All Eyes On Me

Fluttershy made her way along the path of Chaser’s Copse, a dense patch of woods on the very edge of the Everfree Forest. This area wasn’t far from her home, but she wasn’t overly keen on any road that was bound into the forest. However, Angel Bunny had a taste for very specific fruits that were harder to find - and she couldn’t say no to his twitching nose, nor let him go hungry! As long as she stayed on the path and avoided straying into the undergrowth she would be safe. Very few denizens of the forest were known to be so bold as to step out into the sunlight of the border paths.

“H’mm… Slim pickings today it seems…” she said aloud to herself, frowning at the bushes dotting the edges of the path. Clearly, the local wildlife had discovered this area and taken their fill of the most easily obtainable food. The yellow pegasus walked further into the grove, head questing back and forth to scan the foliage for the pale green orbs. She only needed a couple for today, but if she didn’t stock up then it would only end in her having to make the trip again tomorrow. There would probably be much more if she rummaged into the undergrowth, the fruits and other plants of the Everfree favoured the shade, but that meant leaving the safety of the path. “Oh, this is no use at all… if I’m here too long I’ll run out of daylight - and that’s even worse than leaving the path! I have to be brave… I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She selected an opening between the shrubs and stole into the undergrowth, keeping her head low. Immediately the sigh of the wind through the outer edges of the trees was muffled and she suddenly felt incredibly closed in. But nothing terrible happened, so she crept a little further forward until she had penetrated the outer barrier of the forest. The bushes thinned out slightly, not into a path, but enough that she wasn’t having to push past the denser foliage. Her gamble paid off, and already she could spot bushes that hadn’t yet been stripped off their juicy fruits. Glancing around whilst she opened her saddlebag, Fluttershy could hear the distinct noises and cries of wildlife, some she knew, and some she didn’t. Nothing seemed to be close by, so she started picking off fruits and stowing them away with a soft rustle. It seemed odd that this particular spot was so devoid of animal life, since there was plenty of easily attainable food here. But she pushed the thought from her mind - she was barely a minute or two from the path, hardly in the forest-proper at all. Most likely animals preferred to stay deeper into the woods where their respective sanctuaries were easier to get to.

All the same, Fluttershy glanced around once more. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, yet she couldn’t see or hear anything within the vicinity of the grove. She had half-a-bag at this point, enough to keep Angel happy for the rest of the week if she rationed it out. It would probably be safer not to push her luck, so she flipped the cover of her bag closed and turned back in the direction of the path. And with another step, she tripped over something.

Her fall was muffled by the soft leaf-strewn forest floor, but she looked around in alarm. No harm done, but her front hoof was snagged on something. She looked down and saw a pale strand the thickness of a pencil stretched between the trees around her. Had it been there before? Had she stepped over it by chance on her way in? It was sticky, and in a moment of absent-mindedness she instinctively used her other hoof to dislodge it - and then got that stuck too. She felt a breeze behind her and whirled around in alarm, but nothing was there. Just the bushes. She backed away from the clinging string toward the bushes again, only to feel her hind hooves strain against another sticky thread. She fell off balance and bumped onto her rump, forelegs tangled, and now a second sticky thread - which she was certain hadn’t been there before - caught up on her hind legs.

“Hello there,” said a voice from the shade, making Fluttershy jump. The pegasus looked in the direction of the voice and saw a pair of eyes in the gloom. The eyes shifted and the face of a pony appeared from around the tree, a partially concealed mare’s face, but at a strange angle and seemingly too high off the ground for a pony.

“Uh, hello? Umm, would you mind helping me? I seem to have gotten caught on… something…”

Fluttershy tried to stand up, but only succeeded in falling onto her side, getting even more tangled up in the process. The strange threads were just getting everywhere. She felt like she could break them or pull away if she had the freedom to stretch her legs, but she’d gotten so bound up that her muscles had no room to move.

“I can help you. Make you more comfortable perhaps…” said the mare. Her voice was strangely casual, as if she didn’t at all understand that Fluttershy was stuck. They looked at each other, with Fluttershy glancing pointedly at her entangled hooves, which the stranger could clearly see. The face next to the tree started moving upwards in the most unnatural manner and vanished into the canopy. There was no sound, but Fluttershy could see the branches overhead moving as if there was a weight upon them. She suddenly noticed that there were all covered in more pale strands, cross-crossing and looping between boughs. Like cobwebs. Very big spider webs.

