@soverynearlyuseful submitted: A nice nephila genus spider found in Taveuni, Fiji! I love the golden web. No ID necessary, just wanted to share this big beautiful lady!
Ohohohohoho one of my favorite genera! She’s exquisite, I hope she’s aware
My two wasp ocs, using a base by @bubba-draws ! Pallas is the former partner of my other oc, Prince Oren [NOT CANON TO ORENS STORY.] and he is the father of Nephila.
Pallas was a toxic partner to Oren, but slowly reformed himself and is now allowed to be part of Nephila's life.
Belle French rested her notebook against her protruding belly and took a leisurely swing on a hammock made of golden spider webs. Sunlight streamed in through the holes at the top of the cavern--relics from when this place had been an opal mine. Her movement disturbed a cascade of dust motes that sparkled as they fell through the air. Rumple liked to stay in the dark places of his cave but there was enough light here to make Belle feel like a golden queen.
Above her, she heard a faint noise. Thin strands of silk vibrated on the various webs set up around the cave. Some of them were connected to the outside world. They served as signals for prey in the area. And predators.
At first, Belle hadn’t understood what predators Rumple was so afraid of. What animal on God’s green earth could ever be a threat to a spider whose body was the size of a car and whose leg span could straddle a city bus?
But of course the answer was obvious. The biggest threat to Rumple was the same threat to every other animal in the world: Human beings.
In this case, the human was a woman named Mary Margaret Nolan. She and her husband owned the sheep station where Belle was officially living. Officially, Belle was taking a sabbatical from her doctoral studies at the University of Maine. Officially, she was taking the time off and using the Nolan’s land as a sample for her thesis. Officially, she was on their payroll as well, since somehow her presence had prevented sheep deaths by a large percentage.
Pulling herself up and out of her hammock, Belle lumbered along a series of thick, horizontal webs that Rumple had set up like stairs around the cavern wall. Earlier this year, she had been able to swing on the threads like Tarzan. But over the past few months, her waist had grown and her center of gravity had shifted. Furthermore, Rumple had gotten more protective lately. He would always catch her, but there was still no reason to fall in the first place.
The center of the cave seemed to be empty, but there were enough shadows for Belle to know he was here somewhere.
“Mary Margaret is going to drop off our supplies and leave,” she assured Rumple. “Just like every week. You don’t need to be afraid of her.”
The voice that emanated from the darkness was thin and raspy, but also held tones of being ever so slightly offended.
“Not afraid,” it said. “Cautious. Concerned.”
Belle snorted at that. Of course he was concerned. Rumple was one of the most endangered species on earth, and her pregnant belly was carrying his only living young.
****
To her surprise, it was David Nolan who met her under a shady tree a few meters away from the cave. This was Belle’s official campsite, where she was supposedly living while she studied wildlife. If the tent looked so neat as to be barely used, well, that’s because it was.
“Hey, Belle,” David said once he turned off the Jeep. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, fine,” Belle said noncommittally. “Where’s Mary Margaret today?”
“Baby Neal is fussy so she sent me instead. It’s nice to get a hands-on view of the property.”
“I bet.”
Without any more ado, David and Belle went through the transfer that had by now become routine. She gave him a bag full of trash, and he gave her packs of shelf-stable food and litres of water.
“I’ve got some mail for you too,” David said.
Belle took the offered papers--an envelope from her parents and a postcard from Ruby.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, well.” David scratched the back of his head. “Looks like that’s all.”
“Yep.” And the sooner he left, the sooner she could lug all this stuff back where it--and she--belonged.
“Um. There is one more thing. I wouldn’t normally bother about this, but Mary Margaret wanted me to ask.”
“What is it?”
“When are you due? Speaking as someone whose wife just had a baby, you look like you’re about to pop any minute now.”
“Oh!” Belle’s face went hot. “Oh, not for a long time yet. I’ll be out of here before I go into labor. Promise.”
“It’s not that we want you gone or anything,” David said earnestly. “But that sort of thing can creep up on you.The last thing anyone wants is for you to be out here alone when the time comes.”
