To Double Business Bound

Quest

Terry decided to go for a run, he and his brothers asked and were carried [like princes] into the Running room. “Guys,” he said to Draven and Battlekin, “I really want to go for a run.”

Draven, already on his second favourite wheel, “I'll run with you, com'ere.”

“He means outside,” Kin called from the forest of furry toys, “right, T?”

“The top of the curtain doesn't even look high up, right now, you know?”

The wheel slowed spinning from full-speed, “Go for it bro,” Draven grinned at him, “tell us everything when you get home.”

He knew, from booming voices, that Muhmee was about to open the door to hang with Snow in the Sleeping room and that Aun'Ld would go downstairs soon. This, he understood, gave him a window to explore - when the door opened he dashed through, whipping his tail around the door jam as it clonked shut.

“Haha!” he crowed.

Someone laughed from high above him, “Watch out for Cwump!” Snow called from Muhmee's shoulder.

Muhmee's voice echoed around the long tunnel as she hummed a tune to Snow.

Bowie, he thought, asking quickly, “North or east?”

“East, down by the Old Lady!”

“See you later, man, thanks!”

When the door closed, quiet fell in the tunnel. He could follow it south to the Sleeping room and the descending tunnel or north to the place of water; the Cleaning room and one of the previous Spiderlands. Snow had all the best information on who was moving where, last week [in the days before the humans all arrived at once and talked all night and day] had been a great sweeping and Snow'd said the Spider Queen had moved into the small spaces below Cleaning.

Terry had always wanted to meet the Spider Queen, when he was tiny his mum told tales about her spinning webs across whole tunnel roofs and birthing hundreds of babies at once.

Loping north along the corridor he could hear Aun'Ld begin to read their book to his brothers.

Fortunately the Cleaning room door was open a rat-span.

Inside the room was mostly white mottled with light reflecting in spectrum from the 'pearlescent wall' [as he'd heard Aun'Ld say once; talking about space again, while Muhmee put colour-changing gloop in her fur]. With the door all-but closed it was nearly silent and cold in the cleaning room, Terry jumped when his paw knocked against a discarded treat. Dried papaya doesn't really go bad when left out... he grabbed the treat in his teeth and sidled behind a big black chair [the one they took Snow to everyday, to heal him], settling to munch his stolen fruit.

Under cover of a great black cushioned wall Terry figured his plan of action. There was a hole in the wall around back of the biggest water holder, he could hear the air wheezing in and out. A clatter from the window caught his attention.

“You there? You? Who are you?” The voice came from outside and spoke in a heavy rolling accent.

“I can't see you, where..?” Terry poked his whiskers around the chair.

“Here. Up here.” As it spoke, a giant bird lurched closer to the opaque glass. “Who are you?”

Feeling his nose twitch involuntarily Terry asked, “You're a bird. Are you, a predator?”

“Your short-furred friend feeds us, mostly.” With a scrape and a rhythmic thwump the bird slid off the sill and hiked back up, clinging on with bloody-sharp sounding claws. “I don't usually bother with little guys like you, you know.”

“Uh,” he hesitated, it's one thing being a smart-ass to your family.. but this was a complete stranger. Dad always said to be courteous with strangers, because you never know when you might be pleasantly surprised by one. Mum always said you could count on a stranger to surprise you. “Well, what do you want, then?”

“Who are you?”

“Terry Noodle.”

“You aren't the other one? Comedian.”

“Snow?”

“The comedy man.” [[I'll write Snow's stand up career another time ;) ]]

Laughing, he had to ask, “My uncle talks to birds?”

The bird rumbled and said, “All [el tiempo]. It's dinner and show, every day come icy-winter.”

Stopping to absorb that, Terry sat back to clean his whiskers and rub his nose warm.

“You're a ways out without a human.” The bird remarked. “What are you doing, little one?”

“I'm exploring,” Terry grinned.

Rumbling again, “Haven't you explored your nest?”

“Not the Spiderlands. Yet.” Terry considered the great beast perched precariously, “Do you know how the other rats get around – the big ones, 'Westerns'?”

“You mean wild-ones?”

“Species – I'm Acacia but wild-ones are probably Western. They're huge, I once talked to a lass [through the wall] who reckoned she was three or four times the size of me.”

