Some things don't change. Despite how she can appear sometimes, Clotho has a long memory, reaching back centuries. She remembers days like this in the old days in Greece. The weather was better, of course, but the sway of people was the same. Old men sitting on benches to read or think. The universal sound of a child laughing. Wind shuddering through trees and the smell of warm bread. These things are all constant.
Clotho moves among them, watching it all with wide eyes. The house in which she and her sisters live is even more unchangeable than all of this, and Clotho spends so many hours working away in it that the sights and sounds of the human world still hold fascination for her. As she walks, she peers at each face that passes her by. She knows them all, to one degree or another. They've all passed through her hands at some point, just like they'll all pass through her sisters's before they're time here is done.
But one face stands out from the crowd, more familiar than the rest. Without exactly intending too, Clotho's feet start carrying her towards the boy sitting near the merry-go-round. She wonders, as she draws near, which one will greet her.
Even though she's standing only a few feet away and there's nobody else sitting in the bench beside him, it takes Brendan a moment to realize that the voice he's just heard is talking to him. People, in general, ignore him -- not that he blames them for it. He was, after all, nobody in particular: just a boy who couldn't remember much of anything (a name, sometimes a place, other times even a moth) and what good did that do anybody? When he looks up at her, it's with a start as he scrambles to sit upright in the hopes of looking attentive.
Large eyes grow wider when he finally sees her, familiarity ghosting across the surface of his empty memories. There's something there, something like the promise of recognition, in the bright red hair haloed around a pale and freckled face. Her pupils are set tiny and round in the fierce blues of her eyes. Brendan, despite himself, is suddenly glad to see her, even though he as lost the reasons as to why.
"Oh," he says, corner of his mouth rising inexplicably to form a timid smirk. "It's you."
That smile, itself, is all the answer she might need. It's not the smile she's most used to, but she knows it anyway and understands the uncertainty that lurks behind it. Clotho is very young and very old at the same time. She remembers when, once, there would've been far more Brendans in the world, chosen by a god and then let go again when not needed. It's not so common these days, but she remembers, like she always does.
"It's nice to see you again, Brendan," she says, not waiting for an invitation to sit down on the bench beside him. She's found that it's better to jump ahead of the introduction sometimes. Not so much that it startles him but enough that her certainty that they know each other can serve in place of his for a while. "Are you enjoying the fresh air? I couldn't wait to get out and stretch my legs when I saw the sun out this morning."
It's nice to see you again, Brendan. Oh, what a marvelous sentence, wonderful and reassuring in so many ways. It's amazing, the powers words can have on a person -- even when the words are simple and few and the person is someone as lost and hopeless as Brendan is. She's pleased to see him, she's seen him before; she knows his name. Even if Brendan were aware that such is the way of Clotho with everyone (more or less), it wouldn't change his gratitude for it. His hesitant smile spreads a little wider and settles permanently onto his face. Agreeably, he nods and scoots a little to one side to make more room for her on the bench, sharing some of the heat he's already built up on the cool wooden slats.
An odd sense of deja vu jostles him to ask: "But. Don't you have work to do?" Brendan immediately wonders what sort of work. Perhaps she'll tell him and if she doesn't, perhaps he'll ask.
Clotho smiles pleasantly, as close as she gets to laughing most of the time. She always tries not to treat mortals like strange objects of observation, but it's hard not to a lot of the time. They're similar enough to be comforting and yet different enough to be interesting. Though, Clotho has to admit to herself, that she spends enough time on her own or with her sisters that everyone else is a little strange to her.
That's why she's surprised by his question. It's always strange to see what his brian manages to hang onto each time. She gives a short shake of her head.
"The spinning can wait a few hours," she answers. "Besides, I'm considering this trip educational."
"Educational?" he hazards quietly, his eyebrows raising. Slowly, Brendan looks to one side and then the other, not entirely sure what can be educational about a stroll in the park. As he tries to puzzle it out, he unintentionally gets distracted by her smile; she has a full mouth and rows of white teeth and Brendan notices a freckle right in the middle, at the dip of her top lip. It makes him feel odd for her to smile at him that way, a strange roiling giddiness percolating up from his stomach and after a while, he has to look away otherwise embarrass himself.