“No, I won’t be alone,” she didn’t lie. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine for a while yet.”
“Okay,” David seemed relieved to drop the subject. “If you ever do need us, you’ve got the solar radio.”
“I do,” Belle nodded. “Tell Mary Margaret I’m grateful for her concern.”
“Well, you’re almost family by now.” He turned back to the Jeep. “Anything you need, just let us know.”
“I will!” She waved him off, painfully aware that this time her promise was a lie.
****
The walk from the campsite to the cave seemed longer with every trip she had to take. Rumple lurked in the boarded-up entrance to an old mine shaft, to bring down each load as she brought it to him.
“Oof!” Belle said when they were finally done. She sank back into a web-chair, happy to put her feet up.
“Going out is bad,” Rumple observed. “It hurts you.”
“Everything hurts,” she said. “According to the book, that’s normal for week thirty-eight.”
Not that Belle knew for sure what week of her pregnancy she was in. Though she remembered well the date of conception, anything more exact was beyond her ability to guess. Probably a doctor would be able to tell her, if she could ever run the risk of seeing one.
Rumple scurried around her, his arms poised in a preying-mantis like pose while his fingers twitched. He was nervous. He was always nervous when she was out of his sight.
Reaching up, Belle rubbed the underside of his cephalothorax. If he was a true giant spider, this would be something like his chin, beneath his head. Since Rumple was more of a spider-centaur, the area was below his waist. Regardless of anatomy, the result was to calm him down. He hummed a brief note, and lowered himself down to her level. His gold-brown hands brushed her hair out of its ponytail. He stroked her.
“Belle is back,” he murmured mostly to himself. “Belle will stay.”
“Forever,” she promised. “No matter how impossible it seems.”
Because it sure did seem impossible. In this day and age, a person couldn’t just fall off the map. There were so many connections in place, so many people who would be devastated to never see her again. As much as Belle wanted to throw her life away and run off with a monster, the practicalities of that arrangement were harder than she would have liked.
Speaking of which, there was the letter from her parents. She read it with dread. They understood that she was in the bush with no access to a mobile phone, but how long, exactly, was she planning on staying that way? Belle had spent the better part of six years in Storybrooke and now that she was finally on the same continent again, she was even more inaccessible than she had been in America.
It did break her heart to hear the soft pleading in her mother’s words. In a perfect world, Colette French would have loved to be a grandmother. But Belle could only imagine her mother’s reaction to the baby who would actually be born oh-so-very soon. She would scream and faint like any sane person. She wouldn’t see a baby, but a monster.
Everyone would. Which was why Rumple never left the cave, and why their child never would either.
To cheer herself up, Belle read the card from Ruby.
Hey Bestie! I tried calling but never got an answer. If snail mail doesn’t work, I’ll try a telegraph. Miss you and wish you the best!
Belle leaned back, and felt the web rock with her. Rumple had skittered back into the shadows for now, so it was just her and her feelings.
Somehow, Ruby’s card was even worse than her mom’s letter. Unlike her mom, Ruby knew Belle was pregnant. Ruby had been there almost from the beginning. Ruby had held her while she cried on her bathroom floor over the pregnancy test. Ruby had promised her unwavering support. If Belle couldn’t tell the truth to Ruby, who could she trust?
As great as Rumple was--and he was great in many ways--he couldn’t be everything Belle needed in her life. No one person could be everything, and Rumple had his own limitations. It was another part of this situation that felt impossible, that she would never know anyone for the rest of her life besides her spider-mate.
“Belle,” his voice called from the shadows. “Belle come to me?”
Hefting herself out of the web, Belle waddled over to the darkest part of the cave. She kept her hands on her belly as she walked, rubbing the bump that was going to be her baby.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she made out where her spider was lurking. He had settled into a more relaxed pose, with his back four legs spread out on a web. His front legs were on the ground, fully extended so he towered over Belle.
“I’m here,” she announced. What the heck was he planning?
