Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Willow stood tall, and watched the flames.

The lighter was firm and comforting in her trembling hand. Fire - that old friend who never let her down - fire would surely chase off the lurking shadows, she’d thought. The darkness tried to reach out with claws, snuff out her precious campfire. She drove the grasping hands away, swinging her lighter before her, then returned and set more fires to keep everything lit, stoked them recklessly high. And now that she was looking at her camp like this, in the dancing firelight, there were so many things she could burn. A hulking, tentacled beast scuttled-slithered hastily out of her path and disappeared as she made her way methodically around the camp.

Now the clearing was a conflagration and Willow stood in the center, by the very highest flames, and silently dared the hallucinations to try something. The licking flames were tantalizingly, hypnotically beautiful. Nothing could touch her.

A hairy, charcoal-black apparition, no bigger than a child, stared at Willow from the very edge of the firelight with far too many round eyes. She stared it down, challenging - took her eyes off it to light another fire at her feet. Giggled, shakily. When she looked up again, it had gone.

When daylight came Willow dug through the smoldering ashes for anything she could salvage. It didn’t take long; even the flint heads of her stored tools had cracked and fractured in the heat. She sat down, chewing at a leathery strip of rabbit jerky to satisfy her grumbling stomach, and considered her next move. Idly, she flicked her lighter open and struck a tiny flame, trying to soothe her troubled mind. It danced and flickered, merrily.

Footsteps. Another black figure was approaching, creeping hesitantly closer. Willow glared at it, willed it to disappear like the other apparitions, but it stayed resolutely solid. Ugly thing - it was covered in scrubby black hair, and its mouth was full of misshapen fangs. Eight glassy eyes blinked at her.

“Are you okay, miss?”

The nightmare creature’s voice was rough and hissing, mangled somewhat by those fangs, but quite understandable. Willow continued to stare. It scuffed a foot along the ground, looking down sheepishly. It was wearing a backpack of dried, woven grass, she noticed. Monsters weren’t usually much for backpacks.

“Um-m. We saw your stuff burning last night. And I wanted to come see if you were all right. You aren’t hurt? We saw you standing right in the fire.”

Willow licked her dry lips, responded. “I’m fine. Are you … real?”

The creature perked up, snaggletoothed mouth curving into a smile. “We’re real, we think. What’s your name, miss? Ours is Webber.”

It held out a furry hand, and she took it, with only a moment of hesitation. The fur coating his body proved to be stiff, dry, and prickly, but it could have been much worse. “I’m Willow.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Willow,” he said, the very picture of a polite young boy, apart from the matter of his actual appearance. The spidery limbs jutting from either side of his head twitched as he fidgeted restlessly. “Is there anything we can do?”

Willow shook her head. “I told you I’m fine, thanks.” Her hands played restlessly over her lighter again, flick, flick.

Webber shrugged off his backpack and rummaged through it for a moment, pulled out a bundle of slightly wilted flowers. “Here,” he said, holding them out to her triumphantly - not just a bundle, she saw, but a woven-together garland. “At least take this! We always feel better wearing nice things. If you’re sure you’ll be okay, Miss Willow, we ought to go check on our traps.”

Willow took the garland and fingered the petals for a moment; she had to admit, the flowers were nice, a pleasant mix of reds and oranges and a few yellows. It would look nicer on fire, of course, but it would be best of all to wait until it was completely withered and dry first, and in the meantime she could certainly wear it. Webber’s face lit up in a delighted smile as she settled it into place on her head, and tentatively smiled back.

“G’bye, Miss Willow,” he chirped, settling his backpack back on his thin shoulders, then pointing into the forest. “We live over thataway if - if you ever wanna visit.” Under the hissing, spitting overtones of his voice was a tense, hopeful note. She wondered how long he’d been around, alone. If she remembered correctly, the thick forest in that direction was absolutely infested with spider dens - she'd considered the pros and cons of burning them out, and was, for once, glad now she'd refrained.

“Bye, Webber,” she replied, standing up. No sense wasting daylight, not when she had precious firewood to replace and a camp to rebuild. “Yes, I’ll come visit later. Thank you for the garland.”

“Okay!” Webber gave a discordant little shriek of what was probably delight and scurried off, turning at the edge of the forest to wave excitedly. Willow smiled, waved back, and turned away to begin the long, boring process of rebuilding over the charred ashes of her camp.

The garland dried and crisped quite pleasantly over the course of the day as she worked in the hot sun, cutting trees, splitting the logs into rough, splintery planks. Surrounded by the heady smell of pine-sap and pine-smoke, that night, she tossed the garland into her fire and watched the lovely red petals wither, curl, and burst into gorgeous flames. The lurking shadows that had been plaguing the corners of her vision were all but gone.

