As always, any resemblance to living, dead or fictional people is purely coincidence. I’m sure the professor would be relieved since his characters don’t resemble anything I cooked up either. My apologies. He and his lawyers, his family, and his gardener all retain legal rights to his work. I’m left to own only my imagination and my empty purse.

Happy birthday to daw the minstrel. She has given me hours upon hours of pleasure reading her work and this story is offered in celebration of her special day. As a writer and as a person, I admire and adore her. Here’s to you, your imperial minstrelness.

As a side note, prior to writing this, Nilmandra and I had a conversation about taking the same prompt…spiders for pets…and decided we would both take it and see what shook out. Hers turned out great. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. It’s wonderful. Since Daw requested Daeron, this story explores why Daeron hates spiders. I have to say, writing this was great fun.

Last but not least, thanks to Meckinock for the beta work on this story. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She has the patience of a saint. Any mistakes that remain are all mine.

                          Healthy Respect

The warmth of the afternoon sun loosened my muscles until I melted into mindless leisure. In fact, it was so warm, my head kept dropping to the side like a weed with a permanent bend. I had stretched out on a cushioned couch in the palace gardens with my reading assignment propped on my chest. Each time my head dipped, the book fell forward to bump my lip. To say the subject was dull would have been like saying the sky was blue.

Legolas sat at a table in the center of the garden, or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say, he was dozing with his head on his arms and most likely drooling on the book he had been given. I still had to read that one too. I hoped it dried before my time came.

Just as I was nodding off again, I caught the blurred movement of something on my hand. I lazily forced my eyes to focus. A thumb-sized spider scudded across my skin without a care in Arda. I, being of sound mind, yelped, flew off the lounge--book sailing through the air--and shook my hand like a dusty rag. Legolas sprang from his chair as if the enemy had just that moment breached the palace walls.

“What?” he yelled, glancing about wildly.

“Holy jumping warg spit,” I muttered while wiping away the creepy feel of spider feet from my hand. The little web-weasel had disappeared somewhere and it was my job to find it. I turned in a circle, searching the ground around me with mounting panic. Not seeing it was even worse than finding it strolling along the stone courtyard. That meant it might still be riding me…somewhere.

I was tugging on my tunic, trying to see my back when Legolas jerked me around and did the scouting for me. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

“Do you see a spider?” I hated it when I sounded like an anxious elleth worried about her coif. My hair! I shook my head and scrubbed my hands through my hair like I was trying to remove crusted mud.

Legolas gave me a slight shove. “So what is this? The spider dance?”

“It was on me!” I whirled around. “Look at my back again. Do you see it?”

He ignored my pleas for aid and instead stomped back over to the table. “You are pathetic, Daeron. Did you know that? Pathetic.”

Left on my own, I bent and twisted to survey what I could see of my shoulders and legs. “How would you like a spider spinning its web around you?”

“It is a garden spider, for pity’s sake.” He snapped his book shut. “If it had been one of Shelob’s kin, then yes, I might have got a little excited. However, if that were the case, I would kill it, not take it out for a dance.”

“Then help me practice annihilation on this one.” I bent down to look under my chair. A tiny cobweb clung to the corner of the underside of the chair. I took a stick and dug it out. No spider.

“It is not bothering anyone. Leave it alone. Besides, it eats bugs we do not want in the palace.” He eyed me with disgust. “You are too big and stringy. I think you are safe from becoming a tiny garden spider’s meal.”

“That is all you know. Even garden spiders bite. Some of them are poisonous.”

“Not little brown orbs,” he sighed, running his hand over his hair. “You have already fought the real menaces once and survived. You have to get over this. How do plan to go back into the forest where they are if you fall apart every time you see a common spider?”

I jerked upright. “I do not fall apart. I am merely cautious.”

Legolas snorted like an annoyed dragon. Sometimes he reminded me far too much of his father. “Cautious? You are only a few years from coming of age, and you still squeal like an elfling every time you see a stupid spider.”

