The Fates 2.
Read this one first: http://shoelace009.livejournal.com/105158.html
----
When I woke, I was on a cold marble floor, cracked and split into a million pieces like somebody had dropped a mirror. The silent sister sat over me, pulled a damp sponge out of a gray bowl and rubbed it tenderly over my forehead. She still never looked me in the eye and I wasn't sure she even saw me, yet she periodically looked over her shoulder at her sisters menacingly.
"It's our place, Nona. Don't look at me in that way. You were never so against it before. Besides, you brought this about."
Nona looked back at my palms and my forehead and then the sponge. When she looked back at my palm I heard a voice different in tone but still similar in sound to the others. Decima, it said, looking back at the first sister. Her voice was tender yet edged with a fierce anger as if it was lying just underneath the surface.
Decima looked at her as if it was spoken alloud. The third sat in the corner, sharpening her knife matter-of-factly. Marta, it said again.
Up to that point it had all felt as if it was a dream but I was becoming painfully aware of piercing pains in my shoulder, neck, and bursting lungs. My throat felt raw and in my hair was a great deal of sand and seaweed. I rolled my eyes to look around and examine all of the statues along the edges of the room. The ceiling was extremely high to the point that, on account of there not being enough light, I coudn't see the top. Arches lined all of the entrances to darker rooms beyond.
"I always told you," Decima continued, "that you should turn a blind eye to the mortals for a reason. That's why only one of us has adequate sight at a time--"
"Maybe if I actually had the sight and it was a little less blurry, I could have cut the string better."
"Two thoughts on that Marta. First of all, to continue my previous point, a lesson Nona desperately needs to learn, is that limited sight
protects us, keeps us from seeing too much of the mortals. If you see only their pictures, and not their living, breathing words and actions, you can continue to do what you are sworn to do. Second of all, you're right, but Nona didn't want you to have the vision. She was hoping this would happen. That's why when we got to the rock, she--"
Nona, who had been sponging my forehead, must have felt my facial muscles tense when her sister started to talk about the string because she ran her a finger over my dimples and, feeling them creased, looked hurriedly over at her sister.
Marta shook her shoulders. "He'll figure it out sooner or later anyways, not like it matters for him."
Decima, "True."
Figure out what? Fates. She put her hands on my collar bone, shoulders, and stomach and all the pain eased.
"Stop telling him things! You know we can both here you!" Decima shouted, making me jump.
Nona ran a hand down my wrist reassuringly. I cannot help it. I prefer not to speak to you and even so, because of the connection he can hear my thoughts. I'm not accustomed to having to adjust them in front of mortals.
"True." Her sister sighed. "I apologize. I know how terrible this is for you and I don't enjoy seeing it either but hopefully it won't happen again and we can put it all behind us."
Fates, I thought. I didn't understand.
"He isn't very quick, is he?" Marta put the knife pack into a marble white pouch connected to a belt around her waist. Nona's grip tightened on me for a moment.
Decima laughed. "He has to be. This is just his first encounter. Can't expect much from a mortal, especially one as old as he is."
"Sixteen isn't so old."
"The age isn't but the mind is. It becomes chained in what they think is reality. But yes, we're the fates," she said, now directing her attention to me. "Nona, Decima, and Marta, Morta really but she changed it at some point after the Great Depression, needed a new image, a little less tied to doom."
Fates. Fates. Fates. The Greek myth.
"Or Roman. Note the names." Marta or Morta or whoever pulled a curl down past her waist, straightening it and then letting it spring back up so that it just brushed the small of her back.
But fates are supposed to be hideous, and old, and, well, just the opposite.
They two laughed as they read my thoughts. "Bad press. Took one of Cupid's lovers, well a lot of them actually. Juliet and Romeo you probably know of. Ruined that love story for him"
Marta snorted. "Ruined? A fourteen year old girl with an aging, dirty, clearly unshaven, perverted man? We did her a favor. That ugly flying bird was just upset we ruined the man he was living vicariously through."
Eros, or you may know of him as Cupid. Ugly?
"Yes. Hideous as a matter of fact. Why else do you think he needs arrows to make people fall in love? Too bad for his mother that her son looks like more a vulture or ostrich than a dove."
"And that joking of your's Marta is why Nona is undergoing this Venutian punishment."
