The old god paced the grand hall of the Fates’ palace, his
jewel-clad hands tightly clasped behind his back. The waiting pissed him off.
They called him here, pulled him from his day of fun, to make him wait for them
in their own home. How was it even possible for them to be late?
What could they possibly want from him?
A delicate clearing of a throat drew his attention to his
back. The god spun on his heel as elegantly as he could, considering his
agitation, and assessed the three Fates standing before him. Though all three
bore the solid blind white eyes, the one in the middle had a smirk on her face
as she seemed to stare directly in his eyes.
“Eiya.” The name rung high and heavy in the baren hall. The
Fate on the left stepped forward and spread her dainty little hands, continuing
now that she had his attention. “You have received our summons.”
He huffed and made busy by playing with the rings adorning
his fingers. “Clearly. What is it this time? I haven’t all day.”
“Yes you do.” The one on the right jut out her chin in
defiance against his scathing glare. “You’re a god—you have all of eternity.”
The middle one waved her hand dismissively, shutting everyone
up with the simple gesture. The two flanking her shrunk back and bowed their
heads, their hands tucking themselves into the heavy sleeves of their robes.
“At ease, all of you. I shall speak to Eiya myself, as it was my idea.” The
other two lingered, not catching the hint until she practically growled, “In
private.” At that, they scurried away, disappearing to who knows where in a
cloud of grassy-smelling smoke.
Eiya grinned and strode for the remaining Fate. “Always at my
rescue, my dear Maikota.” She snorted, and he took her hand and touched his
forehead to the back of it, still grinning. He only backed away when she
flicked his nose. “What’s the issue that needed me here instead of at home?
I have some lovely little nymphs at my door just waiting for a bath, and you
know just how much I loathe making my guests wait.”
Maikota turned and gestured for him to follow. He did without
question. “Actually, the matter at hand is directly related to your chronic
womanizing.” She pressed a hand to a random stone, and the magic barrier
wavered and fizzled away to reveal a door. Eiya quickly ducked through before
the spell reformed, the Fate right on his heels. “You mentioned being lonely,
once upon a time.”
He arched a brow and turned back towards her, but she was
already paving her way to the bubbling cauldron in the middle of the empty and
dark room. “Only once upon a time?” he asked, slowly following her to stand on
the other side of the cauldron.
With a roll of her eyes, she waved a hand, and the cauldron
flashed to life in a brilliant blaze of purple. “Some thousands of once upon a
times, really. But that’s only part of the point. You said you were lonely, and
in order to fill that endless void that’s carved its way entirely through your
heart—”
“I wouldn’t say entirely—”
“—you desire someone to love, yes?” Maikota ignored his
interruption, briefly glancing up at him with those eyes of hers that both saw
nothing and everything. A hint of mystery mischief and delicious deviousness
sparked in them.
Eiya wasn’t too sure he wanted to trust that spark. “…Yes,”
he confirmed, word drawn out and slow as he tried to piece together what she
was planning—or has already planned, and she was simply informing him of his
part to play.
Maikota bobbed her head and swirled her hands over the
cauldron, disturbing the growing purple clouds. “You wish to have someone to
love,” she repeated, “and to have that someone love you back. Your wish is to
no longer be lonely, because apparently having everything your heart could
desire isn’t good enough; you have to drag some poor soul into your bullshit as
well.”
“Pretty sure speaking to a god like that is against Fate
guidelines.”
“Shush.”
He pouted. “Fine. Yes, it’d be nice to wake up next to my
queen, my lover, my beautiful wife who shall complete me like…”
“Like a case of Okonaka completes the collection of
Sir Humbri’s fine wines,” she finished, deadpan and completely unamused. Eiya
huffed again and chose the wise decision—stay silent. Maikota dipped her
fingers into the cauldron and brought them back up, letting the strange syrupy
liquid drip off of them. “If you truly wish for a love, then who am I to deny
you that?”
The god perked up, a bolt of excitement coursing through him.
“Really? You’d do that?”
Maikota held up a finger, silencing him once more. Her other
hand dipped back into the liquid and swirled it around. “Yes, under a few
conditions.” The room pulsed with magic, the stones making up the walls
trembling from the force. He sat back in awe at the display. Purple clouds
rumbled and flashed, striking her fingers and attaching themselves to her skin
without so much as a flinch from her. The liquid crawled up her hand, creeping
up until it wrapped itself around her forearm.
So this was the power of the Fates.
“If I am to create a love for you, you must make some
promises to me.” Glowing white eyes flashed over to him, sealing him in his spot.
Her free hand moved forward, palm up, and he hesitantly took it. In a matter of
milliseconds, his body locked up as a surge of foreign magic wrapped itself
around his bones and imbedded itself into his blood. Promising. Binding.
Sealing.
