Inktober #10: Pattern

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right that she, Atropos, Last of the Fates, should be the Last. She had, of course, known this day would come. Her sister Clotho refused to stop spinning the thread of Atropos' life. Her other sister Lachesis refused to measure it. Which meant when their two threads came to their end, and Atropos was forced to cut them, her own thread was left unset. Uncuttable. The Last Fate would be the last forever.

It had never been her job to focus on the lives of mortals, only the ending of them. Appearing with her shears, her scythe, whatever that human might perceive as Death come to cut their life away, she would finish the process begun by her sisters and the world would move on.

But what would the world do now? She was no good at spinning the creation of life. Had merely watched at the craft of the measurement and decision in how a life would be lived. She just had to know when to cut.

And for a while, unable to decide on what to do, all she did was cut.

The pattern began to fall apart.

The tapestry of the world was filled with holes. And if it were to all be cut? What would she do then but be a living ghost? A god with no purpose, doomed to forever look at all she and her sisters had made unravel and end in tattered ruin.

But she did not know all that her sisters had done. For, long ago, Lachesis had seen what must be, and had told Clotho. And they had worked in secret, while Atropos was away. Clotho wove, Lachesis measured.

And one day, Atropos felt compelled to look to the tapestry, and looked to her own unending thread. And there, hidden so delicately amongst the fibers, she saw her sisters again.

So she wove. And she measured. And she tried at first to copy all the beautiful work of her sisters. History became the present. The patterns of the past repeated, and the tapestry began to once more appear like itself.

But the work of three sisters in one proved to be too much, and soon a mistake was made. In her frenzy she wove a life that skittered and jumped through the weave, interacting with far more of the world than it was meant to. Than she had meant it to.

But she stepped back. And she looked at the tapestry from a distance.

The story told with her sisters was brilliant and colorful. It rose and fell and swayed and yes, could get repetitive. But nothing like what she had been doing. Her piece of the story followed only one line. Birth, Fate, Death. Birth, Fate, Death. Copied. Inflexible.

Until this mistake. And she found it to be beautiful. So Death began to dream. The tapestry evolved. The pattern was shot through with more and more color. And what exploded out into the universe...was sometimes woven frayed. Sometimes measured off by an inch. Sometimes cut a little too long.

And she found it to be beautiful.