Status Updates From Daughter of Necessity

today i’m grateful for tor short stories <3

greek mythology is beautiful

Review coming soon

Her weaving is done. She kneels before the grey-eyed goddess and bows her head, accepting the ignorance that wisdom bestows.

There on the beaches they will cut her son down, and his blood will flower like anemone in the sand.

When the news reaches her, it will break her heart. She will fling herself from the walls of Ithaka, and her sole victory will be that none among her suitors will ever claim her.

Night after night, fate after fate. She can only keep trying. Surely somewhere, in all the myriad crossings of the threads, there is a future in which all will be well.

Surely control may be learned

I must weave a funeral shroud, she had told them. She’d intended it to be for them. Not for all her city.

But the power was there: within her grasp, beyond her control.

She almost takes up scissors and cuts her error away. Some fragment of wisdom stops her: that is not her gift, and to try must surely end in disaster. 

She can feel the potential in the threads, the resonance. She has that much of the gift, at least.

But it is madness to think she can do more. It is hubris.

It is desperation.

Oh this is Penelope, isn’t it?

Nice short story whose strength is adding a fine layer of depth to a detail of a long-told story. Won't make much sense to readers who do not know the tale of Penelope and her role in The Odyssey.