“If I am to create a love for you, you must promise to devote
yourself wholeheartedly to them.” Her voice echoed in his ears, in his mind,
and in the room. It sounded as though thousands of invisible clones hovered all
around them. “You are to devote yourself, be faithful,
and give just as much as they give you. An unequal partnership is not love—it
is selfishness and doomed to fail.”
“You must promise to love them for who they are, regardless
of beauty or flaws.” Maikota tightened her grip on his hand. “A love of the body
and not the heart is not true love. Do you accept these conditions and vow to
uphold these promises?”
He did. He so badly wanted to say yes so he could get his
bride, but he hesitated. This sounded like a lot of work on his end. What would
he be getting in return? A mindless husk meant to love him and that’s it?
Maikota smiled knowingly and bobbed her head. “I wondered if
you’d take that into consideration. Tell me, Eiya, god of greed and hubris, do
you truly care about the mindset of your promised?”
“Yes.” The word fell from his lips before he could even
think. Maikota didn’t looked fazed in the slightest, only arched her brow and
silently prompted him to elaborate. It took him a moment to figure out why
he suddenly cared about it, but finally he settled on, “I feel as though it
would get tiring, constantly having someone dote on me day in and day out. I
get that already with my lovers.” He chose to ignore her disgusted sneer. “I
want something else.”
“That ‘something else’ is going to be more challenging,” she
warned, serious once more. “Are you up for it?”
“Yes.” This time, as he nodded, he held the answer to his
chest with more conviction. Yes, he wanted something exciting and
challenging and new. Yes, he wanted someone to make him work for his
prize instead of handing it to him. Yes, he wanted a love for the rest
of eternity, but one that would never grow stale.
He wanted whatever Maikota had planned for him.
“In that case,” she chirped, before lifting her strung up
hand and twisting it until the sizzling and jolting strands were wrapped
tightly around her fist. Her grip on him stayed strong, as did the grip of her
magic. “As the Fates decree, I seal this destiny into the Tapestry of Life
and Eternity. Let these threads join together to reshape, mend, and create.”
Her fist snapped open, the threads still tangled and twisted,
and she shoved her palm into the thickening purple clouds. Thunder rumbled from
all around them, a blinding flash seared his retinas…
Then all went silent and dark.
Carefully, Eiya eased open his eyes to look around. Nothing
seemed out of the ordinary—no beautiful woman stood before him, all doe-eyed
and adoring—until he found the Tapestry. As if in a trance, he eased over to
the wall it hung on and hovered a hand just over the fabric.
Of course, it wasn’t the entirety of the Tapestry. It had to
only be a section, possibly the section added from this little stunt, as the
Tapestry itself had to be outrageously large. He had no idea where the Fates
kept the entire thing, but right now, he didn’t care as he gazed at the section
in front of him.
It both looked like a normal tapestry and didn’t. An ethereal
aura hung over it, and the threads shimmered in the darkness, and the pictures
depicted on the piece stayed still and moved at the same time. His perception
of the Tapestry shifted and changed with each passing second, and it only made
him more and more frustrated when he couldn’t make out what was destined for
him.
A hand rested on his shoulder, but he didn’t tear his eyes
away. “Relax, Eiya. As your fate progresses, so will the clarity. You can’t
just look at it and know what to do. That’s not how it works.”
He sighed and straightened, having bent down to get a better
look. “Inconvenient.”
Maikota’s eye roll was more heard than seen. “If you think
that’s inconvenient, then you’ll hate this.”
Eiya whirled on the Fate, towering over her despite the
complete pointlessness of it with her blindness. “What. What will I
hate, Mai?”
She blinked, unbothered by his tone. “Contrary to what that
pea brain of yours is expecting, you won’t be trotting on back home to meet
your beautiful beloved. You’ll have to wait.”
“Wait?”
“Wait.”
He threw his hands up in the air and stalked in circles
around the room. “Wait. I have to wait. I’ve been waiting for ages,
Mai—”
“So it should be easy enough to wait a few more decades.”
“Decades—” Eiya stopped, huffed, sighed, huffed again, and
rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Fine. Fine. When will I know
when she arrives?”
A self-satisfied smirk snaked across her face, and he dreaded
the answer. “You don’t. So I suggest you put a halt in your little hobbies
lest your promised sees and leaves you before anything can begin.”
He stared at her for a moment, long and hard. She stared
back, unruffled and satisfied with herself. The sneaky little bitch knew
exactly what she was doing by asking this of him. For years, she had been
telling him to stop, and never did because he saw no reason to. But now…
Now she used fate and his desires against him, and she was
winning. No, she won. She won this war finally.
He only hoped the outcome was worth it.
Mai waved her hand, and the door swung open. Her other hand
gestured for him to leave. “I shall see you again when the time comes. Good
luck, Eiya.” Her eyes sparkled, and through the ocean of delight and
conspiracy, he could see a tiny speck of sincerity within them. “I really hope
this is what you’re looking for…”
He was nearly out of the palace when her next words echoed
inside his mind.