I gritted my teeth and pronounced each word as if it were a death sentence. “I do not squeal.”

He leaned toward me, inviting me to make good on all the nasty thoughts I was having about him. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it?”

“Yes, do about it. You cannot keep acting like this. You are making me insane.” He narrowed his eyes. “I am going to hurt you, and I will not be responsible for what I do.”

“You are just mad because I woke you from your nap.”

“That is the least of what makes me mad about you,” he grumbled. “At the moment, everything about you annoys me.”

I gave him a silly fly-shooing wave of my hand. “Well, then, do not let me detain you from getting on with your pitiful life.” With great dignity, I sat back down, then in a momentary panic that I could be sitting on the spider, I wiggled about in my seat to be sure I crushed it properly before it had time to bite. “Carry on,” I muttered, rummaging around the ground for my book. However, I had not forgotten the missing spider. I glanced out the corner of my eye just to make certain it was not perched on the “Third Age Alliances of Elves and Men”. I would have hated to have to stomp the book to death, but I would suffer the consequences of destroying it before I would touch a spider.

Legolas’s cheeks flushed and his lips were set hard enough to break a glass if it were pressed against them. “I am tired of this, Daeron. I am tired of you jumping around like you have stepped on hot coals every time a spider comes near you. In fact, I am tired of you.”

I swatted the air at my ear as if shooing away an annoying insect. “Do I hear buzzing? There is definitely a droning sound.”

He snatched up his book and left. Good riddance. If he could not help me to rid the garden of nasty spiders, then he was of no use to me anyway.

He was still not speaking to me at evening meal. The adults gave us more than a few sidelong glances, but neither of us wanted to reveal our squabble. I ignored him, and he acted as if I did not exist. Fine. Two could play the silent treatment game.

The next morning at training, he finally spoke: he told me to move out of his way during archery. I snarled in reply. My cousin was close to being reduced to a filleted trout, but I would wait until we were out of the masters’ sight to exact my revenge. I did not want witnesses.

When we started back to the palace for midday meal, I walked behind him at least five paces. Not that I was deferential to him as the king and queen’s son, since to my way of thinking, he was only a breath away from being the king and queen’s late son, but I did not want to be in the same forest as he, much less stroll along as if we were friendly relations.

He stopped suddenly and turned to me. “I am sorry,” he said wiping his hand across his face. “I should not have reacted so badly.”

I was surprised, but not too shocked to speak; I simply chose not to respond. I stared at him. Let him squirm.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then lowered his gaze to the ground. “Well,” he said, “I am sorry.”

I sighed. Though I was not yet ready to make peace with him, I had little hope of staying angry with such a sorry expression dragging his face downward. “Do not worry about it. I do get a little carried away sometimes.”

We walked onward down the sun-spotted path toward the river. A large yellow butterfly flitted across the trail. I wondered if it feared spiders or if it simply lifted into the air if one of the creepy fellows came near it. Most of all, I wondered if the butterfly had relatives he argued with about whether the spider was dangerous or not. At least the butterfly could flap its wings a couple of times and leave its troubles behind.

“I probably should speak to someone about the spiders,” I said.

“Who?” Legolas asked.

“I do not know. Maybe a healer. Perhaps they have a potion that will numb my senses.”

“They are numb enough,” he said with a smile. “But maybe they can offer a suggestion on how you can control your worries.”

“They will probably tell me to confront my fears. Pick up a spider or something equally ridiculous.”

“That is a thought,” Legolas said. “If we caught a few and just observed them for a while, perhaps you would feel more comfortable with them.”

I snorted. “If you recall, that is what started this whole dislike of multi-legged creatures.”

Legolas had the nerve to laugh out loud. “That was a disaster.”

“All because you wanted a pet.”

“It was not just me. You wanted a puppy too.”

“Do not try to put the blame on me,” I said. “Allow me, dear cousin, to refresh your memory….”

                         ***************

Legolas placed the little black and white ball of fluff back into the blanket and straw bed in the barn. The puppy wiggled its way over to his mother and joined his litter-mates in a mid-afternoon meal.