“Sheer?” he asked. Take off her clothes was what he meant.
“Oh,” Belle said. “You wanna have sex again? You could just ask.”
“I am asking.”
“You could ask with more subtlety.” But subtlety wasn’t Rumple’s style.
She’d taken to wearing long skirts with elastic waistbands that could go over or under her belly. It was easy to take off the one she was wearing. Harder to remove her t-shirt and bra. Ever since she had gotten pregnant, her breasts had become more sensitive. Sometimes that was a good thing--as she and Rumple had found out on many occasions--but right now sensitivity meant pain.
“Be careful with me, okay?” She said when she was naked. “I’m not feeling so hot right now.”
“I know.” All eight of his black eyes drank in the sight of her. In the six months they had been together, his adoration of her hadn’t worn out for a minute. “This will make you feel better.”
Rumple lowered himself down enough to sweep Belle up into a bridal carry. With her in his arms, he turned around and crawled up the web. About ten meters up in the air, he stuck her to the adhesive strands of his golden thread.
He scurried around her body, fastening her to the web with bonds of silk. He had done this before. Belle knew it was a typical arachnid mating ritual--or survival tactic. With real spiders, females were so much bigger that males often served as a post-coital snack. Tying up a female first gave a male a head start to run away afterward. Rumple did it because it kept Belle even more secure against the web. And because she had told him once that she liked it.
So she was immobile, suspended in the air, utterly at the mercy of a giant spider.
Not the worst way to spend an afternoon.
As he often did, Rumple started by rubbing and listening to her belly. His heightened senses made him the best alternative to an ultrasound that Belle could get. Sometimes Rumple could hear the baby moving without Belle feeling it.
“Do you hear anything?” she asked after a minute.
“Quiet,” he said simply. “Ready.”
“Yeah,” Belle said. “That’s what I figured.”
Despite what she had said to David, her labor could begin any day now. She’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, including today. What to Expect When You’re Expecting called them “practice” contractions, her body preparing for the real thing. They were irregular and always stopped after a while. Real contractions wouldn’t stop, but would only get more intense and painful until everything was over.
Rumple traveled over her body. Since his mouth was mostly fangs and chelicerae--which held his venom--kissing was off the table. But his hands more than made up for that lack. He touched her with such delicacy, with such care, that Belle always melted. Today he gently rubbed her feet and swollen ankles, before going up her calves and to her thighs. So much of the pain and the tension she’d been carrying dissolved under his touch. She was already half-boneless before he even started.
Tied as she was with her knees and ankles spread open, it was impossible to resist his soft fingers on her pussy. Not that she wanted to resist at all. She was wet and ready for him, a fact he acknowledged with a happy hum. He brought himself up to face her as he fingered her. Belle looked into his two largest eyes.
“Yes,” she told him. “Yes, I do feel better.”
Then she felt the familiar tightening in her belly. Another Braxton-Hicks contraction. Wincing, she strained against her bonds until it passed. Rumple looked at her with concern, but didn’t say anything. He waited for her to nod before he started touching her again.
Funny how an orgasm could feel like a contraction. It was the same tightening, the same clenching, the same overwhelming barrage of sensations. Belle struggled against the golden thread in the same way when she came. When it was over, the tension had left her body, until Rumple started touching her again to bring it back.
He tried touching her breasts, but she hissed in pain. They were too heavy--straining Belle’s skin like full udders. It was impossible to get any pleasure out of them just now.
She went tight again, without him touching her. The Braxton-Hicks contractions were starting to get painful. That was weird. Practice contractions weren’t supposed to hurt.
“Rumple?” Her voice came out higher-pitched than normal. “Rumple, I think something’s happening.”
“Yes.” He touched her face. “I know.”
Mentally, Belle counted to ten, very slowly. There was no point in getting angry. “‘Ready,’ you said. You said the baby was ready. You meant now.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was going into labor and you decided to fuck me anyway.”
“Yes.”
“You know, you really drive me crazy sometimes.”
