hand was enveloped up to his wrist in white webbing.

Stone cold terror washed through the spinner as he stared at his trapped hand in dawning comprehension. There was no web above or in front of him, but when he looked down and looked hard, there were silvery filaments crisscrossing the forest floor and stretching up the trees along the path in front of him in a familiar geometric pattern; some threads hovered overhead, passing between the trees as if to make a tunnel, but there were not enough to catch the eye of a traveler. The web was all but invisible this close to its edge; the thick white strands that made up the body of the web were still meters in front of him, but the thin, sticky border had been laid out like a trap.

All of the blood drained from Rumpelstiltskin’s face and he yanked backwards, hoping against hope that the impermeable spider-silk would be weaker so far from the center, but it did not release him. Instead, all his thrashing did was pull him off balance and, with one hand stuck a meter off the ground and his good foot stuck to the ground, there was no way he could remain on his feet. He felt himself topple with the utter certainty of his own doom, unable to keep himself from landing hard.

His free hand wasn’t free for long; on instinct, it came forward to break his fall as he landed on his knees, just barely keeping him from smashing face first into the forest floor. Unfortunately, that left him with both knees and his second hand trapped further inside the unbreakable web.

“No.” He whimpered, tears beginning to pool in his eyes. “No, nonononono…!” He couldn’t die like this - He had to get home, to Bae! His son needed him!

He thrashed in fear, accomplishing nothing but getting himself more stuck. Twisting his hands and arms simply let the web trap him to his elbows, and awkwardly shuffling his legs caught his calves and feet just as badly. But still he struggled desperately, unwilling to give up even as he exhausted himself. After an hour, he finally paused, bracing himself as best he could. He was panting hard and trembling from exertion, but no closer to getting away than he’d been at the beginning of his struggles and despair drew racking sobs from his chest along with his gasps for air.

It was in that moment of semi-silence that he realized he was not alone. It was nothing so simple as a sound or a sight that gave it away…it was a creeping sense of awareness where the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He flinched, eyes widening in terror, before he glanced over his shoulder, unable to stem his morbid curiosity even though he knew he would probably find the agent of his death.

He was correct.

A female of the spider-folk stood mere meters away, the first two long legs of her arthropod lower half resting delicately on the tap-lines of the web, which he hadn’t realized he’d disturbed with his thrashing. Her upper body was unclothed and striking - flawless pale skin and long dark hair framed a pretty face with curious bright blue eyes watching him like…well, like one might look at a rabbit in a snare that was intended for the stew pot. The rest of her was lost in shadow, but Rumpelstiltskin did not notice. He went completely still under her focus, some deep-rooted primal instinct telling him that moving would get him killed.

She cocked her head, considering him for a long moment, then made a low clicking sound and suddenly she was there, a single undulation of her many legs bringing her within touching distance. Rumpelstiltskin flinched back with a yip of surprise and overbalanced, falling onto his side and hopelessly entangling his entire body. In a mindless panic, he instinctively tried to role away, instead getting the webbing on his free side and accidentally pinning himself on his stomach, splayed with all limbs spread out like a sacrifice…or a fly in a spider’s web.

There was that same low clicking noise of satisfaction and a shadow fell across him as she stepped up to - and over - him. A massive spider’s leg landed next to his shoulder and he knew she was on top of him, her body positioned exactly over his, ready to …to…

Before he could finish the thought, something small and sharp pierced the exposed back of his neck and he whimpered, knowing he was poisoned even before his fingers and toes began to go numb, feeling quickly draining from his limbs. His mind started to spin and his vision tunneled and then went black. The last thing he registered before falling unconscious was the satisfied humming of the spider-woman, and the feel of warm silk wrapping around his legs.

Belle was quite pleased with her first catch of the night. Her father had always told her that two-legged prey was not worth the effort, that they tasted bad and had almost no meat on their bones when compared to the far tastier bears, deer, and flying snacks, but she didn’t care. She was curious. She’d never seen two-legged prey up close before. Normally, she wouldn’t let such a self-indulgent desire get in the way of her hunting, but it had been a good month; she had enough cocooned prey stored in her home-web to last the season. She could spare some time for her curiosity.

It had taken her much longer than she’d expected to catch one of them; they were rare in her territory, and the few times they came, they were quiet and watchful and avoided the game trails her normal prey used. She’d learned through experience that normal webs would not work on them; they were too clever to fall for the same tricks as four-legged prey, so she’d decided to try something completely new, something no one - not her kind, nor any type of prey - would expect. This ground-web-tunnel was the result.

And it worked.

She’d been ecstatic when she felt the tap-line vibrate from her position further in the forest and up one of the trees, but she’d remained still, hoping it wasn’t a false alarm. Then the two-legged prey started to struggle and she knew it was hers. She watched as it tired itself out, knowing it would be easier to complete the hunt once it stopped moving. Its quiet yelps and whimpers, punctuated by occasional soft barks, surprised her - she hadn’t known two-legged prey could make noise at all. She’d almost felt bad when her prey finally collapsed from exhaustion and it came time to end the hunt. Those big liquid brown eyes - so much more expressive than normal four-legged prey - seemed to beg her for mercy and had it kept looking at her like that, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to take it down. But once it was pinned facing away she found it easier to administer the immobilizing bite and get down to the business of cocooning her prize.

She didn’t inject enough venom to kill it; what would be the point of that? She’d put so much time and effort into catching one of the elusive beasts that killing it right away felt like a waste. Once she had it safely tucked away in her home-web, she might not even eat it - it looked just as lacking in meat as her father had warned and she had plenty of four-legged prey and feathered snacks to keep her satisfied for a while- but she intended to find out everything she could about the strange creature while she had it. It took a lot to satisfy her curiosity, but now she finally had a two-legged beast of her own to study to her heart’s content.

