“Vanessa Montero?” Cyrus said with utter disbelief.

“Aye, that’s my name,” Vanessa said, turning away from Cyrus with a bashful look in her eyes.

She stood still, seemingly waiting for Cyrus to deal the death blow with his words, but the young Prince had other things on his mind. “That’s a really cool name,” he exclaimed with his eyes shining.

“You really think so?” Vanessa asked timidly.

“Yeah, it suits a wild sword swinger way better than Henry Celine. I’d fear the likes of Van Montero more than Henry Celine if he challenged me to a duel.”

Van opened her mouth in awe. Her eyes shifted to Archibald who gave an accommodating nod and smile. “My thoughts exactly. I assume you took your house’s surname in order to disguise yourself in the knight academy.”

“Exactly and I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself,” she said and made some muscles. “Only Trinity could tell otherwise.”

“Aside from you reeking of berry cream and having a beard far beyond your age group,” Archibald remarked. “I’d say it was a pretty fair forgery.”

Cyrus beamed over his newly acquired female friend. He found the beardless Van a little tomboyish for his tastes but cute regardless of the fact. “I had no idea,” he exclaimed.

“Seems my Prince has taken to you,” Archibald responded. “I don’t think we’re going to have any problems with Van’s new identity are we princey?”

”Nope, not at all,” Cyrus said shaking his head but not enough to blur his vision of the cute girl standing in front of him.

“I’m surprised at how you’ve grown,” Archibald remarked. “The old master Cyrus would probably be upset he got saved by a maid. I see now you are maturing into a fine young gentleman.”

Archibald patted Cyrus on the back as he and Van walked farther into the woods. Cyrus remained still with his face slightly twitching and contorted like he smelled something funny. Suddenly his amorous feelings faded and he growled in his little tyrant voice, “I’ve been saved by a bloody maid!”

***

Cyrus jogged up to his companions as they entered a part of the wood with a particular musky scent. Everything from the graying hallows to the sticks and brambles on the ground were coated with thick but pliant cobwebs. Cyrus choked; the smell of the cobwebs reminded him of his castle catacombs where he used to hide and his asthma would often give away his hiding place.

He wheezed loudly behind Van and Archibald before a skittering motion on the ground caught his eye. “Fair Vanessa…” he gasped “Look out!” He shoved her aside in order to jump on a zebra striped spider the size of the palm of a human hand. With a loud squishing sound, the spider deflated and shot sticky webbing all over Van’s boots. “Ugh, Cyrus, what did you do?”

Cyrus put his hands behind his head. “I rescued a maiden fair from a savage spider.”

Van motioned her sword to the husk of the collapsed spider. “This? I didn’t even see it.” She smirked. “Do you really think a highly trained knight is afraid of a small bug?”

Cyrus piped up earnestly. “No but a fair maiden is!”

Van raised her eyebrow and ruffled her poofy hair by shaking her head. “Cyrus, just a second ago you were calling me a fearless swordsman but now you think I’m some weakling girl? What gives?”

“ I still think you are. Contrary to what people say about me in the castle town, I’m no male pig. I fully believe in your abilities as a swordsma- er… swordsperson.”

Van rolled her eyes and then glared at Cyrus. “Then what was all that stuff about a fair maid needing to be rescued?”

“Forget all that,” Cyrus said abruptly. “I was just doing you a quick one for saving my life.”

Upon hearing that, Van ceased her hostile glare and her eyes eased. Her harsh pointed tone grew airy and light. “You’re welcome,” she said with a head bob and a smile.

Cyrus turned aside to let out a breath he had been concealing out of fear. Archibald smirked. “Now that we’ve sailed clear of that tempest, let me fill you youngsters in about this hollow. Cobby Hollow, as it’s called, has fallen victim to an infestation of black and white webbers.”

Cyrus and Van marveled at the handiwork of the spiders. They had become very possessive of the forest, leaving their long strands hanging everywhere like party streamers.

“Travelers have often found themselves ensnared in their webs which are so sticky even other webbers can get caught in them if they’re not careful.”

“That’s interesting,” Van said still gazing at the musty forest. “It surprises me how truly rural the Coates kingdom is compared to the Toccattas. I feel our king would have a stroke if he saw a single hollow like this.”

