hibernation

hybernation

the queen had always been the first that fell asleep, it had just been a rule established since the first queen, fighting this biological instinct would have been foolish as it was impossible

into the future where the kingdom was now much smaller did the motion of hibernation become much easier to follow

a strong man spider named goliath would be the second to fall, ensuring that the queen was at full rest and used himself as a somewhat shield the queen from both cold and attacks

and lastly out of the little pack was the huntsman spider...huntsman, but that was because of pure stubbornness, ensuring their resting grounds were properly secure, that the food was sufficient for his queen for when she resurfaced and placing traps for any intruders that may try to attack them during their slumber

pacing back and forth in an attempt to stay awake as long as he could to ensure the safety of his pack but would eventually retreat from the long battle from the icy winds and unwelcomed cold, finding the closest supply of warmth that was his queen's web-like bed

crawling into it he would always be subconsciously and immediately wrapped in goliaths arms, ensuring no escape and the unbearable weight of warmth, making the fight impossible to win as he fell into the realm of dream beside them

in doing so the spider queen would always be the first to wake, it would take goliath a mere few days to follow his lady command and the longest being a month for the huntsman

the queen's first priorities were to wake up and regain her strength, eating what huntsman and goliath were able to find for a decent meal beside her that had yet to go out of date before moving onto the preserved food in their storage

the queen would always ensure a bit left for goliath as one time he had awoken the same time as her and needed to share rations, not that she minded, there was always plenty of food thanks to the huntsman's hyper sense of smell and tracking skills

regardless she would ensure herself to get back up to strength, it would take her a day or so to unstiffen her muscles and be able to roam their lair again which she would have to clean and de-activate some traps that would be too risky to leave lying around, now she was awake they didn't require them, she was a queen after all

but when doing so she would use her webs and create secure and comfortable silky hammock-like nets to be attached safely around one of her powerful legs

why?

mainly for the reason that her boys could and would not stay asleep without her, nor without one another

she had made the grave mistake of doing this the first time it was only the three of them

tragedy struck when they were all quite young, only having been a few years she had been ruling and meer weeks since the goliath hatched, heck huntsman had barely started his first moult when the monkie king disaster, leading to the fall of her empire and only the 3 to remain

and as good as huntsman was back in the day he was still quite new to being the only huntsman in their little pack, needing to work harder to find rations without the help of the entire cluster, of course, goliath was there to help but was more adapted to being the muscle, a guarder and fighter apposed to a tracker

they still were able to find a good portion but not enough as when the queen awoke she was still hungry and had eaten all that the two young spiders could provide, she needed to find more and even more, for her lasting men, they were the only two she had left, and as sassy and proud as she was, she couldn't deny that she feared about loosing anymore, especially to the cold and under her care, she was their queen, she needed to provide