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Why should Fate stand here, in the guise of a young woman with a kind face and gentle eyes? Fate is nothing of the sort, neither young nor kind nor gentle, not for him. So why does she come to him, cloaked in pretty lies and possessing a voice without sound?
She has come to torment him along with the other spirits, he knows, whispering in harmony with those soundless voices inside his head and the raging storm outside until he can bear it no longer.
“Leave me alone,” he demands. “Why do you delight in tormenting an old man?”
“An old man?” Fate’s son laughs, “Hardly. A dying man, though, yes. Have you something better to be doing?”
Fate herself reaches out to him, lightning illuminating her in bursts. That violent storm is much more suited to her form, instead of this gentle spirit so strongly contrasting its indifferent cruelty. Does she think to blame all the suffering she has dealt him on her son? But no, even Twist does not appear as a cruel spirit, only a mischievous one.
“Is it such torment to have companionship, at the end?” she asks.
“You are no friend of mine,” he says. He is all the more proven right when he learns his soul is bound for hell, with his only possible salvation an unthinkable bargain with Mephistopheles.
“What would you change?” Fate asks. “You say I have dealt you nothing but pain, so name it. Any moment in your life you wish I should exchange for the kindness you believe you’ve been denied, I will grant you.”
Perhaps Fate is kind, after all, at least for today. What would he change about his miserable life? Everything. So much.
But that, in the end, is just a lie he told himself.