Fate’s Loom

Dara sighed with the deep weariness that comes from trying something and failing enough times that numbers lose all meaning. She had always felt that things were “off”, like that feeling when you have a scratchy tag left in your clothes. A few months ago, she had a vision: a tangle of thread wrapped around the Earth in a way that suggested terminal asphyxiation, and a being looking at it with scissors of apocalyptic size and a pensive expression. Dara woke up terrified, abandoned all common sense, and became obsessed with finding a way to communicate with Fate. The plan was simple: make a complaint about what was going on with everything and, hopefully, avoid being pruned.

She had tried prayer, occultism, astral travel, and an increasingly concerning number of drugs without success. Now she was looking at a loom and wondering if this was rock bottom or if she could maybe slide just a bit more into madness. Dara looked again at the aged scrap of paper she had purchased in a sketchy Persian-looking library that had appeared next to the 7-Eleven in her street for exactly one afternoon. The scrap displayed Fate’s weave, a specific pattern said to allow the weaver to ask one question, assuming they survived staring at that nightmare of lines long enough to weave it. Dara promised herself just one try, then bed, and possibly sleep for a week, which sounded like excellent time management.

In the Arctic Circle, Fate was looking dubiously at a fishing rod and wondering how humans could describe this as relaxing. Perhaps trying to fish among a pod of orcas in a feeding frenzy was the issue, but Fate had read the “look for a place with plenty of fish” guidance, had taken it literally, and then failed to check whether orcas counted as fish. They refused to take responsibility for orca-related problems, on the grounds that they were taking a break from the whole cause-and-effect arrangement and anything thread-related. This meant that instead of tying bait to the line, they were placing seals carefully on top of the rod and waiting for events to arrange themselves. Events, with a concerning lack of care for seals, were arranging themselves mostly in favour of the orcas, which were extremely pleased with the outcome. After moving the seals up several places in the endangered species list, Fate decided this was not for them and returned to their realm to pick a new hobby.

Fate very carefully skirted around the automatic loom that they were refusing to acknowledge and especially around the big tangle of thread, which was perfectly normal and not at all ominous, at least in the report Fate intended to leave for their replacement. With a sigh, they stretched out on their favourite hammock, made of probabilities, with the kind of boredom that destroys civilisations. Just then, the response to their latest request for a replacement appeared above them, in a flash of bureaucracy. It was another rejection, the millionth one. This meant they would not be allowed to ask again, because bureaucracy liked round numbers and disliked persistence. Fate liked to get their own way and disliked being ignored. They eyed the tangle of thread with the deep disdain of someone forced to work after the workday was long over. After examining it carefully, they extended a despondent finger, dragging a nail across a few of the threads while pretending to read the response in detail. At that exact moment, a blinding explosion made one human extremely happy and several dozen others reconsider their mortality. Fate smirked and relaxed again in their hammock.

Dara’s body was busy cataloguing the effects of being whisked from the mortal realm to a conceptual plane, which mainly included nausea and a restraining order on gravity. She was quickly switching from happiness to fear as she looked around and could only see darkness, with parts merely menacing while the rest seemed to be composed entirely of grudges. Human minds would normally refuse the assignment and resign from existence, but since Fate had pushed a few threads, Dara’s brain rolled up its sleeves and tried again.

Reality realised it was needed and hurriedly assembled some colours and shapes until the darkness gave way to a beach strangely filled with the contents of several sports shops and a small shack that changed location every time it was looked at directly. After looking around in disbelief, Dara cursed the old merchant who sold her the weave. She had never expected to succeed on the first try. Anyway, she still wanted answers and then to sleep for a week. Dara started walking towards the shack, careful to keep it at the edge of her vision. She wove her way through a collection of tennis rackets and enough golf clubs to equip a whole country of rabid golf players. Dara made a mental note not to mention tennis or golf, just in case. After what seemed like a tour through all sports museums in the world, Dara arrived at the shack and banged on the door.

The door opened on its own with a loud creaking that seemed unnecessarily dramatic. It revealed a foyer that looked way too long for the shack’s dimensions and was trying to be menacing with all the enthusiasm and intimidation of a toddler told to go to bed. Dara shook her head at the overused “the inside is bigger” cliché and walked inside, wondering where the cheap-horror-film drama was coming from.