When he does his eyes land on the carousel that has just gone quiet after a recent spin. Its lights whirl regardless, ignoring or perhaps even defying the bright rays of the sun as they dance in complicated, choreographed patterns. An old man in a tweed jacket is ushering children off and then on. When he's done the whole thing will start up again; the thought's enough to remind Brendan to ask: "Spin what?" Looking back at her, he lifts a finger into the air and twirls it round and round.
She smiles again at the twirling motion his finger makes. Nearby, the merry-go-round slowlly chugs to life again in the opposite direction, making an odd visual counterpoint that lasts a second before his finger stills. She considers telling him the truth, that she takes life and fate and twines them together to make every living thing he sees around him but at the last moment, she thinks better of it. Start with small truths, work your way up. It's just like spinning.
So she reaches out instead and put her hand gently on his chin so that she can push her face in the other direction and his gaze, hopefully, over towards the craft fair a short distance away. "Thread, silly," she says.
At first, Brendan's attention remains fixed stubbornly on her face, it's not until he's left staring at her from the corners of his eyes that he finally shifts his gaze over to the immodest huddle of booths and the smooth-faced lake beyond. "Oh," he says again (and he says it a lot). "That makes sense." Did it? He's fairly certain he didn't know thread was spun, but apparently it was. It'd be an odd thing to lie about, anyway.
With his attention now properly fixed on the fair, Brendan contemplates that instead. He had come through earlier on his way to the bench where they're both currently sitting, but nothing had really caught his attention (no hidden memories buried there, waiting to be unearthed). A lot of young people with metal threaded through parts of their faces and ears and old women in thick patterned sweaters and smooth-palmed hands. His pale eyes flicker back to her and he nods once, very faintly so as to not jostle his chin from her hand. "They have sheep. You know?"
"Ah," Clotho says and as she says it, the curve of her mouth lessens a little, though her eyes continue to smile at him. He is sweet. Clueless, but sweet, and she wonders if that's always been the case or if it's just the result of how Iggy occasionally borrows his body. She considers finding his thread when she gets home, to see what it was like before the point where Iggy first took an interest in him. But humans often think that sort of thing is cheating, so she files it away in her head to consider later.
"Sheep?" She peers over in the direction of the fair as well, trying to make out a sheep from here. "Sheep are so strange. They always sound grumpy, don't you think? No matter how they really feel."
Are sheep strange? Brendan can't tell, but unlike most things he's not sure about, he thinks at least this question is a normal one to not know the answer to. The sheep that he'd seen earlier was black with white tipped ears and if he had a minute to close his eyes, he would no doubt be able to picture it perfectly again in his mind's eye. His memory is strange that way; things are vibrant and indelible for as long as he's awake, but it's the sleeping and the waking up again that makes all of their colors run and bleed and then bleach to white. Perhaps the stranger would like to go see it, sitting a little dumbfaced in its pen and bleating over and over again, waiting for someone to pay attention to it. Brendan recalls that he'd felt something like sadness for it: a poor little creature, ignored by the world, perhaps just wanting to get out of its pen and wander over a hill and eat grass. If there's irony in comparison to his own situation, it's completely lost to him at the moment as he shrugs.
"Well. Maybe they're really always grumpy," he offers. "Wouldn't be their fault, would it."
Clotho doesn't really know much about sheep. Wool isn't the sort of thing she spins with often. Only once or twice, mostly, to try something new. It doesn't behave as well as mortals do, but she imagines that her situation is unlike most spinners'. Things want to spin properly for her most of the time. It's just a matter of not getting in their way.
"Hm," she says thoughtfully. She doesn't move for a moment but then suddenly she gets to her feet, holding out her hand. "Shall we go ask them?"
