Untitled on Purpose

she's platonic about it but in my opinion, stratt 100% treats grace as her dead wife. she keeps a tacky fox trinket in her coat pocket. there's a framed photo of him in her study . he's grinning goofily in it (bc he's a dork). new guy like: is that her husband? / no, dumbass, it's dr. ryland grace, 1/3 of the hail mary mission. / oh, fuck. were they... ? / yeah, it's unclear. black-and-white montages of grace messing around in high-level meetings play every time stratt contemplates committing more environmental crimes. she looks up at the night sky and vaguely wonders if he's enjoying his space ramen. that's her dead wife. she killed him.

also the mother is a little insane, because she's OLD old and is the only arachnid left in their family who remembers being a human. so she does her best for her children, bringing in instructors, and stealing books, and teaching them history and poetry, basically giving them the education of little lordlings (because she herself was of the noble class, before the transformation curse), but there's just so many children, and so many years, and so little hope of anything changing for the better. and as her mind goes, it gets harder and harder for her not to just act like a spider. the teachers don't last long at all anymore. but at least they're tasty.

they take turns