Just beyond the ends of time, interwoven within the frayed edges of reality, stood a courtyard that overlooked all of eternity. It bore the timeless beauty the likes of which artists dedicated their lives to capturing—that elegance that transcended mere aesthetic appeal to channel the true essence of art. At one end of the courtyard stood a tapestry, across from which was embedded a crystalline wishing-pond. The dreams of mortals lapped softly within the borders of the pool, with a few shadow-black nightmares slipping in and out of their iridescent depths.

The courtyard smelled of sunshine and ashes.

“Atropos,” Lachesis prompted, drawing my attention back to the task at hand.

I tore my gaze from the courtyard and refocused on my sister’s bored expression. Furrowed brow, pursed lips, slowly-dimming eyes set above a wrinkled nose—she looked as though she had just been forced to spend a lifetime observing the growth of wild grass. I frowned sympathetically.

“Another farmer?” I asked, bemused.

She shook her head. “Cow. Now cut it, please.”

I reached for the slender thread dangling from her outstretched hand. It was pleasant in color—a slowly-rippling blend of crisp greens and the glistening not-hue of morning dew. The moment I pinched it between my fingers (coarse, as coarse and smooth as tilled dirt beneath bare mortal feet), the clinging smell of fresh grass and spring air flooded my nostrils. As I drug my hand down the length, the years that Lachesis so deftly measured out raced through my mind.

The reason for my sister’s distaste became apparent rather quickly. She never was one for simple pleasures, and this cow’s life was extraordinary in its monotony. I toyed with several ideas for the cow’s death, but eventually settled on the one that would irritate Lachesis the most. A small smirk tugged at the corners of my mouth—not even the excitement of death by sacrifice would alleviate the tedious invariability of this animal’s life; it would die a perfectly boring death at a terribly boring age.

I skimmed my fingers along the line without pause—there was no real incentive to hesitate on any singular moment; we had spun the fate of many a creature, and this one would be nothing particularly special—and at last my hand brushed up against Lachesis’. It was then a simple matter to finalize the creature’s fate: I lifted my dominant hand, allowed my shears a few moments (seconds? centuries? I never know.) to materialize into existence, placed the starmetal edge exactly where Lachesis indicated, and with a single snip, the life-strand was severed. My shears faded out of existence, returning to their pocket of eternity until the next destiny required shaping.

There was always something melancholic about cutting a life-thread. I contemplated the feeling as I took the freshly-ended life in hand and stepped across the courtyard to where Clotho sat with her distaff and spindle. Somehow, each thread lost some of its luster after I set my shears to it.

The cow’s thread--previously a fluid blend of greens and silvers, gradually slowed and stilled. By the time I nestled it into the basket with its multicolored brethren to await being woven into the tapestry of ages, the life-thread had solidified into a soft, fern-green hue. It was as though being separated from the universal thread had sapped it of some of the glittering potential one finds within each newly-spun fiber that passes through Clotho’s shimmering hands

My youngest sister did not smile at me as I turned my back on the half-finished tapestry and returned to my post. It was not an affront to me; Clotho only ever had eyes for the cosmic ether twisting into shape between her fingers. I watched her spin destinies from the cloud of starstuff clumped upon her distaff as I walked past, but then a small chuckle from Lachesis drew my attention.

“What is it?” I demanded, eyeing her suspiciously. The last time she made that noise, she had managed bring about the certain destruction of an entire city.

Lachesis did not answer me, and the distance in her eyes told me that she was not here, not anymore. She was not looking at the courtyard as she measured out yet another glittering thread with sure, steady strokes, but rather the past, present, and future of the individual whose life she held.

“You’ll like this one,” she muttered, and that was all it took to convince me to reach for the free end.

I placed my fingers at the beginning of the life-thread and nearly gasped at the sheer intensity of the life held within its silk-soft fibers. I pulled back, blinking, then leaned forward to properly scrutinize the thread.

The first thought that came to mind was that Clotho had outdone herself this time. Rather than shimmering with the iridescent glaze of vivacity that I had come to expect from the lifelines of mortals, this thread positively glowed. It danced with a hundred colors before my eyes, shifting back and forth so quickly that it almost couldn’t be seen at all—even my eyes struggled to retain purchase on its wavering form. It almost appeared to be a tear in the very fabric of the universe.

But oh, how it glowed—

I could feel the energy of the thread, feel it burning and sparking beneath my gaze, as though it could sense that the final instrument of That Which Is and Was and Will Be drew near. I knew Life even better than Clotho, as for all that she created and shaped it, it was my duty to end it, to put every single life-thread to the knife and then tie it off—sometimes neatly, sometimes sloppily, but always tightly. It was my place in existence.

Life did not fight me. It never did—in part due to the futility of it, for I could no more stay my own hand than I could that of Clotho or Lachesis, but also because it was meant to. It was a flower in bloom, grown in the gentle embrace of spring and tested by the scorching heat of summer, and I was the frost that swept in at the year’s end to reclaim that tender beauty and clear the way for the next season’s.

I knew Life, and Life knew me.

But never had I seen Life distilled so purely in a single lifeline. Hardly daring to touch it, I reached out again and placed my fingers at the beginning of the brilliant life-thread. Its glowing length burned brighter as I made contact, and then the courtyard vanished in a swirl of unrefined emotions.

His name is Bion.