Brendan stares at the hand offered to him, stares as if what she's offering is a cold, dead fish or something equally strange and not her hand at all. In the back of his mind sometimes he thinks he has remembrances of gestures such as this one -- not just from her, but from others as well -- small kindnesses and generosities that Brendan is certain he never did anything worthwhile to earn. Blinking at it and then up at her, he eventually pushes himself up to standing and very tentatively slides his hand into hers. One of his eyes winces slightly when he does; what he's afraid of, he has no idea, but there is a feeling inside of him that he doesn't particularly deserve her kindness. Nervously, he rubs the palm of his free hand onto the leg of his jeans. "Yeah," he says, ducking his head. "Yeah, okay."
Another moment passes and then he admits to her: "M'sorry, but. I don't remember your name."
She takes his hand tightly in hers. If there's one set of humans that Clotho has little experience with, it's children and while Brendan might not exactly by a child by their standards, he is so young compared to her that the difference seems slight sometimes. She uses the little she knows about children now: be kind, coax, never mock, keep them close, watch out for them when they can't watch out for themselves. She thinks, at random, that these are probably good rules for how to treat with everyone and doesn't really understand why they're for children especially.
So she gives his hand a little tug and stays close to his side as they start to walk towards the fair, smiling at him to let him know it's okay. "Don't worry," she says. "I don't take it personally. I'm Clotho."
"Clotho spins thread for a living," Brendan muses out loud to himself before glancing sideways at her with a grin. He reaches up and fusses with the hat pulled crookedly over his head and laughs. "Heh. Sounds funny when you put it like that."
Clotho, he thinks again as his sneakers shuffle and scuff their ambling way along the path to the pond. Such a strange name, and such a strange girl asking such strange questions. He supposes that if he were to have friends (can he and are they? he should ask) that they would be strange in their own way; strange was, after all, what he was as well. Someone once said (he can remember who) that like attracts like. Pinching his grin down to a more private smile, Brendan wonders in what other possible ways he and the strange girl named Clotho are alike, if at all.
Clotho makes a content, amused noise in her throat, a little humming except without much of a tune. It takes a certain kind of cleverness to make the connection between her name and what she does, at least for humans who don't recognize her name immediately. It's innocent cleverness, but still cleverness. She thinks about saing Yes, exactly or Maybe it was intentional? but worries that either might confuse him or make him self-conscious, so she just smile instead.
"We are, a little," she replies, wiggling her fingers between his more completely so that he has no chance to get away as they enter the thicker crowd around the fair stalls. She wonders what the people around them will assume about them. They probably look more like brother and sister than anything else. "We don't get to spend much time together. But I work so much, I suppose that's true of all my friends. Would you like to be my friend?"
Once they make it to the fair and begin to make their way through, past, and in between the broken streams of people, Brendan begins to trail behind Clotho -- the tether of her hand around his tested every once and a while by the strength of his own distraction. The people here are familiar (everyone is familiar to Brendan, but never in a way he can ever place), and so his attention is divided between his companion and the sea of passing faces. At length, he finally answers her, reeling himself a bit closer -- a bobbing, sweet-faced kite on a string following after her.
"Yes. I would." In truth, Brendan wants to be everybody's friend -- even the nasties and the people that scare him or do horrible things in the night. He has no idea where the desire comes from, though he's glad that he very rarely acts on it. Clotho, however, seems different to him. Special, in a way. Unique.
Looking after her profile, taking care not to jostle the people that pass, he nods in confirmation of this assessment. "I'd like that a lot. Though--" His enthusiasm falters. "--m'not sure I make a very good friend."
Clotho moves among them, watching it all with wide eyes. The house in which she and her sisters live is even more unchangeable than all of this, and Clotho spends so many hours working away in it that the sights and sounds of the human world still hold fascination for her. As she walks, she peers at each face that passes her by. She knows them all, to one degree or another. They've all passed through her hands at some point, just like they'll all pass through her sisters's before they're time here is done.
But one face stands out from the crowd, more familiar than the rest. Without exactly intending too, Clotho's feet start carrying her towards the boy sitting near the merry-go-round. She wonders, as she draws near, which one will greet her.
"It's a nice day, isn't it?"