Legolas rocked back on his heels. “I do not know why Nana will not let me keep one.”

I ran my finger over the silky fur of the tiny head of the puppy I had picked out for myself. “My nana will not let me have one either. She said I am too young to care for a dog.”

“That is what my nana said too.” When Legolas pouted he looked even younger than our twenty-one years. We constantly heard about being responsible, but when we wanted to show we could be, we were told we were too young. There was simply no way to win that war.

“We should show them we can be accountable,” he said looking longingly at the six puppies nursing with contentment. Their tiny eyes were closed tight and their thumb-sized paws kneaded the furry stomach of their mother. My heart ached for a puppy of my own.

“How?” I asked.

“If we found a baby animal in the forest and cared for it, then they would see we can be trusted.”

“We cannot take a baby from his nana,” I protested, shocked Legolas would even think of doing such a thing.

“We would only take one that did not have anyone to care for it.”

“There are not many babies wandering about the woods without their nana.”

“I am sure there are some. Baby birds fall out of nests and baby rabbits are often left without their nana if something catches her.”

“Legolas,” I said with forced patience. “I have never seen a baby animal without its nana.”

“We have never looked.”

“If you will recall, we cannot go any further than the Grandfather Tree and the stream. I doubt we will find any orphan animals in so small an area. Besides, Nana would have my hide if I went out into the forest. We will not even discuss what your nana and ada would do to you.”

He stood up, and I could tell by the set look on his face that he had made his decision. “We will not leave the village. There are a lot of places to look and still be within an acceptable area.”

I followed him out the door of the barn. “We will not find anything.”

“You are so gloomy.”

“I am not getting into trouble over this, Legolas,” I announced. “Nana said if I did anything stupid again, she was going to have me placed under guard. She is not over the blueberry incident. With my luck, my guard would be Seregon.” My older brother, also known as the second in command after Legolas’s older brother, was not much fun. My life would be over if he gained control over it.

Legolas gave me a wide-eyed look of surprise. “She said you did something stupid?”

“She did not use those words, but that is what she meant.” In truth, Seregon was the one who used the word stupid. He was not as careful about my feelings as our nana. He would make a terrible parent someday.

“We are not going to get into trouble,” Legolas said with confidence. That should have been my first clue, but it was too late to turn back by the time I realized I should have heeded the warning signs. When everything was said and done, what hurt most was admitting Seregon had a point when he said I did stupid things.

At least I had the satisfaction of being right when we did not find any nana-less creatures for days. Since it was spring, we saw a lot of babies: birds, squirrels and even a tiny fawn nuzzling his nana, but none that were looking for a home.

On the fourth day of our quest, we found a nest of rabbits. Four little gray babies were nestled in tall grass at the edge of a meadow on the western end of our play area. We settled down to watch to see if the nana rabbit returned. For hours we sat still in the arms of an old oak. I could not have been more bored. Finally, near dusk, the nana rabbit returned with slender blades of greens filched from someone’s garden in her mouth. There would be no rabbit pets.

Legolas walked back toward the palace with all the cheer of an orphaned rain cloud. I was disappointed too, but I did not want the baby rabbits to be without a nana. I said as much to Legolas.

“It is not that I want that,” Legolas replied. “But I would like to find something that needs us.”

We circled around the village, still halfheartedly looking for a lost animal to take home. On the southern side of the last cottages, and nearly further out than we should have been, we came upon a robin freshly caught in a large sticky spider web. It was not a baby bird, but it was frightened, flapping its wings frantically to free itself. The web seemed to only wrap tighter around it as it struggled. We climbed the tree where the web was anchored and Legolas scooted out on a limb. He took a stick and broke the slenderest of the web’s threads that trapped the bird, then pulled the robin free. Web still coated the poor panting creature. We gently removed the sticky strings and when it was clean, Legolas placed it on its feet on the limb next to us. It sat for only a few seconds, catching its breath, then flew to another tree. It stopped long enough to look back at us. I do not know if it was grateful to us or merely thought us insane for sitting in the middle of spider’s web. No matter what its judgment of us, it made a sweet call in our direction and flew away.

