@mckapo
Prologue
Lachesis examined the gold thread entwined in her fingers carefully. “This is troublesome indeed.”
Clotho looked up from her spinning, a deep tenderness in her eyes. “Ah, one of my most glorious threads I have ever spun. Just look at the way it glows.” And it did glow, a bright golden light that illuminated the vast emptiness that surrounded the three Morai, casting the shadows back farther than any thread Lachesis had seen before. Atropos lifted her head, gray hairs gliding lazily about, as if gravity had no effect on them.
“The old Mother is almost gone, glad to see you finally got around to threading her replacement.” The elderly woman continued sharpening her shears, something she had been doing for the last few months, and Lachesis finally understood why. She needed those shears at their finest to cut into one of the largest and most powerful of life threads.
“Why is this thread so short, then? If we’re replacing the old Mother, wouldn’t the new Mother need three, four, possibly five times as much thread as this?” Lachesis asked, noting the way this beautiful thread ended so abruptly after only a few millennia.
“You tell us, sister dear, you’re the one that measures out these lovely creatures.” Clotho cooed, looking at her spinner. “It really pains me so to see you make such short work of that one. I do believe I’ve spent about ten years making that. Ten years, and so short.”
Lachesis fingered the thread, looking between it and the massive loom placed out in front of her. She’d had to come all the way back to the beginning for the loom, and though it pained her, she knew, she just knew there was no way for her to make this thread any longer than it was supposed to be. Just as Clotho knew what type of thread she was creating, human, god, demigod, creature; and how Atropos knew the exact moment and decided on the exact way of death, did Lachesis know how long each was supposed to last. No more, no less.
“Just put the damn thread on so I can cut this old hag already.” Atropos snapped, standing up and making her way to the second thread on the Loom of Life. “Really, dealing with you two… I need precision, sisters. This must be down to the last second. Damn fools, no idea how to be on time.” Lachesis ignored the mumbles of her sister, stepping up alongside her.
A new thread placer pushed and writhed against the thick thread that Atropos was now gripping in her hands. Lachesis gently placed the new thread there, though the placer still butted against the old one. Atropos stared for a few seconds at the brilliant thread of the Mother and then with a small sigh, she snipped the thread and it withered away into golden ash. There was a moment of silence between the three sisters as they watched the ash disappear into the nothingness and then it was back to work.
Everything in the Netherness was so very anti-climatic, Lachesis thought as she wove the thread in and over and under. It was slow, methodical work, but she had to make it just right to bear the weight of the Loom, as this new Mother was one of the support pillars of life. And… there, it was finished. Lachesis stepped back and with a last glance at the new born thread and the life it held within, Lachesis turned her back to thread more lives to the Loom.