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Large eyes grow wider when he finally sees her, familiarity ghosting across the surface of his empty memories. There's something there, something like the promise of recognition, in the bright red hair haloed around a pale and freckled face. Her pupils are set tiny and round in the fierce blues of her eyes. Brendan, despite himself, is suddenly glad to see her, even though he as lost the reasons as to why.
"Oh," he says, corner of his mouth rising inexplicably to form a timid smirk. "It's you."
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"It's nice to see you again, Brendan," she says, not waiting for an invitation to sit down on the bench beside him. She's found that it's better to jump ahead of the introduction sometimes. Not so much that it startles him but enough that her certainty that they know each other can serve in place of his for a while. "Are you enjoying the fresh air? I couldn't wait to get out and stretch my legs when I saw the sun out this morning."
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An odd sense of deja vu jostles him to ask: "But. Don't you have work to do?" Brendan immediately wonders what sort of work. Perhaps she'll tell him and if she doesn't, perhaps he'll ask.
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That's why she's surprised by his question. It's always strange to see what his brian manages to hang onto each time. She gives a short shake of her head.
"The spinning can wait a few hours," she answers. "Besides, I'm considering this trip educational."
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When he does his eyes land on the carousel that has just gone quiet after a recent spin. Its lights whirl regardless, ignoring or perhaps even defying the bright rays of the sun as they dance in complicated, choreographed patterns. An old man in a tweed jacket is ushering children off and then on. When he's done the whole thing will start up again; the thought's enough to remind Brendan to ask: "Spin what?" Looking back at her, he lifts a finger into the air and twirls it round and round.
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So she reaches out instead and put her hand gently on his chin so that she can push her face in the other direction and his gaze, hopefully, over towards the craft fair a short distance away. "Thread, silly," she says.
Reply
With his attention now properly fixed on the fair, Brendan contemplates that instead. He had come through earlier on his way to the bench where they're both currently sitting, but nothing had really caught his attention (no hidden memories buried there, waiting to be unearthed). A lot of young people with metal threaded through parts of their faces and ears and old women in thick patterned sweaters and smooth-palmed hands. His pale eyes flicker back to her and he nods once, very faintly so as to not jostle his chin from her hand. "They have sheep. You know?"
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"Sheep?" She peers over in the direction of the fair as well, trying to make out a sheep from here. "Sheep are so strange. They always sound grumpy, don't you think? No matter how they really feel."
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"Well. Maybe they're really always grumpy," he offers. "Wouldn't be their fault, would it."
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"Hm," she says thoughtfully. She doesn't move for a moment but then suddenly she gets to her feet, holding out her hand. "Shall we go ask them?"
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Another moment passes and then he admits to her: "M'sorry, but. I don't remember your name."
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So she gives his hand a little tug and stays close to his side as they start to walk towards the fair, smiling at him to let him know it's okay. "Don't worry," she says. "I don't take it personally. I'm Clotho."
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Clotho, he thinks again as his sneakers shuffle and scuff their ambling way along the path to the pond. Such a strange name, and such a strange girl asking such strange questions. He supposes that if he were to have friends (can he and are they? he should ask) that they would be strange in their own way; strange was, after all, what he was as well. Someone once said (he can remember who) that like attracts like. Pinching his grin down to a more private smile, Brendan wonders in what other possible ways he and the strange girl named Clotho are alike, if at all.
"So. You and me are, um. Friends?"
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"We are, a little," she replies, wiggling her fingers between his more completely so that he has no chance to get away as they enter the thicker crowd around the fair stalls. She wonders what the people around them will assume about them. They probably look more like brother and sister than anything else. "We don't get to spend much time together. But I work so much, I suppose that's true of all my friends. Would you like to be my friend?"
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"Yes. I would." In truth, Brendan wants to be everybody's friend -- even the nasties and the people that scare him or do horrible things in the night. He has no idea where the desire comes from, though he's glad that he very rarely acts on it. Clotho, however, seems different to him. Special, in a way. Unique.
Looking after her profile, taking care not to jostle the people that pass, he nods in confirmation of this assessment. "I'd like that a lot. Though--" His enthusiasm falters. "--m'not sure I make a very good friend."
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