Chapter Text

Willow chose her path carefully, winding through the dense pine so as not to disturb so much as a strand of spiderweb. The revolting mounds of webbing that housed the creatures were still and silent, for the moment, and oh, how she itched to burn them and this entire forest down wholesale. As tempting as the thought was, she shook off the mental image of that blazing, beautiful inferno and concentrated on looking for signs of her fellow survivor - the odd, monstrous child who’d approached her in the ashes of her burnt camp.

He could have left her to her flames and her madness, easily. The least she could do in return was find him again and give the kid some company other than trees and spiders. She assumed it was a kid - he’d acted like one, more or less. Not a totally sane kid. But, hey, who was she to judge?

Willow squatted to examine an unfamiliar object on the forest floor, and suspected she’d found one of the traces she was looking for. It was placed near the edge of one of the vile mats of webbing, constructed mostly of more silk, but woven together with more skill and intent than the spiders’ haphazard mounds. A handful of seeds sat in the center of the rough circle. Pumpkin, maybe? She was no farmer.

Willow took a thin branch and poked it carefully into the circle, stirring up the innocuous pile of seeds. Almost immediately the trap sprung, two halves snapping shut and forming a rough sphere that would have seriously inconvenienced any foolish bird. Willow puzzled over the silk trap until she figured out how to reset it, and left it where it was, moving deeper into the forest.

Before the sun began to set, she found two more identical traps, and other telltale signs - bushes picked clean of berries, saplings stripped of branches, bare patches of dirt that had been recently disturbed. However, as the light on the horizon dimmed, the spiders were beginning to wake up; she heard shifting, scuttling, and once a muffled hiss. Pulling out her lucky lighter for the extra light and comfort it provided, Willow weighed her options - turn back and make it to her own camp before night fell and the monsters came out to hunt, or press on. It was awfully tempting to turn back and try another day.

A breeze rattled the needles of the pines, and brought with it the familiar smell of campfire smoke.

Willow followed it, and quickened her steps when she found the distant glow of the campfire itself.

Webber looked up from what they were doing when they heard footsteps, real people footsteps, not scritchy spider legs clattering, or froggy squishing, or worse yet the panting and barking of the awful doggies. He’d been plucking the feathers off a redbird, sorting out and setting aside the very biggest and prettiest, while the other one drooled over the thought of how the meat would taste. They’d both looked up in some alarm, and it had taken a moment to sort out what they were seeing on the very edge of the firelight (and through eight crazy jumbled views, which was getting easier all the time and was, from another point of view, the way he’d always seen) and then Webber jumped to his feet, delighted.

“Miss Willow!” he said, dashing towards her. “Hello! You came!”

“Hello, Webber,” she said, giving him a little wave with the hand that wasn’t holding her lighter. She pulled her eyes away from the blazing firepit and looked all around their camp. “This is very nice.”

Webber puffed out their bristly chest with pride. “Thank you, Miss Willow. Are you hungry? We were about to eat, we’ll share.”

Willow nodded, pulled a handful of berries from her pocket to show him. “I’ve got plenty - I’ll trade you, fair’s fair. I suppose those are your traps I found, then?”

“Yes! Bird traps! They’re our webs. Not really like a web but close enough and he helps, you know, and that’s how he thinks of it. Birds and berries for dinner! Too bad it wasn’t birdberry breakfast -” Webber cut himself off with a nervous giggle, turned to their drying racks and gathered up strips of crow jerky. His other half was still drooling, and he scolded himself mentally to knock it off, he was being rude and gross! He retorted by wordlessly emphasizing how empty their poor stomach was, legs twitching impatiently.

“How long have you been out here, Webber?” they heard Willow ask, and they looked back to see her prodding at the logs of the fire with her bare hands, making it spark and crackle and blaze up even brighter. She didn’t seem to notice the heat at all.

“A w-w-wh,” Webber stuttered out. Swallowed. “A while.” Willow, absorbed in the fire, didn’t press. He held out half of the jerky to her. “Here, Miss Willow. Bird bits.”

She accepted and stabbed the chunks of meat onto a stick, holding it out over the fire to toast and warm up. Webber, less patient, tore off bite-sized pieces and forced himself to chew. His teeth really weren’t meant for it, but his tummy complained even worse whenever he swallowed his dinner whole - what a mess they were.

Willow looked away. It took Webber a minute to remember - table manners, like Mum taught him, mouth shut when eating. That’s silly, he thought, there’s not even a table. The few things Mommy-Longlegs had taught him about food, which had never been in words, added up to ‘eat it quick before your siblings do.’ Manners were important, he told himself. Don’t, don’t, don’t be gross. It was easier with spiders.

“Are you saving those feathers for something?”