“Yes.” His chelicerae twitched in a way that made it look like he was smiling.
Belle did not smile back. The situation had changed dramatically in the last thirty seconds. Now she wasn’t expecting to go into labor, she was very much in labor. Being trussed up naked on a spider web wasn’t an adventure anymore, it was an active inconvenience and probably bad for her health.
“Let me out of here,” she pulled against the silk at her wrists. “I have to get up and walk around while I still can.”
“Why?” Rumple seemed surprisingly nonchalant under the circumstances.
“Because that’s what the book says to do.”
He loomed over her on the web, hands poised over the bonds. But instead of getting rid of them, he just checked to make sure they were tight enough.
“Good,” he announced. “Safe.”
“Are you motherfucking kidding me?”
A few of his eyes blinked at the question. “Safer?” he asked. Then he seemed to light up. “Yes! Safer!”
Oh God, what was he going to do now? Belle watched him skitter around her body, spinnerettes whirling. He took more of his golden silk and wrapped up her legs and arms so she was even more securely tied to the web. She was just about to argue when another contraction jolted through her. The silk stayed secure, she barely budged an inch.
“Fine,” Belle gave up. “I’m going to have my baby in bondage, what else is new.”
Rumple hummed happily and listened to her belly again. “Soon,” he said.
“How do you know? Labor can take hours. I’m probably not even dilated yet.”
“Soon,” was all the answer he would give.
****
Maybe the reason the book said to walk around was to break up the boredom. Because labor was, unexpectedly, quite boring. The contractions kept getting worse, and more frequent, but the time in between contractions was… normal. Maybe it was because she was elevated, but she was surprisingly comfortable. If her arms were free, she might have gotten out a book. Or her notebook. This was certainly an occasion worth journaling about.
As it was, all she had was Rumple. He stayed with her on the web, massaging any part of her that seemed to need it. He held her when the contractions hit--held her as the contractions became longer and more intense. He seemed to understand what she needed. After all, Belle reminded herself, he had done this before. With that nameless other woman who had also gotten pregnant with a spider-baby, who had successfully given birth to Rumple’s first son, Baelfire.
That young had left, he said. Belle always imagined a runaway teenage spider with a bindle over his shoulder like an old-timey hobo. She often wondered about her baby’s brother. Where was he? Was he still alive? Did he miss the cave? Did he want to come back? There was nothing like parenting in the world of real arachnids. How much feeling did Baelfire have for his father? How much would her baby have for her?
Thinking about Baelfire kept her from worrying too much about herself. So did thinking about her labor as a cosmic trend. As much as this was a unique event in her life, it was statistically negligible in terms of the human condition--and even less so when considering animals. Animals gave birth without even noticing. She could do that too. Well, maybe she couldn’t stop herself from noticing, but she could try to keep from minding so much.
At least until the next contraction ripped through her body.
She was encased in gold, immobile, and had no outlet for the pain. Belle screamed and Rumple held her. He soothed her in the same way she soothed him, with gentle rubs and soft sounds. It helped. A little.
“I really wish I had a doctor,” Belle whimpered when the contraction was over. “I really wish I knew what I was doing.”
“Yes,” Rumple said, rubbing his hands together. “I wish too.”
So it went. Increasingly short periods of normalcy followed by increasingly long and painful contractions. Every time, it seemed like too much, like she would break apart. But every time she managed. She got through it.
Until she couldn’t.
“R-r-rumple?” It had gotten hard to talk, even between contractions. “Rumple, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
“Must,” he said simply. “Our young.”
“I know.” Tears and sweat poured down her face. “But it’s so hard.”
Rumple’s face--unreadable at the best of times--had transformed into stone. He looked at her like he was about to unleash the wrath of God.
“Belle,” he said. “How much? The pain? Too much?”
“Yes, it’s too much. It’s way too much. I can’t…”
His many limbs straightened out and he shifted on the web. For the first time since her labor began, Rumple left Belle. He went down to the edge of the web and came up the other side so he was behind her. Belle felt his hands on her back as he cleared away the webs that bound her there.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Pain,” he said. “This is… dangerous. But this will help.”