With a happy croon, she finished the cocoon, pulling the final sheet of webbing snug with a sharp jerk and a satisfied pat on the finished product- it wasn’t as tight as she would use for four-legged prey; two legged-prey was much too fragile to break free from even the weakest silk and a tight cocoon could smother it - and used the serrated barbs on the backs of her first-ankles to detach the cocoon from the web. She easily lifted her prize from the ground and settled it on her lower body, pulled snug up against her back where her upper back formed a right angle with her spider abdomen and she could feel the faint warm pulse of its heartbeat against her bare skin even through layers of silk and cloth. A final thin layer of webbing bound it in place at the juncture of her first set of legs so it wouldn’t fall.

Content that her prize had been firmly secured, Belle set about re-weaving the parts of the web that had been disrupted. Once it was re-set, she turned back towards the forest, intent on checking the rest of her webs. Maybe she’d have a few more cocoons to add to her cargo before the night was out. If nothing else, she could at least add a few four-legged prey to her burden, to fatten her larder a bit more.

The proudly satisfied spider-woman slipped silently back into the forest bearing the unfortunate spinner, now reduced to an unrecognizable bundle of white silk. Behind her, the forest quickly returned to normal, completely undisturbed by the horrible scene that had played out on the picturesque trail.

A simple notched wooden staff laying abandoned in the brush was the only indication that it had happened at all.

Notes about this universe:

-Belle releases Rumple from his cocoon when she has a confined space set up for him in her living area, letting him roam around her ‘home’ so she can better satisfy her curiosity about humans.

-In the beginning, Rumple (who is completely terrified) thinks she’s keeping him alive to fatten him up and eat him later. After a while, he begins to think she wants to keep him as a pet.

-When Bae finds out what happened, he decides to rescue his papa.

Chapter Text

Getting to Know You

This Prompt Fill: Belle tries to get her ‘guest’ settled in safely while Rumpelstiltskin wakes up in a nightmarish situation and tries to escape his captor.

Prompt: @iambicdearie: Drider!Verse: Rumple attempts an escape.

 Belle’s ‘official’ introduction to her two-legged guest did not go well.

She’d thought through what she wanted to do with it as she checked her webs, removed her other catches, and reset any silk that had been disturbed by prey and by the time she was done, many hours had passed. She could feel minute movements from the silk wrapped bundle against her back – a sure sign that the creature was waking up. It was perfect timing; she’d be all set to let it out once she’d prepared her home web and it would be fully awake and ready to engage around the time she was done.

Since she was most interested in seeing it fully awake and active, it seemed best to let the poison work its way out of the creature’s system before removing her silk. With that in mind, she set that particular cocoon to the side once she got back to her web, then took her time envenoming and storing the four legged food-prey she’d managed to capture. She also cleared away anything laying around the cave that contained her web – she wanted nothing that could be used to escape or accidentally hurt it.

By the time she finished, the creature was fully awake and squirming pitifully within its tight confinement. She hooked the serrated barbs on her forelegs into the silk and easily ripped it back, revealing her captive in his entirety.

Instead of stopping or staring or making noises at her, the creature panicked.

She had a split second to register that the bright brown eyes were so wide she could see the whites all the way around before it let out a high pitched howl and lunged at her. She was so startled, she lost her footing scuttling backwards and overbalanced, nearly falling. The creature scrambled past her – even over some of her legs - remarkably quickly for something with such a horrible limp and made it to the doorway before she could catch it.

Her hearts stopped as he lurched to a stop, pin wheeling his arms on the edge as he belatedly realized the mouth of her cavern was a good twenty feet above the ground. The shock of the height gave her enough time to grab him from behind, gripping him by the back of his neck and hissing angrily, but the eyes that met hers were lost in terror, far beyond thought. He struggled in desperation, thrashing wildly, until she let him go and pushed him towards the middle of the cavern, causing him to flee to the farthest corner of her home, taking refuge in her sleeping hollow. Thanks to her earlier cleaning efforts, there was nothing for him to hide behind so he huddled down as small as possible inside the padded nest, panting and terrified, eyes fixed on her as he pressed his trembling form against the wall as hard as possible.

Belle frowned in concern and disappointment. She had not expected such an adverse reaction; she’d tried to keep captured rabbits before but they always died of fear from living in too close proximity to such a large predator, and larger four-legged prey tried to attack, refusing to be tamed. But nothing had reacted with this odd blend of aggression and terror before.

Uncertain of what she should do, the spider-woman remained standing in front of the entrance, blocking it off with her body and watching the subject of her interest with frustration.

Rumpelstiltskin barely remembered his first awakening; all he knew was the feeling of all consuming fear and a few rushed memories of reaction that made little sense. He did remember the sight of his captor standing in front of the single entrance to her cave, and collapsing once the adrenaline drained away, but his next period of true lucidity came when he woke up the second time.

This time, he found that she had left him alone curled up in his corner and he must not have been out for very long. She was still standing in front of the entrance, this time with her back to him, smooth muscles shifting beneath her pale skin, weaving a web across the entrance. Even as frightened as he was, he immediately understood what she was doing and his heart sank. Apparently, he’d used up his only chance to escape; if he tried now, he’d just get stuck and she’d be free to poison and cocoon him at her leisure.

He didn’t know why she hadn’t eaten him yet. Even if his panicked dash after being released had taken her off guard, she’d had him at her mercy during his last bout of unconsciousness.

However, escape was not optional - it was necessary. Every step without his staff was agony, his bad leg protesting the rough treatment he’d put it through with so much struggling in the cocoon, but he still forced himself upright as quietly as possible and limped along the side of the cave with one hand on the smooth stone for support. Every few feet, his hand would pass over thick strands of webbing and his feet trod upon panels of silk, but thankfully none of them were sticky - they seemed to be there for decoration or support. Slowly, he crept up alongside the spider woman, trying to slip through the entrance before she realized he was there. Vaguely, he remembered there was a reason he hadn’t escaped in his initial panic, but he could not remember what it was and he couldn’t afford to let it distract him.

