Sure, she’d gone to seed. It happens. Still, she began to feel a little used, pulled in different directions by the weight of his web. She never signed up for helping him catch his prey. She liked bugs – they pollinated her for goodness sake! The day he decided to move into her seedhead without permission she put her foot down. Well, her metaphorical foot. More of a root, really.

It may have been overkill, but she called in a favor from the local ogre. He obliged by crashing through the undergrowth, colliding with the web, and carrying it away, stuck to his hairy ogre arm.

The spider peeked out from where he napped in the seedhead, grumbling. He should have taken the hint, but he was a bit thick, even for a spider, so he cast out a sticky thread and let the wind carry it where it willed.

The ogre, watching all of this and grinding his teeth in frustration, thundered back, plucked the seedhead from the stalk and shook the spider out. Terrified, the spider ran away. The ogre grinned and turned to his friend, realizing too late he had picked her and now she was gone.

“Oh,” he said. He felt bad but ogres don’t dwell on such things. After all, she’d be back next spring.