---

Bion was (is? Will be?) a stubborn, feisty creature. No heralds were needed to announce his arrival into the world, not when his indignant wailing rang through the harsh winter air as loud and demanding as the clarion call of any horn. The midwife swaddled him hastily and nestled him against his mother’s bosom, but he screeched relentlessly until the warmth from her embrace finally seeped into his wrappings. The midwife smiled at the babe as he drifted off to sleep.

Such a strong set of lungs! He’ll be a force of nature, this one. Gods willing.


At ten months old, Bion was doing everything in his power to prove the midwife correct. He lived untouched by illness—Clotho saw fit to bless him with good health, and Lachesis apparently determined that he would survive his infancy—but he put all of his effort into whatever task was at his chubby hand, and (more often than not) the task was trouble. Getting into potted plants, sneaking into the fountain whenever the nursemaid’s back was turned, screaming until he was allowed to play with his father’s helm—he fussed and squirmed and refused to behave unless he was indulged or distracted.

It’s not so hard to quiet him, ma’am. You just have to give him something interesting. He’ll stare at flowers for ages.


At nine years of age, the indignant babe had become a stubborn boy, rearing at the chains of childhood and yet still too young to be considered a man. Bion’s parents had conceived again, and Bion found in his new sister a source of both extreme pride and fierce protectiveness. He was reckless, yes—but never around her. His temper would flare and he would spit accusations at those around him, yes—but she while she was the source of many an outburst over the years, she never found herself on the receiving end.

Do not presume to speak to my sister in that manner again, or you will not be able to even cry out to your mother for help.

The colors around Bion seemed to burn with increased intensity as I neared the moment he would first pick up a spear. The focus in his eyes, the restraint in his movements as he cautiously experimented day after day, until the weapon was but another extension of himself—he treated warfare with the same honor, the same reverence that the philosophers treated debate.

Your son is a natural. Military service will suit him well.

It was in the guard that Bion found his calling. Amidst the clean-cut ranks of the city-state’s primary means of defense, he blossomed. Those years smelled of sweat and leather, and they rang with the clang of metal upon wood. They were tinted with the glimmering shine of untempered ambition, that constant flame that lights a fire in the depths of a mortal soul and demands excellence, demands the pursuit of the next accomplishment, the highest achievement. Bion’s life blazed as it never had before, his eyes glimmered with energy as childhood-observed promise was converted into skill, as potential became renown.

His superiors took note; within months, there was not an officer who did not know Bion’s name.

In the evenings, he would sit in his room and dream of the softer aspects of life. His calculating, brilliant gaze would trace distant skylines as his thoughts turned to home and hearth, of the dazzling smile one of the officer’s daughters would flash at him, when she thought her father wasn’t looking.

---

A touch upon what I knew to be my shoulder drew me out of the life-path of my beloved. I didn’t remove my hand from his lifeline, though, and the garden did not quite fade—I had the odd sensation of staring at both the shrubbery and my sister. I tried to blink my beloved’s future out of my eyes, squinting to see what my attention was needed for.

Lachesis frowned at me as she held up the glimmering life-thread, and in that moment I knew my beloved was doomed, for barely an inch remained between my hand and hers.

“No,” I whispered. “No, that can’t be all he has left. He… he’s to be a general. He will have a wife, and children, and… the world was at his feet.”

Clotho looked at the remaining string with pity. "It was a fine thread," she said, moving those sorrow-laden eyes of hers up to meet my disbelieving ones. "As fine as any a warrior could dream of."

"It's too short," I whispered, and though I knew it was futile, knew it was nothing more than the foolish thinking of a desperate heart, I looked to Lachesis and asked, "Are you absolutely certain you measured it properly?"

Lachesis bristled, but Clotho—ever the youngest, ever the peacemaker—swatted her lightly.

"Be kind," she chided. "It was not so long ago when you, too, questioned the writ of eternity. Allow her this moment of grief."

She turned to me, then, and despite the softness in her eyes, the edge to her voice carried the same authority as the glowing tapestry of life behind us. Holding out my beloved's burning lifeline, she said, in a voice that left no doubt as to the nature of the command, "Come, Atropos. Be reasonable now. This one is no different from the rest."

My beloved's destiny flowed like liquid silk between my trembling fingers, softer than the remorse in Clotho's eyes as she commanded, "Cut it."

The shears that materialized into my grip never felt so cold.



I took my time, for time itself only held authority by the grace of our will, and my sisters, it seemed, were not begrudging me a bit of delay.

I traced my fingers along torchlit evenings filled with the aroma of wine and smoked meat, where he passed the night with friends and family. I followed the formation of dreams and ambitions, of plans for love and family I now knew would be left unfulfilled.

I traced along a thousand laughs and twice as many smiles, along children's promises and warrior's oaths and with every minute woven into my beloved's thread, I found myself becoming enchanted with him all over again, for the vivacity with which he took on the world lent his life-thread a light so pure, so energetic, so utterly alive that its brilliance rivaled that of even the gods.

I skimmed back across the point where Lachesis had stopped me, and at last I traced upon a day that burned with the pungent scent of destruction. I watched as my beloved immersed himself in battle. The flickering of fear in his eyes was the only hint that he fought with anything but the expectation of victory. The hope in his heart persisted bravely, but Bion was not dense, and the overwhelming odds lapped at his confidence.

I decided it should be quick. Quick, but honorable. A well-aimed thrust of an opponent’s spear, a sagging hoplon, a brief lapse in attention…

His eyes would turn (turned? have turned? will turn? I never know.) to the stars as he fell.

"Cut it, Atropos," Lachesis said. “There will be another.”

My beloved's life-thread was not yet dark when Clotho reached for her distaff and spindle and began to spin again.