He slinks in between her thoughts, a silver shape pacing before the caged beast and thrashing behind its eyes. He is the itch, that desperate feeling of no way out, and simultaneously he is the ripping teeth and a sense of relief and a rallying cry of freedom, freedom, freedom! There's a dagger in the dark of her mind, the smell of blood and the weeping and screaming that can only accompany anguished loss. A sea of black blood suddenly rises in Clarke's field of vision, swallowing everything whole, as a distant voice, totally unfamiliar yet familiar enough that she knows she must have heard it just moments ago, whispers 'please, please, please.'

Then the rising tide sinks back, and he's sitting there across from her, eyes a little deeper in hue but otherwise still a a dapper but ordinary old man.

"The Spinner watched every corner, and thought nothing could sneak past her webs. But as she tacked up thread after thread, the vibrations left her nest shaking, day and night, to the point that she couldn't sleep," he mutters, sounding almost as if he's reminding himself of a story. "She became so fixated on every tremor, that when a great howling wind passed by her, she paid it no mind. For surely, her foes would know to be more subtle than that."