His captor did not turn around, not even when he was mere feet from the entrance, so focused was she on weaving the web to hold him in. There were already preliminary strands- all of them bright white and sticky - but they were strung at chest height. As smoothly as possible, still behind her line of sight, Rumple sunk to his knees and crawled forward, silently begging the gods to have mercy on him for once and let this work.

It did not work.

Before he could poke more than his head past the barrier, a hand snagged the back of his collar and yanked him backwards, sending him sprawling inside the cave at the spider woman’s feet. She was making a series of low, angry grumbling and clicking sounds that did not bode well for Rumple’s continued survival.

He tried to scramble away but she kept a firm grip on his collar and he found himself pulled upright and forced to stare directly into her eyes. Distantly, he noted they were bright blue, not the dead black he’d been expecting.

“Please…please don’t…” he whimpered, cringing away from her, fully expecting to be killed.

The spider woman’s head tilted as she studied him for a long moment. He couldn’t quell his trembling but nor did he look away - if he was going to die, he wanted to see it coming, if only to use his last breath to apologize to Bae for leaving him alone.

However, to his surprise, instead of attacking him, the spider-woman used her grip on his shirt to turn him around to see the web-barrier over the entrance. He stiffened but she did not force him forward into it to be bitten and cocooned again. Right beside his head, so close he could feel her breath ruffle his hair, she let out a clearly defined series of sounds.

Click-click-growl.

He swallowed, feeling his heart jump and his legs and hands tremble with fear. Words would not come - there was nothing he could think of that might sway her, even if she was able to understand him. The spot on his neck where she’d bitten him earlier itched and he was viscerally aware that she was close enough to do it again if she wanted. After a long beat of silence, of stalemate, her grip loosened and she made a different sound.

Purr-whistle.

Rumple was so surprised to be released and his legs so unsteady that he immediately wobbled and one hand instinctively shot out for balance and support, coming dangerously close to the sticky threads over the cave’s entrance.

Immediately, her hand returned, this time gripping the back of his neck, and tightened, making him wince in pain.

Click-click-growl.

He jerked his hand back, fearful of her displeasure.

Purr-whistle.

Understanding came to him quickly. It was the combination of the pointed way she enunciated her sounds, the obvious satisfaction and irritation that accompanied his actions, and her physical restraint that clued him in.

He gulped and slowly extended his hand towards the web, not intending to touch it, but needing to test his hypothesis.

Click-click-growl.

He pulled his hand back.

Purr-whistle

His shoulders slumped and he looked away from her and the entrance. He remained as such, balancing his weight on his good leg and very conscious of the monster at his back as she weakened and then finally released her grip. He could feel her eyes studying him and sense her approval when he did not reach for the entrance again. Her final purr-whistle carried a distinct note of satisfaction and a light hand at the small of his back urged him back into the creature’s lair, away from the entrance.

He stumble-limped away from her until he hit the other end of the cave and leaned against the wall, watching through the curtain of his hair as she finished the web, blocking off the hole he’d almost crawled through and leaving the rest of it covered in sticky trap-lines. They were only connected to the sides by a couple of thick strands, easy enough for her to detach in order to leave or return but if Rumple tried, he’d be as surely stuck as he’d been in the forest.

He was terrified and helpless but something inside still raged and refused to be resigned to this fate, whatever it was. He needed to get home for his son and he would continue trying to escape as long as he was physically able. He’d just have to find a way through the web or come up with a different plan.

He’d put everything he had into getting away.

He just hoped the spider woman did not get hungry before he succeeded.

Chapter Text

 Family is Never Forgotten

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Genuine Regret

Chapter Text

This Prompt Fill: Belle spies on her human and attempts to make amends.

Prompt: @iambicdearie: Drider!Belle tries to apologize :D, @Anonymous: Rumple to thank Belle, leave her his finest thread (or something made out of it). Belle is surprised to find out that her human is capable of making such incredible "web". [maybe she can even see, from the very edge of her territory, their little hut]

Despite Belle’s decision to let her human go back to his own kind, she found that she missed his presence almost as soon as he was out of sight. Driders were usually solitary creatures, but she’d grown fond of his company over the last fortnight and now her home-nest felt far too empty.

Setting him free had been for the best, she knew. He had not wanted to live with her and she did not want to make him miserable by keeping him from his child, mate, and pack. However, the night after she released him, she found herself straying away from her normal hunting routes, following the trail of scuffed dirt and broken grass that the two humans had left in their wake when they fled. It was no mystery where they were going; there was a human settlement not far from the border of her territory. When she’d first decided to hunt two-legged prey, she’d scoped it out as thoroughly as she could without crossing the border, just as she’d done with the road close to where she’d captured her human.

It was a long time before she caught a glimpse of him since he did not emerge at night and she rarely went out during the day, but eventually she saw him standing in the doorway of one of the dwellings on the very edge of the settlement. Her heart jumped in her chest at the sight of him, a thrill that got caught up in her hunting instincts. She itched to catch him again, bind him with her silk and draw him back to her, run her claws over his face and through his hair, and listen to his quiet barks and yelps even as she responded with her own clicks and hisses.  They could not understand each other, but she could pretend that they did.

It was easy enough to suppress the instinct; the human was far enough away that it would take a concerted effort for Belle to even get near him, let alone catch him. But Belle still watched him with unfulfilled longing for the few moments that he was outside. She watched him standing slumped over in the doorway holding his walking stick in front of him like a shield and watching the world with wary eyes, a position of fear and submission. He rarely raised his head from its downcast set and the only sign of real happiness or animation she saw from him was when his child approached.

