When my brain began to wake up once more, the mud around me had cooled. I didn't think much of it and tried to wiggle deeper towards the hot mud on my right, but the pain in my foot and shoulder woke me up the rest of the way. Opening my eyes, I was not in my usual cave that opened to the springs and a lovely view of the forest, but the dark hole filled with corpses. Ah, starting to remember the nightmare that brought me here. My tongue flicked out, grabing a fly to fill my empty stomach.
SLURP. Aunty Spider crouched a little ways away with Redzilla latched firmly in her fangs.
I stared at her a bit and she stared back. SNAP! I grabbed another fly. Luckily there were enough nearby that I didn't have to move, I didn't want to move, but they didn't taste that great. They were meaty, but what they had been eating wasn't in the finest condition. It was like eating that week old stir-fry with the questionable looking strips of chicken yet the veggies are still suspiciously crisp.
SPLIRT. Aunty Spider kept a hold of Redzilla with two legs as a third reached over towards me. I shut my eyes not wanting to see what came next. With a plop something warm and mushy splattered my left side. I waited to feel some sort of burning acid, but instead I just felt a slight warming sensation. When I opened my eyes I could see it was just fresh mud replacing what had cooled. SLURP.
The silence, slurping, and snapping went on for a bit longer. Soon I ran out of flies that dared to fly close enough for me to get and Aunty Spider's drink had become another mushy glob of fur.
Aunty Spider tossed the body to the side. "The mixture here of clay, volcanic ash, and the spring of life is very good for healing."
"You're really not going to eat me?" I squeaked with the biggest, cutest upward turned eyes I could muster.
"I might." She used a sac full of warm spring water to wash the mud off my shoulder and leg, then began picking at the web she had wrapped it in. "You have one week to bring me a replacement. As long as you bring me one to three prey a week as big as the one you brought here two days ago I will not eat you."
"Urp!" My shoulder stung as she poured hot spring water over the wound.
"If you fail, then I'll eat you." Once the wound was clean Aunty Spider began wrapping it with fresh web. "You can try running if you like, but I am much faster than you when I want to be and was trained by a master assassin in tracking down my targets. I will find you even if you leave this forest. Then I will certainly eat you."
"So, as long as I bring you prey you won't eat me?"
"Yes."
I could almost jump for joy, but when I tried my ankle still hurt. I could do that. I got attacked at least once a week and I knew where several animal trails were. I knew I should be wary of this aunty who said she would kill me if I didn't please her, but her gentle touch sent happy shivers through my spine. I hadn't realized how much I had missed the touch of another 'person.'
"Is that why you were reincarnated as Aunty Spider in this world? Because.you were a master assassin in you last life?" I tried to imagine it but couldn't. Every time I tried to imagine a sexy aunty, I pictured a dark haired, middle aged lady in a killer business suit seducing clients at bars. Every time I tried to imagine assassin aunty, I pictured a small spider hiding in an unremarkable looking man's sleeve.
"Kukuku, oh, nine heavans no." Aunty Spider laughed while pushing the throbbing mass of fur and maggots towards me. "I was a sales associate for a large company. In a way, I was quite cutthroat and made it as far as I did backstabbing and sabotaging others. However, it wasn't until I came to this world that I could add assassin to my resume."
I snapped up a maggot. It was white and vaguely popcorn shaped with a little crunch but mostly soft center. Not quite the perfect story time snack, but it would have to do. "How'd you become an assassin?"
"Hmmm. Well, that is a long tale from a time well past."
I puffed up with disappointment. I could just see her dangling in front of the unremarkable man's face like that spider and pig story where the spider had written a message in her web to communicate with the humans. "Please. Pretty please? Please tell me."
"How old are you?"
"Frogging old. I've been here at the springs several seasons, but I really don't know anything outside them. Anything about this world. Don't us reincarnated people have the right to be kids again? At least for a little bit?" I snapped up another maggot. "But you have been here for a while and knew a great and powerful master assassin. You traveled all over on missions, right? Tell me. Tell me, please. I want to hear a tale of the outside world."
Aunty Spider sighed, looking at me like a kid asking for another bedtime story. "When I woke up in this world I too was confused and knew nothing. I found myself a spider in a web in the corner of a room that looked nothing like I had seen before. So I watched my surroundings and accessed my hosts knowledge to learn how to survive."
"Wait!" I choked out before swallowing the wiggly mass in my mouth. "You can access the spider's knowledge?"
"Yes, haven't you accessed your host's knowledge?"
I looked into the maggoty cavity of fluff. "Noooo?"
"How have you survived seasons without your host's knowledge?" Aunty Spider tapped her claws on the ground with impatient accusation.
"Sleeping?" I squeaked, puffing up as if I could hid inside myself. I was very good at sleeping.
Aunty Spider rubbed four of her eyes. "Close your eyes and focus on your host. Relax your mind and access it's knowledge of the past."
I tried relaxing and thinking only of my froggy self before I woke up. "Whoa!"
"Do you remember something?"
"I'm a frog." I let out all of the built up air in a single massive sigh. "This little frog has always lived around these springs... I can visualize the forest creatures, great places for food, and places to avoid, but there is no knowledge of the outside world and most of it I have figured out already." A thought hit me with a blush and sense of sadness like no nuture show could convey. Thinking about being on the receiving end made me squirm. "It had many offspring... that are all gone now. Oh my God! Did it just eat one of its own young?... It lived a kind of sad life towards the end. It watched all the other froggies grow up and die. Are you sure us souls are a divine blessing and not a twisted joke played on a creature that should have died decades ago?" I didn't mention that I also saw the moment when it was sleeping in which it felt the eye of a greater being fall upon it. There was no great 'please grant me power' moment, just a little sleepy frog and then poof. Happy sleepy frog combined with happy sleepy me and became confused sleepy frog. I really don't know who got the better deal, but only the deity got to walk away. Then we awoke.
"I guess a frog doesn't need to know much," Aunty Spider shook her head, "and my path would have been much different if I had awoken in a forest. However, as a spider I needed that knowledge right away. Like you, it wasn't much about the world, but I needed to know how to make a web and survive. The spider had traveled a little before finding that corner of the room. After that, it had lived there for a long time. At first, it was an apothecary, then a seamstress, and finally the master's home. It even lived long enough to have watched the man when he was a boy grow up to become an apprentice... Not that the spider understood any of thar. The spider had never thought about it, but I realized there was something strange about the family. They took good care of the spider, but would take its young away just before they became old enough to leave on their own. After that, the spider would never see them again, but that hardly mattered to the spider anyways."
I snapped up another maggot while imagining the man gentally scooping the babies off her back and putting them in a silver box. Then he took them into the next room where he split them up into groups of five and left them there for a day. Once there was only one left in each box he put a little dead bug in the box for the surviver to eat. When they grew strong and plump he would put them in the hidden compartment of a ring or bracelet and hand them out to others in the household. It was an oddly big family. Maybe 30 people?
"So, I decided to learn more about this caretaker," Aunty Spider continued.