Spider Queen (Completed)

Kiss the cloud

Kiss the cloud.

The hang glider sailed through the absolute darkness of the Abyss. Ruby had been gliding upwards on the updrafts for an hour now. She checked her safety harnesses again; if she fell it meant certain death.

Ruby was totally color blind; she could only see Essvee and Calistherm. Essvee was the invisible color just above Violet. Calistherm were the infra red frequencies hidden under red, mostly heat waves. Ruby had to wear those horrid black goggles to cover her eyes wherever there was light; she normally watched the world in a grainy black and white through the goggles.

Here in the darkness of the Abyss she didn't have to wear her goggles as there was no light during the Abyss night time. She opened her mind and focused, the trick wasn't to look into the darkness but to look through the darkness.

Ruby looked around and saw a crystal in Calistherm; maybe forty miles on her left, she focused her mind and zoomed in closer. The crystal was maybe three feet long, an inch thick. There were small Essvee flames running off the surface of the crystal so it was a 'giver' crystal.

Ruby twisted her body to guide the glider towards the crystal, when she was close enough to the crystal she unhooked the pole with the hook from the crossbeam. She tied the pole's strap to her wrist. Ruby took careful aim and hooked the balloon on which the crystal was hanging. The balloon gave a hiss then she pulled in the pole. She unhooked the balloon and hooked the balloon to one of the hooks behind her.

Ruby looked around the Abyss for more crystals, she could see just over 200 miles in Essvee and Calistherm. There were no crystals only a tube about fifty miles to her right. A tube was like a giant wave that made a round tunnel that you could fly through, the wave was the less dense warm air and the tube the cooler ice cold air inside the wave. It was a rush for her to fly through the tube but if the wave caught the glider the wing of the glider could be ripped off and that meant death. Ruby was 139 years old now and had the anti ageing crystal inserted into the base of her spine when she was 19. 1 had taught her how to glide when she apprenticed with him at the age of 16. Ruby knew how to glide the tube and how to turn into the wave should things go wrong. She headed to the tube, it would be about thirty minutes until she got there.

Ruby cleared her mind and her body went onto autopilot, her long white hair trailed behind her. She wore a neck to toe silk skin suit that left the back open.

Ruby was tired of waiting for Argon to come around. Argon was 1's only son. 1 was the clan leader and was referred to as the 'clan father'. Ruby loved Argon but Argon didn't love her the same way she loved him. Ruby had wanted to abandon her ideals and just hop into the bed with him and give Argon what he wanted. "Get into his bed and hope that she would get his heart" Ruby had told herself. Nope, she hadn't given in and hadn't abandoned her ideals and never would.

Ruby was also so tired of wearing her black goggles, she wanted to be normal like everyone else, Maw had told her if she apprenticed with Mr. Magic then she would be able to take the goggles off permanently. If she took her goggles off in any light, a searing white pain would bite into her eyes; she had been wearing the goggles since birth when Mr. Doc had diagnosed the condition. The condition was so rare Mr. Doc had to go to the library to look it up.

Ruby decided she would go see Mr. Magic today. The tube was coming up, the tube was about two miles wide and she felt frightfully tiny going into the tube. Maybe there would be mini crystals inside?

The glider hit the tube perfectly centre, Ruby felt the cold air rush across her body, the tattoo of Maw on her back would dim in the cold. Ruby had 2 tattoos, one a small spider on her right temple next to her eye, the other a huge tattoo on her back of Maw. The tattoo on her temple only glowed red when she spoke telepathically with Maw. The huge tattoo on back glowed in red under normal conditions and bright red when she was hot or exited.

The air currents inside the tube were running counter clockwise. Ruby urged the glider into the counterclockwise air stream; she looked ahead into the tube and saw the line of mini crystals on their tiny balloons. "Lucky night" she thought to herself, she unhooked the pole with the net. After the strap was on her wrist she loosened the tie on the hoop of the net and slid the pole down. The net was the finest silk available, the hoop was about 6 feet across and the net was about forty feet long. She felt the drag of the fine net and adjusted the glider to take up the slack.

The crystals inside the tube were mini crystals, ranging from the size of a pin up to 2 inches long. The mini crystals flowed into the net, small hooks and blades in the silk of the net popped and snagged the balloons holding the crystals. Ruby waited until the net was full enough to cause a major drag. She pulled the net up and hooked the whole net on a hook behind her. She unstrapped her wrist and let the pole dangle. She flew the tube for another hour for the fun of it and headed home.