She showed some fear so as not to be impolite to the foyer and finally reached the main room, where her brain again tried to revolt against reality. There was a tangle of thread big enough to have its own gravity physically capturing Dara’s attention and eyeballs. After fighting the eldritch horror that was the thread, she looked at the rest of the room and realised it was even worse. Next to the tangle was a loom that looked like a marriage between traditional and post-apocalyptic styles, churning through the balls of thread as though making the final point in an argument. The room seemed to suffer from chronic indecisiveness and was changing shape, decoration, and size every time Dara looked at something. Finally, next to a skyscraper made entirely of paper forms, on a hammock that oscillated between realities, was a shadowy figure that vaguely resembled a human form if you didn’t look too closely.

At this point, Dara’s brain decided it had done enough overtime and walked out. Dara collapsed to the floor.

Fate looked at the collapsed human and manifested a bed under her so she could recover. All the pieces were now in place. Fate had tried to play nice but would not take no for an answer. The other thing that bureaucracy hated was people that read all the regulations. Fate loved rules and regulations. They loved even more making sure they didn’t apply to them. They had commissioned special glasses to read the tiny print that lived within the small print in all the regulations. Now they had their loopholes and were not afraid of using them. They just needed a little bit of cooperation. After all, the regulations only said agreement, not informed agreement.

Dara woke up after a few hours without remembering exactly what happened until the big eldritch tangle hammered the situation home with a small planetoid’s worth of gravity. She jumped out of the bed to find Fate looking at her. Fate looked pleased somehow, which made alarm bells ring in Dara’s brain. Before she could fully decipher what that meant, they started talking. Fate’s voice went straight to her brain without bothering with small things like air and sound waves and hearing. This helped avoid language and understanding issues at the small cost of your sanity. Dara’s brain did the equivalent of drinking a big coffee mug in one gulp and rolled its sleeves up again, preparing for another long shift.

—Congratulations! You are the first human in millennia that made it so far. Now, you get to ask me questions. What do you want to know?— Fate’s voice echoed in Dara’s brain. It had an understated arrogance, like you should feel lucky to hear it and you should be nice and react accordingly. Dara didn’t like being nice when the other person hadn’t earned it yet.

Dara took a deep breath.

—I’m sorry but WHAT THE HELL?! I wanted to ask one question not be abducted into an eldritch dimension decorated like a low-budget TV set. I had to walk through the whole sports dimension to get here and I don’t even want to know what’s going on with that. What were you going to do to Earth with those scissors? And why is everything tangled? Reality is off and somehow I can tell it’s because of you not doing your job so what the hell is going on and what in the actual Cthulhu is THAT?— Dara said without pausing to breathe, pointing to the big tangle of thread.

Fate sighed. Humans always used Cthulhu as an example of eldritch horror when he was such a sweet thing that just wanted to sleep in peace and maybe devour one world now and then, but everyone gets peckish, no?

—You humans and your emotions. Feeling better now?— Fate said sarcastically. —No, don’t answer. I don’t actually want to know. Yes, the weave is supposed to give you a direct channel to ask a question, but I was feeling bored and wanted more of a face-to-face, you know? Sorry about the mess outside, you don’t know how hard it is to get good help here! As to my job, I think I’m doing fine. I cannot be responsible if you humans come up with so many incredibly creative ways to make yourselves miserable or kill each other. I was supposed to just provide the occasional hero quest or make sure you never saw that person you locked eyes with ever again. Now I have to deal with all your wars, politics, whatever is trending on the internet and cryptocurrencies. That’s an eldritch abomination! Poor Cthulhu is innocent!— Fate finished as if tired and sat on a chair that was slightly surprised to appear under them.

Dara looked at Fate unblinkingly while trying to reconcile the idea of all-powerful, immortal Fate with the vision of a whiny person that summoned her because they were bored and were refusing responsibility for the fate of the Earth.

Fate took advantage of the moment to slip another surprised chair under Dara, who was also surprised to find herself seated.

