August 18th, 2013: The Well Under the World
My Love,
Hopping down from the altar with all the gangly grace of a newborn fawn, I stepped carefully up to the tree; my thoughts were stuck on ambush spiders, so every step demanded a frantic glance in every direction. Upon reaching the tangle of tree roots, I found it to be sadly impermeable to approximately me sized objects. Never thought I’d be too big for anything! A faint but insistent orange glow pulsed in time with my heartbeat from deep, deep within the mysterious depths below the Meteoric Mahogany, and the song that entranced me grew louder with each passing moment. I had to gain entrance.
Like any reasonable person, I decided the best course of action would be to tickle a plant. I reached under the nearest knotted confluence of roots and tentatively laid my hand upon the smooth bark there. A sigh of a warm breeze ruffled my hair in response. Taking this as encouragement, I began waggling my fingertips over the soft hair-like fuzz growing from the joint where two large root hierarchies branched off the main network. I’m not well-versed in analyzing the ticklishness of trees, so it seemed as likely a spot as any.
To my surprise and delight, a giggling of rustling leaves rewarded my efforts as the tree shook gently. Soft slithery scraping filled the air as the roots I had teased parted and closed in phase with the tree’s merriment. I watched carefully and noted that the aperture’s apex was just wide enough for me to wriggle through, and remained so for about two seconds per laugh. However, the laughter seemed to be dying down, and the access waves with it. Next I saw the roots spread wide, I dove through!
It occurred to me, as I sailed into empty darkness, that I really should’ve poked the unknown beyond with a stick to make sure there was solid ground to land on past the wall of wooden tangles. Luckily, I landed in a pillowy mossy mound upon the end of a branch that sprang out from the darkness to intercept me with an audible *sproing*. Looking down, I noted with no small horror that the pit beneath the tree seemed to swell far beyond its already sizable base and was unfathomably deep. All was pure darkness except a single point of scarlet light in the far, far depths that winked at me and twinkled blushily like a shy underworld star.
Well, now what? I lay awkwardly amongst a mass of moss suspended hundreds of feet in the air, a shivering puddle of terror. The intrepid shafts of light battling their way down into the depths only to inevitably be swallowed up by the abyss lent only a modicum of visibility to my poor popping eyes, enough to see that the branch I’d landed on seemed alone in the void; no way up, no way down (other than the obvious and unfortunate one). I allowed myself to indulge in despair for a few moments, but this new adventuresome world I’d entered seemed intent that my outlook remain fuzzily positive* for in the next moment I happily found myself no longer alone as the tangential shadows atomized and revealed their constituent forms to be those of millions upon millions of little spiders. The supportive branch was crawling with a blanket of eightfold friends of startling variety, and in the next few moments I was too!
Despite my recent encounter with rather threatening giant spiders, I’d always rather liked the little architectural masters. At that moment, I was mostly just glad for the company; eight legs are better than two arms for hugging. When they came in contact with my skin they started to glow softly in a thousand thousand kaleidoscopic patterns, no two alike. A particularly cute one reminiscent of a peacock jumping spider hopped up on my outstretched hand where the others had cleared a space for him. With grace to rival the most elegant ballerina, he soothed me with rhythmic rumble-rumps before fanning out his tailfeathers (?) and beginning the most intricately colorful dance I’d ever seen. Back and forth he swayed, ruby and turquoise and emerald fuzz patterns swimming breezily through the air and the fabric of reality itself, phasing in and out of existence as he teleported unpredictably over my fingertips. I believe he was flirting with me, so I smiled encouragingly down at him. The intensity of the spiders’ glowing pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and as my excitement mounted in direct proportion to the percentage of my body now covered snuggle-y in a fuzzy arachnid blanket, we turned our little oasis in the void into a veritable rave.
I tried to whistle some techno to add music to the mix, but my host took this opportunity to clamber inside my mouth. This curtailed my whistling attempts and was definitely startling at first, but they took care (somehow) not to block my airway. After I got over my surprise I began to enjoy the feel of their legs dancing over my lips and tongue, their little nipping love bites flooding me with pleasant tingling (also venom); eight million teasing kisses at once!
After only a minute or so vibing with my new friends, I began to feel my head swimming. Maybe it was the adrenaline or the oxytocin or the liters of spider venom in my system, but things were rapidly becoming downright
groovy
. I’ve never been high before as far as I know, but I’ve read enough accounts to recognize that I was apparently feeling pretty darn high. I made a mental note to invite a few of these fellas on home when I headed back… then I remembered there was no going back, and no home I cared to return to regardless. Welp, bring ‘em to whatever new home I find or forge for myself wherever my wandrance wends!
