Dark Priestess of Araneas
The morning after the villagers of the town found her, the whispers began even as Najila cried for the loss of her family. The Aranean Priests had burnt the house; their sign, a spider web with a single spider in it burned into the grass before the house. But this village, being so near their sanctum, was not bewildered by it. They knew what the web and the detailed flies wrapped in spider silk meant, and the small baby spider also in the web.
Najila, the child who laughed and reached for the light always, her eyes shining like the brightest of emeralds, now an orphan, had been spoken for.
They looked at the child, barely out of swaddling clothes to their eyes, and wondered why the Priests of Araneas, the Dark Spider, would want her. Why would they want her? Najila, who ran for the sun whenever a door was open enough, who, while unafraid of the dark of night reveled in the stars and moon, not the shadows?
But nevertheless they knew the power of Araneas, and his priests, and knew the folly in hiding one the priests had destined for their ranks. So, the next night, the last night of the dark of the moon, they led her to the Dark Lair of Araneas and left her, turning without either a word of comfort or warning, on the doorstep.
"Come into my parlor," were the first words Najila heard that night. A cold, pale hand beckoned to her and she entered, without fear or anger in her heart. That didn't last long. She entered as a fly, shining in the noonday sun; she left as the spider, a black widow; her skin as pale and cool as alabaster, her lip the red of heart's blood. The only things remaining of her first life her vibrant green eyes, now usually compared to the color of poisonous creatures, a warning for those canny enough to take it, and her name, a whisper of that sunlight filled life. Najila Sulwen, meaning eyes shining bright like the sun.
"The Spider and The Fly"
