Vision or Warning part 2

They sat quietly on their grand thrones, the temple devoid of any other presence. I looked at the three Goddesses—each seated upright, their faces hidden beneath veils.

For a long while, there was silence. Then, at last, the Goddess on the left spoke.

"We rule over destiny. Be it man or God, living or non-living, mortal or otherwise—none can escape our domain. Every birth, every life lived, and every death is determined by us. None can defy our will, except..."

She trailed off, and the Goddess in the middle continued, "Except in how they choose to live. A person may turn left or right, do good or evil, help or refuse, show respect or disdain, seek joy or wallow in sorrow. He has the freedom to make his choices, but..."

"But he cannot escape our domain," the Goddess on the right finished. "All who live must die. The Gods, fearing our power, banished us into the Void, terrified of our dominion over fate. The Rogue God, dreading our prophecy, schemed to cast us out of Olympus and condemned us to remain in the darkness."

The middle Goddess then rose from her throne and walked toward me. "Lachesis—that is the name Mother Nyx bestowed upon me. It was she who saved us during the Great Battle that nearly destroyed the cosmos. Before we could warn the Gods of our prophecy—of the coming war—the Rogue God, through treachery and deceit, turned them against us. He sought to seize control of fate itself, but our mother saw through his deception. She pulled us into the Void, shielding us from his grasp."

She gently ran her fingers through my hair as she continued.

"The Great War left the Gods in ruin. With no other choice, they turned to us for aid. We told them the prophecy: the Rogue God could not be killed—only confined deep within the Rūzartë Mountains, where no one must ever tread."

She paused, her voice heavy with sorrow. "Goddess Freya, Goddess Amaterasu, and Goddess Athena devised a plan to lure him there. The war raged for years across the Rūzartë mountain range, and at last, the pantheons succeeded in imprisoning him. But victory came at a terrible cost. We lost friends, families, warriors—too many to count."

"The war made the Gods realize the true power of fate and prophecy. Fearing us once more, Zeus, Loki, and others decided we should never leave their sight again. They sought to confine us within Olympus, to keep us under their watch. Our temple was besieged."

"Medusa and her sisters—our High Priestesses—tried to protect us. But how could mortals stand against the might of the Gods? For their defiance, they were cursed—to crawl upon the earth like serpents, forever."

Her voice trembled, thick with regret. I could see the pain in her posture, hear the grief woven into her words.

"Couldn't you save them?" I asked hesitantly. "If you knew what was coming?"

A new voice answered from behind Lachesis.

"I am Atropos, the name given to me by Mother Nyx." The third Goddess stepped forward. "You ask why we did not save Medusa and her sisters? The answer is simple: it was their fate."

"As our Priestesses, they shared a fragment of our power. They could glimpse the threads of destiny, just as we could. But they, too, betrayed us. They planned to imprison us using an ancient ritual, binding fate itself."

Her voice grew colder, tinged with sorrow. "When we learned the truth, we were devastated. We lost faith, trust, love—our very sense of family. And so, we fled again. We abandoned Mount Olympus and withdrew into the domain of our mother, choosing solitude over treachery. There, in the eternal darkness, we remained—without worshippers, without prayers, without priestesses. Without hope."

Silence fell over the chamber.

As I absorbed their words, I pieced together a truth. Medusa and her sisters—ancestors of Nagini—had borne the weight of that ancient curse. The Maledictus affliction, the fate of transforming into a serpent, traced back to them.

And the Fates—once revered, now forgotten—had been betrayed time and again. First, the Gods had cast them into the Void at the behest of the Rogue God. Then, after they had aided in his defeat, the Gods had tried to imprison them. And finally, their own priestesses, bound by their own fate, had turned against them.

I sighed. Even the Goddesses of destiny, the weavers of fate, had been unable to alter their own path.

At some point, as they spoke, the three Goddesses had moved closer. Now, they stood before me, their veiled faces unreadable.

"Clotho. That is the name my mother whispered into the world."

The Goddess who had remained silent until now finally spoke. Her voice was calm but carried an air of amusement.

"We were not supposed to meet this early. You were not meant to know about the Great War, our past, or the truth about Nagini's curse. Your ability to see precognitive dreams—your clairvoyance—was never supposed to manifest so soon. And yet, your threads of fate keep unraveling from their destined path. Unable to contain our curiosity, we brought you here to our temple. But even that was not simple. You wandered into Nagini's soul and almost healed her. Then, on your way here, you even stopped by our palace on Mount Olympus."

"Alas! Why must you cause so much trouble?"

She sighed dramatically, shaking her head.

Wait... was this my fault?

I was still a one-year-old baby! They couldn't possibly expect me to control my powers already. And wasn't it their own curiosity that dragged me here in the first place? And now, after everything, they had the audacity to call me the troublemaker?

I fumed internally, crossing my tiny chubby arms and glaring at them.

Then, suddenly—

"Pfft."

"Haha… Hahaha… Hahahaha!"

All three Goddesses burst into laughter.

Goddess Atropos and Goddess Lachesis pointed at me and then at Clotho, their laughter echoing through the empty temple.

"I never expected a baby to talk back to the great Goddess Clotho," Atropos finally managed to say between laughs.

"But," Lachesis added, wiping a tear from her eye, "you have to admit, the baby has a point."

I smirked, proudly crossing my arms and nodding in agreement. See? Even fate itself had to admit I was right.

Then—

"Pfft."

I turned, eyes wide, only to see Clotho laughing too.

Dumbfounded, I froze. Wait… wasn't she the one who was just scolding me?

And then, as if someone had cast a spell, the three Goddesses erupted into laughter once again. They held their stomachs, laughing so hard they could barely stand.

I just stood there, blinking. What was so funny? Was I the joke? Had I unknowingly performed some sort of divine comedy routine?

This only made them laugh harder.

"We'll meet again, don't worry next time we'll bring you directly in our place without stopping anywhere, now off you go. "

Wait ...who spoke? Before I could figure out, the vision turned into a whirlpool.

I opened my eyes only to find Fleur freeze while pulling my cheeks. Then finding hersely caught in the act, she gave me a small smile and quietly left the room.

[ Ding! ]

A notification sound from the system, brought me back to senses.