The kumojin hadn't gone far by the time the swarms of the fallen crypt-fiends filtered into the scourge holdings and dropped to the ground, inert as their defeated masters. Scouts immediately set out, but the crypt-fiends lost the trail of the living spiders on the cold stone of the mountain and did not want to remain outside in numbers for long lest a chimaera spotted them and alerted the night elves.
Lone scouts trickled down the mountainside, down towards the shoreward forests, seeking the path that would lead to their enemy.
****
"Dead things don't give much thought to poison," Kodachi said idly as she leaned low over the webs before her. "But we don't need these little darlings to fight for us, do we?"
Several of the tiny spiders reared up toward Kodachi as she spoke, drawing shivers down the spines of those looking on.
Kodachi, and apparently most other driders, had an innate empathy with insects, spiders and other such things that occasionally made even other kumojin uncomfortable, much the same way humans felt uncomfortable around a woman with what they considered to be too many cats.
Kasumi was one of those not "creeped out" by the sight. She'd been learning a lot about magic over the past few weeks, enough to sense it in others. Kodachi's gifts were different from her own, but they were no less natural.
Soon enough, the spiders swarmed off into the wilderness, seeking signs of dead creatures moving. Feelings of unhealthy energy and unnatural intelligence that they would find abhorrent.
Kodachi rose up with a cackle to see the spiders off on their mission of scouting as she stepped back with several spearing motions to stand beside Ranma and cheerfully pulled him towards her.
"Dachi," Ranma grumbled as one of his more boistrous mates practically treated him like a large teddy bear. "This isn't something funny."
"But they listened to me, Ranma-Darling," Kodachi said ecstatically. "They understood me, and I understood them."
About this time she noticed Akane, Shampoo and Ukyou slowly and quietly making their way back towards the trees, and pounced towards them playfully, landing first atop Ukyou.
"It worked," she said, laughing before she kissed Ukyou fully.
"Mmph!" Ukyou gasped before Kodachi let her uo in favor of other prey.
Most of the unoffical Saotome household blushed red as Kodachi took turns celebrating with each of them again and again.
"But is this nonsense actually going to work?" Aoshima demanded bitterly. "What do we do once we actually find the things."
Kodachi stopped her semi-childish tirade to turn about and stare at the self-appointed human representative. As if Keiichi was not well-suited to such a position. Much more sedately she stepped about and considered the question.
"Oh, we have other darlings for that," Kodachi said seriously. "Much bigger darlings."
A twinge of guilt for sending the spiders and other creatures into deadly battle appeared briefly in her eyes, but Aoshima missed it and it was then comforted as Ranma wrapped his arms around her supportively and the other girls came to stand by the drider's side firmly.
"When it comes to it, Aoashima-san," Kasumi said. "We'll do all that we can do."
It was all Aoshima could do to avoid sneering at the disgusting creatures. He remembered his recent bedmate Nabiki laying a smooth, white egg, and had heard that most of that Saotome's girls had been likewise impregnated and had mostly already laid. It disgusted him to no end and he couldn't figure out why he and the other humans hadn't just left the area and gone seeking civilization on their own.
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(Posted Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:23)
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