#cteniza sauvagesi

[mentally-joyful-demobot]

If you could have any animal. What would it be?

WHILE I DO LOVE BEES, IF I HAD TO FIND AN ANIMAL I RELATE TOO MOST IT WOULD BE A [ Cteniza sauvagesi ]!

THEY CREATE THEIR OWN HOMES AND MOSTLY ONLY BOTHER CREATURES THAT POSE A THREAT.

[we-are-fam-ily]

Enchanting All that You Put In

Chapter 2 of my FaerieAU!

Read it on AO3 here!

Toil and Trouble, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Epilogue

Wordcount: 1,044

Trigger Warnings: Spiders

Beta’d by the awesome @ninja-kitty-more-like-no !

Logan Sanders was nervous about his first day at a new school. Middle school was a daunting prospect for the serious boy, and having moved to a new town made it even worse. He wasn’t good at making friends, spending as much time as he could in the library and learning.

Middle school would be different, surely. The children here didn’t know him by reputation, giving him plenty of opportunity to make friends. He decided, a few weeks ago, to bring with him something he found interesting, so maybe other kids would find it interesting too.

So, he brought an empty jar of strawberry Crofters. Empty for now, he hoped to find a bug to catch at the school.

~~

He was in luck, apparently. There was a positively fascinating trapdoor spider sitting right outside the school gates. It tried to get away, but Logan was fast, both because of his youth and because he spent long hours catching bugs to study them.

The spider slumped in the bottom of the jar, and it almost seemed to be watching Logan warily. He adjusted his tie. Spiders weren’t smart enough to watch their captors.

Were they?

~~

In the classroom, two boys sat in front of him, arguing in whispers.

“I’m sure Mom had a great reason to be gone this morning!”

“Are you? Maybe she finally got tired of us.”

“Mama wouldn’t let her leave like that, and you know it.”

“Tsk.” The boy in purple slumped in his seat, glowering at his friend.

“Anyways, last night she told us to make new friends, didn’t she?” The boy in light blue turned to Logan and smiled. Logan was both in awe and disturbed by the color of his eyes. Like molten gold. “Hello! My name is Patton Ettercop, and this is my brother, Virgil Stewart.”

“Salutations. I am Logan Sanders. If you two are brothers, why are your last names different?”

Virgil flinched at his blunt question, but Patton’s answering grin was sunshine-bright. “We got switched accidentally at birth! Don’t we look similar?”

Logan supposed there were similarities in the two boys, so he nodded. “How did you possibly get switched at birth? How incompetent were the nurses at the hospital?”

The two boys exchanged a glance.

“It’s a secret” Virgil began,

“Mama says we can’t tell” continued Patton,

“Anyone.” Virgil’s eyes were alight with mischief.

“But if you tell us a secret, maybe we can trade!” Patton smiled sweetly. “Logan Sanders, will you tell us a secret?”

Virgil elbowed Patton sharply. Logan wasn’t really sure why, but Patton looked a little remorseful.  “I suppose I could tell the two of you a secret, of sorts. I came across a spider today” Logan stated proudly.

Patton shivered. “I don’t like spiders much.”

“It really is a fascinating specie. Cteniza sauvagesi normally aren’t found outside of their burrows.” He started to pull out the jar, but the teacher walked in to the room. “I will endeavor to show you later.”

The boys turned back to the front of the room.

~~

They passed notes the entire class. Somehow the two brothers managed to go entirely unnoticed by the teacher as they handed a piece of paper back and forth. Logan tried to pay attention to the lesson, but the quality of his new friends’ handwriting was shocking.

At age eight, Logan prided himself on how even his letters were. Virgil and Patton’s handwriting looked like calligraphy. Virgil wrote in small, looping dark purple lettering. Patton wrote in blue, with large, dramatic strokes. It made Logan more and more curious the longer he observed.

The boys in front of him were a mystery, and Logan Croft Sanders was determined to find out what.

~~

He wasn’t able to talk to them again until the last bell rang. During lunch and recess, the strange boys vanished. When he asked another classmate, they gave him a funny look.

“Stewart and Ettercop? They’re weird.” It wasn’t at all helpful.

But when the bell rang, there they were, standing right next to him in line for the bus.

“We haven’t seen you all day, Logan!” Patton was bouncing on his toes, clutching the straps of his backpack. Virgil was still but for one hand fiddling with a small purple fidget cube.

“And who might be at fault for that? I looked for the two of you any time I could.” Logan was a little annoyed at them for vanishing, up until Patton looked guiltily at the ground.

“I’m sorry… We were trying to find my mom.”

“Why would your mother be on the school grounds?”

“Mom sometimes shows up where she shouldn’t be.”

“And she was gone this morning! Mama said Mom would make us pancakes for breakfast, but she wasn’t even home!” Patton’s eyes were threatening to fill with tears. Virgil patted his brother on the shoulder gently.

“Let’s get on the bus. What bus are you on, Logan?”

“Bus sixteen, I believe.” As he finished, Patton brightened.

“That’s our bus too! Maybe we’re close by!”

“Perhaps. Do you know of the Torres Memorial Park? My father wanted me to wait there for him.”

Virgil and Patton exchanged a glance.

“That’s next to our house! Vee, can you text Mama and ask if we can bring a friend over?”

“I would hate to intrude-“

“Nope! No intrusions! We’d love to have you!”

Virgil pulled out a flip-phone while Patton was talking. He tapped the buttons for a minute, then waited, and nodded. “Mama says it’s alright.”

Patton cheered, grabbed Logan’s hand, and steered him to the bus with Virgil trailing behind.

~~

Years later, if asked, Logan would swear that he didn’t faint. He was just shocked, is all. It isn’t every day that a spider one captured in a jar turns into a beautiful woman when set free. It’s even less likely that the woman is the mother of one’s new classmates. On top of that, would one have thought she was a fairy, of all things?

If you asked Patton and Virgil, however, they would look at each other, grin, and say yes. Logan totally fainted.

~~

“Forget, little boy~” hissed the voice. “And run away.”

The boy ran. Why was he running? Where was he running?