At first, the drider thought that maybe his unhappiness was temporary. She even considered that maybe he’d had second thoughts about leaving her and was unhappy about his choice – but he didn’t improve the next time she saw him. Or the next. Or any time after that.

That was when she started to wonder if it was her fault. Had she damaged him in some way? Changed him? She’d tried to be gentle and keep him well-fed and cared for while she had him – what if she’d done something wrong?

It seemed obvious to her that his circumstances had to be a result of her actions. Surely he’d been happy beforehand. Why else would he have tried so very hard to get away?

If it was her fault, what could she do to make him happy again?

She watched, worried, and wondered. Her options were limited since she couldn’t actually approach him – she wouldn’t fit in his nest, even if he decided to welcome her, so anything personal was not feasible. She could spin silk for him, but he’d never seemed very interested or impressed by the webs in her nest – if anything, he’d seemed frightened by them. However, she did not have anything else to give.

It was as she was watching the village one evening, waiting for her human to emerge as he sometimes did when his child came home with the advent of nightfall, when an idea struck her. Her human had always looked unhealthily skinny to her, but she’d assumed that was just the nature of the species when he hadn’t seemed sick or died. Now, looking at the other humans bustling around and shutting themselves inside of their wooden nests, she noticed that they were all considerably wider around the waist than hers. They all seemed happier, too.

Perhaps, if hunger was the issue, she could hunt for him?

The next night she forewent her own hunting to catch a small four-legged prey, a rabbit, and made sure to kill it cleanly without biting it (experience had taught her that her human could not ingest any food containing her venom – he’d nearly died the only time she tried to feed him meat she’d killed in such a fashion) and then removing every trace of webbing (experience had also taught her that he could not get through her silk no matter how hard he tried).  Then, in the small hours of the night, she snuck into the village, a massive eight-legged shadow that did not cause a panic only because there was no one around to see her.

The village slept on as she laid her offering in front of her human’s doorway and then returned to her territory.

Rumpelstiltskin discovered the rabbit when he tripped over it and almost broke his neck. He was always one of the first men awake in the village so that he could gather water and daily necessities before the others emerged to scorn and bully him and so that he could get an early start on spinning to make the most of the day.

The light was only just teasing the horizon when he stumbled outside, leaning heavily on his staff and stifling his yawns with his unoccupied hand. He nearly pitched forward on his face when his stick got caught on the furry body.

At first, he thought it was a joke. There was a band of young teenagers who were just reaching the age where they understood that Rumpelstiltskin was a victim and a target rather than an adult to be obeyed – their parents had made sure they internalized that message. Rumple had already dealt with a handful of pranks and he worried that they were getting more dangerous as the children got older – it wouldn’t be out of character for them to set a bundle of worn out furs on his step just to make him fall.

But there were no laughs and jeers, no pointing children that scurried away when he scolded them.

And then he realized it wasn’t a bundle of furs at all. It was a rabbit. A plump, un-butchered rabbit with enough meat on its bones to keep him and Bae fed for at least three days – a valuable, unexpected bounty.

He hastily squirreled it away inside the door before anyone could notice and take it away from him, and then moved on to gather water from the well, wondering all the while who would give him a rabbit like that.

Charity?

Not likely. Not for the village coward.

But if not charity, they what?

It was as he was skinning the rabbit that he found his answer. The spider-woman had meticulously removed all of her webbing, but there was a slight adhesive quality left behind on the rabbit’s fur that caught at his hands. He was well used to it since he’d been wrapped up in her webs more than once and had spent hours trying to scrub the residue from his skin. He’d only ever encountered such a sensation with her webs, and there were no other spider-folk that might look kindly on Rumpelstiltskin and his son.

It worried him that she was still interested in him. In fact, if she knew where he lived, she had to be actively watching him. However, the meat was sorely needed and Rumple could not reject it, not if it would keep his son’s belly full for even a short while. Bae’s snares might catch a couple squirrels once a week or so and the other villagers were more likely to sneer at him and kick his staff away if he dared to try to buy meat from one of them. He could buy some at the market, marked up at least double, but that only came once a week (or once a month, when there weren’t enough people around). The only other option was to travel to a larger village to buy meat, but that ate up precious working hours. For the most part, he and Bae made due on a few bites of squirrel meat, grain, and semi-fresh vegetables.

That morning, he was able to make a quick rabbit stew and Bae woke up to the heady smell of cooking meat. The look of excitement on his face was enough to convince Rumpelstiltskin that he’d made the right decision.

And when another rabbit was delivered to his doorstep three days later, he began to wonder if he could pay the spider-woman back somehow.

Belle found the package when she came to the edge of her territory to watch for her human one night, as had become her habit when she was in the area at twilight. It was a small bundle of familiar fur tucked behind a bush a little beyond her territory. Since she knew that the fur had been in her human’s possession, she was dreadfully curious and barely even waited until nightfall before she crept over and unwrapped it.

Inside was a cream-colored doubled over twist of…silk?

No, not quite silk. Or not real silk anyway. It was the same sort of substance that made up the humans’ clothing. She unwrapped the end of the strand curiously and studied it, investigating the weave and strength with the pads of her fingers. It was actually quite fascinating; soft rather than sticky, and surprisingly strong and durable for all that it couldn’t stretch like a sheet of silk. She could break it, but she didn’t think it would deteriorate the way her webs would if left alone too long. It was also a much more pleasing color; cream rather than sickly white.

Was it a gift? A thank you?

Whatever her human had intended, it was a thoughtful gesture and it indicated that he did not actually hate her. Its very presence reminded her of him and she happily ran it through her hands, winding it around one wrist and deciding she would find some way to use it as a decoration or turn it into a covering of her own, like the humans wore. Perhaps she could weave it into a circle for her neck the way she’d seen human females don pretty metal and stones.