“This is an awfully big web,” I said looking at the wrist-size strands. I picked off a piece clinging to my tunic and shook my hand in an attempt to dislodge it. I finally had to wipe it across the limb to get it off my hand. “And sticky too.”

“Maybe it is a family web,” Legolas said while swinging his feet out to touch the web. It vibrated like a plucked harp string.

I looked around us and saw only web and empty tree limbs. “Where is the family?”

“Look!” Legolas said pointing to a strand near us. A spider, slightly smaller than the size of my palm, tottered toward us. It was not much larger than the brown spiders we saw sometimes in the underbrush, but it was black with tiny hairs spouting from it like a wet dog.

I laughed. “His nana did not brush his hair this morning.”

It stopped and looked at us.

“Maybe something has happened to his nana,” Legolas said.

“Maybe that is the nana.”

“It is a baby,” Legolas said.

I squinted to see it more clearly. “How can you tell?”

“I just can,” he answered with the confidence of the truly ignorant.

I stood up. “Then we should leave. His nana will be back soon, and she will not be pleased that we are so near her baby.”

“But what if she does not come back? It is getting late. She would be back if she were coming.”

“You do not know that,” I said. “She could be sitting somewhere nearby watching us. She could jump out at any moment.”

“He is alone,” Legolas said. His face was softening into that dreamy look he got when watched the puppies. I knew where this was going.

“I do not think a spider would make a good pet.” I curled my lip as I studied the little, spiky-looking creature. “He is a bit creepy, do you not think?”

“No, he is just a baby.”

“If he’s a baby, just think how big he will get.”

“He will not get much bigger.”

“Since when did you start knowing all about spiders?”

“I do not,” he said. “But I know he is all alone and needs someone to look after him. We will keep him only long enough for him to be able to survive on his own.”

“He looks healthy to me.”

Legolas sighed and gave me an annoyed look. “Do you want to prove to our nanas we can take care of a pet or not?”

A spider did not look like it would be much use when playing fetch, but I nodded. Even though I agreed, something about this plan tied my stomach in knots.

Legolas held out his hand. “Come little fellow. We will take care of you. You can live in the palace with us, and we will feed you, and make you a nice comfortable bed.”

The spider did not move, instead it seemed to settle further down where it squatted, content to watch us try to coax it to us. Stretching my hand toward it was much harder than I anticipated. But after a few glances from Legolas that told me I was not doing my part, I joined in.

No one could have been more surprised than I was when the spider walked straight onto my hand. I flinched, but I did make an effort to not look too disagreeable. “Hello, little friend,” I croaked.

“See,” Legolas said. “He likes you.”

I huffed out a nervous laugh.

“Come on,” Legolas said smiling with triumph. “Let us take him home and make him a bed.”

I stared at the spider, and he stared at me. “What do they eat?”

“Bugs,” Legolas said and jumped to the ground. “Come on. Be careful with him.”

Holding my open hand to my chest to steady it, I eased down to a lower branch, then dropped to the forest floor.

“What shall we name him?” Legolas asked as we walked back toward the palace.

I could not take my eyes from him. He still looked to me like something had frightened him so his hair stood on end. “Spike,” I said.

“I like that!” Legolas said. Now that the spider had a name, I felt a little warmer toward him. He was, after all, just a baby.

Fortunately, my naneth was not in our apartment when we arrived with our new friend. Legolas insisted that I keep him since he seemed to like me best. I wanted to feel privileged, but I secretly would have preferred he keep Spike.

“There is a box under my bed,” I told Legolas when he had closed my bedchamber door. “We can make Spike a bed in it.”

Legolas crawled under my bed and brought out a square wooden box with a top. “This?” He held it up.

“Yes,” I said, gently placing Spike on my bed. Since we had named it Spike, we decided it was a male. So, he simply sat there as if intrigued by what we were doing. “We can put some cloth in the bottom and poke some holes in the top. He will be safe there.”