—So, let me guess.— Fate said with a smirk. —You think you could do better?—

—Yes…— Dara started to say before noticing the dangerous glint in Fate’s eyes.

—Marvellous— said Fate with a purr, interrupting her before she could say anything else. —The job is yours, good luck! Also, maybe better lie down. This will hurt a bit…— Fate said, while removing the chair and replacing it with the bed. Today was the day for surprised furniture.

Dara felt like all of the universe compressed into a single point of pain that speared her brain and then she lost consciousness. Her brain started filing a complaint with its union for excessive exploitation and poor working conditions but then decided to take a nap instead.

Fate looked around expectantly but no flashes of bureaucracy appeared, so they quickly reviewed the regulations and realised the loophole also had a loophole and they were missing the acknowledgement after agreement. This was bothersome. They would need to stay around and train the human until she could acknowledge her new powers. Fate hated training montages, particularly because of all the clean-up and preparation you need to do upfront. They decided to sit down and plan their holidays while Dara recovered.

Fate tested their powers making a few more unlucky lottery winners and was pleased to realise they were still working. This was another useful loophole that was not documented. Since the transfer was not complete, both of them had Fate’s powers. Fate briefly considered just running away, but despite refusing cause-and-effect, they hated leaving unfinished threads, tangles not considered. Also, that worked both ways; if someone summoned Fate, it might pick either of them. That would be messy. Hopefully, the human would learn quickly. They got back to planning their trip. They always wanted to visit the unstable parallel realities and now they would finally have the time for it.

Fate had a full itinerary with versions A to Z planned before Dara finally started to stir, groaning and holding her head. She sat up with difficulty and looked around to see Fate offering a cup of tea. Dara looked at them with clear suspicion painted on her face. —What?— said Fate. —I can also be nice, can’t I? I know that hurts. It’s been aeons and I still remember. Just drink your tea and we will talk later.— Fate said in a sweet voice while gently jiggling the cup to make Dara grab it. She took the cup and after a quick sniff that told her brain the tea smelled like a warm hug, she promptly drank it and felt the hug in question making all the aches go away.

As Dara started feeling better, she realised there were more things in her brain. It felt like discovering you have a few thousand new arms. It was slightly disturbing, extremely worrying and concerningly exhilarating. Almost without thought, she tried to flex one of these arms and the bed briefly transformed into a very confused camel that tried to bite her. Fate raised their arms and Dara could feel all these thousands of arms being lightly restrained. —No experimentation yet, we should talk first— Fate said, not unkindly. —We don’t want you to break reality in the first few minutes of your new role—. Dara sighed. She hated training montages too.

Fate shifted the bed into a comfortable chair for Dara and made themselves a tea as well. —As you probably have realised already, you have the powers of Fate, with a small twist. Every time the role is transferred, the powers get a little bit of what the person had before. Probably your successor will get strange anxieties and wild obsessions instead of the powers of chaos that you got but hey! Everyone is different and valuable— Fate stated with a smirk while getting more comfortable in the chair. —Now, for this transfer to be over, you need to be consciously aware of your powers and willing to act as Fate for this reality. This and that— Fate said while pointing to the tangle of thread and the infernal loom —are your main tools. They need a little bit of maintenance; you shouldn’t have everything all tangled,— Fate purred, delighting in the understatement, —but while you get familiar with them, I’ll prepare the report for the official transfer. Any questions?— Fate finished while giving the clear impression that they didn’t actually expect Dara to have questions.

Dara took another deep breath. She prepared to tell Fate exactly what she thought of being coerced into the role when she realised she actually didn’t mind that much. She looked suspiciously into the empty cup of tea. Was there something else besides the hug? She examined herself, taking care not to move the extra arms, and realised that it was nice to have a purpose. Her brain agreed and even offered to exchange the anxiety for planning. She looked at the grinning Fate and realised that of course you cannot win against Fate since everything would be fated anyway. She sighed just for the drama and got up from the very comfy chair and walked towards the tangle.

It didn’t look as menacing as before, just mildly concerning, like when you let all the dishes pile up in the sink and you just know you will be scrubbing for a while. —What am I supposed to do with this?— she asked Fate.