“They run on the ground, like all of you.” Came the haughty answer. “Though, I know, they use the human walls for cover.”

“Thanks. Hey,” he called out, running toward the far end of the room, “what's your name, birdman?”

“Sheila. Safe journey.” Whumph of air and she was gone.

A pink nose wriggled, the air smelt musty, ears and eyes followed nose. Around the last corner, web was strung between any available heights and sagged to the ground under a weight of dust. Ginger Terry slinked closer edge of the room, sniffing for the hole and sneezing repeatedly as web stuck to his whiskers. Creeping in from the south, waterpipes [two rat-spans wide] ran overhead and a wall of wicker book-cot left a ginnel back through to the east side of the Cleaning room. Pipes needed holes in the wall, and this one was big enough for Terry to slip through.

Inside the wall the air was peculiarly warm and quiet, like no breeze reached here. The webs were thicker here, older as though reinforced over time, and they formed patterns which didn't seem designed for catching prey. Inefficient loops and gaps that would let him through, let alone an insect. Ahead he could only see layers of web, most were normal looking or degraded, some held loops. Sniffing the air and listening carefully, he figured there must be at least two turnings ahead.

Scoffing the last bite of fruit, he considered the patterns. This one ended in a spiral leading south, the only direction available, the next [that he could see at a squint] ended leading west. A short gallop proved his idea possibly-correct, a path lead west of these loops and spiral [which was linked in some places and not in others]. Further into the wall south was another western path and a spiral which held a clump of web in the centre. He took this path, keeping moving in the direction of central-clumps.

After an endless time [~20 minutes], Terry was hopelessly lost in the maze of walls and beginning to lose hope in his map-theory. This path, if such it was, took the most circuitous route known to life. He'd been heading what he thought was south for a little while when he heard voices from above. Snow, was talking to.. the Old Lady. He must be between the Sleeping room and the Old Lady's nest. He climbed at the next chance, ignoring the spirals and gunning for the voices.

“Hey? Snow..? Lady...?” He trailed off, seeing an open space around him. Humongous wooden branches held in place at angles between the ceiling and floor, across the ground more branches between beds of a peculiar material that made his nose itch. The voices echoed up from another tunnel, north, or maybe west.

Getting down the vertical hole was tricky, his nails clung onto tiny ledges as he lowered his way slowly – mind filled with what would happen if he got hurt – webs snapped as he moved and slung across his eyes, covering them, his feet slipped.. he slid a long way down.

A short ledge passed his left foot, he grabbed lightning fast and held on with four fingers, scrabbling his other hand up and pushing off the wall with his feet to throw his weight onto the edge. It was barely big enough for him, but gave him purchase to pause and seeing an opening in the opposite wall he jumped the space to solid ground.

The tunnels were wider now, there were few webs low down [almost none in-fact^[^{NB:
'in-fact' a human term he'd adapted from a character named Holmes,
the driest detective.]}] but above his head were thick old webs as far as he could see. Ahead was a T-junction; Terry had gone a little bit too far out, past Spiderlands and into territory that [as Lady told it] wasn't really occupied by anyone [she called them badlands].

This seemed to Terry a terrible place to be.

“#Oh, u'm out looking for a slinky rat,” the song came from the left, Terry turned right and hoofed it.

“#A tiny sneeky dude, he'll hop about where you don't see him,

“And scoff your grub when you're not looking,

“Oh, u'm out looking for a slinky rat...”

Whoever the singer was, was chomping up ground and gaining on him. Figuring it would be better to hide, Terry scrambled the wall to an upper horizontal branch and coiled up loosely in the shadows.

Shuffling sounds and a soft thump came from the other direction.

“..tiny sneeky dude..”

*duthump*

“...when you're not looking...”

The shadows thumped again and he could make out a pink spot, fur around it, whiskers, he's huge!

“...for a slinky – huh?” the singer came level with Terry, he was smaller than the silent rat, but not by much. Similar, very dark fur, though something about his expression reminded Terry of a gentle human he'd met once [a lover of spread-sheeps or something.. humans are strange], meanwhile the other one grunted angrily at him.

“Cwump.. ah, oh, uh, good evening?”

He growled unspeakingly and thwumped his tail against the walls, which seemed to rattle.

The singer took a deep breath, “I don't mean to disturb you, man, I know you like to call this your land these days..”

