DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the creations of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.
Author's Note: The word for this one is "Fate."
Additional Notes at the end of the story.
Tangle at the Foot of Yggdrasil
Operations were optimal at Yggdrasil, and the Takaradas were shepherding newly minted souls into the queue for processing by the Fates. Maria, the youngest of the Takarada family, stared with wonder at the Well of Souls as inchoate beings swirled and swelled out of the void of Nothing and into the Light at the Beginning of the World. She never got tired of watching souls come out. No one knew where souls came from, or how they were made. All that was known by the Takaradas was that it had been their family's role for as long as anyone could remember to make sure souls were secured for their journeys onward. For the most part, it was a straightforward job. Souls did not have intention or intellect, they were things of pure spirit—essence, if you will, of a future human's being.
At the Well of Souls, it was easy to see what kind of person a soul would become. There were souls that came out that were as dark as the black holes at the edges of the known universe, and these were handled by all at Yggdrasil with careful horror. There were souls that shone so brightly everyone was dazzled until the Fates spun them. For the most part, though, souls were quiet things, each beautiful in a quiet, small way. Occasionally sets of souls would resonate with each other, and the Takaradas sent them to be processed together. Invariably, these souls would become families, or close friends. Maria liked it when that happened. Nothing was more sad than seeing a lone soul exit the well all alone. Those souls worried her. She didn't like the idea of a human spending an entire life alone. Very rarely, two souls would exit the Well and would be so intertwined as to be inseparable. These were what the Takaradas called 'soulmates.' Those souls functioned as parts of one whole, and the humans they inhabited always found each other during the lives they were given, drawn together in any circumstance despite distance, or danger, or adversity. But instances of soulmates were so rare that many had never even seen them.
Maria wasn't expecting it, then, when the Well lit up with the blaze of a million suns as two blazing, paired souls came into existence. "Grandfather!" Maria cried, "Soulmates! Radiants!" The two older Takaradas came running to see the twinned souls come through the Well. They were beautiful—two joint beings spun of joy and magic. It was so rare to see souls this bright, and it was nearly unheard of to see two of them paired like this. Lory felt a tear form in his eye before he blinked it away. "Listen to them, Maria," Lory said, as Maria tore her eyes away to see what her grandfather was saying. "If you listen to them, you'll catch an echo of the music that made the universe." The Takaradas stood still for a minute, just watching the souls float in the Light. Soon enough, they would shepherd them into amphorae for the Fates. But for now, it was enough just to watch them be.
Grandfather, father, and granddaughter weren't paying attention, then, as a panicked messenger came to the Hall of the Well. "Takarada-sama," Ruto said, and the Takaradas turned around as one to hear him speak. "I'm afraid there's been a bit of a crisis with the Fates,'' he said. "Lachesis is missing."
"Again?" Lory responded. "Ruto, is she still dallying with that Greek?"
"We don't know," Ruto said, "but for now, we'll have to pause operations until she's found."
"We can't pause operations," Maria interjected. "Ruto…look."
Ruto looked at the display of souls behind them. "Extraordinary," he breathed. "Twinned radiants."
"We can't put off their processing," Lory said. "Who knows what will happen?"
Ruto sighed. Every second that passed at Yggdrasil was a year in the human world. He knew as well as Lory did that delaying the processing of souls like these could have a significant impact on the history of that world. "Very well," he said. "We'll have to find a stand-in for Lachesis."
"Perhaps I could do it," said Kouki.
"You know very well you can't, Father," Maria interjected. "The Fates must be women. It will have to be me."
"Maria," Lory said, "You are very young. Too young to be the Weaver, dearest."
"How hard can it be?" she responded. "I simply have to follow the Universal Rules, don't I, Grandfather?"
Lory was worried, but if these souls were meant for a specific destiny, they would have to be sent onwards as soon as possible. "Very well, Maria," he said. "But take care. These aren't ordinary souls you're playing with."
The Takaradas hastily placed the twinned souls into an amphora and sent it with Maria and Ruto to the Hall of the Fates.
No one had noticed a third soul hiding in the light of the Radiants—one that was dark and a little sickly in color. Not quite a black hole, but not lovely, either.
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=
Maria was welcomed to the Hall of the Fates by Clotho and Atropos, who had been apprised of the situation by Ruto.
"It is most unfortunate that our dear sister has been waylaid by that Apollo," Clotho said, "but we understand that you have a most rare pair of souls that must be processed."
"Do you know what we do here, child?" asked Atropos.
"Only the basics," said stalwart Maria, beginning to fidget. She was beginning to worry. She hadn't expected two such stern personages…she rather expected them to be a little more like her Grandfather, who ran his share of 'the Operation,' as he called it, with a little sardonic smile on his face.