“Well to be be fair,” Archibald said with a grin and motioned his eyes towards Cyrus. “The Coates have been busy with a very special project.”

Cyrus walked with his allies only half listening. He was still puzzling his mind how he could get even with Van or else he would be known as Prince “Saved by a maid” Piggy throughout the land. His reputation was at stake, and he had to do something quickly to nullify Van saving him.

That something came along in the form of three webbers dropping down from the trees around them with a look of hunger and aggression in their four black eyes. They spread their pincers apart and began to click them. Archibald’s ears twitched and he put his hands to his chin before speaking, “Salutations humans, we’ve come in the name of the spider queen to provide you as nourishment for our future generations. May they prosper as they strip you of your skin and eat you like freshly peeled dumplings.”

“You can speak spider?” Van asked with widened eyes.

“Yes,” Archibald responded. “It was one of the remedial classes I had to take at the Magicademy.”

“That’s all you care about Vanessa?” Cyrus exclaimed pointing at the spiders with increasingly ravenous looks in their eyes. “I don’t know about you but I know I’d make a delicious human dumpling…”

Cyrus was interrupted by the jaw click of the spiders firing long sticky blasts of spit from their mouths. Cyrus ducked it and realized he had the perfect idea on how to rescue Van. He’d save her from the Spider Queen. He knew exactly how to do it too.

Cyrus threw his arms over his head and ran off into the depths of the woods. “Cyrus,” Van and Archibald cried but the prince had lumbered off screaming.

He ran as fast as his legs could take him and he tore his new cape. He hated to damage top notch embroidery but it was a sacrifice he’d be willing to make for his redemption. He threw pieces left and right in spider webs as he ran. Mustering up his best acting skills, he hollered, “Help! Help! They got me, they’re taking me to their queen.”

“Cyrus,” Van shouted back “I’m coming.”

Cyrus grinned to himself; he was doing a convincing job and now all that was left to do was to find the queen. He gazed off into the distance and saw the forest getting muskier and muskier and the spore coated ground sloped uphill into a ledge. Cyrus realized as he jogged up the dirty incline that all of his running around had built up his stamina. Things were truly improving for him.

Cyrus stumbled up the hill with a breathy gasp. The trees were all shriveled and gray with the webs choking the very life out of them. Cyrus looked up and saw the rock slope led to a large cavern tainted white with spider spores. “The castle of Spiderdom,” Cyrus whispered as he winced from the stench of blood and spider hair coming from it. Cyrus duly tore his whole cape off and laid it down in front of the cavern. He quickly ducked behind a large white rock as he heard the clinking patter of Van’s shoes.

Cyrus observed the sweat on Van’s brow and the look of fear in her chestnut eyes. “Please be alive,” she pleaded and ran in.

Cyrus smiled. She wasn’t Trinity, but it still felt good to have a girl care deeply enough to want to save him. He felt a lump in his stomach and realized something as Van ran in. Maybe that was enough. She clearly didn’t hold her rescue of him over his head. Just because she was a girl, it didn’t make her any less of a hero. Cyrus’ heart dropped into his stomach when he heard her high pitched scream and he dashed in without any further thought.

Cyrus ran through the cavern but he couldn’t see anything. He prayed to the creator the spiders wouldn’t find him or eat Van. Suddenly, Cyrus swung his arms back to catch himself from falling into a precipice. He looked down and recoiled in horror at what he saw. Far below him, upon a glowing web the size of a castle courtyard, there was an enormous webber with a body bulb possessing the face of a regal woman with a dark widows peak, full lips and blackened eyes. Her bulb swelled and glowed brightly and her voice was old and wizened like an old queen. His throat clenched even harder when he heard Van shriek form below.

“My my,” the spider queen said, “I’ve never heard of a human who would deliver herself personally to my nest. You really must love us spiders or…” her green glowing fangs shot from her mouth. “You’re a foolhardy girl, one who’s too dumb to live.”

“I-I-I-I w-w-w-w-wanted t-to save m-m-y friend,” Van said with a sever stutter.

“There’s no one here but us spiders.” The queen responded. “And soon I will give birth to my spawn. They will delight in nibbling your flesh from your bones.”