*crash-thump*

“Ah,” he hopped back a step, “I'm, uh, just out tonight looking for this dude that got lost, he's domestic-”

Without warning Cwump lunged for the big-mouth, who spat and hopped out of range before throwing his teeth forward in a poorly-planned lunge of his own. Cwump sunk his teeth into big-mouth's shoulder and curled around him, scratching for belly with his feet. Terry did the only thing he could think of in that split-second, swiping as many webs with his tail as he could, he leaped into the fray. Cwump's face was covered by the time Terry landed on his head, knocking him into the floor and out cold.

Big-mouth spluttered webs, coughed and sneezed [while Terry placed a paw over Cwump's, his longest finger reaching to the giant's second knuckle] “I'm Brink. Noodle?”

“Uh, yeah. Terry.” He quirked his head, “How do you know my name?”

“Old Lady who lives next door asked me to keep an eye out for you, said you got lost.” He tested his shoulder, and started walking slowly back the way he'd come. “You're in the foundations, you know?”

“The whats?”

“Humans put these tunnels under their houses. Above us [and over there, if you want to be pedantic about the cellar] is your house, and the Old Lady lives through there.” He indicated a low turning ahead, before taking a left.

“Thanks, Brink,” Terry grinned and loped along [to Brink's stroll].

The big rat laughed, “I'd be Cwump chow if not for you. Not far now, I'm too grown for the inner walls these days.. ah, I could tell you stories of when we were babies and ran around this place, you guys didn't habit here then though...”

Terry listened happily to the stories until Brink stopped and pointed to a small hole with familiar walls.

“There's a couple of insect nests between here and your home, but you should be able to follow the spinnermaps, which are everywhere [when some grumpy bugger's not clearing them away]-”

“Spirals? Ha, I knew it!”

“Good luck, miniature dude.”

“Happy travels, big man.”

Inner wall tunnels were no less confusing than before, but he took time to study each spiral and after a few false starts he began to understand the method of depiction. Though the spiral was three dimensional these didn't always seem to correspond to the obvious dimension, up was always down but to the sides seemed to mean a few things depending on the angle. The tail of the spiral would usually lead towards tunnel entrances, or sometimes just away from more threaded patches of the inner spiral in a direction that had no apparent connection to the tunnel he was in.

After a little while he found himself getting closer to that clump of web again, and decided if he could already best Snow's warning then he might as well succeed on his quest too. The webs got thicker as he approached the hub, clean and fresh [today]. The spinnermaps stopped appearing in webs spun for them, instead just part of the patterns on the walls – sweeping geometric symbols, interlocking webs of bizarre designs apparently made by a lot of different minds, with what looked like guide-line ropes of thick corded web roughly two branches [2'] up and splitting out through each intersection and turning.

It wasn't long before he starting sensing vibrations through his whiskers, a quick scout around indicated that they were coming from the webs. Moving across the whole pattern from different directions, with short bursts of tugs and releases. After a minute or so they stopped entirely.. until one strong vibration sounded aloud from the guide-line, another plucked from elsewhere, and line began to beat. Terry found himself walking a little faster, in marching time to it; a silent-melody would sometimes be played through the wall pattern and he'd dance as he shuffled along the spinnermap's path. He saw no signs of the musicians yet. [[Aun'Ld took an active hand in their family's musical education, she'd taken joy in playing them disney-style musicals and everything from [Aunt Azura's favourite] violin concertos, through to [Mum's love] hip hop and rock. This was a little like the 'white-man-with-acousitc-guitar' songs that Mum'd grumbled through once, while Dad bopped his head.]]

The maps showed he was getting close as he noticed the beat began to speed and slowly outrun him. Getting cautious now, as he could hear clittering legs in huge numbers ahead. No spider was a match for a healthy young rat like Terry, but a swarm might be problematic. With a breath, he tossed his head and marched toward the lit tunnel-end.

Spiderlands were beautiful. Everywhere they hung, every species watching him curiously, some nervous and skittering away as he entered their warm nest. Eyes glowing in the strange source-less pale blue light, also glinting along and through the multitude of webs. Terry bathed in the sight of it, fixed just inside the door. A rustle ran through them all and the webs tugged and released [maybe it's a language?]. He got the feeling that something was coming.