—Untangle it— Fate replied simply. —I’ll be around if you need anything— Fate said, and promptly disappeared. Dara rolled her eyes at that and started to examine the big thread ball looking for ways to untangle it without cutting any thread.

Dara lost track of time as the tangle seemed to consume all her vision. Slowly she felt as if she could identify all the knots and twists and crossed threads and she could feel at the edge of her mind how it should be. It felt a little bit like the time she tried yoga except this time she could actually follow along with the movements in her head. After a while it felt like she was holding a sneeze and the pressure was mounting to let go. She was still scared of the camel incident and didn’t want to accidentally annihilate reality so she started looking for Fate but couldn’t see them at all. She looked back at the tangle as the sneeze felt imminent. Fate appeared suddenly in front of her startling her into losing control. The tangle shimmered in place and then was suddenly replaced by a small mound of very orderly yarn balls. Dara looked at Fate in horror but they were smiling.

—I knew you could do it— Fate said. —Ready now to take over your role?— Fate continued. —You need to formally accept being Fate—.

Dara looked at the orderly balls of yarn feeding silently into the loom. The loom looked more like a normal loom now, instead of an infernal monstrosity. Dara looked back at Fate.

— That’s it? Why couldn’t you do this instead?— Dara questioned. —Was I really needed to fix this?— Dara interrogated Fate looking intently at their face.

—Of course you were. This was your fate— Fate said with an intolerably smug smile.

Dara rolled her eyes so hard they actually rolled out of her face and across the room. She slapped her face in horror but found her eyes there as if nothing had happened.

—Powers of chaos, remember?— said Fate still with the insufferable smile. —Be careful about what you think and do. Chaos loves… well, chaos— Fate replied with a wink. —Ready to make it official?—

—Sure— said Dara. —I accept the powers of Fate and will be Fate in this reality. I hope this is enough as I don’t want to have to sign anything in blood.—

Fate looked above expectantly when a small tower of paper appeared with a flash of bureaucracy and fell in front of Dara.

—I think this works. Now just sign here and we are done— said Fate providing a pen with a flourish. —Ink is enough. We are not barbarians— they quipped.

Dara grabbed the pen that felt strangely heavy and felt the process settle in her mind. She would get the official role and be responsible for fate. She could be summoned by circumstances or by another mortal and she had to provide a way for that to be possible but not necessarily easy. She also felt how she could ask for a role transfer subject to approval. She looked at Fate, and guessed it wouldn’t get approved easily but she had her loophole which hopefully would still exist. She then understood that if she transferred her role she would lose all powers that were not hers and return to her true form. She stopped and looked at herself. Still human. Maybe she would change form after signing. She hoped she would get the same cool robes and shadowy figure as the current Fate although maybe a bit more colourful. She accepted she was procrastinating and signed on the top page.

The contract and pen disappeared and she felt a weight settle over her but it was a comfortable one like wearing a comfy and warm coat before going out. She could feel her form changing and she gave it a gentle nudge towards colours. Then she looked at ex-Fate and felt her eyes actually bulging out of her face.

—A CAT?!— she screamed. —Are you an ACTUAL ORANGE CAT?!— she demanded of ex-Fate.

—Of course— ex-Fate said smugly, —I thought it was obvious when I said I had the powers of chaos. Originally I thought having so much thread would be fun but I’m completely over it now. I’m going to travel the unstable dimensions. That will be much more fun I’m sure. Maybe I’ll come visit if I’m bored!— ex-Fate said and vanished.

Dara was still spluttering in rage. She pictured all the sports goods outside exploding in a big bonfire and heard a big WHOOSH! That made her feel a little bit better. She hoped ex-Fate was watching. Better to have more space for the beach. She never liked sports that much.

—A freaking cat— she thought. —I should have known.— Dara looked at the loom and at the balls of yarn and settled in her seat. Well, there was work to do and she had powers to explore and a lot of time to think of who to pass the role to when she got bored of it.

Ex-Fate looked at Dara across a rift to one of the unstable dimensions. —Yes, this was a much better hobby. No need to travel that much.— they thought.