All the while we hunted for extra cloth in my nana’s sewing kit and whittled little air holes in the box’s lid, Spike watched us from where I had placed him on my bed.

“He is very good,” Legolas said as he fitted the cloth into the box, arranging it into the shape of a bed with a pillow. He even fashioned a little blanket he draped across the foot of box bed. I doubted Spike would use it, but it looked nice.

I would have stroked Spike’s head to show him how much we appreciated his good behavior, but at the last second, I withdrew my hand. Spike did not look like the kind of pet that would like to be petted.

Spike took to his bed when I placed him in it. He wandered about it, poking in the corners with a leg and surveying his new quarters from one side to the other. Finally he settled down as if ready for a nap. We placed the lid on with a promise to bring him something to eat soon.

The time for our evening meal had come, and we hurried to get washed up, then get to the family dining room. As soon as we were finished we would go to the garden and hunt for spider food. We were all smiles. I think we made the adults nervous because they kept asking us what amused us. We smiled all the more and kept our secret.

For the next week, we fed Spike crickets, beetles and any other small insect we could find. I was more squeamish than I expected. Something about placing a live insect into Spike’s bed and putting the lid back on made me a little queasy. I did not like that part about keeping a pet. But Spike was growing. At the end of the first week, he had doubled in size.

On the evening we entered my chambers after evening meal with his supper to find he had pushed the lid off and was seated on my bed waiting, I remarked on how big he was getting.

“That is because we are taking good care of him,” Legolas said with pride.

“We will have to put something on the lid to keep him from getting out.” I took a rock that sat on my shelf and held it up. “Maybe this will do.”

“It will be fine,” Legolas said, but he was not really listening to me. He was busy placing the poor unsuspecting crickets in Spike’s box. We both jumped back when Spike leapt from my bed straight into his box after the crickets. I quickly put the lid on and placed the rock on it.

“When should we let him go?” I asked, hoping he would say: Now.

“Soon,” Legolas said flopping down on my bed with his legs tucked under. “We have been good responsible keepers. Our parents will have to allow us to have a puppy now when they see how good we have cared for Spike.”

I sat down on the other side of the box and nodded. Everything had gone as planned. So why did I feel so strange?

The next morning I was only dimly aware of my chamber door opening, and my brother stepping in to turn the night lamp up.

I heard Seregon’s sharp intake of air and cracked open my eyes. I could not see him clearly. I must have been sleepier than I had thought since I felt as I was looking at him through a haze.

“Do not move, Daeron,” he said in a quiet commanding voice. I shifted, unsure what he meant.

“NO!” he said in his sternest voice. “Do not move.” I watched as he backed slowly toward the door. “Aldamir,” he said calmly without turning around. “I need your help.”

When my cousin came through the door, he stumbled straight into Seregon and stood staring at me as if he had seen a balrog dressed in his nana’s nightgown. “Where is it?” he asked.

“I do not see it, but we do not want to startle it.”

When my mother came through the door an instant later, she foiled that plan. Her scream echoed throughout the entire stronghold. Seregon grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth, and pulled back out into the sitting room.

“What is wrong?” I asked in a squeaky little voice.

“Sh.h.h.” Aldamir told me as he took a silent step toward the bed. “Remain still, Daeron. All is well.” How could that be? My mother was still screaming behind Seregon’s hand.

Her muffled cries had not gone unnoticed. My entire family must have been gathering in the sitting room. Uncle slid in behind Aldamir with a sword drawn.

“What is it?” I croaked. “What is wrong?”

Uncle smiled at me. “Everything is fine, child. Remain still.” He moved toward the end of my bed. With a nearly imperceptible wave of his hand, all the lamps on the walls of my chambers blazed to life.

Then I could see. My entire bed, from the canopy to the floor, was encased in webbing that cocooned me into the center. I screamed.

“Stay still, Daeron,” Uncle ordered as he continued to pace slowly around my bed.