As colors flashed with new meaning and I was juuuust beginning to see the curvy fluid contours of the cavern air as she played with my hair, it suddenly dawned on me that it would be really cool to jump from my perch and dance with her. My altered state of mind could spot the patterns in the spiders’ movement as intent and thoughts expressed through dance, and they were trying to encourage me to love and trust the void beyond my safe haven. The spiders gleamed enthusiastically as I stood, inexplicably more steady and sure in my footing than I ever am while sober, and led the way darting out into the black. Their lights illuminated a shimmering complex matrix of webbing all the way down the pit, which the spiders slid along and caught themselves in even as they spun out new threads. Figuring the ones still on me could probably handle the webwork on my behalf, or something, I took a deep breath and prepared to step out into the black. With all the imagined grace of a swan, and probably actually a lot more like a particularly uncoordinated walrus, I dove off the edge after the spiders.
Quite unlike my featherweight chums I fell like a Belmont the instant gravity embraced me. She’s a rough mistress, gravity, but she thrills like nobody else. Giddy terror and tear-streaming euphoria overwhelmed perception as my twin dance partners gravity and wind resistance tugged jealously at me on opposing vectors. After a short eternity or two, a tarantula with fuzz softly glowing purple drifted below me, briefly illuminating my flailing figure, and slowing my fall ever so slightly with a strand of steely silk webbing. She was swiftly followed by hundreds and thousands more web-slinging thrill seeker architect pals of all stripes weaving complex tapestries with the ribbon of light each trailed before my dazzled eyes.
As spiders came alight along the walls in their effort to weave my good fortune, I noticed flashes of the burrow’s walls illuminated: vast networks of tunnels leading off further into the underdark wandered every which way and every one opened onto shelves of harmoniously interwoven silk and wood that ringed the mammoth chamber every few meters. Every treasure imaginable sparkled, briefly to my eyes, upon those shelves, from ancient grimoires who gazed curiously back at me and gem encrusted daggers pulsing with the need to be wielded to the grinning animate skulls of creatures unknown to the surface world. I’d befriended not just a neon spider swarm that knew how to party, but a neon party swarm that knew how to party AND were passionate librarians! As I took stock of the magical library burrow I’d committed my fate to, I noticed other creatures peeking out shyly from the shelves at the silly human explorer; buxom faeries winked and twinkled merrily as I passed, sleepy moles in stocking caps waved massive digging claws blearily in welcome, and massive eyeless worms smiled at me warmly with infinite independently rotating rings of teeth disappearing down their abyssal maws. I wonder if I could ride one? One day I’ll have to find them again and try.
The rave spiders zoomed back and forth ahead of me, focusing the density of their net on my upper torso so that I gradually shifted into an upright stance. Several dry eye blinks later and my descent was slowed to a lazy featherfall, just in time for me to alight upon cold stone on my feet and somehow calm as a clam. Didn’t even need to take a step after the dismount. The crash webbing had broken apart and disintegrated on the wind like a sigh of triumph, or relief, so there was no visible evidence that I hadn’t just done that totally boss maneuver all on my own; though I am grateful to my glowy friends, I choose to remember having had some sort of pivotal agency in the moment, which tends to accumulate more awesome and unlikely eldritch grace every time I tell the tale. We believe what we must, and anyway I find life is even more interesting if I let my imagination loose on memory to the point that I can’t separate the facts from the fancy. This private account is, of course, 100% unembellished truth.
A neon rainbow of unblinking arachnid friendship blanketed the walls and floor as far as I could see in every direction, with only a small break for my dainty bare hooves and a rather larger one off in the middle distance surrounding a stone well spilling over with shimmering magma. Though the magma was a good hundred and change meters away, I could feel myself getting cooked unevenly; I turned ‘round for a minute to warm my rump and get a nice char distribution, and also a little bit to scope the rest of the cavern.
Thanks to my dazzling arthropod host, I could see the far ends of the cavern – the smooth black stone extended in a five hundred meter radius roughly centered on the magma well and bore strange alien glyphs like stylish tattoos over every square centimeter. As my eyes wandered up to the inky vastness that was my sky, I expected to see a mere pinprick of light from my point of entry. Instead, I saw only darkness. Within that darkness, however, lurked a deeper darkness: I traced its curves and edges and shrank back as the form of a single massive spider resolved out of the surrounding blanket of shadows. Scarlet light from the well glinted off a pair of fangs many times my height in length, and a droplet of glistening midnight indigo venom fell in utter silence to splash in the center of the magma.
