An Arachne’s Views on Love
Any conversation held between a gathering of maidens is sure to bloom into discourse on love, complete with the honeyed scent of dancing petals. Lips lubricated with enough alcohol are sure to let slip the name of their fancied boy, and perhaps even the deeper secrets of their taste in men.
“Why I fell in love with him?” Margit asked in confirmation.
Faced with this question, her characteristic smile had been replaced with a rare grimace. The drunken ramblings of romance shared by the local girls had been boring enough, and to top it off, she personally didn’t think it was decent to speak so openly on the subject. She thoroughly enjoyed the space she currently occupied: she wasn’t quite a lover, but certainly more than a friend, and the saccharine relationship left just enough of a sour aftertaste to stimulate her senses.
Above all else, Margit was well aware that she was not alone in her quest to win her beloved’s heart. Still, she had no intention of sending the enemy any sort of munitions, and the question of why she loved him so had tipped the little hunter over the edge—she decided to answer, as sticking out among her peers wasn’t ideal. At times, the ability to give up proved to be a useful skill.
Margit’s mark was her childhood friend Erich. The impetus of her curiosity was simple enough, but the roots of her love were plentiful. She thought through reasons that outnumbered her fingers, searching for the most fundamental one.
“Let me think...” After a long pause, her first choice was, “Perhaps how resolute he is.”
Erich did not waver. There were times when he would take pause, but he would never abandon the core values that he chose to anchor himself with. No matter how difficult or cumbersome the task, he always completed what he set out to do. Similarly, he never went back on his word.
His disposition manifested itself physically too: he had never allowed Margit to fall when she pounced on him. To leap onto someone is no easy feat, and small mistakes could turn into serious injuries for both the jumper and jumped-on. Even a compact, lightweight jumping spider arachne packed a punch when lunging forward at full speed. If the two of them tumbled to the ground together, a broken bone or two would be no surprise.
However, Erich had lovingly caught her every time. Margit had the same absolute faith when pouncing on him as she did hopping into the sturdy boughs of a great and venerable tree.
“You know, the list of things one can jump onto blind is quite limited,” the arachne said, finishing her grog. Her words only fanned the flames of the other girls’ envy.
How many places were there that one could entrust their body to? It was difficult for most to fully relax and fall face first into one’s own bedding with faith that nothing would go wrong.
Margit’s boasting left a quiet unease in the other girls’ minds: would their crushes or established betrotheds accept them, both physically and emotionally? Her audience’s frustration and the magic of mead (compounded by her pitifully low tolerance) drove the arachne to pile on one lovely characteristic after another.
She spoke of the small things he nonchalantly did for her when catching her or carrying her around; of how considerately he prepared things she wanted without her asking; of his forgiving nature and his willingness to help her learn from her mistakes without reproach; and most of all, of how he chose to say the things she wanted to hear at every turn. How many people would she meet in her lifetime who cared so deeply for her?
“...Oh, and now that I think of it, his hair is wonderful.” Margit’s praise for the good looks she frequently laid eyes on only came at the tail end of her blossoming dialogue as a passing afterthought, filling those around her with a mysterious sense of inferiority. Unaware or uncaring of their struggles, she rose from the table to leave them behind after saying, “Here, take a good look.”
Margit had spoken of the devil, and the boy in question had appeared before her eyes. He must have pulled another empty lot, as he was walking along with an exhausted face and a drink in his hands.
The arachne prepared her usual approach. As a lovestruck maiden, this bombastic display was her god-given right. She snuffed out her presence and snuck up behind him without so much as a footstep, then used every ounce of her spidery agility to leap straight at him.
The result hardly needed to be put to words—one look at the plethora of mugs emptied in frustration was proof enough of her success. After completing her sneak attack, the arachne merrily buried her nose into the boy’s soft, golden hair and smiled.
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