Seregon slipped back in the door with a sword in each hand. Without taking his eyes from me, he placed one in Aldamir’s hand. Finally, he turned from me and began to search my shelves and wardrobe, slowly and without a sound.

Just as Legolas made the door of my chamber, he shrieked, but made it no further. Someone snatched him from behind. Aunt Lalaith, I presumed. I could hear him talking rapidly, explaining, trying to reassure them that it was just Spike, and Spike was not the kind of spider to hurt anyone. No one seemed to be listening, and Auntie kept hushing him.

“Adar?” Aldamir said as he neared the bed. “Do you see it?”

“No,” Uncle replied and rounded the end of my bed. “I do not think it is in the bed. Cut the web quickly and get Daeron. That will draw it out. I am ready.”

The sword whistled like a soft breeze when Aldamir whisked it over my head. In no more than a second, he reached for me and when he did, Spike, looking as if he doubled his size overnight, sprang up from behind the headboard and plopped down between Aldamir and me. Spike hissed, rearing up on his back legs. “Mine,” he rasped.

Aldamir jumped backwards to avoid the spider. “Mine,” he spat back.

That was it. I sat up in astonishment. “Spike? You can talk?”

But when Spike whirled around toward me, I did not like the look in his eyes...all of them. I had not noticed before how many little beady eyes he had. Turning his back on Aldamir was Spike’s mistake. In a flash, Aldamir’s sword pinned him to the bed.

I screamed, and even though Uncle had cut through the other side of the web and had me in his arms in seconds, I could not stop. In those first few moments of Uncle carrying me out of my chambers as quickly as he could, I could hear the scraping sounds of Seregon and Aldamir tearing my room apart. And Legolas’s sobbing. It was very noisy.

Uncle rocked me in his arms and muttered reassurances. “Sit down, Noreth,” he said to my mother. When she did, he placed me in her lap, and we clung to one another and sobbed. Legolas joined us, and we cried until nothing was left but hiccoughs.

Guilin, the palace healer, ran his hands over my body while talking softly to me about the puppies. He knew we wanted one; everyone knew. Legolas and I had not been secretive about our enchantment with the new puppies. When Guilin had finished, he patted me on the head and looked at my naneth. “I see nothing. If he had been bitten, we would know by now.”

“How do you feel, Daeron?” he asked.

“I am fine,” I hiccoughed.

“How did that spider get in here?” Aunt Lalaith asked no one in particular, but she cut her eyes to Legolas.

“We have been taking care of it,” Legolas said in a tiny voice.

“For how long?” Uncle asked, not even bothering to hide the alarm in his voice.

“Not long,” Legolas told him. “A week.” The adults all drew a collective gasp.

“Where did you find it, Legolas?” Uncle asked.

Legolas told him. Aldamir appeared in time for Uncle to give him a look that would have frozen molten iron. “That nest has already been cleared out,” Aldamir said. “About a week ago. Legolas and Daeron must have found it only a short while before the home guard did.”

“We will discuss this later,” Uncle said with an edge to his voice that would have sliced rock. Poor Aldamir.

Aldamir placed his hand over his heart and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

“Did you find anything further in Daeron’s chambers?” Uncle asked.

“No, my lord,” Aldamir said.

“Little ones,” Aunt Lalaith said kneeling between Legolas and me. “Did you not know what kind of spider this one was?”

We shook our heads.

“I thought it was just a wood spider,” Legolas said.

“It was not an ordinary wood spider,” Uncle said. “These spiders grow to be very large, and they are very dangerous. You must never go near them again, not even the ones you think are only babies. If you see any, you must come to me or one of your brothers immediately.”

“Yes, Ada,” Legolas said between hiccoughs.

“Why would you bring such a thing into the palace?” Aunt Lalaith asked.

“It was all alone and we thought if we took good care of it, you and Ada and Aunt Noreth would see that we could take good care of a puppy.”

Uncle sighed and ran his hand over his face. “I would have preferred a puppy.”