Van let out a piercing scream and the spider queen put a consoling leg on her face. “Don’t despair young one, today is a joyous occasion. I’ll let you name the babies right before they devour you.”

Cyrus couldn’t take anymore. He threw himself into the chasm, landing right on top of the Spider Queen’s large swelling bulb with a squishing sound. He bounced off and landed next to Van with his belly laying upwards to the cavern’s ceiling. “Cyrus?” Van squeaked. “Where did you come from?”

“I-I’m sorry,” he said, beginning to blubber. “I pretended to be kidnapped so I could lure you in here and save you and it backfired big time! I’m sorry.”

Before Van could speak again (though anger and terror surged through her eyes frightening Cyrus) the spider queen scratched her dazed head. “What- what did you do?” she groaned as tiny little chittering filled the room. She turned around to see ten tiny pink hairless webbers writing around. “You’ve given them a premature birth,” she hissed. “They can’t see thanks to you!”

The spider queen’s voice grew less monstrous as she spoke gently and timidly to her little infants. “Come on now, sniff them out, use your spider senses. I’ll dice them up so you can eat them in little baby bits.”

Slowly the infants gained their senses and hurried over to where Van and Cyrus remained stuck to the web.

“What are we going to do?” Van whimpered, not resigned to her fate as spider food. She began to breath heavily when Cyrus remembered Archibald's words. “Their webs are so sticky that sometimes other webbers get caught in them.”

Cyrus’ eyes illuminated as he stretched his arms as hard as he could and ripped them from the web.

He grabbed a baby webber and held it in his hands. It was blinded and squeaked, not knowing why it was suddenly lifted. “Come on baby spider,” Cyrus said, turning it to face the mother. “Shoot your web, little guy.”

He tickled its belly and it began to giggle and haphazardly spray web all over the looming queen. Cyrus quickly tossed it aside and grabbed another. “Van follow me!” He exclaimed. “Do what I do.”

His knight companion pulled her arms away the web and blasted the queen just like Cyrus, coating the queen further. They continued until she was nothing but a massive sticky heap that struggled to move or speak. Slowly the mass moved but as she did the web began to sag until she dropped through it, falling down the chasm to her death.

Cyrus and Van, being on the end of the web fell too, but they landed on a sharp slope and tumbled down it at great speeds. Cyrus and Van screamed as the underground world spun through their eyes. Cyrus felt the lunch Sadie Belle had prepared for him emerge in his stomach but he swallowed it again with a burning sensation in his throat. They rolled to the bottom where they found their vision blurry from spinning too much. The Spider Queen lay crunched in a broken mass of white webbing, fully dead from her fall alongside her children.

Cyrus’ eyes, no longer hazy, opened brightly. “Oh Van, I”m so glad you’re alive…”

Van cut Cyrus off by giving him a well placed slap. It stung his face but he immediately understood the reason behind it.

”Cyrus with all due respect, you are the biggest crowned buffoon in all the land. No one but you would hatch such a scheme and I…”

“Please,” Cyrus said, “You don’t understand. In every story book I’ve read it’s a handsome knight or prince who saves a beautiful maiden. I’ve never read a story where a beautiful maiden saves a handsome prince so I didn’t know how to react.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” Van asked, her cheeks rosy before she shook her head. “I hate to break it to you Cyrus but this is the real world, not one of your storybooks. Things don’t happen according to popular cliches! Anything is possible. You might not even get that beautiful princess just because it happens in your precious storybooks!”

Cyrus felt himself turning pale. He never considered the possibility that he might not end up with Trinity. But he wanted Trinity with every inch of his body. If he could will it, he would have that storybook ending. At the moment, however, he felt remorse for his behavior.

“Vanessa, I’m sorry,” he with his head bent.

Vanessa looked away from him. “I am a girl and because of who I am, it has always brought me trouble. Cyrus, I accept your apology but…I think I’m going to have to change something about me.”

Vanessa reached into her belt, pulling out some illusionary cream and smearing it on her face. “For the time being it’s best I be…” Vanessa changed her voice from passionate and accented to her bold booming knight voice. “Sir Henry Celine, the burliest bearded boy in the two kingdoms! What do you say we get out of here, Cyrus old chum…”

“Ok…” Cyrus said and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his tunic. He didn’t want to admit but he missed Van Montero already.