The face appeared above her, poking through the leaves, and then began to descend toward her. On the brow of her forehead, two additional eyes opened to focus on the entangled pony. They were smaller, and mostly coloured so as to easy blend in with her more equine face. A mane cascading around her dark brown face, flowing into her neck and shoulders, and then a huge fuzzy mass - a spider’s body at least twice the size of Fluttershy herself. The trapped pegasus stared wide-eyed up as the drider slowly descended out from the canopy on a silken strand of web, her many legs unfolding and alighting silently on the forest floor just behind Fluttershy. It was a small wonder that she had remained invisible, despite her size, as her large shape bore the same colours as the forest itself. Dark green patterns with hints of yellow adorned her mostly brown body, fading to black on her legs. Her forehooves were tapered as if they had been stretched to a point, not enough to be sharp, but affording a great dexterity beyond a normal pony.

Those slender hooves carried strands of her silk, twirling them as if they were a dancer’s ribbons, and before Fluttershy could say or do anything else, the webbing fell across the top of her snout and drew up under her chin, locking her mouth shut. She moaned in protest, struggling against the tangles around her hooves again, but those slender forelegs rested on either side of her head and the stranger whispered into her ear.

“Shhhhh, there are dangerous creatures in this forest, you must be quiet. I will carry you and take you to safety…”

The drider deftly broke the tangled webbing around Fluttershy’s hooves, but in swift motions threw fresh loops of silk around her, trapping her forelegs at her sides. This enabled the spider pony to adjust the position of the pegasus, and with practised motions, her large body towered overhead and her many legs directed a never-ending strand of web that began to wrap Fluttershy up.

At first, Fluttershy was slightly uncomfortable where the string pinched slightly into her soft flesh, but before it became painful she was turned around as if she weighed nothing at all, and the webbing was wrapped around her hind legs and thighs until a fabric of cobweb covered her lower body entirely in a tight cocoon. She wriggled against the bonds, but couldn’t even feel them stretch, let alone sense where their breaking point might be. She glanced up at the underside of the drider’s body, which was much more spider-like from this angle. The drider almost seemed like a common garden spider, only much larger. Her spinneret was angled down toward Fluttershy, and the black legs swiftly drew yard after yard of white silk from its tip, which was being encircled around the pony’s midriff now, wrapping her up like a mummy.

The drider moved again to start working on Fluttershy’s upper body, and picked up the stricken pony entirely. This afforded Fluttershy a view of the front half of her captor. The pony-portion looked down kindly at her, almost fondly, but with a strange, knowing expression in her eyes that affirmed to Fluttershy that this denizen of the forest had a different idea of what ‘dangerous’ and ‘safety’ were than she did. The webbing was up to Fluttershy’s shoulders now, and the meek pony knew that she was going to end up entirely covered and trussed up like an insect. She gave another pleading look up at the glinting eyes above her. The drider smiled back, stroking Fluttershy’s mane into place so it could be wrapped up in sheets of webbing. Within minutes, Fluttershy was covered from nose to tail in white silk, with only her eyes left untouched. The drider handled her with incredible care, hugging her close under her huge spider body, and then the last thing Fluttershy saw was a pointed hoof pulling a wide, flat ribbon of web over her eyes.

“Now then my dear, you are safe with me, just relax and do not tense up, and I will take you to safety,” she said, her voice close to Fluttershy’s head. Fluttershy quickly lost any sense of direction as the drider turned around, and knowing there was nothing she could do at this moment, tried her best to relax. True to the spider’s word, as she released the tension in her muscles she did feel comfortable. The cocoon compressed her together in such a way that nothing was left strained or bent. She was pressed up against a huge, warm body that radiated great strength, enough to carry her with ease. She could feel the drider moving, smoothly gliding through the trees on many legs, almost as smooth as flying, but without the strain and tire of wingbeats. It was actually incredibly calming. It would have been nice if she could see, but then she would probably only be anxious about where they were going. It was pleasant to relax in the embrace of the drider, wrapped up in a webby hug from all sides by her cocoon.

The myriad anonymous eyes of other creatures in the forest watched from their respective havans as a bulky shadow skittered through the lower canopy, clutching her catch between her many legs. They knew it was none of their own. The contents of that bundle were either new to this area of the forest or an outsider - no local creature knowingly strayed into her domain. The drider covered the space of her territory as fast as a crow could fly overhead, until she reached a huge aged tree that formed a dense knot in the woodland.