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Melinoë returned from Mount Olympus with ash still clinging to her limbs and the taste of failure in her mouth.
Shades congregated around her at once and formed a train that followed her burning steps as she made her way to her tent. There, she quickly freshened up. This eve, Moros had promised her some of his stories.
She walked around the monolith list of prophesies just as Moros was divesting his armor. He did so with the same care and attention he gave to fate-woven things—without haste or showy display. The mantle slid from his shoulders soundlessly and was folded away into a cedar chest beside the canopied klinē. He gathered his hair, bound it with a tri-colored thread and looped the heavy tress over a curved prong nearest the back of his head.
Lantern light illuminated his form and the sight of it stole the breath clean from Melinoë’s chest.
Ink covered him from shoulder to spine, laid in the Scythian manner: dark as pitch, pricked deep beneath the skin. He bore the motif of animal spirits rendered in ornamental geometry. A pair of antelope ran the width of his shoulders, their bodies broken into sweeping curves and precise dots, legs folded beneath them in angles of flight. Across one scapula, a stag twisted, neck arched back, its antlers branching into stylized flame. Below, horned sheep clustered together, rendered with wide, fearful eyes, as though they sensed a hunter lurking somewhere hidden along the shadowed planes of his flank.
Melinoë knew the ink did not end where his shendyt began.
She had seen the rest before, in stolen glimpses at the hot springs, when wafting steam had conspired against modesty. Inked prey fled downward along the narrowing of his back, as if seeking sanctuary at the small of it. Their struggle carried over the hard curve of his hips, vaulted the firm planes of one glute, and swept on down his long, well-formed legs, where bodies elongated into spirals and claws and hooves dissolved into abstracted force.
She hadn’t commented on it then, nor did she betray her gaze, unwilling to make him a spectacle (Well, anymore than he already was). And besides, the sight of water tracing its many paths over this elusive and fine son of Night had robbed her utterly of speech.
Now, she permitted herself to look at him openly. There was no sense in feigning restraint any longer.
“Lord Moros,” Melinoë greeted—and faltered, suddenly hyper-aware of the shape of her own hands, her posture, the gentling of her voice.
He inclined his head. It was a small and reflexive courtesy, seeded with faint surprise. Doom, she realized, was seldom considered so closely.
“Princess. As promised, you may ask whatever you wish,” he said, carefully, as one accustomed to being questioned only by the Moirai themselves.
She stepped nearer. Near enough that the lamplight clarified the language written on his skin. “You are…greatly marked, Lord Moros,” she said. “These figures—what do they signify?”
Moros considered for a moment before finally answering. “They are my sigma, Princess. I carry the most humble of creatures with me so I do not forget what it feels like for mortal-kind to stand within the eye of doom. I choose to honor those who can sense their end in the silence before I arrive.”
His fingers brushed one of the antelopes etched across his shoulder. “For the mortal mind, it is never an abstraction,” he continued. “When doom comes for them, it comes with teeth. And with claws.”
Melinoë swallowed. Teeth and claws were no strangers to her.
He glanced back with eyes of soft nightshade. “These serve as a reminder,” he said, “that even when a fate has been spun, measured, and cut, at the end, the weave must still be revealed with care.”
A sweet ache gathered beneath her ribs. “That must be why you’re so gentle.”
Moros dipped his head, and for a moment his voice took on a conspiratorial hush. “You will understand me in this, Princess: we gods are not kind to mortals.”
Melinoë bowed her head. “No. That we are not.”
“And yet,” Moros continued, “I have long believed that foreknowledge of ruin does not excuse excessive cruelty. Doom need not delight in itself.”
He looked over his shoulder again and their eyes met then. It caught them both off guard.
Without fully choosing to do so, Melinoë reached out and laid her hand between his shoulder blades. Moros drew in a breath and she felt it lock behind his ribs. His shoulders bunched, the great planes of his back drawing tight, pinching together at the spine.
“May I still be allowed to delight in you, my Lord? You are most wonderfully made,” she said.
Moros held himself rigid, as though the smallest movement might undo the moment entirely. The everburning braziers crackled softly; shades passed at a respectful distance. His cheeks darkened, feirce and sudden.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “thank you, um, very much—but that credit belongs to my mother.” His gaze slipped away, briefly, toward the shadowed canopy overhead. A faint, rueful smile touched his mouth. “Nyx shaped what you see. I am merely one of her many scions.”
She continued in spite of his squirming bashfulness. “And this is beautiful workmanship.”
Moros flushed deeper. She could see it in his ears. “The work of a mortal hand,” he said. “Long ago, I met a man from the Pontic Steppe. To spare you the longer telling—I diverted his doom and, in gratitude, he marked me with the symbols of his people. The Fates must have seen fit to change the weave, to condone such a rare exchange.”
Melinoë considered that thoughtfully. “Perhaps they factor you in,” she said. “They consider your nature when doling out their weavings.”
"Perhaps so," Moros replied, quieter now. “When my duty is done and I depart, should death follow in my wake, the fear has already passed. There is no terror in death itself—only in the shadow that precedes it.” His mouth curved faintly. “Alas, I shouldn’t resent my brother Thanatos for that.”
“My aspect, too,” he went on, almost self-consciously, reaching up to brush the curve of his antlers, “serves to humble me. Though I bear the image of prey, mankind has learned to fear this silhouette all the same.”
Melinoë took a seat on the spacious klinē. “You may be the emissary of doom, but perhaps, one day, you could take me with you. I have my own dealings with mortals. By the grace granted me from my mother’s side, I could soften your approach, my lord.”
His smile was small, still shy. “You are too kind, Princess. As radiant as your aspect is, I could not draw you into a task that is mine alone.”
“I’m quite aware, but Lord Moros, surely the duty must be very lonely.”
He looked at her then. “I could say the same for you.”
Melinoë could only stare. It was difficult to admit, but she thrilled to think that this condition was shared.
“I wouldn’t need to be compelled by your presence lessening the burden,” he said after a pause. “I would choose you in purpose or in the absence of it. Your company would—” He faltered, seeming to search for the right shape of the thought. “It would be dearly welcomed.”
“If company is so dearly welcomed,” she murmured, “shall I start by accompanying you here tonight?”
A private imagining flickered through her, unbidden: Moros not as guest nor chthonic lord, but as lover. The thought startled her, sent heat to her face, and she lifted her head at once, searching his expression.
“Princess…” His voice roughened, barely above the crackle of flame. “Forgive me, but you do not…understand. I have never been touched like this.”
“Don’t be so nervous, my Lord. If you would indulge me, I’m very tired. I’d even welcome the vapors of Lord Hypnos if he weren’t so preoccupied. Just to be allowed this reprieve by your side—it would aid my task.”
Her head found the hollow beneath his collarbone. His arm, uncertain at first, curved around her. She exhaled, long and contented, and the sound of it seemed to unmake something tightly knotted in him.
“It seems I must act in his stead,” he replied softly. “I would be loath to deny you, Princess, but as it stands, we are rather…out in the open.”
Melinoë looked up at the canopy above them. “What do you think of a little trick of the night? I’m sure Great Nyx has imbued you with the powers of concealment.”
A soft huff of laughter escaped him. “That she did.”
The tasseled veils above dissolved as Moros invited the void beyond the weave. Darkness filled the canopy, followed by stars, like a newly constellated sky.
In the dim light, the inked creatures upon his skin seemed to repose, their fear held in abeyance. The threads of Fate slackened, the loom stopped its spinning and beyond the Crossroads, whatever endings that waited, did so patiently. Pressed to the sheltering body of Doom, Melinoë found her heart unspooling to match his pulse.