Atropos rested her chin on her knuckles. "Sounds a lot to me like you're trying to cheat fate."
Atropos would see it that way. Atropos looked upon futures with the sharp steel certainty of descending shears. Her prowess lay in predicting endings and hard inevitabilities. Clotho's was in beginnings, fresh possibility spun from frayed threads after the snip of the blade, and Fairytales was speaking her language. "Hope isn't the same thing as cheating," she said with the smallest edge of stubbornness.
She looked to Lachesis for backup, and found the Measurer had quietly set aside her knitting, along with all pretence of obliviousness, and was considering Fairytales with a speculative expression. "No," she said slowly. Clotho opened her mouth, the beginnings of a protest on her tongue, but receded back into silence when Lachesis continued, "No, not necessarily. Clotho, would you be a dear and flip the sign? And Atropos, if you'd put on the kettle? I think this calls for a pot of tea."
She rose and stepped out from behind the counter, offering Fairytales a hand in greeting. "I don't believe I caught your name...?"