With a quiet hum and a light heart, Belle set out to find another rabbit to leave outside her human’s nest.

Chapter Text

This Prompt Fill: When Rumple runs into trouble trying to escape from Hordor, Belle arrives just in time to interfere.

Prompts: @Anonymous: Drider!Belle sees Rumpletiltskin and Baelfire again when they're fleeing Bae's conscription, and decides to follow them. She is, naturally, enraged when she sees Hordor kick "her" human. This might work better as a second prompt, but one of the soldiers injures Belle during the altercation, so Rumple and Bae decide to help her back to her cave/nurse her back to health., @Anonymous: Drider!Belle defends Rumple/Bae from something/someone

 It was a rare treat for Belle to find her human in her territory. Not unheard of, but his recent timid incursions were usually carefully timed for when she was asleep and they were too random for her to predict and intercept him. The closest she could get was the edge of the forest beyond the border of her territory in the no-man’s land where no drider lived. Her need to hunt and patrol her territory kept her from spying on her human as much as she would have liked, though she savored every glimpse of him that she could get.

So the day that she heard his quiet, incomprehensible barks and cries echoing through the trees in her territory while she was laying webs and collecting prey, her ears perked up eagerly and she hastened towards the location. She slowed down when she was almost there, not wanting to scare him away (at least not before she could get a good look at him). That was when she realized he was not alone.

Belle came to a halt in the shadows of the trees next to the open trail where the humans stood; staying motionless so that her armored, eight legged lower body remained hidden in the shifting darkness and eyed the collection of humans and horses beyond with interest.

Was this her human’s pack? She’d seen no sign of a female mate in the months she’d been spying on him; his child was the only other human to regularly visit his nest. But perhaps that was just how human packs worked – maybe this was a hunting party of some sort.

That was when her human fell to his knees in front of one of the other humans, a larger male, and his offspring started yelping in distress. The low whimpering coughs coming from her human’s mouth were the same sounds he’d made when she’d captured him the first time. They were sounds of fear.

A more careful estimation of the situation revealed that the strange humans were not including him, they were surrounding him and their expressions were not friendly – they were coldly predatory. If this was a hunting party, then her human was not one of the hunters – he was the prey.

Fury curled her clawed hands into fists and drew her lips back from sharp fangs in a snarl that was accompanied by a low, grating hiss.

Without a second thought, she stepped out of the tree cover and pushed herself to her full height over the humans, snarling savagely and lashing out with her first two sets of forelegs.

Total chaos greeted the drider’s sudden attack. Horses screamed and bucked in terror as the scent of a predator reached them and the men were little better. Those that weren’t flung aside by her legs shouted, screamed, and tried to run – only to find that their horses had fled. One or two pointed their swords at her, but the weapons that had looked so dangerous against their scrawny prisoner were a paltry defense against the massive monster.

Belle hissed, stretching to her full height and towering over the humans that had been hurting her human. All but two of those left standing cut and ran, following their horses on foot. The last two were the leaders - the dark-haired male standing over her human and the one restraining her human’s child. Both of them stank of fear and the whites of their eyes were clearly visible all around their pupils, betraying their terror.

In the time she had spent with her human in her nest, Belle had come to see him as more than simple prey but as she looked as these new humans that was all she could see. Venom dripped from her fangs as her killing instinct sharpened.

The bigger male barked at her with false bravado but when she extended one long black spider-leg in a threatening step, he stumbled backwards. His eyes lit upon his victim, still cowering on the ground and watching the chaos with wide eyes. In a fit of desperation, he lunged for the spinner and yanked him forward by his hair, drawing a pained yelp from the crippled man as he was dragged forward. The bigger man threw his victim down in front of the advancing drider and, so that he could not crawl away, kicked him in the head. Hard.

The spinner’s head snapped back, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell in a heap in the center of the road, unconscious.

Rage painted Belle’s vision red. Instead of falling on the new prey as the strange human intended, giving him a chance to run, she stepped right over the obstacle and went straight for the target of her anger.

Frantic human barking met her actions. The leader slashed out at her in desperation, leaving a hot, stinging line of pain across one leg, but it was not enough to even slow her down. There was no way the human could outrun her scuttling, eight legged lunge.

He went down with a hoarse scream that hurt her ears but did not even make her pause. She picked him up by his shirt, effortlessly restraining him as she yanked his head to the side and dug her fangs deeply into his neck, injecting enough venom to kill a creature twice his size. Instantly, he started to cough and choke, then to shake, and within a minute he hung dead in her grasp.

She carelessly tossed the corpse aside, wrinkling her nose at the taste of the human blood that now liberally smeared her mouth and chin. It seemed her parents had been correct; two legged prey did not taste very good.

The second aggressor had fled, she found when she looked up. He’d used his companion’s death as an opportunity to run away unnoticed. Even now, Belle could hear his clumsy, crashing steps as he ran away – right into her territory. There was no need to follow him; he was headed for the human road, but the route he’d chosen would take him through two of her webs. In his panic, she was sure that he’d run right into one soon and she’d kill him when she finished checking her webs for prey tonight. His prisoner – her human’s child – had been left unharmed in the center of the road where he still stood staring at her silently, face white and reeking of fear but not running away.

With that assurance, she turned towards her human, still lying insensate on the road and gently picked him up, holding him upright as she assessed whether he was alive or not. She could smell the blood rushing beneath his skin, see the way his eyes darted nervously beneath his eyelids, and feel the slight twitching and flinching of his skin under her touch. Even unconscious, it seemed he was frightened and trying to flee from her. Or, more likely, from the other humans.

That was enough to summon a dark scowl to Belle’s face. She’d sent him home because she wanted him to be happy and safe. Not tortured and killed by his own kind!

