He looks so anxious omg

Kehehe very nice!
Very skittish and anxious flyguy <3

That is a a stance and a half! Very excessive body language, yet it looks surprisingly fitting. The massive insectoid eyes also do a lot to convey the general sense of distress the poor guy is in, but somehow I have no doubt you'd manage to make them work to display other emotions too.

The fact that he's an 'eventual' acquaintance of Beau has my mind racing though! Already imagining a whole plotline that involves this poor lad thrust away from his regular life as he has to navigate the terrifying world of wartime espionage. Emery strikes me as the kind to constantly mutter under his breath, half-heartedly complaining about how ridiculous his situation is, how him being swept up in military business is stupid and unfair – he’s not cut out for this! He liked being a cog in the machine just fine! Etc.

And then, of course, the act two encounter with this lad outside of the city, really outside of the city for the first time, out in the wilderness. Emery racing through the forest to evade pursuit, people trying to capture/kill him over secrets that are way, way, way above his paygrade, poor terrified lad pressing his back against a tree, hiding, catching his breath... And just when the coast seems clear and he takes his first step to keep going...

With a loud whooshing sound, he triggers a trap that immediately yanks him into the air, body completely tangled up in a thick spider web. And he just... hangs there for while, life flashing before his eyes as he takes the time to curse every little event that lead him to this untimely demise, wondering how things he could have gone better, how he could have been a better person, lamenting not getting a last drink in before death…

Until Beau comes by, heavy boots crackling through the freshly fallen snow, drawing Emery's attention. Their eyes meet, and the poor fly lad just... freezes, looking certain death directly in the eye as Beau just stares at him wordlessly, those eyes, reflecting the twilight sky appearing so sinister in the darkness of the woods.

And the wolf spider is merely puzzled by the presence of the outsider, a bit suspicious sure, but he doesn’t even consider that his unwavering gaze reads as malicious to poor Emery, who begins to panic and struggle against his binds to no avail as the spider comes closer at a slow, steady pace, like predator approaching his prey and then...

*Twack!*

With a thud, poor Emery lands on the ground as Beau comes by and leans over, a hunting knife suddenly in hand. And as Emery is about ready to pass out from sheer terror, he feels his binds loosen, large hands ripping bits of webbing away from his tarnished business suit, and a moment later, when he finally forces himself to open his eyes again, he sees a hand... a hand reached out to help him up... H-huh?

As Beau easily helps the guy up to his feet, pointing out that the the city-lad’s intrusion cost him one of his traps, but - with some hesitation - offering the mess of a man shelter for the night. As poor Emery, who has all but given up on his life just stands there, staring, confused. Tomorrow Beau will lead him to the edge of the forest, the edge of his territory. This can be a dangerous place and, more importantly, he... doesn't much like having outsiders around...

As Emery, shocked, confused but slowly calming back down clutches that briefcase against his chest, wondering if he can trust this man... Should he just run? But then… he’s in no state to make an escape, and staying alone in the woods in the dead of night doesn’t exactly strike him as ideal so, really, the choice is obvious. As he paces a little to catch up with the steady step of the Wolf Spider, introducing himself, sharing a few facts only for Beau to nod once and offer a simple, conclusive "Beau."

With the two proceeding to have a very awkward, but surprsingly cozy dinner together. After all the running around it's... strange to sit down with somebody like this... Emery initially suspects Beau might be after the briefcase too, but when he realizes there is just... zero interest there, he calms down a little, letting his guard down for the first time in days and it's... it's nice. Strange for him to find a calm place so far away from home, from the city, deep in the woods, in the home of a trapper he'd assumed would kill him. As he gets a much needed look at how things are done outside of the city, impressed by how self-sufficient Beau is, maybe reconsidering some priorities of his own, something he could maybe act on when this is all through… Maybe…


TL;DR: Apologies for the wall of text, I just… ahh… I wanted to get it out of my head. I might have gotten some world-building wrong but I am so desperately curious about this world, I just can’t help myself!

Amazing work though, as always!

oh my god this is so good?? how did you know this is pretty much exactly how i imagined them meeting 😭down to the trap and the being pursued because of the whole espionage plot and everything...

You nailed their dynamic, by the way; Beau, super exasperated by this city-dwelling insect with zero practical survival skills who always seems to be a hop, skip, and a jump away from making an outright lethal mistake out in the wilderness vs. Emery, a high-strung/temperamental (if effectively harmless, since he complains/vents a lot to nobody in particular, but it doesn't really get him anywhere), sort of pathetic-looking fly who grew up in an extremely arachnophobic society and who is forced to make peace with this physically intimidating wolf spider who could break him in half if he really wanted to (but doesn't, for a variety of reasons, mostly because it's been a verrry long time since Beau has last spoken to a person who isn't just another highly territorial wolf spider and even though he'd literally never admit it, it's sort of nice to have somebody to look after, since Emery does injure his leg pretty bad in Beau's trap and would have died in the woods if not for his timely intervention.)

I might as well provide some additional lore, since you were pretty close to the mark already: on top of staying with Beau over the duration of his time in the wilderness (which lasts for quite some time; several months, actually, since Emery becomes convinced that he'll be killed if he returns to the city and functionally exiles himself to the woods in an attempt to lay low until the war ends), he initially lies to Beau about the contents of the briefcase because a) Beau is illiterate (rugged mountain living and no real education, broken family, impoverished upbringing, etc etc, there's a reason why Beau prefers to live far away from other wolf spiders lol) and sort of just has to take Emery's word on it, even though Beau is far from stupid and does remain suspicious of the fly's original motives for fleeing into the woods and b) this lie does eventually come around to bite Emery in the ass, since the briefcase was never delivered to its intended destination and this naturally draws unwanted, potentially dangerous attention to that entire area (who don't really care about Emery, but -do- care about those missing documents).

Also: lovely lovely prose, don't apologize! I'm super happy (if a little surprised, but in a good way!) that somebody was able to intuit the character's core personality and some of his lore just from the image + minimal description alone. Based on the final sentence of your piece, I think you'll like what I have in store for him (or *them, I suppose, since their lives do intertwine for quite a while) :]

oh he is so lovely i would die for him. can't wait to hear more abt his lore

thank you!! really excited to make more stuff depicting this dude in various situations, he's got that kicked puppy sort of thing going on but that's what makes him so endearing in the first place