Moirae
Before the gods learned to measure time, the Moirae were already waiting.
Three sisters sat at the edge of the world, where darkness touched the first light. They did not create life, and they did not decide how it should begin. Their task was older than the gods themselves.
Clotho held the thread.
Lachesis measured it.
Atropos waited with the blade.
Every creature that entered the world brought a thread with it. Some were short. Some stretched across centuries. Some were bright as stars, while others were almost invisible.
But the sisters never judged the thread.
They simply watched.
One night, a strange thread appeared among the countless others. It was unlike anything they had ever seen. It seemed to grow in both directions at once, reaching backward into darkness and forward into a future that did not yet exist.
Clotho touched it.
The thread trembled.
Lachesis tried to measure it.
There was no beginning.
Atropos raised her blade.
For the first time, she hesitated.
The three sisters looked at one another.
Perhaps this was the first being whose fate had not yet been written.
Perhaps its thread was not a thread at all, but a question.
And for the first time since the beginning of time, the Moirae did not know what would happen next.
They lowered their hands and watched as the strange thread continued to grow by itself, weaving a path through the darkness.
The Fates had always believed that they controlled the thread of life.
That night, they discovered something far more frightening.
**Perhaps the thread had always been controlling them.**
