Dear Readers: Onward to Episode 4! Thanks so much to all of my readers for following and supporting The Fates thus far - it means a ton to me ^_^
To open the episode, let's see where Lachesis has landed on earth, after her inspiring chat with Chaos in the Cave...
P.S. Greek myth lovers out there - a few new names in this scene may ring some mythical bells ;)
EPISODE 4 - DOUBT
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Scene 1: The Sacrifice
2020 B.C.
She wanted to go back. As soon as she arrived on earth again, the fear swelled up a thousand times more fiercely in her human soul. She’d been foolish, to think she could ever be brave; for this fear was a part of her, if not the very heart of her, both mortal and divine.
Beholding her own beauty for the first time, in the mesmerizing mirror of Chaos’s steely greys, had sparked a sudden burst of confidence in Lachesis’s immortal soul. She had always imagined herself to be plainer than both of her sisters; she wasn’t sure why. The Fates had never come by any reflective surfaces in the Cave, so she had not had any reason to believe that.
But now she knew that it was certainly not true. Though Atropos remained unsurpassably stunning, Lachesis no longer had to harbor any insecurities about being less beautiful than her little sister—no matter how much smarter and stronger and braver and otherwise better Clotho might be, a little voice in Lachesis’s head had chimed in against her newfound shred of self-esteem.
And yet those deeper virtues were the ones that mattered, she woefully reminded herself now. What had her pretty face ever won her anyway, other than trouble among men on earth? This harrowing earth, on which she had just landed for the second time. How foolish she had been, to think that beauty was a basis for bravery!
She wanted to go back. She wanted to go back home. But there would be no turning back. Not for another day, at least, or till she could find sleep.
And there would be no sleep for now, beneath the blazing sun, assailed by human voices. Like the first time. Far too much like her first time on earth, in the circle of stones. The memory jarred her bones…
Yet then again, this time was different—the language spoken by the men, for one. Lachesis found herself fluent in this foreign tongue as well. Chaos had explained, before encouraging the fearful Fate to place her thread back on the Loom, that gods always retained some superhuman powers while on earth in human form. Foremost among these was a universal gift of language comprehension.
At least it was a little bit less terrifying, knowing what these men were saying, Lachesis silently comforted herself as she cowered beneath these strangers’ dumbstruck eyes.
Fishermen, by the looks of it, with spears and nets in hand. She had arrived upon a pebbled beach, beside a brackish bay that licked her bare limbs where she lay. The sun seemed brighter here than in the grassy realm where she’d first landed. The air was dry, beneath a broad sky free from so much as the faintest wisp of cloud.
She steadied her breathing, braced herself for just another day here in this fearsome world. For Mother’s sake.
“…the princess?” a fisherman whispered in awe to his friend.
“Of course not, halfwit,” the companion jeered. “Royals don’t wash up ashore with the catch of the day.”
“Haven’t you heard, though?” another chimed in. “The king was set to chain his daughter to a cliff today, as sacrifice to Cetus. Mayhap she broke free of the chains and fell into the sea.”
“Looks a lot like the princess…” the first fisherman insisted.
The skeptical friend squatted down by Lachesis. “So you’re the royal beauty, then? Andromeda herself?”
She blinked her blue eyes blankly at the same-hued sky.
“Must be in shock from the cold sea,” he inferred. “Let’s take her into town. See what the city has to say.”
“Can’t we first have a bit of fun with her …?” the youngest among them suggested. “She landed like this on our beach, after all…”
Lachesis froze. This sort of ‘fun’ did not sound very fun, to her.
The skeptical fisherman scowled at the boy, the scowl of a father to a son who should have outgrown such stupidity by now. “Have you lost mind?” he rebuked. “Bring the king’s fury upon this family, for laying a hand on his virginal daughter?”
The boy pouted, dejection dampening the fires of desire in his callow eyes. “More than a hand…” he muttered.
“I thought you doubted whether she’s the princess?” the boy’s elder brother reminded their father, his own gaze glimmering with similar desires.
“No doubt is worth risking the wrath of a king,” the father gruffly advised his sons, reaching to haul the maiden from the waterline. “Let’s get her up, and clothed—so as to calm your crotches down.”
Lachesis wondered whether she should say something. But no words came to her mind. She followed mutely, stumbling across the rocky sand, her weight supported by the fisherman’s arms and his two sons’ overeager hands. The other few men in the group stayed behind to attend to the day’s catch. Not without stealing glances at the finest creature that the tide had ever carried to their shores.
The fisherman’s wife was less than thrilled to see a naked stranger unexpectedly dragged in across her doorsill. She greeted her boys with a flurry of questions, grabbed up a spare dress to slip over the girl’s shuddering shoulders.
“King Cepheus will have even more questions for you, if this is indeed his daughter,” she grumbled, shaking her head in displeasure and hastily brushing the saltwater from Lachesis’s sun-gold hair. “Washed up on our coast like some lost whale. A likely tale.”
“But it’s true…!” the younger son insisted.
“Kings don’t care about truth. They won’t believe a story they don’t want to hear,” the mother huffed. “And they are not afraid to kill the messenger, no matter how honest or innocent.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” the elder brother asked.
“Haul her into town, and hand her off to others dumb enough to take the risk of bringing her to court. Trust me—there will be plenty,” the mother assured them. “Idiots who think the king might actually reward them for returning her, rather than assume the worst and have them punished for it.”