In a swirl of elemental ecstasy, the magma churned upward and seemed to stretch in a languid and unmistakably feminine manner. Waves of heat greater than molten stone can manage flowed over its (‘her’ was quickly seeming the more appropriate pronoun) surface and in their wake the magma turned a deep and soothing violet (eeeeh!). Neon pink molten veins between cooler surface rock sculpted themselves into a waist-length mane of pulsing hair and thicc chunks of bobbing stone rearranged themselves to make hips and thighs and all the standard issue lady bits. Speaking of, a pair of veritable boulders scrunched themselves into sinuous teardrops and took their rest proudly on her chest. She capped off the body transformation with a stylish glittering amethyst rhombohedron nestled in the smooth plane of her belly ‘round about where a human navel would be. Finally, the pièce de résistance, a perforated obsidian expanse so thin and malleable it seemed to fold freely like silk floated up to form the mask of her face. With a flourish of fire and light as her new arm parted from her curvy core, she waved enthusiastically to me.
First, I applauded her transformation. Second, I rushed over as quickly as I could while taking care to step around my spider friends, and got as close to the Lady of Lava as I could stand to be; she was hot. She giggled and beckoned me closer, and I tried to shout across the football field still separating us that my skin was already blistering. A minute inferno spider, its exoskeleton all jagged chiton ridges and molten lightning spikes like a single moment inside a pyroclastic flow, offered to intervene in our awkward greeting and save the day: she scuttled up my leg and bit me on the thigh, pumping her venom directly into my femoral artery. Her presence so far up my leg tickled me in a way I didn’t know tickling could tickle. As the comforting warmth of her gift washed through me, the previously scorching aura of sparks wreathing her form became similarly comfortable. She dropped off me and gave my foot a little nudge with her soft pedipalps, urging me to try my approach anew.
I took a few more tentative steps towards the sultry siren and discovered that her heat was no longer painful. In fact, the higher temperatures rose, the more secure I felt; the notion of snuggling down into the earth’s fiery core and pulling the whole weighted world blanket over myself seemed the coziest and best idea ever. Dimly, I noted that my nightie was on fire, but it didn’t really seem to bother me. In a flash of ashen silk it was gone and nothing stood between my flesh and the burning radiant passion of my new gal pal. Her grin widened at my exposure, and she beckoned me to step up on the lip of the well that I might be level with her.
Bounding awkwardly up, I was beside her in an instant. At this proximity even my flame resistant skin began to protest, but I couldn’t bear to retreat from her. Her embrace was a curious experience: like tongues of flame lovingly embrace and dance over the surface of a fuel source, so she washed over me in endless buffeting waves of heated hugging. Pain lanced through my everything, but I did my best to embrace her back. The alarmingly mouth-watering scent of my own searing flesh filled my nostrils as she darted in for a few rapid-fire love bites on my neck and collar bone, and the volcanic excitation of the moment left no room in my heart for worry!
As my vision began to bleed into a solid white agony, her face swam back into view out of the flames that wreathed my body. She smiled soothingly, and my pain disappeared. Leaning in as if to whisper a secret, she closed her eyes and her obsidian lips sought mine. Fighting both my admittedly underperforming sense of self-preservation and crippling shyness simultaneously like some kind of dangerous love ninja, I met her invitation with a hungry intensity.
Kissing her was what I always imagined a kiss should be like: passionate, urgent, and hot. Really hot. An audible *click* woke me from my romantic reverie somewhat as the flesh burned away from my lips and cheeks, my naked teeth and jawbone bonking into her stone mouth. I’m fine. This is fine. Neither of us broke our kiss despite my mounting injury, such was the power of our desire for each other. At least, we continued kissing right up until my skull collapsed into her face. I think when my lower jaw cracked and fell away a piece of it went up her nose and into the lava behind her eyes; how embarrassing! But, I’m sure that happens during everyone’s first kiss. Right?
There was no more pain as my squishy little form rapidly turned to ash and melted into the Lady of Lava. I could still see, somehow, though my eyes had popped and the looky bits sublimated long ago. It was remarkable to be kissing a lover hard, trying to meld with her, and then suddenly doing just that. My perspective had flooded inside her head and I found I could turn to see out of her stone mask. From the inside, I saw a half-meter long tongue of flame flick out and lick her lips (and then the rest of her face) and a thrumming hum vibrated her being and my world as she began to speak.
“You’re a brave woman, Violet. Most would have pulled away and fled, burned and broken and empty of all you’re about to behold. Brace yourself – our bonding was the easy part!”
“Also,”
she whispered directly into my thoughts, “
you’re a really great kisser!
”
My Lava Lady lover giggled and sank down into the well of thematically violet magma, and in a moment my world was transformed into an ocean of lava in every direction. My last sight of the surface was my inferno spider benefactor waving her pedipalps in an enthusiastic farewell. Or maybe it was her mating dance; she had just seen me make out with a force of nature, after all.