“Then I can have one?” Legolas asked, hope shining through his hiccoughs like a beacon on a foggy cliff.

“No,” Uncle said. My heart sank again. “You may not. In a few years, if you prove yourself responsible, then your naneth and I will reconsider.”

The presence of Spike and his web in my chambers set off a major scouring of the protected woods for more. The guards always looked for the giant spiders, but the fact that one had been found by elflings caused an uproar that had Aldamir and Seregon on a spider hunt that would be remembered for years to come. Uncle’s talk with Aldamir probably spurred him on. I felt bad for my oldest cousin.

Still, the spider was not Aldamir’s fault, but he had taken the blame for Legolas and me. It did not seem fair, and I apologized for a solid week every time I saw him. He would smile and tell me it was his duty, and I should not feel bad. He said Uncle was not really mad, just scared and upset. Uncle had looked pretty angry to me. But the vein that always bulged in his neck when he was furious did not come out, so perhaps Aldamir was right.

Legolas and I did not get a puppy for many years after the spider incident, but when we did, we worked with the hunt master to learn how to train our puppies and how to care for them. Though we named them carefully, Legolas’s middle brother, Erelas--after he heard the tale--always called them Spike and Spider, so often, in fact, the dogs answered to those names as well as their given names.

I always wondered what Spike, the spider, meant that morning in my bed when he said, “mine”. He had never attempted to bite either of us. Did he think he was protecting me or was he simply jealously guarding his future meal? Whatever his intentions, I would never go willingly near a spider again. In fact, I did not sleep in my room for weeks. When Nana finally decided I should return to my bed, Seregon slept with me for another month. Over time, he began leaving me in the night for short intervals, then allowing me to wake alone. The first time frightened me out of my wits, but after a while, I got used to waking up without him. Eventually, I felt safe enough to allow him or Nana to leave after reading to me. It was a long time before I did not see my bed as a spider dinner table draped in a frilly web cloth, and perhaps equally as long before the bad dreams stopped coming every night. But there was no doubt, I was finished with spiders. After a time, I kept my fear of spiders quiet and everyone seemed to forget about Spike. Everyone forgot save Legolas.

                    **********

“Spike was your idea,” I told Legolas as we climbed the steps to the main entrance of the stronghold. “The whole affair was your fault.”

“It has been years, Daeron,” he said, dismissing my accusations. “Nothing happened to you, but you still jump each time you see a spider.”

“Nothing happened to me?” I yelped. “I was only a few seconds away from being eaten.”

“Spike would not have eaten you. He was too small yet.”

“Surely you jest,” I said. “I could have fed him for a month.”

“As if anyone would have allowed that to happen. The worst that could have happened was a bite.”

“That is bad enough. As I also recall, you should know about such bites.”

He shuddered. “I admit it was a nasty experience.”

“And you do not fear them?”

Legolas stopped on the landing and looked out over the Green in thought. Finally he turned to me. “Yes, I am afraid of them; the big ones, not the little garden spiders. However, I will gladly do my part to see every last one of the giant ones killed and removed from this forest.”

“A little healthy respect is not bad,” I said. “Mine simply extends to all spider kin.”

Legolas smiled. “I am sorry I have teased you. Now that I reflect back on Spike, I suppose you are right. It was very dangerous and you were fortunate nothing happened.” He raised a brow. “We both were. Spike could have bitten either or both of us.”

“I think there is little hope I will ever like spiders.”

“True, you are hopeless,” he agreed. “But do not kill the little ones that mean no harm.”

“Then your job is to remove them from my sight.”

Legolas slapped my shoulder. “I will if you promise not to nearly faint every time you see one.”

“I do not faint,” I protested.

“You must admit you are jumpy.”

“It is hardly a secret.”

“I will not always be around to intervene. We must find a way to deal with it.” He walked toward the Great Doors with a look on his face I recognized. But before I could protest, he smiled. “I have an idea…”

I bolted through the door and sprinted toward the family quarters. He was gaining on me when he called, “Wait! This one will work!”