Adrasteia

Adrasteia
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Fate Unraveler.jpg}}|250px]]
Details
Race	Nyxborn Hag
Birthplace	The Nyx, Theros
Lifetime	Mending Era
Relatives	Her two sister-fates
Colors
Sources

Adrasteia is one of the three spinning fates of Theros, responsible for cutting the threads of mortals whose lives have finished to keep order in the tapestry as a whole.

History

At one point, Adrasteia noticed a particularly large snarl of threads in the weave of the Fates. She did not wish to trouble the Agent of the Fates to solve this problem, it simply required Adrasteia's shears. She sighed, disappointed. Her two sisters, one at the far end of the enormous and ancient oak table, the other at the side midway between the two, paused their work on a great tapestry spread out between them to look up.

There were two threads, one blue, the other gold, which had become intertwined. This happened all the time, and each time it was a new entanglement, sometimes beautiful, sometimes tragic, sometimes both, but Adrasteia did not allow herself to be influenced by what she witnessed among the threads of the tapestry. She must consider the welfare of the whole weave. Although these two threads had created a beautiful pattern as they wound about one another, bordered on all sides by darker threads in patterns that seemed intent upon pulling the blue and gold apart, the snarl was unacceptable.

Adrastaia inspected it closer, and she was distracted by the unusual weavework of these two threads, so singular in its expression that even Adrasteia, whose detachment and efficiency were renowned, indulged a longer moment of appreciation. The moment passed, and it was time for her to get to work with her shears on the snarl that had developed in the threads. Adrasteia massaged it between her soft and wrinkled fingers, teasing at it with a hook in an attempt to separate the threads.

For a moment she wondered if perhaps one of the threads could be saved to continue its winding journey, but the clever technique her sister had employed in weaving these two together bound their destinies so closely that attempts to end just one of them were unwise. One without the other could weaken the tapestry, leaving it prone to irreparable tears. Although she and her sisters controlled many things in the destinies of all in Theros — even at times the gods themselves — some rules must never, ever be broken.

From beneath the table, Adrasteia withdrew a box made from the ancient, knotty wood of a tree that never grew in the world. Inside, three implements lay neatly at the bottom: a sliver thimble, a bone bodkin, and a pair of crooked shears. The shears were as black as an empty night sky, carrying no reflections of any sort. Near the handles, the shear blades were straight and sharp, sliding together precisely, but towards the end, they became impossibly misaligned. The shears could never be fully closed. Purphoros had offered to forge her a new set long ago, an offer she and her sisters had cackled continuously over for a good thirty-three years afterward.

Adrasteia tied off the snarl from the back and pinched it between her thumb and forefinger, each calloused and hardened from an eternity of pinpricks and the abrading slide of endless threads. She opened her crooked shears wide and positioned it at the snarl.

Perhaps it was a momentary distraction as she closed the shears around the threads that caused her to misjudge the snip by a hair's breadth. The shears took the snarl, and along with it the very tip of her thumb. Adrasteia gasped and sucked at the wound, tasting her blood. She chastised herself for her foolish distraction. She would let this little wound be a lesson to herself and her silly heart for why she should never be seduced into the travails of mortals. She leaned over the tapestry, squinting, and saw that a tiny drop of her blood had stained it where she had cut the threads.

Story appearances

Title	Author	Publishing date	Set	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Emonberry Red	Clayton Kroh	2014-02-05	Born of the Gods	Theros	Adrasteia, Pavios and Thanasis, Purphoros, Erebos

In-game references

Represented in:

• Fate Unraveler

Associated cards:

• Agent of the Fates
• Demon of Fate's Design
• Triad of Fates
• Whims of the Fates

Quoted or referred to:

• Mortal's Resolve