It seemed her first instinct had been right after all; she’d have to take care of him herself.

She set him down gently for a moment as she drew a long sheet of silk, then wrapped it around him securely – but not too tightly. She’d learned just how much he hated that the last he lived with her. After that, she just held him close for a long moment, clutching him to her like a child with a favorite toy – possessive, protective, and ultimately glad to have him securely in her grasp once again.

Then she easily slung him across her back and bound him lightly in place with another sheet of silk so that he would not fall.

She hissed an absentminded instruction at her human’s child as she turned to scuttle back to her nest.

Cli-cick

“Follow.”

 Bae had no choice but to pursue the spider-monster carrying his father despite the horrors he had just witnessed. He stumbled past the contorted, motionless bodies of Hordor and the soldiers that were unfortunate enough to being the spider’s reach when she lashed out. It hadn’t even been hard for her to kill them. He wasn’t even sure she realized she’d killed so many.

Those eight legs of hers were deceptively fast even with one of them injured and dripping dark blood and ichor, and Bae found himself rushing to catch up, several times relying on the blood trail she left in her wake. He might have let her outpace him (since he was now more frightened than ever of her kind)…but he could see Rumpelstiltskin’s limp form slung over her insectoid lower back like a sack of flour and securely held in place by webbing that he knew he wouldn’t be able to break. He wasn’t going to lose his father again.

“W-wait!” He called when it looked like she was about to climb a tree too sheer for his human hands.

Then he quickly slid to a halt and back-pedaled when her immediate response was to turn on him, glaring and making threatening clicking sounds. She was on him before he could bolt and he fell to his back, tripping over his own feet in shock and terror. Her massive abdomen hovered over him and her spider-legs surrounded him on all sides, caging him in.

At that point, she hesitated and Bae took the opportunity to kick at her desperately and managed to catch her injured leg, drawing a pained gasp. But the distraction did not have the effect he wanted – instead of backing off when her face twisted in pain, she lurched forward, poisonous fangs bared.

The young teenager screamed in fear and threw his hands up to defend his neck. He was so expecting the monster to rip his throat out that he barely felt the light prick as her fangs pierced the skin on one of his outspread wrists.

He felt the effects though – his head started spinning and his fingers and toes became numb, a sensation that slowly spread up his limbs. His coordination was one of the first things to go so he could not crawl away when he realized what was happening. He was left to slowly fall unconscious and wonder if this was what Hordor had felt in his last moments.

 Belle watched the young human fall with irritation. She should have wrapped him up when she picked up her human, it seemed. She’d been trying to be nice and she’d offered to take up with her when she was about to climb! And in response he’d attacked her!

However, he was her human’s child and her human would not be happy without him. She could not hurt him and she could not leave him here.

With a put upon sigh, she spun him into a web as well and bound him next to his father. The drop of venom she’d used to knock him unconscious wouldn’t last for long; she’d have to set up a good place to keep them before he woke up. Some place much further from where the other humans lived, where her human could live comfortably for an indefinite period of time.

This time, she knew what would happen if she let him go back to his pack. She would keep him safe, whether he appreciated it or not.

 Rumple woke up with a splitting headache trying to rip open his head and the unmistakable taste of bile in the back of his throat. Every movement was agony; even the twitching of his fingers seemed to radiate through his skull and it was only with a great effort that he managed to swallow down his nausea and work past the dizziness that was telling him he was moving even though he hadn’t so much as twitched and the ground beneath him was solid.

Slowly, he managed to pry his eyes open, squinting them against the scant light. There wasn’t enough of it – the sun must be going down. He needed to get home so Bae wouldn’t worry about him. Thankfully, whatever bully had put him in such a state seemed to have abandoned him once he was knocked unconscious. Rumple just hoped he’d been left somewhere relatively safe and clean. There did not seem to be any carriage wheels creaking around him nor footsteps of men or animals so perhaps he truly was alone. He wasn’t too worried about not remembering what happened: he’d been bullied and knocked out enough to know that it wasn’t uncommon to lose a few memories, especially in the first few hours.

Bae was far more important. How long had Rumple been unconscious? The lad must be frantic.

Very, very slowly the spinner realized that there was something very wrong about his assumptions. First, he noticed that the hard floor was not packed dirt or scrubby grass – it was true stone, which was rare in his poor village. Second, he noticed the smell. It was not overwhelming or immediately obvious – it was a subtle sort of tang, a little bit metallic like blood. He’d smelled it before when he was held captive by the spider woman and it wasn’t dissimilar to what you’d find around a slaughtered sheep killed by a pack of wolves. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and his instincts immediately started shouting ‘danger, predator’. However, when he tried to react, pain once again lanced through his head and he was unable to suppress an agonized whimper. A warm weight leaning against his side stirred.

“Papa?” His son was there. How had he not realized that? “Papa!”

He tried to form his lips into the proper response, but even that small movement hurt. His eyes slipped closed.

“Papa!”

But Bae needed him. He couldn’t go back to sleep, no matter how strongly the peaceful nothing of unconsciousness beckoned. Despite the pain, he forced his eyes open and whispered his son’s name.

“Bae?”

“Papa! That spider monster kidnapped us! I mean, okay, I guess she saved as from Hordor too, but she bit me! And you were wrapped up in her web – are you okay? What’s wrong? Can I help? Did she hurt you?”

The babble of words mostly passed in one ear and out the other. He had no recollection of the events Bae was talking about.

“My head…” He managed to force out, hating to burden his son with the knowledge of his injury, but knowing he couldn’t avoid it, not with Bae having found him in such a state.

“Oh! Horder kicked you in the head. Hard. I guess…really hard. Papa?” A hand shook his shoulder, concerned. “Papa, are you okay?”