They moved in synchronous parting, like a tide, away from the most delicate spider Terry had ever seen. A giant for her species she was probably a little taller than Terry himself but with such a tiny body and thin legs [Terry notice only two legs on her left side, the usual four her right].

“Hello, youngling.” She whispered, approaching him and placing several legs across his face, back and shoulders, “My, you are healthy,” she patted him all over while he watched her hold her weight and move from only two feet planted before him, in a most eerie fashion.

Satisfied, she sat back, swinging her face close to his ear to breathe, “Welcome to the lands of my children.”

“Humbly, I thank you, Spider Queen.” Terry bowed, not knowing whether he was making a fool of himself, but humans seemed to think royalty required bowing, so..

Her many eyes followed him closely, “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, youngling?”

“I, uh,” he picked two eyes and looked into them, “I was curious, really.”

She shivered violently. Terry looked up as the others began to shake, vibrating the webs and sending small flecks of dust drifting through the strange light.

“I'm sorry, are you okay?”

Whispering a shiver through his ears as she swung her face close again. “Laughter, Jungling; you will learn es gibt viel^* humour, zu meine kinder.” *[there is much]

Terry ginned at her, “How do you do the wall hangings,” nudging his nose to the tunnel, “back there? And why? Is it like artwork? Do all kinds of spiders live here?”

“Yes, all species are welcome here if they intend no harm to each other.” Nearby spiders rustled, shivered, “I see to it,” the Queen intoned. “Artwork is a hobby for many, we spend our days watching light rise and wane; I like to describe it in web, others have different drives.”

She began to walk away, tucking a leg behind him and taking him along a path between the walls to a smaller nest-room, this time climbing the walls to a long patch of web glowing near the roof. It looked, well, like web strung together. “I don't think I have the eyes to appreciate them.” Terry called up to her.

“A shame,” she shivered at him, spinning straight down beside him, “another time perhaps we can study the art of my kinder together, train your eyes.”

“I might like that.”

“For now, you are lost, a Lady tells me on the vines. My eldest will guide you,” leading him to another exit, where a small but stronger-limbed spider waited.

“Thank you,” he squeaked back to her, “thank you, I'll see you again!”

The Cleaning room felt colder when Terry got back through the gap, the sun must have set already. “..the end of the chapter, guys. More tomorrow?” He heard the faint booming voice and raced across the chilly room to the ajar door, peeking around it. No one in the tunnel, he could hear Muhmee singing along to the computer downstairs. Terry began to panic, if the humans saw him they'd know he'd gone out questing.. and who knows what trouble he'd get into? As he peeked, debating with himself, the door opened.

Aun'Ld was out and had started down the descending tunnel before Terry could even get level with the door. He called out, “Guys! Hey can you hear me?!”

Deaf to the world Aun'Ld kept walking, but Kin faintly responded, “T, you're too late!”

“Balls!”

“Go grab a human!” Draven bellowed from his wheel.

“But what if they.. you know?”

“What..?” Kin asked.

Terry felt himself flush through to the tail, “Kiss me, and call me cute..”

“What? Can't hear you?” He could hear them chuckling on the other side of the wood.

“Oh, bugger off!”

With that he was off the top of the descending tunnel, which always looked a lot steeper from right above the drops. He knew it would be easier to go down bum-first and slowly, but.. he hopped and rolled down the first step, stumbling and almost tumbling, he used the momentum to bounce off a skirting and hop the next step, finding a rhythm by the bottom.

This door was open completely, Terry felt as though he was going down into a summer's day it was so warm below. The humans usually sat on the long chair, he jumped and scrambled up to the seat. Smiling to see that neither human had spotted him, he took up position below the lightbox [skreen?]. After a minute Muhmee suggested watching the Daily Show [his favourite program too], they both looked over his head... Terry waited, grinning slyly.

“Noodle!!” Muhmee squealed, moving suddenly towards him.

“Terry, dude!” Aun'Ld squarked, “How did you get there?”

He was scooped up, kissed all over by both of them and told he was adorably cute five times or more. Privately, he pondered that they'd probably always hug him no matter how much he did wrong, family – you know.

To Double Business Bound

Saturday, 22 June 2019

Wednesday, 6 March 2019

Saturday, 28 October 2017

Thursday, 1 June 2017

Monday, 27 February 2017

Saturday, 25 February 2017

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

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