Roswehn of Mirkwood

In the spider's web

Don' t move.

This command came to her mind quick and sudden like a lightning.

She was trapped in the web of a giant spider. Judging by the size of that tangle of white and thick threads, the spider had to be monstrous.

Roswehn could not see the ghost.
She tried to turn her head, to check the environment. Her arms and hands were totally blocked: her right arm was bent in front of her, the sword still in her hand. She already felt the blood flow down from the wrist to the shoulder. Shortly thereafter she would have lost her sensibility. Even the knees were held firm by that sort of twine, only her feet were free.

No! Do not move! the voice of her conscience cried out in her mind. Do you know what spiders do? Do you know how they capture their prey?

Roswehn concentrated on the terrible answer. Yes I know. I watched spiders for a long time, when I was a child. From time to time, they made webs in the corners of my room. Those small, harmless webs. Some spiders waited for midges and flies in the center of the webs.

That was not the case. At the center of that enormous web made of insect saliva, there was nothing but her.

"... so this must be a spider of the other kind: the one that lurks far away, hidden behind a corner, or on a branch, the one that waits for the wires to vibrate, because if they vibrate it means that something has been captured, something that can not escape." She said softly, shivering.

Roswehn looked up, to see if a long, brown, hairy paw came out of the foliage. But there was nothing.

Maybe it's not there, she told herself. Maybe it's dead. Perhaps the effort to build this huge web killed it. Maybe its heart exploded.

"Too bad spiders have no heart." said Calenduin. Or better, her spirit. She had appeared in front of Roswehn, a few feet away from where the human girl was stuck in a grotesque position. "But it's there, I see it, and it's hungry."

Roswehn screamed. "Go away!"

The entity did not move.

"You have to be quiet, otherwise our friend arrives and eats you." the ghost continued. Roswehn realized that she could see through her. That spirit was transparent.

"This thing about my son who should let your bastard half blood become king..." the elf woman continued. "... I do not really like it."

"It's Thranduil's choice! He wants this!" shouted Roswehn. "I have nothing to do with it!"

"Ah, really? So, who was lying under my husband every night, from the summer solstice until a few days ago? I saw you ..." the ghost hissed. "... I saw you, while you let Thranduil take you. You could get pregnant, and you knew it. " Calenduin said, looking at the mortal woman's belly.

Roswehn blushed violently. "I mean,  it's not me the one who wants our son on the throne."

"That's great!" the ghost exclaimed, then got closer to Roswehn. Calenduin raised her sword, bringing it just below the girl's jugular. "... because I died to let Legolas grow up free, and to become a great ruler after his father, and I certainly can not let your half-human son take power in our great realm."

"Go tell your husband, then." Roswehn retorted. "It's his project, the king wants this."

"I do not care about him. To tell the truth, I had already stopped caring about Thranduil after I gave birth to Legolas. " the ghost replied wearily. "He never loved me."

Roswehn felt a strange sense of déjà vu. I have already heard this sentence.

"Your child must disappear, and there is nothing else to say." the ghost continued. "Now, let me give you an advice."