Though the gesture carried the best of intentions, the movement jostled Rumple’s head and instantly he was once again consumed in pain. He twisted onto his side away from his son instinctively as agony and dizziness exploded through his skull, forcing his stomach to abruptly lurch in protest and he retched weakly. Nothing came up – he hadn’t been able to stomach food for the past few days, not since Hordor started coming for the children.

“Papa!”

Bae’s voice seemed to come from far away. Memories were slowly emerging now – Hordor coming for the children, looking at Bae, running away…kneeling…

Despite his son’s voice trying to call him back to the present, Rumple slipped back into unconsciousness chased by Hordor’s sneering, barking voice and the giant silhouette of a spider with burning blue eyes reaching towards him out of the shadows.

 Bae watched his papa go limp with fear. When he’d woken up, he’d been upset to find out what the spider monster had done to him but he’d assumed his papa would be able to take care of everything when he woke up. Maybe he could convince the monster to let them go again, like he had last time. He’d assumed that his father would be fine when he woke up, just like Bae, and they would instantly begin to plan their escape. They would be fine, so long as they were together.

But he was wrong. His papa was not okay. Not at all. And it wasn’t the monster’s fault – it was Hordor’s.

Bae hadn’t liked Hordor but he’d always thought he was an impressive figure. He was a soldier and a knight, a fighter so unlike his father, and he’d always covertly thought the other boys and girls were being taken away to have adventures and find glory fighting in the war. At his age, death seemed like an impossibility, and he was full of youthful confidence that told him that of course his papa was over-reacting to the draft. Everyone called him a coward for a reason, after all, and Hordor had been sent by the lord of the Frontlands so couldn’t be all bad.

Except he’d done this to his father, for no reason. He’d been mean to his father when he caught them on the road in ways that Bae wasn’t sure he really understood, but this hadn’t been in response to his father’s cowardice. It had been a selfish, cowardly attempt to condemn Rumpelstiltskin to death in his place. Hordor had called his papa a coward, but his actions had been even more cowardly. At least his papa had been trying to protect him!

Hordor’s death at the spider monster’s hands was the first death Bae had ever seen and he found that he did not regret it. Looking at his father twisted over in pain with fresh blood trickling down the side of his head, he realized he was actually glad the bully of a soldier was dead.

A sharp clicking sound immediately commanded his gaze and he turned to look at the opening to the cave where he’d woken up with his father, immediately tensing up at the sight of the spider monster crouching down to look in at him. He swallowed.

She’d looked in on him before, but he’d always screamed at her and thrown loose rocks trying to scare her away, believing that all he needed to do was wait until his papa woke up and they could escape. To his surprise, she’d merely stepped back and left him alone so far. Now…he knew his assumptions had been incorrect and she was the only help he or his father were likely to get. He didn’t know where they were and they wouldn’t be welcome in the village even if he managed to escape and run for help.

“My papa’s hurt.” He said, tone as even as he could make it. There was no recognition in her eyes, just blank lack of understanding, but when he did not try to drive her away, she eased her way through the opening, forced to duck her head to avoid the hanging lip. Bae’s hands curled into fists and he longed to fight or flee, but indecision and protectiveness kept him firmly planted as his father’s side.

The spider woman stopped close enough to look down at Rumpelstiltskin but far enough away that Bae would not be able to hit her if he lashed out. A little of his fear evaporated when he saw the way her brow knit with concern when she saw the blood staining his father’s head and the painful, tight curl of his body.

“Can you help him?” Bae demanded desperately.

To his surprise, she made an odd grating, purring sound and he held absolutely still as she reached out with one clawed hand and patted him on the head. The young teen watched in disbelief as she repeated the gesture with his papa and then scuttled out of the cave.

She was back within an hour bearing some green herbs with broad leaves and tiny white flowers that looked familiar to Bae but he wasn’t sure why. He watched as she mashed them into a paste between two stones and did not interfere when she carefully applied them to his father’s wound – now painfully swollen – and bound the poultice in place with sheets of bandage-like silk.

Almost immediately, the deep lines of pain in Rumpelstiltskin’s face eased and he relaxed into a more natural healing sleep. Something tight in Bae’s chest eased and he found himself shaking with the loss of adrenaline. The spider-woman made that same purring noise, patted him on the head again, stroking his hair with something like affection, and then retreated, once again leaving him alone with his papa.

 The next time Rumpelstiltskin woke up, he remembered everything. The pain had receded to a dull throb with occasional bright bursts when he moved his head too quickly, but he could think again and he managed to push himself into a sitting position without any assistance. Bae was so relieved to see him upright and clear-eyed that he lunged into his arms, hugging him tightly in a way he hadn’t since the last time they’d been separated.

Rumple returned the hug and smiled at his son, relieved beyond measure that he was safe and free from Hordor’s death sentence of a draft. However, he quickly realized there was something on his head and when he reached up to find a length of silk wrapped around it, pinning a spot of comforting coolness to the lump on the side, he realized there was a price to pay for their freedom from the soldiers.

Bae explained everything in a confusing babble of words that seemed to boil down to the spider-woman attacking the soldiers and kidnapping the two peasants, killing Hordor in the process, and then caring for Rumple’s wounds while he was unconscious. He listened without comment, uncertain how to feel or respond.

Just as Bae’s explanation was coming to a close, a familiar scrape-click drew Rumple’s attention to the opening of his newest prison – or perhaps his refuge. The spider-woman was standing on the other side, looking at him and Bae with her head cocked. To his surprise, his son did not shrink back in fear. In fact, he was the first one to respond.

“He’s okay, see?” It took a moment for Rumple to realize Bae was talking to the drider.

Her eyes flicked towards him and then re-focused on Rumple who shot her a wan smile.

“Thank you for saving us.” He knew she didn’t understand, but still felt he needed to make the effort. And even though she didn’t understand the words, she seemed to understand his tone because she smiled and stepped forward.

