Chronos, War and Death stood with Fate looking on that beautiful scroll of life known as The Tapestry.
Clotho, cheeky and young, her hair pulled into a loose braid to keep it out of the way as she works, sits crossed legged at one end of the loom feeding it threads from her skein. The threads comprised of silky glowing filaments, are a storm of commotion controlled in her lithe fingers until the moment they touch the Tapestry where they flash a color and become Someone. A new baby born into the world full of despair and hope, ease and struggle and always the potential to hate and love.
This is when the more mature Lachesis with her nimble, near sensual fingers flash her needles and hooks takes over. All the important people Someone will ever meet, know, love or hate are due to the gentle, or sometimes quite the rude shove of her fingers and tools pushing and guiding every thread into and through the ever flowing stream that is the Tapestry into its design.
At the other end of the loom sits the matron among them, Atropos. Quick to tell you “I’m not your judge.” she often comes off as somewhat feeble to many upon first meeting her. As you get to know her, you realize just how tough and ruthless she is as she lifts the threads Lachesis is done with and the ever present, ever deadly, ever gleaming shears of her bailiwick sigh mercilessly as Someone’s part of the design ends.
It always amused Death how the human myths stories have the Fates as three different women. It took him a month to realize that the three women were in fact the same female at different ages. The power of her bailiwick enabling her to display them separately to work independently as they were now. Only War figured it out faster, taking a couple of weeks.
Whenever he stood before the Tapestry it never failed to impress Death that one of those threads is His own. It took him ages to discern which one was his and those of his compatriots. It is one thing to know the mystery such as an abstract myth, it is a daunting thing to actually see your life is literally in the hands of Fate. Death felt a sudden charge thrum through him, his dark curls lifting as if his body were suddenly receiving a boost of li…
Clotho?!
He just caught the sudden glow of his thread and immediately raised a brow at Clotho. Her warm eyes glitter with mirth as she snatches her hands away in time from the whack of Lachesis’ needles. Atropos merely shook her head.
“Dammit Clotho! I told you warn me when you do that to one of us!” Chronos cringed running his hand over his face and head. The unruly silver spikes standing on end glinted in the light. He pulled the minute timer out of his pocket with the other hand expanding the hour glass to its full size. He swung it towards Death, and gave it a gentle tap. He nodded before shrinking it down again and putting it away.
“Sorry!” Clotho winced, clearly not sorry at all.
“Is.. is that allowed?” Death asked shocked.
“To extend a life, including our natural ones? She has that ability, yes.” Lachesis nods, a slight smirk lifts the corner of her lips.
“Is it allowed to be used as recklessly as she did just then? No.” Atropos glared at the girl, but was equally, if secretly pleased as she loved the dear boy after all. Only one among them loved him more. Fate senses before she sees the mist and corrects herself to make that two among them.
Gaea appears in a celadon mist and lays a light touch on Chronos’ forehead. “I felt the shift as it was one of Us and thought you would appreciate it.”
He nods his thanks as his pain eased to nothing.
“She rarely uses it because it can wreak havoc in the Design to extend our lives, not to mention it throws off Chronos and I who have to adjust Time and Nature to account for it. Though you sometimes give her, and us, no choice on the rare occasions you choose not to take a life in your list.” Gaea cups Death’s face and lays a hand on War’s arm. War’s face remains stoic, but she can feel his flush of pleasure and comfort at her touch.
“So, any headway on this?” Her luminous eyes light upon the Tapestry.
The scroll of The Tapestry covers an expanse of loom several yards wide visually. Visually. With a touch of Fate any section of the Tapestry can become enlarged enough to fill part or all of the room as it is now.
Usually the whole of it a moving thing, flashing in swirls and whorls of colors. Suns, moon and stars flow in and out marking the passing of days. For the moment the almost whole of it was stilled except for one small section and that is a most frightening thing. As with any tapestry minor blips and snags happened from time to time in a design, it was expected.
What they were looking at was not minor.
There was a major snarl in the very fringes of the design, something that should never happen. They were only seeing the outer edge of the dark shimmering mass, but experience told Fate this was going to be bad. Essentially, a new world war to end all wars was in the making, but not one of War’s direct doing. Set to happen within by the end of the next century, it was a very long time in human years, not so much in their godly milieu. This was why the group now stood there conferring over it trying to figure out how if formed and how to untangle it. No one, including Atropos, wanted to simply excise the mass. The repercussions of such were nearly as dire to the Tapestry as the threat itself, but they would if they had to save the Tapestry, humanity, as a whole.
“Serbia again, Brother Mine?” The pale lanky brunette peer at the scene in front of him. His mercurial eyes taking in the moving parts.
“Yes and no, Brother Mine.” War pointed at a section with his sword in one hand, while picking some microscopic thing that dared mar his impeccable armor with the other. “This new skirmish in Serbia is the end result. You’d know that if you followed these three threads that twisted here.”
“No, you’d know if you followed these two threads here and here.” Sherlock used his skull headed walking stick to point out a different set tangles.
“Boys, do not start!” Gaea clucked her tongue gently, but definitively, a tiny flare of lightening cracked in her eyes.
“Yes, Mummy.” Both men chorused. War at least looked contrite, Death simply smirked.
Chronos hid his own smirk behind with the sudden need to cough, “Anytime now. I don’t have forever.” His gravelly voice chided the group as he pulled out the Hour Glass again to its full size again.
“But why those threads, those lives?” Clotho asked looking closer at the strands “They each started off normally and then twist.”
“Why any of them?” Gaea asks shrugs “It’s just not natural.”
“Really?” War cocks a brow at the pun.
“Hush you!” Gaea waved her finger at him threateningly, even as she smiled fondly.
“You did not cause this skirmish, War, but you may have to go down there and end it. Regrettably, there’s naught to be done for the lives lost if you do – else it is going to be massive. I’d really like to avoid going down that road again. It took Death and I weeks to sort out the snarl of WWII. That was horrific enough and this looks to be much worse.” Chronos shrank the Hour Glass again.
“Oh, how I detest legwork.” War groaned. He sees Death leaning over Clotho brows knit in concentration.
“What do you see, Sherlock?”
“I don’t know it’s too nebulous yet. All of the threads you and I pointed out seem to flow back into our natural timelines.” Death spread his long pale fingers wide over moving section,
“Your natural timeline?” Chronos squinted.
“No, all of ours. Yours, mine, Death’s War’s, even Gaea’s…” Atropos joined in “Something in our natural lives, we’re all in this. All of us…”
“STOP!” Lachesis’ voice thundered. The very walls and the Tapestry shook with the power of it. Wordlessly she held out her hands to her other selves as they coalesced into one.
“What is it?” Death felt the pull on his Lifeforce. He could tell by the reactions of others around him, she had done the same to them.
“There’s a gap.” Her voice shook as she expanded and contracted several places on the Tapestry in rapid succession.
“Martha you’re scaring me.” Gaea reached out to the middle-aged woman before her.
She turned to face them, a look of horror marked her face, as her three voices spoke as one.
“We’re missing a thread.”
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Haven’t done this in a long while. Nice to be back for a visit.
struggle, power, fringe, mystery, list, star, swirl, road, storm, sigh, lift, charge