Silence. Both sisters looked at me as if remembering themselves and stopped.
----
When I woke, I was on a cold marble floor, cracked and split into a million pieces like somebody had dropped a mirror. The silent sister sat over me, pulled a damp sponge out of a gray bowl and rubbed it tenderly over my forehead. She still never looked me in the eye and I wasn't sure she even saw me, yet she periodically looked over her shoulder at her sisters menacingly.
"It's our place, Nona. Don't look at me in that way. You were never so against it before. Besides, you brought this about."
Nona looked back at my palms and my forehead and then the sponge. When she looked back at my palm I heard a voice different in tone but still similar in sound to the others. Decima, it said, looking back at the first sister. Her voice was tender yet edged with a fierce anger as if it was lying just underneath the surface.
Decima looked at her as if it was spoken alloud. The third sat in the corner, sharpening her knife matter-of-factly. Marta, it said again.
Up to that point it had all felt as if it was a dream but I was becoming painfully aware of piercing pains in my shoulder, neck, and bursting lungs. My throat felt raw and in my hair was a great deal of sand and seaweed. I rolled my eyes to look around and examine all of the statues along the edges of the room. The ceiling was extremely high to the point that, on account of there not being enough light, I coudn't see the top. Arches lined all of the entrances to darker rooms beyond.
"I always told you," Decima continued, "that you should turn a blind eye to the mortals for a reason. That's why only one of us has adequate sight at a time--"
"Maybe if I actually had the sight and it was a little less blurry, I could have cut the string better."
"Two thoughts on that Marta. First of all, to continue my previous point, a lesson Nona desperately needs to learn, is that limited sight
protects us, keeps us from seeing too much of the mortals. If you see only their pictures, and not their living, breathing words and actions, you can continue to do what you are sworn to do. Second of all, you're right, but Nona didn't want you to have the vision. She was hoping this would happen. That's why when we got to the rock, she--"
Nona, who had been sponging my forehead, must have felt my facial muscles tense when her sister started to talk about the string because she ran her a finger over my dimples and, feeling them creased, looked hurriedly over at her sister.
Marta shook her shoulders. "He'll figure it out sooner or later anyways, not like it matters for him."
Decima, "True."
Figure out what? Fates. She put her hands on my collar bone, shoulders, and stomach and all the pain eased.
"Stop telling him things! You know we can both here you!" Decima shouted, making me jump.
Nona ran a hand down my wrist reassuringly. I cannot help it. I prefer not to speak to you and even so, because of the connection he can hear my thoughts. I'm not accustomed to having to adjust them in front of mortals.
"True." Her sister sighed. "I apologize. I know how terrible this is for you and I don't enjoy seeing it either but hopefully it won't happen again and we can put it all behind us."
Fates, I thought. I didn't understand.
"He isn't very quick, is he?" Marta put the knife pack into a marble white pouch connected to a belt around her waist. Nona's grip tightened on me for a moment.
Decima laughed. "He has to be. This is just his first encounter. Can't expect much from a mortal, especially one as old as he is."
"Sixteen isn't so old."
"The age isn't but the mind is. It becomes chained in what they think is reality. But yes, we're the fates," she said, now directing her attention to me. "Nona, Decima, and Marta, Morta really but she changed it at some point after the Great Depression, needed a new image, a little less tied to doom."
Fates. Fates. Fates. The Greek myth.
"Or Roman. Note the names." Marta or Morta or whoever pulled a curl down past her waist, straightening it and then letting it spring back up so that it just brushed the small of her back.
But fates are supposed to be hideous, and old, and, well, just the opposite.
They two laughed as they read my thoughts. "Bad press. Took one of Cupid's lovers, well a lot of them actually. Juliet and Romeo you probably know of. Ruined that love story for him"
Marta snorted. "Ruined? A fourteen year old girl with an aging, dirty, clearly unshaven, perverted man? We did her a favor. That ugly flying bird was just upset we ruined the man he was living vicariously through."
Eros, or you may know of him as Cupid. Ugly?
"Yes. Hideous as a matter of fact. Why else do you think he needs arrows to make people fall in love? Too bad for his mother that her son looks like more a vulture or ostrich than a dove."
"And that joking of your's Marta is why Nona is undergoing this Venutian punishment."
Silence. Both sisters looked at me as if remembering themselves and stopped.