It was hard not to glance nervously at her multitude of intimidating legs, as always, but this time he noticed something new – on her left front leg, there was a poultice much like the one on his head, only it was sliding down and stained with dark blood-like ichor.

“What happened?” His tone sharpened. The other two blinked at him in surprise before looking at her leg.

“Oh. I guess Hordor hurt her. I didn’t notice.” Bae squirmed guiltily. It didn’t seem right, somehow, that he hadn’t noticed.

She merely clicked and tossed her head, which Rumple imagined meant ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.’

He frowned deeply in response and slowly dragged himself to his feet, gathering what little courage he had before limping forward. Bae quickly inserted himself under his arm to help him walk.

“You saved us.” He explained simply, trying to communicate his intentions with his eyes. She was too familiar to be so intimidating, now. “Let me help you.”

She seemed bemused, but delighted when he approached her of his own free will and sank down into her version of a sitting position to let him carefully re-bind the poultice over the injury and even use a torn scrap of his own shirt to make the dressing firmer. Bae helped by holding it steady as Rumple wound the dressing, only hesitating for a few seconds before firming his resolve and setting his hand on the spider leg half as long as his entire body.

Somehow, despite knowing that she’d killed multiple human soldiers so recently, the spider-woman seemed less threatening to the humans now than she’d ever been before.

Chapter Text

This Prompt Fill: Belle learns about books.

Every once in a while, the humans that passed Belle’s territory on the nearby road left things behind. Usually they were small items or rubbish; fruit skins and seeds, cracked twigs, frayed scraps of cloth, tarnished coins the same color as the dirt where they’d been lost; but once, Belle came upon the remains of a capsized carriage. The driver had managed to get it upright and on its way but did not have the time to recover all of his possessions before nightfall. He’d been forced to leave some of it behind or brave the denizens of the deep woods at night all alone. He was long gone by the time Belle found the site of the crash.

Usually when she found discarded items, she would study them curiously for a few moments and then leave them behind. As a drider, she had no reason for personal possessions and her frequent moves between caves and home-webs meant it was actually highly inconvenient to own anything she could not afford to leave behind or make herself with her silk.

However, this time she found something that piqued her interest in a way she’d never felt before; a length of tanned leather folded around a sheaf of thin-cut wood pulp stitched together on the left side. Though she did not know it, the original owner had been a fairly wealthy merchant with enough riches to his name to indulge in a luxury rarely found in the poor peasant villages of the Frontlands: books. Something Belle had never seen before.

She flicked through the pages of the volume she’d found with mounting fascination, running claw-tips gently over the indecipherable markings. Elegant smooth script that some human had taken great pains to copy down. It had to mean something; no one, not even a human, would have invested so much time and effort into creating it otherwise; but what?

For once, Belle did not discard what she found by the side of the road; she tucked it in the crook of her arm and dropped it off at her home-web before continuing on her nightly hunt. Over the next few weeks, she paged through it often, trying to find meaning in the unknown language. However, there were only so many times she could look at the same unknown marks and remain interested; eventually her focus shifted to other sources…including capturing a human of her own.

The book remained forgotten and discarded beneath layers of silk in her home until many months, perhaps years, later when she decided to change the location of her nest so she could be closer to the cave where she’d placed her human and his child.

Rumple looked up in surprise when the spider-woman scaled the cliff over his head and dropped down next to him in the small meadow outside of the cave where he and Bae had been living for the last couple of weeks. She was making excited clucking sounds under her breath and holding, of all things, a book.

He cocked his head to read the title, nonplussed.

Her Handsome Hero

It looked like a novel of the sort that noble ladies liked to spend time and money on. As a peasant, he’d always had to devote all of his time to working and didn’t have the money to buy so much as a pamphlet, let alone a leather-bound work of fiction. However, his aunts had made sure he knew his letters when he was a boy and he’d made sure Bae knew as well when he reached the age to learn. They were surprisingly well-educated for peasants in the Frontlands.

The spider-woman simply stood there, looking at him and holding the book and he stared at her in confusion.

“Er…?”

She clicked and held it out towards him.

“That’s a book. Her Handsome Hero ?”

A sigh was her response and she flipped the book open to an apparently random page.

The spinner leaned over and looked at the neat lines of text. Upon the spider-woman’s prompting, he began to read.

“The hero was strong and pure of heart; despite removing his armor to preserve his honor during the duel, he easily won and mercifully allowed his opponent to live. The princess, observing his great deed, offered him her handkerchief as a token of her love and –“

He trailed off, wrinkling his nose slightly in distaste. It was all very flowery and idealistic, far from reality as he knew it and he wondered how a spider-woman living in the deep woods had managed to get her hands on such a thing. When he stopped reading, she purred deep in her throat and gestured emphatically.

A grimace was Rumple’s response. He did not want to read any more of a story glorifying the actions of nobles, especially noble soldiers, not after what had happened – what was still happening on the other side of the forest – in the Ogre War.

“Why don’t you read it yourself?”  He asked desperately. Not really thinking about it, he pointed at the first word. “That is the word ‘the’. T-H-E.” As he carefully enunciated each letter, he drew it on the ground with his staff…and then looked up at her hopefully. She was looking between him, the book, and the letters on the ground in indecision, but it didn’t take her long to decide that what he was doing was more interesting.

Shortly, he found himself giving her a lesson on what letters correlated to what sounds in the local human language; he had no idea how she planned to translate it since he did not know any words in her language and as such could not teach her anything she could actually understand, but if it kept him from having to read a novel that reminded him far too much of his plight as peasant subject to the cruel whims of the Frontlands’ nobility, then he was game. Who knew? In time, maybe she’d be able to figure out a way to translate their languages and truly communicate.