“Danger--?” Belle couldn’t finish the word before the next contraction took her breath away.
She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she felt a pain, different from the contraction. It was a piercing more than a tightening--and then she couldn’t feel anything. She was numb from the waist down.
“Oh,” Belle sighed. For the first time in hours, her body could relax. “Oh, what did you do?”
From the other side of the web, Rumple looked at her. There was blood on his fangs. Blood and venom.
“What did you do?” Belle asked again.
“Helped,” he said. “Yes?”
“Yes, but…” Now that her head was clear, she could put the pieces together. “Rumple, did you bite me?”
“Yes.”
She let out a sound that was half a sigh and half a groan. “Well, whatever works I guess. A homemade epidural is better than being in pain.”
The numbing effects of the venom wouldn’t last forever. When Belle had first met Rumple, she had seen him inject a grown man with enough to knock him unconscious. That had worn off after a few hours. Now Belle was stuck between the twin worries that it might keep her paralyzed forever, or it might not last long enough to get her through the birth. As usual, she would have to trust him.
In movies, there was always a doctor or a midwife telling the mother when it was time to push. Belle had no such help. She had to rely on instincts and guessing to know when her labor had transitioned to that point.
“Fuck,” she whispered. Though the pain was gone now, she wasn’t safe yet. She wouldn’t be safe until her baby was in her arms.
Rumple was back on this side of the web. He put his hand on her belly, as if that was supposed to help somehow. He listened to her womb.
“Can you hear anything?”
“Young is good,” he said. “Young is alive. Young is ready.”
“It and me both,” Belle tried to chuckle. Now that the pain was gone, the exhaustion was back in full force. “Ready for this to be over.”
More contractions. The feeling was so familiar at this point, she recognized the pressure even without the pain. Belle tried to push, unsure if this was the right time or if she was even doing it right.
Gradually, she got the hang of it. The tightening became her signal to push. Rumple kept watch between her legs, as attentive a father as he had been a lover.
And then, somehow, it happened. It seemed to go on forever, but then it was over. With a final scream, Belle pushed something out.
Rumple held it up so she could see: A bundle of webs, gold like his, but smaller and finer. It almost looked like sheep’s wool. An egg sac. It was covered in blood and other fluids, but Rumple brushed it all away from the bundle within.
Through the silence of the cave, a baby’s cry echoed out.
“Young,” Rumple whispered. He swaddled it in a cocoon of his own webs, clean and dry. “Our young.”
“Let me see it.” Belle spoke in the same hushed tone. It was half exhaustion, half reverence. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Male.” Rumple tore away the threads that had bound Belle’s arms. Then he said a bunch of syllables in his chittering spider-language.
“Sounds like Gideon.” Belle reached out for her son. “Is that the name you want? Gideon?”
He nodded, and gave her their baby.
“Gideon,” she said again. “Hi Gideon.”
He was beautiful. His skin was soft and squishy where Rumple’s had hardened into an exoskeleton. Like Rumple, he had two large central eyes and a pattern of smaller eyes around his face. Even the secondary eyes were large for his small head, bright as blue buttons. In the dim light of the sunset, he looked up at her and Belle could have sworn that Gideon knew exactly who his mother was.
Wanting to see the rest of him, she undid the swaddle. There was nothing she hadn’t expected. His skin was translucent, a milky white on his legs giving way to muted patterns on his cephalothorax and abdomen. Probably he would get darker as he grew older and molted his skin a few times. His legs were stubby, rounder and proportionally shorter than Rumple’s. Would he grow into the long legs of a nephila, or would Gideon’s human half affect his size?
His hands were so tiny. Belle put her finger in his little white palm and he grabbed it--a clear demonstration of the palmar reflex. That was his human side coming out. The descendants of primates needed to be able to cling.
“My baby,” Belle whispered. She put her lips to his soft little head. He had a few wisps of translucent hair covering him. “I love you.”