"It is very simple, really. I am called the spinner," said Clothos. "I take the raw matter of these souls and weave them into a thread."
"...And Lachesis takes that thread and weaves a tapestry from it," finished Atropos. "She determines the path and the destiny of the soul. And I…" Atropos smiled, "I cut that thread when that life is destined to end." To emphasize her point, she snipped at the air with a pair of scissors whose blades seemed infinitely sharper than any pair of scissors Maria had ever seen.
"You are worried, Child," said Clothos. "And you are right to be. The process will be dizzying for you for the first few times. But follow our guidance and remember the Universal Laws, and all will be well. While you sit on the throne of the Weaver, your hands will know their duty. Shall we?"
Maria sat at the seat of the Weaver, staring worriedly at the empty loom before her, and then looked on as Clothos dipped her hand into the amphora carrying the dazzling souls. With deft fingers, the Spinner began spinning the souls into thread, separating them ever so skillfully. "The souls must be separated so that they can be placed into human forms," Clothos said, "But they remember the taste of the other. They will recognize each other across time and space without fail. You'll see."
Maria watched as a skein of bright thread formed at Clothos' hands, and then before she knew it, Clothos yelled out at her. "Now, Maria. Reach for the skein. Your hands will know what to do."
Maria's hands shot out as if by instinct. Things were moving so quickly she could hardly register what her body was doing. Almost like an automaton, she wound the skein around the warp of the loom, and then proceeded to thread the rest of the thread for the weft. On and on she went, reaching out for a second skein, and then a third. Wait! she thought with alarm. A third!?
Just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard Atropos crying out in horror. "MARIA! Maria, Clothos, stop, STOP!"
Maria gasped and stopped her hands with great effort. She hadn't realized how difficult it would be—the power of the Fates was a formidable thing.
"Oh, sister," Atropos said sadly. "Did you not notice a third soul with the Radiants?"
"I did…but by then it was too late," replied Clothos.
A mistake had been made, they realized. In their haste to process the twinned radiants, they'd overlooked a third, darker soul that had come through the Well with them. And because neither Maria nor Clothos noticed until it was too late, a portion of one of the Radiants had been woven into that smaller soul. As if to make up for the difference in mass, portions of that dark soul had been woven into the tapestries of the soulmates in lieu of their missing light.
Maria was in tears. This would be a catastrophe, she knew it! She knew it, and she was to blame. "What will happen?" she asked the Fates.
"What must happen will happen," they replied cryptically. "We cannot blame you—you did your best, and you were only trying to make up for our own sister's shortcomings."
"Will…will the soulmates still find each other?" Maria asked.
"Likely," Atropos replied. "Though they may be obscured from each other for many years. And that third soul will have gifts it was not created with."
But the Fates could see that Maria was distraught, and so they called Lory to them. "She wishes to ensure the soulmates find each other," they said, "and so we propose a plan."
The Takaradas would accompany the souls to the human world, the Fates told Lory. There, they would work to ensure that the souls fulfilled the destinies originally granted to them before their essences mingled with the third, darkened soul.
"You may not have memories of your role here at Yggdrasil," Clothos said, "but you will still know what it is that you must do. And when you have succeeded and lived your normal human life spans, you will return to your posts here."
"Very well," Lory said. "We will go."
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=
Lory stared at an orange-haired girl cutting a daikon radish on the stage. It was odd, but he felt a strange attraction to her, almost a feeling that she had something extraordinary hidden within. Maria had felt it too. And not just that…Ren Tsuruga had already asked about her, apparently, though he almost never paid attention to the newcomer auditions. The girl was an odd case, coming to LME in a quest for revenge against some visual kei artist or another. Lory couldn't remember which one, they were all so alike.
The girl failed her audition, but Lory couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more about her. Something that he could polish and help onto a bigger destiny.
In Yggdrasil, the Fates looked on and smiled.
Author's Notes: Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate reviews, so let me know what you think!
So, like…duckie gave me my random word for the evening and I pretty much groaned. A word like 'Fate' pretty much begs for a long, wonderful, epic story—like Skip Beat. LULZ. Anyway, I'm the only person imposing these rules on myself, so I wrote the story I wanted to write. So uh yeah, it's longer than 1k.
I drive back to my dearly missed home tomorrow, so I'll be back writing DoK. But I'll still be writing these one-shots bc I just kinda enjoy them.
I pretty much combined the Norse Yggdrasil ("World Tree") with the Greek Fates here. I was considering going with the Norns instead of the Moirai, but Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were most familiar to me, so I went with them instead. I'm not going to deny that part of me was thinking of the Ah! My Goddess! Help Line when I came up with this, so there's echoes of that, too.
