Maeglin didn’t know what to leave out as a treat for the spiders. The wasp he had befriended had enjoyed apple slices, but bugs were all quite different from each other, weren’t they? He enjoyed watching the spiders; particularly he liked the way they would move more when not under observation. But he didn’t figure spiders cared about fruit. So instead, once he finished sketching the intricate web he’d been checking progress on every day, he left out honey to attract other bugs the spiders would want.
They are, all of them, even the largest among the webs, naught but babes in the face of such grand beings. Shadowlings compared to what the progenitor of their being may have been. O' betrayer of the sacred light of the Valar, the descendant of the great Fingolfen, treason upon Gondolin by his hand. Where once there was chaos in the darkness upon the web, there is now order when he comes to observe again.
The natural order. A circular function to find the miserable insects at the mercy of their predators. Coiled and wound so tightly in web. But the spiders, perhaps in some form of recognition turn their attention upon their benefactor. The largest among them close in size to the head of a grown man. Chittering sounds of mandibles as they move in an unspoken rhythm, watching the elf, as he too watched them. The spiders were thankful.
Not for food of which they could have caught for themselves. But for the perceived weakness gathered to show them kindness. When the largest among them was grown, surely it would grow to be a nightmare to those who would journey to the shadows alone. A shadow like the one dominating the presence of the elf, looming over and consuming his form like a predator all its own while he remained distracted by her young.
"What do you gain from this kindness?"
It was not one that ever would be returned. When they were large enough, and the hunger had gone beyond the little rodents and insects who now found themselves ensnared, the elf would be shown no more mercy than they.
"Do you think they would feed you? Do you think them better off because you have made them lazy for but a night?"
