Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm only borrowing and I am not making any money doing it. Actually, with the exception of Lex you couldn't pay me to take them. Please let me know if you enjoyed the teaser…

In the Hands of Fate

Chapter One: The Weaver's Choice

My 'fingers' fly across the warp and weft but all of my usually far flung attention is focused on a single instant, one point on my great loom. Damn it boy, make the right choice. It isn't often that I get this caught up in the lives I weave but something about him had caught my attention and held it. Not Kal-El, his future is so utterly predictable I find myself glancing down at the far too long thread of his life being spun by my sister with distaste. Boring, boring, boring, boring. Yards of it, centuries of it, and I am already a bit weary of him. It's almost enough to make me yield my accustomed place and snip threads instead. Kryptoninas – bah – good riddance. I shed no tears when my sister severed so many Kryptonian lives in a single snip but then I am not given to tears, none of us are. We have been since the beginning of time. We shall be until its end. The mortals lives between are of little real consequence.

"I was right about you all along. You're not even human."

And now for the moment of truth. Young Kal-El's eyes go wide as a spooked horse's and then he bolts like one. Stupid, stupid boy! I watch a thousand bright possibilities vanish as Lex Luthor is stuffed into a van still calling for his 'friend'. I knot the threads hard and growl in frustration. My sisters glance at me long-sufferingly, as always, confused as to why I allow myself to occasionally become ensnared in my own web. My thoughts race nearly as swiftly as the boy as I continue to weave. Should I? Dare I? I had already altered Lex's destiny once with a roll of wire and a chance meeting on a bridge. I glance over at a darkened loom, still and silent and the future it had held. A future in which the two had not met in youth, a future in which there had been no hope for young Luthor only a soul so consumed by darkness even I had never seen its rival – not in 15 billion human years. No soul should ever know such anger, such hate, such despair. I glanced back at this tapestry of the present reality. There are still faint flickers of hope, possibilities of light in this one. In some ways I had been cruel to make them friends. They would never have known the anguish they will now. They would have simply hated one another but the body counts would have been so much higher, the devastation so much worse if I had not intervened and there would be no chance for redemption. Not that that truly matters to me. Mortals die, it's what they do and yet… I sigh. All hope is not yet lost but the light is so very faint and swiftly fading for Lex.

If I do this I risk utterly extinguishing that flickering light but oh, what I might win. I let my gaze fall onto the slumbering man in the corner. Just a bit of flotsam from the last time I took matters directly into my own hands. Poor Arthur, I really do need to find a use for him. Should I leave? Not since my days as Merlin have I left this place and worn flesh. I look back to the loom. In truth it does not take all three of us to weave the web but I am loath to yield the loom even for a single mortal lifetime. While I am by no means kind nor compassionate neither of my sisters has ever left this place, never have they worn flesh and learned its frailties and passions. Men call me cruel and capricious but I am neither. They need to blame something for their shortcomings and so I am their scapegoat. I do not mind but in truth I have never once altered the loom to harm, only to assist. To open doors that might otherwise have remained closed forever. I open the windows of opportunity when a man's own decisions have cut off every other means of escape. Neither of my sisters will do so. In my absence the whole web will suffer from that lack. Perhaps if I am only away for a few days? I have to smile though. I know better. Once in flesh I am loath to leave it. It is so different from here that I am… intrigued, seduced, captivated, only the death of my chosen body is enough to drive me back to my true place. The mere thought beckons. It has after all been over 1500 years. A mere twinkling of a proverbial eye to a being like myself but I have been mortal or as close to it as one such as I can come and it suddenly seems an eternity and the shadows of the web before me seem thin, pale, and completely empty compared to the heady wine of incarnation.

I open a portal under the boy's feet and he bounces off the 'wall'. In truth there is no wall just as there is no loom – just symbols for mortal minds trying to understand that which is beyond them. He shakes his head and blinks in confusion. Well aware that he has studied Greek mythology in school I cast us in that guise. He approaches warily not quite sure now of his own sanity.

"Who are you? Where am I?"

I half turn from the loom "You know who I am Last Son of Krypton. Will you leave Sageeth to his fate?"

He frowns at me far too pretty for his own good, pity he lacks the wit to match the face.

"Are you saying that Lex is Sageeth?"

I catch his eye and hold it "Would it matter if he was?"

"Am I Naman?"

When I do not answer he comes cautiously closer, wanting to see what is on the loom.

"If Lex is Sageeth then I would be stupid to save him or trust him."

"Not necessarily and you disappoint me. I thought you were friends."

He blinks at me "But the prophecy – Sageeth is my worst enemy."

"Prophecies are subject to both misquotation and misinterpretation" I retort evenly "Naman and Sageeth maintain balance. As enemies is only one possibility. The most likely possibility" I allow "but hardly the only one. Your actions will determine Sageeth's fate. Fate says that you are enemies but Fate can be cheated." I catch his eye again "And only a mad man blames the darkness when he has withheld the light."

"Can I quote you on that?" Perhaps there is hope for him. He glances at my sister with her ever busy shears and shudders. "Jor-El says my destiny is set" the plea in his voice is palatable.

"Jor-El was a son of Krypton. He would think that." I give the loom my undivided attention for a few moments. If I am to leave for a little while then I have much to do first. The boy is still looking at me expectantly when I can turn my attention back to him. "They knew for over a year that the star was about to super nova but no one left. Your father alone made any preparations at all and that was only because of the prophecy of Naman."

He just blinks at me in utter shock.

"They couldn't have evacuated the entire planetary population in time but they certainly could have saved more than a single infant."

"Why?" he whispers.

I am sorely tempted to call them cowards but I don't "The people of Krypton believed in order, in structure, in Fate" I spit the last surprised at the venom in my own voice and my anger at them. The damn lemmings. I'd warned them and all they had done was meekly accept their 'destiny'. "They took the impending death of their star was a sign that their time was over. Those on off planet colonies actually returned to face the end with family and friends." This time I glare at him "Are you Kal-El or Clark?" I promptly dump him back into his regularly scheduled reality without letting him answer. Hot rage flares through me, rage such as I have never felt, particularly in my disembodied state. Rage is a thing of bodies, of biochemistry, it does not belong here were my experiences as a mortal are mere faded dreams that allow me to sympathize, just a bit, with their plights. I can not stay at the loom like this. It is not safe. My choice is made. I yield my place and step once more into the world of men….