As we descended, the Lady’s mask cracked and melted away. The rest of her defining morphology followed quickly thereafter, though she’d made her mountains so mountainous that they took a bit to break down. When they were finally overcome, they burst in a blinding flash like dying stars… I’ll miss them.
Upon returning to a fluidic state, our awareness diffused to fill the expansive vastness of this burning underworld sea. But no, that wasn’t quite right.
My
awareness had spread throughout the lava, but the Lady’s remained smaller, still contained in a swirling semblance of her former form. She swam with lithe grace through the lava, and I felt every pulse of her molten musculature (or whatever), every rapid beat of her heart (?).
I could see every angle of the Lady and feel myself hugging every curve of her all at once as she languished in my form. As I tried to wrap my mind around this bizarre perspective, she pooled some of my essence into her hand and ran it down the indistinguishable yet unmistakable curve of her hip, drawing my sensation there. Migrating the puddle of me a smidge lower to her rump, she guided me to give it a squeeze by proxy. With a mischievous wink, she met and held my gaze while pirouetting within me; my gaze was everywhere.
I’d become an infinite burning underworld sea, and my lover swam through my body. I cannot say I saw that one coming. Her tutelage complete, the Lady dissipated into the surrounding Violet. I could feel her giggling mirth as both physical laughter rippling the pool of me and simultaneously as a direct emotion, as if my own but somehow distinct. Silence followed, and I knew the Lady of Lava had rejoined her consciousness with my sea of molten mystery. I’m not trying to brag with that last; I meant it quite literally. What part of any of this could be described as anything less than mysterious?
Probing about with my newly vast senses I could feel cool bounds at my periphery; presumably these were the walls of the cavern that I expanded into beneath the relatively narrow aperture of the well. The well itself was too small to feel, but by rolling my gaze about I found I could focus whatever passed for my vision on it – the inferno spider was still waving, so I made some waves on my surface at the top of the well that were intended to be waving hand motions. Couldn’t tell for sure if she got the message, but she did hop up and down a few times**.
Deep, deep within myself I felt a starkly different cold. Swimming my focus down to investigate, I found a strange formation of stone. It was a tiny statuette of a crow, apparently formed naturally from the surrounding garnet. It had three ruby eyes arranged in a golden triangle***, each trained piercingly upon me and pulsing quietly with a light quite apart from my own. Three pairs of wings adorned its body: the first erupted out and back from just below its neck, curling back towards me at the midpoint to form a domineering canopy. The second pair was folded loosely to either side, the pinnacle of relaxed confidence. I was most disturbed by the third pair which crossed over each other in front of the statue, a stance suggesting at once welcoming gentleness and condescending secretiveness. Taken together, the creature portrayed seemed to have quite a high opinion of itself and expected everyone else to feel the same.
Whereas the surrounding stone was kept near-molten by my presence, this statuette seemed unperturbed by my sea of Violet fire. Looking closer, I found that the segment of my surface in direct contact with it had solidified and gone numb – my perception of the statue’s cold was actually the cold at the outer edge of that deadened sector. Too curious as ever, I poked through my own protective buffer and erupted with an agonized scream as my searching tendrils came into contact with a cold unlike any I’ve known. It was what I imagine the deepest reaches of outer space must be like, hopelessly far from any source of warmth and light.
When I say ‘erupted,’ I mean it literally: a good kiloliter of lava surged up from the well and washed the underworld cavern above in howling Violet. Thankfully, I was able to see for a brief moment from each and every puddle, and thus confirmed that the spiders had all vanished before they could have come to harm. As the eruption cooled, my vision’s focus bled gradually back down to its former locus at the crow statuette. Then it proceeded, despite my protestations, to flow along the frozen tendril I’d used to poke the crow. I pulled away as hard as my will allowed, but the motion of my perception only accelerated toward frozen doom.
A terrifying moment of darkness consumed me as my awareness was shrouded by the dead tendril, and then a much more terrifying clarity burst upon me. The statuette filled all sensation; I was miniscule before it. Its eyes glowed a vibrant midnight blue that pierced my being and laid bare all my thoughts and memories. Everything Violet was parsed and cataloged with a cold glance, and then I felt myself pulled inexorably towards its gaping beak (which had definitely not been open before). The infinite depth of darkness within glittered with distant stars, and also promised a welcome reprieve from the crow’s gaze, so I swam with the flow to meet this new cosmic horizon.
Meet me in the deep,
Violet
*Mmmostly… the giant spiders maybe didn’t get the memo. Or maybe the positivity is really an artifact of my own cognition and shifted perspective? Hm. Either way’s good!
**With glee, insofar as I can infer the feelings of spiders.
***An isosceles fella whose shapely equivalent legs each have a length relative to his base in the golden ratio!
