The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

5.2 - Two Paths

Dear Readers: Let's head back to the city by the seacliffs, where two Fates are staying in the palace for the night...

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Scene 2: Two Paths

2020 B.C.

Marriage. Marriage. Talk of marriage on the morrow. Although she couldn’t see it from this paneless window, she imagined that the moon had likely reached midway across the raven sky, by now—was it tomorrow then, already? No, not yet, she reassured herself, figuring that the rising sun would mark the dawn of a new day. That seemed to be how humans reckoned things.

It was so strange, measuring time in human terms; quite an adjustment from the timeless Cave. She missed it so. She missed the comfort of the shadows and the stones. And yet she knew that it was only in the grip of mortal fear that she could ever hope to grow. To be as brave, as virtuous as her sisters…

“Lachesis,” came the virtuous voice she knew so well. She turned to see her little sister at the doorsill, smiling softly, somewhat sorrowfully. Clotho looked so… so very… human, standing there. She looked more beautiful that way, Lachesis mused. Maybe humanity would only heighten Clotho’s virtues, from the outside in. Lachesis didn’t like to think that it was true. She swiveled, where she sat upon this foreign bed here in the palace of King Cepheus, to face the doorway, forcing a fainthearted smile of her own.

“Do come in,” she invited her guest, gesturing toward the space beside her on the bed. “It’s so lovely to see you—I’d been wondering where they’d put you, for the night, and whether you’d be free to roam about. The guard outside my door won’t let me leave, you know. It’s rather odd. Still not quite used to the customs of humans…”

Clotho’s smile grew warmer as she sat beside her sister. “They’re an odd breed, indeed. Though not without their virtues.”

“Like that champion,” Lachesis blurted, faster than her mind had even formed the words. They had spilled out. She felt a little silly now.

Clotho canted her head; all the humanity in her chestnut eyes seemed to flare hundredfold more fiercely at the mention of that man.

“…He seems a fine man, don’t you think?” Lachesis continued, after clearing her clear throat a couple of times.

Her sister bowed her head in half a nod.

The air in the chamber felt suddenly heavy, so Lachesis hastened toward another topic. “So they let you roam the palace, then?”

“Not freely. There’s a guard by my chamber as well, but when I asked to see you, he happily ushered me here,” Clotho explained. “They think I’m your handmaiden, after all.”

“Handmaiden?”

“A slave or servant who attends a lady.”

Lachesis creased her brow. “But why would they think that?”

Clotho shrugged. “Humans are often quick to judge, based on behavior and appearances. The way I came to save you. The way we look; what that suggests about our birth. Our worth.”

The crease in the golden brow deepened. “But…”

“Don’t worry, dear sister,” Clotho assured her with another human smile. “I haven’t been treated badly or anything because of it. Besides, men have made the mistake of thinking that I come from wealth, before; it’s only next to you that I look… lowly, shall we say.”

Lachesis sighed and shook her head. “You seem to know so much already. And here I’m at an utter loss, still understanding nothing…”

“Well, I have spent more time on earth than you,” Clotho reminded her sister. “Time teaches.”