"People imagine death to be something opposite to and far from life. In reality, death is a part of life, entwined so closely that you can't tell one from the other."

🖤🖤🖤

"Don't just stand there pretending to be a seamstress," Lachesis laughed, seeing me fidget with my fingers. I wrung my wrists, trying to bring up a proper reply for the words she had flung at me so casually.

"I..." I opened and closed my mouth like a fish gasping out of water.

"Try to find the password to the system of the records. I don't know that." She dismissed me with a wave of her hands. An intelligent person would have taken the opportunity to slip away, but the confused idiotic me needed answers.

"Aren't you afraid that if I find out the password, I can upset the entire operation?"

Lachesis giggled again, "O, child! I wanted to test our security process for a long time. That you ended up here, shows a lot about the loopholes in the surveillance. I want to see this thing up to the end, to note if any ordinary mortal can break in and dismay this system."

"So, I'm basically an experiment for you, a pawn in your game?" I met her eyes levelly. Somehow there was an unusual dose of adrenaline running in my system. It was making me forget all my fears for a while.

"You're an interesting specimen. I might want to keep you for eternity," she mused.

"If I wanted eternity, I wouldn't have come here in the first place," I mumbled.

Golden flames flared up in her eyes.

"Let's be clear about one thing," she hissed. "I may show you some lenience here, but I will not have some mortal reply disrespectfully to me. I expect you to behave."

"The truth is bitter," I retorted. "Let me get this straight. You don't like this new arrangement that Maya set up here. You want the system to fall. Everything else that you're feeding me is a blatant lie."

"That's a grave accusation." Her eyes smouldered dangerously, but I could see a smile playing at the edges of her lips.

"So. I am right. You prefer the old systems back. Why don't you say it? Doesn't your vote matter in all these decisions?" I interrogated further.

"It doesn't," she sighed. "It's only me against the two of them. Newer technology for them is like toys for kids. They don't understand the gravity of the situation or what could go wrong if we modernize things that weren't meant to be modernized."

"Could the machines replace you all finally too?"

"At this rate, it will. That is what they don't understand. The more gadgets you involve, the more there will be glitches. And someday Maya would supplant all of us with the automatons. Over the aeons, we'd cease to exist in form like her and just float around like energy, thriving in the core of newer technology. Clotho and Atropos do nothing but spin and cut. I'm the one that has to make all the choices, and assigning futures isn't easy," she admitted. "Imagine having destinies allotted by some random technology."

"Life would be chaos," I whispered.

"When it isn't chaos anyway?" She rolled her eyes, turning away.

"So, why did you agree to let Death be replaced?" I finally asked the thing I've been meaning to ask for a long time. Her diaphanous eyes rose slightly, eyeing me from head to toe.

"So you are his minion, aren't you?" She whipped back suddenly. I flinched but held my ground.

"I knew it," she answered her own question.

 I kept quiet.

"He's my oldest friend. I never had that bonding with my sisters, like the connection I felt with him. We were partners in crime. I created destinies, he executed them. We were a team."

Did I detect a twinge of sadness in her voice?

"What happened then?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"Hundreds of years ago, I fell in love with a mortal," she said slowly.

"You did what?" It surprised me I didn't have a heart attack yet. When they say the fates 'seem to love' some people, I had never thought it could be in a literal sense.

Her eyes shot up at me. In a blink she was standing in front of me, her dangerously hypnotizing stare making me dizzy. "You babble that to any soul outside of this room and you're dead, little human."

I kept quiet. I wanted her to know the promise in my eyes as I held her gaze. The flickering fire behind those bottomless eyes died suddenly.

"And I continued meeting with that mortal secretly, not letting a creature see. Since I was the spinner of the fates, I got so blind that I turned the destinies in his favour. He had only good luck until one day, I found him in Atropos' list of the threads to be cut," she paused. Her lips shook slightly. Never had a fate seemed so human to me.

"Then?" I breathed.

"I panicked. I ran to Death and confessed everything. I wanted him to not go forth with Atropos order. He didn't agree, as expected."

"Why was it expected?"

"Because when there is no one to command you, there is a need for very strong self-discipline. One slight disorder, a little manipulation can put the entire system of the universe in chaos. We can't afford to give in to our emotions for our personal gains. They are all distractions befitting a mortal, not immortals." She got up and paced the room.

"So what did you do?" I prodded again.

"I insisted for the sake of our friendship. He didn't budge from his principles. I got angry and tried to mess with Atropos' list. I erased the name."

I must have gasped, because she threw a warning look at me and continued with her story.

"Death had no choice but to spare my love. Atropos became furious when she realized that one soul was missing from her total count. She didn't know whom to criticize. It's really easy to burden it on one's subordinates, so she blamed it on Death."

"Whoa...and you didn't say anything?"

"I was a coward." Sadness alighted upon her eyes swiftly. Her voice had lost that spark. It took a lot of her self-restraint to be telling all these to a mortal.

"Mrithun said nothing either," I concluded.

He had always been that sacrificing, selfless immortal.

"Death knew the truth," she sighed. "He kept his mouth shut and took the entire blame. He owned up the mistake which he didn't make."

"As expected," I mumbled to myself.

She raised her eyebrows but continued," "Atropos insisted for him to collect the remaining soul. I watched him bring the soul of the man I loved and cast it with all the other souls, for reincarnation, but I was helpless. Death had to face a lot of humiliation. He didn't say a word though. He guarded my secret."

Tears almost welled up in my eyes. How could someone like Death be so sacrificing and sweet?

"Atropos started trusting Death less and less over the years, blaming him for the smallest of the mistakes," — she paused — "until she decided to do away with him altogether."

"That is not fair!" I exclaimed.

"Life isn't fair, even as an immortal," Lachesis shrugged, taking slow steps to the other side of the room.

"Our friendship started declining from that day. Death wouldn't even talk to me." Her lips trembled slightly. "I could see it in his eyes. He had expected me to stand up for him, or support him anyhow, but I had been too numb to react at that time. So we started falling apart slowly but steadily until all that remained between us was a cold formality."

"But you could've opposed your sisters now," I insisted. "He bore with so much for you. The least you could do was stand up for him."

"I don't have the courage to face him anymore. Plus, my sisters listen to no one. I was helpless."

Lachesis slumped in her seat again. I could see little tears shining like diamonds at the corner of her eyes, but she blinked them away as fast.

"So, you want me to hack into your system and ruin it, without you raising a finger?" I pointed.

"Precisely." She regained her composure surprisingly fast. That high and mighty attitude was back in her voice.

"Why would I help you?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Because you are helping yourself too."

"The last question." I closed my eyes and drew in a sharp breath. "Why are you telling me all these that you have been keeping locked up inside you for centuries?"

"Because I realised that I and Death aren't that different from each other either after all. We have a similar taste for falling in love." She raised an eyebrow at me, her lips curling into a smile slowly.

🖤🖤🖤

A/N What do you think of Lachesis's story? Do you believe it? What would you have done if you were in her place?