Lachesis winced as the fisherman’s wife scrubbed the grime from her skin with a sea sponge. Not so much out of pain from the abrasion, but rather from her tyrannous impression of the man who ruled this realm. She did not wish to be mistaken for his daughter… nor to cause this family any further trouble on account of it…
“I am not the princess,” she blurted out of the blue.
All four pairs of eyes in the household glanced up in surprise at the sound of her voice. Blinked in sync with each other.
“Who are you, then?” the younger brother asked, in hopes that she was someone he could fuck without a penalty.
Lachesis lowered her gaze, bit her lip with a lengthy pause. “I…”
“Must be a lie,” the mother sniggered. “I’d tell the same, had my father chained me to a cliff to be devoured by a sea monster.”
“Truly, I am not…!” Lachesis desperately insisted, increasingly terrified of this infamous king, “I am from… somewhere faraway…”
“Take her into town,” the woman bade her equally skeptical husband, twisting twin tendrils of Lachesis’s long locks into a crown of golden braids, “and hand the poor girl to whatever fool will take her. Princess or not, she’s got no place in our home.”
The man ushered Lachesis out of his hovel, from the humble coastline settlement of fishermen and toward the city center. She felt the young boys’ gazes following her, full of lusty longing, as she left—part of her was relieved to be led far away from their intrusive eyes.
But as she walked the city streets, then reached the central market, a thousand other pairs of eyes homed in upon her, harsh and probing. Was there no peace, no privacy, no propriety on this earth?
She was shuffled from one set of hands to another. Lost in the sea of strangers, no less adrift than she had been when first arriving on this kingdom’s shores. It seemed that some were even bargaining, some fighting, for the privilege of owning her today, the hapless object she’d become. She kept her gaze downcast and didn’t say a word. For had she anything to say, she knew that it would go unheard.
At long last, Lachesis found herself escorted up a wide flight of stairs, through a series of courtyards and halls lined with columns that soared to the sky. A regal domicile, no doubt. She swallowed hard and tried not to regret having returned to this dark earth.
“This is not the princess,” an imperious voice pronounced as she was brought into the throne room. It was a court advisor who had spoken—having gotten wind of the rumored royal daughter spotted all throughout the city, he was quick to quash the gossip.
“Andromeda is secured to the rocks,” a thunderous bellow proclaimed. The king, Lachesis knew without lifting her eyes. The tenor of his voice evinced it, rich with power and self-righteous pride.
It was her current owner’s turn to speak. A clever and affluent merchant, who had won her from the other citizens through stealth and wealth alike. “I am aware,” the merchant steadily acknowledged. “She is set to satisfy Cetus’s demands. I present this maiden not as Andromeda herself, but as an alternative to the princess’s plight.”
King Cepheus furrowed his furry grey brow. “How so?”
The merchant framed Lachesis’s trembling chin in his hand, forced her face upward to meet the king’s stare. “The resemblance is great,” he remarked. “Enough for multitudes of your own people to mistake this mute wench for the princess. Shouldn’t foreigners be even more susceptible to make the same mistake?”
“Foreigners?” the king repeated. “You mean Cetus, and his men?”
His men? Lachesis wondered, silently confused. Wasn’t Cetus supposed to be a sea monster, as the fisherman’s wife had said?
The merchant nodded. “How many times have the pirates laid eyes on Andromeda? Once, twice at most, I am sure. And no doubt from afar, if at all. They’ve never made it inland to this palace, and the princess rarely ventured near the shores, where they’ve attacked.”
Pirates? So this Cetus fellow was a man, a leader of a band of thieves at sea—a monster only in a figurative sense? Well, no less fearsome because of it. Given that he demanded a sacrificed princess.
The king was leaning forward in his throne. “So you propose…”
“…a simple substitution,” the merchant put in. “To spare your daughter’s life. Chain this maiden to the cliff. Cetus will come for her tonight, mistake her for Andromeda, and leave this land untouched.”
“It is a perfect plan,” the dame beside the king declared.
Queen Cassiopeia, as Lachesis would later learn. The woman whose brazen boast had ignited Cetus’s fury: she had publicly claimed that her daughter was the loveliest woman to have ever lived. A title oft reserved for the former lover of Cetus—a nymphlike beauty renowned far and wide as the fairest of them all. Till her untimely death in labor, not too long ago, delivering Cetus a stillborn child.
Once he’d received word of Cassiopeia’s blasphemy against the memory of his lost love, the powerful pirate had threatened to ravage Cepheus’s entire domain—a feat of which he was more than capable—unless the royal family paid a heavy price: their only daughter’s life.
A price that the king was quite ready to pay, when his prosperous kingdom lay at stake. But this plan pleased him. Sacrificing a stranger, instead of his own daughter, would be far better for his public image. And for his queen’s conscience. So he accepted the proposal, pledging a pretty penny to the merchant if this plot should prove successful.
Lachesis was treated to a bath of salts, doused in scented oils, dressed up in royal finery. All to prettify and prepare her for the cliff. And she could find no sleep, to save herself; fear kept her wide awake.
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What'dya think of Lachesis's second landing on earth? o__o
Anyone recognize some of those names? They're from a certain myth, on which I'll be putting my own little spin in this story - I hope you enjoy it :)
Next scene, we'll see what's happening with Atria, in Athens in the modern day... And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)