Cupid's Karma | ONC 2024 ✔

ιδ

Far off in the divine world, three sisters worked diligently to weave the strings of fate in a desolate cave hidden by the sight of the Olympians. Their loom covered the entire cave from the rocky ground to the rough ceiling.

Tiny perches were carved for the sisters to sit and they would work their magic all day and night, churning out the mysterious threads that connected so many people in their world and the mortal one. It was dark but their wide sunken eyes were accustomed to the lack of light, the only colors that stood out in their gray and black abode were the different shades of red coming out of the loom.

Thus, the Morai spun and wove those strings, tied them to the people to indicate their fates, and cut them off when the time went ripe. They had been doing their task for centuries, since the very advent of time as their spindly fingers scratched and brushed over the ancient loom, weaving fate itself.

The eldest of them would pick the shades and the other two would weave until the fine thread was ready to latch onto the poor unfortunate soul they had chosen. Then they would leave it to get entangled through the steps of life until the time came for them to cut it. The youngest would fish out the string connected to the loom and then slice it off.

No one could see those strings except for the goddess of love and her son. They used those strings to do their job but the son was clever enough to go one step ahead.

When he was just a little boy, he had wandered into the cave and befriended the youngest sister. Watching her cut those strings with a small obsidian blade, he had waited for the right time and stole it, running away to never return.

The eldest Morai had sent bees and spiders to attack him, but he held fast to the little blade, keeping it as a prized possession. He knew exactly what it was used for and with time, he figured out which strings to cut by learning about the meanings of the red shades from his mother.

Ever since then, when the shade of the string got too dark for the mortals to handle, Eros would cut it. He used the same blade, knowing that the Morai might have carved a new one in all that time.

Even Aphrodite didn't know how he could cut those strings as he kept that blade a secret from everyone.

However, the Morai held that grudge and would not let Eros off easily. All the times his fate got entangled in the worst of situations, it was the Morai trying to get back at him for the loss of their blade.

They were petty and would take that grudge to the end of that world and the next. Their latest scheme by tying his fate to Ayra's hadn't gone unnoticed by the love god, but surprisingly he hadn't cut the string off yet.

They had plenty of opportunity to complicate his fate further by painting that string an even darker shade. That was exactly what they did and that string was now darker than any they had woven.

***

Over the past few days, Ayra had gotten accustomed to the cheerful presence of the god of love and mischief. He would pick her up from her apartment after breakfast and the usual cup of coffee.

She didn't know what Eros liked so much about the 3-in-1 sachets of instant coffee she had stocked in her kitchen cabinet. He treated it as if she brewed him a special concoction that he couldn't get anywhere else.

That morning too he was in the kitchen when she came out for breakfast, the only difference was that he was reading the instructions on the sachet to make some coffee for himself.

"Morning," she mumbled, fixing her messy hair up in a bun.

He turned around to see her, a bright smile lighting up his features, "You mean good morning."