Webber blinked (two-four-six-eight), shook out of arguing with himself, and nodded eagerly at Willow. “We made a hat - a nice silk hat like F-Father’s, and when we caught this redbird we agreed the feathers would look nice in the brim. It was so pretty. We can’t agree on how many feathers to use. He thinks it should just be one but I want to use a whole clump - like this -” He picked up a handful of the smaller feathers, fanned them out to show Willow what he meant. “Let us get the hat, I’ll show you!”

They scrambled up and pulled open the crude chest they’d built to hold their things, pulling out the top hat. They’d made one or two clumsy attempts at one before, but this one was much better. It was just a little too big for their head, but that was fine.

“See!” He held it out for her, proudly. Willow was smiling, in the firelight.

“You made it yourself?” she asked.

“Yep! Even the silk is mine.” A complicated expression flickered across Willow’s face, and Webber shut their mouth, sitting down across from her. Picking up a feather, he held it against the hat, fussing with the position as they argued internally over what looked best.

Across the fire, Willow picked at her skewer of meat with her fingers, chewing the warmed-over jerky. (Neatly, with her mouth closed! See, see, Webber chided himself. He was unimpressed.)

“Webber, what are you?” she asked, quietly.

Webber set down the hat, ducked his head down, picked up another red, red feather and twirled it between his fingers. “Once upon a time,” he managed, “there was a little boy. With a mum, and a father. He pulled the tail of his grandpa’s cat, and he wouldn’t eat his vegetables and, and, he stayed out too late, playing, and he. H-he got lost. Once there was - there was a big, hungry spider, and he found a lost little boy, and he gobbled that little boy all up. And he ate so fast he choked. He choked so bad he died. And the little boy is me, and the big spider is me.”

Webber let it all pour out in a big rushing babble of words, more than they’d talked in a long time, but Willow was there, and listening, and he wanted so badly for someone to listen, and understand them. “W-w-we - we didn’t, we don’t know why. We woke up, like this, I was so scared. He was mad. We didn’t know what to do. There was a man…”

Her face darkened. “A tall man? In a dark suit?”

“He said he could help us.” Webber let the feather go, watched it spin and float to the ground. “He lied.”

The sun was gone, and the shadows were closing in around the edges of the firelight. Spiders hissed and snarled at each other, out in the night. Solemnly, Willow placed another log on the fire, coaxed it into flaring up higher. Webber gratefully scooted closer, lifted the top hat and settled it onto their head. They felt a little better, with it on.

“Your hat is very nice, Webber,” she told him. Awkward, but sincere. “You did a good job on it.”

“How do we look? Grown-up?” he asked, pushing it up and out of his eyes. It slipped down again almost immediately.

“Silly,” Willow said, frankly. “But I like it. You aren’t scary at all in a top hat. It’s cute.”

Their spider-legs twitched and kicked, insulted - cute? he wasn’t cute! - but it made Webber smile anyway. “Thank you, we think.”

“Come over here and bring those feathers.” Willow beckoned them over to her side of the fire. “I’ll help you.”

He obliged, gathering up his fistful of the very best feathers and sitting down again beside her. “…You said you’d trade me berries,” he reminded her, shyly, blinked each pair of eyes. Two-four-six-eight.

“I did,” she acknowledged, rummaging in her pockets to unload a small pile of the sweet red fruits between them. She popped a slightly squashed one into her mouth, grinning. “All yours. Now let’s see those feathers.”

Webber obliged, leaned forward slightly so that Willow could work on their hat while they got down to the important business of eating. The berries were fresh and juicy, a welcome bit of sweetness, and they ate one at a time, made them last. Willow stole a few from the pile now and then while she considered one feather or another, discarding the less vibrant. Still, Webber was able to eat until they were full - a rare and precious sensation

“Thanks for the berries, Miss Willow,” he said. “And for listening. And for not being scared…”

“That was a fair trade,” she pointed out, leaning back to survey her handiwork. “And the rest, it’s just - it’s just fair. It’s just true. There, now you really look dapper. Red’s a good color.”

Webber tried to say something back, but it got caught in a big yawn, and they rubbed at their sleepy eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m - We haven’t really - for days, now, we didn’t want the fire to go out, and the dark-”

“There’s no point in trying to get back to my own camp in the middle of the night,” Willow said, somehow, thankfully, understanding what he meant. “I’ll stay and watch your fire, if you want to sleep awhile.”

Webber nodded, so hard that the top hat flopped down even farther over his eyes, and thanked her again. She waved it off, her attention held mostly by the cheerful, roaring fire. They managed, in between yawns, to make a crude, scratchy pillow of dried grass, roughly bundled up (too tired for real weaving-work). The warmth of Willow’s fire, a much bigger fire than they usually dared to make; the belly full of decent food and not chewy, hairy monster meat or raw veggies grubbed out of the dirt; the full force of the long sleepless nights they’d spent awake and terrified of the darkness - it all hit at once. They curled up, tucked in their legs as best they could, and were asleep almost at once.