Page 2 of Fated (Lords Of Time)

SNOOPING

Eris takes a moment to breathe in the quiet of the hovel. Nothing but the popping of the fire beside her and the scuttle of the feline shadows around her until Ribbon hisses.

“Are we going to find the fabric Black Ker foretold of?”

“Ahh c’mon Ribs…” Eris answers, deflating once again.

“You knowss we wissh to try. You knowss you wissh for beautiesss. Black Ker said the fabricss would make uss pretty. Sssso pretty.”

Eris stands, unfolding her long legs and longer arms, unbelievably tall in comparison to her folded form. She walks to a silver tray on the wall— the surface foggy and scratched. She fingers the thorns of her hair.

“I do wish to be pretty.”

“To be some-thingsss you aren’t, to be ssseeen— you could be Eirene…”

Eris looks at her tatty fingernails and picks at the edges, mumbling.

“Eirene. Loved and revered. Certainly someone my sisters wouldn’t lecture for hours.”

“Nobody runs from Eirene.”

Eris walks to the workroom. It’s lit by bulbs without strings or fixtures. They lie randomly on shelves and stools, hang from the ceiling in raw looping nets, rest on the floor.

Eris runs her hand along one shelf covered in spools of fluffy white cotton that glows from within like the thread on the loom.

She sweeps her fingers along the backs of her sisters’ chairs, raw wood slats with three uneven legs.

The spinning wheel waits for the Fates’ return, cotton loaded and abandoned when Zeus demanded the eye.

She pricks her finger on the spindle—

“Ow!”

A drop of blood falls before she sucks her finger between her lips with a hiss from herself and Ribbon.

“Tsk tsk tsk. Have you learned nothing from brother’s Grimm?” He says beneath a hiss.

“Well I’m not sleepy so perhaps it was their error.”

Her blood soaks into the cotton, seems to travel through the core of the thread, disappearing.

“Five minutes Ribbon. That’s all it took and I’ve proven their fears.”

Eris runs a hand along the cotton where her blood disappeared— “It’s so soft.”

She looks at the loom, reaches for the thick tresses of fabric pooling beneath. Heavy and light at the same time, cotton white, the pulse matching the faint colorful glow.

“Mind yourself Eris, this is what they warned you of.”

Eris looks up to Ribbon, “Why in Goddesses's names did you prod me to come in here only to warn me off? Ribbon, sometime I wish you’d find someone else’s head to crown.”

She turns back to the fabric. “I’ve never felt anything like this, except perhaps clouds—” Eris says, then grimaces. “—except they’re always damp.

She weighs the fabric, measures the thickness. It’s still attached to the loom so she can’t move too much with it.

Mesmerized by the beauty she follows the train to a stone wall behind the loom where it disappears beneath.

Eris inspects the stones —pushing and pulling— until one of them shifts. A heavy scraping sound itches at her ears, dust motes exploding from the wall as a door becomes.

“Oh my mother and aunties.”

She opens the door slowly and steps through, carefully avoiding the fabric draped across the threshold.

The walls are natural stone like the interior of a cave. In the center of the room is a well-sized hole cut into the dirt floor, the fabric falling over the edge, disappearing into the earth. The only light in the dim room is the pulsing of the rainbow fabric.

Eris walks to the edge and peers down into unimaginable depths. Her mouth drops open on a gasp.

“Goddesses.”

Ribbon squirms on her crown. “Mind your lean. A sssnake could get lossst down there.”

Eris straightens, then reaches for the fabric, entranced by its beauty. She pulls the fabric up from the well, draping it over her arm.

“The fabric of time, Ribbon. Oh my goddess, Rib, do you see it?”

“I sssee, I sssee. The threadsss of fate that hold thisss human world together— telling the ssstory of Zeussss’ preciousss pestss. Every life, beginningss, middless and endssss, timely and not.”

“The souls of each and every one contained— maintained. A book of life in one beautiful unbroken thread.”

Eris sits at the edge, her feet dangling dangerously into the depths, wrapped up in the fabric.

“I never knew human souls were so soft... and colorful.”

“Well, opinionsss differ.”

Her hands glow as she works the fabric. Her expression softens in pure love.

“I understand now.”

“Underssstand what, dear?”

“Why he loves them so very much.”

The shadow of a cat creeps against the far wall and Ribbon hisses loudly startling Eris from her daze. The cat slinks into the well room, spitting when she sees Ribbon.

“NO no no nonono!” Eris panics.

She pulls the fabric to her chest protectively, it must be safe—screw the cat. But then—

Wait—

“Oh no.”

“It’sss jusst a cat, they have plenty more where that one came from.” Ribbon hisses.

“You know well and good I lose one of the cats down a well I’m ruined. They’ll have Zeus destroy me, or worse— let me live.”

Eris moves to stand, dropping the fabric from her shoulders behind her in the same motion, but it catches on the thorns in her hair, jerking her head back and tearing the threads.

“No, oh no! Ohhh, no no.”

She turns back to the fabric as Ribbon menaces the feline, keeping her from getting too close.

On her knees Eris holds the the fabric tenderly where it’s separated. The color bleeds from the fibers staining her fingers.

“Nothing good comes when I come around.” she says, her lower lip wobbling on a quiet sob. “They were right all along.”

She looks at the cat and growls deep in her throat.

“How cute is the machine of my destruction. My luck you’re on your eighth life.”

Eris crawls over and wrestles it toward the door but then—

“hushshshsh…” Ribbon whispers.

As Eris pushes her capture into the workroom and the shadow scampers away beneath the loom she sees it—

Fog rolling in beneath the doorframes.

She groans, “Mmmmmmmnnnnoooooo.”

Then she hears it…

The quiet of shuffling footsteps beyond the threshold.

Muffled Cackling.

Eris deflates, “Oh come on!”