Lachesis, The Measurer

For each skein she receives from Clothos, Lachesis determines which entities (characters or objects) might find importance in the skein. Then she evaluates the importance of the story for each entity which might find importance in it. Finally she passes the story to the entity and back to Clothos (who may have more events which can be added to the story).

From Skein to Story

A skein becomes a story for an entity if the common element between the first and last event in the story has a relationship to that entity. The nature of this relationship is the primary determinant of what kind of story is produced.

• If the common element is an antagonist, then the story is a conflict.
• If the common element is a goal or a desire, then the story is a quest.
• If the common element is a Developmental Object, then the story is a lesson.
• If the common element is a mate, then the story is romance.
• If the common element is an oath, then the story is an oath-breaking or a fulfillment.

If no entity has such a relationship with the common element of the skein, the skein cannot become a story and is discarded. If one or more entities have such a relationship, a story object is created for each and is measured by Lachesis.

"Mr. Briarley, please! This is important."

"Indeed it is. Well?" he said and looked out over the passage as if it were a classroom, "What is a metaphor? Anyone?"

"A metaphor is a figure of speech that likens two objects."

"Wrong, and wrong again," he said. "The likeness is already there. The metaphor only sees it. And it is not a mere figure of speech. It is the very essence of our minds as we seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experiences, ourselves, seeing similarities, parallels, connections. We cannot help it. Even as the mind fails,it goes on trying to make sense of what is happening to it." — Connie Willis, Passage

The process of integrating a skein into a story seems intimately tied to the metaphor's "seeing" of the likeness. At least to Scotus

Measuring the Story

Once Lachesis determines which entities can have a story based on a particular skein, she evaluates the importance of that story to the particular entity using the following criteria:

• the strength of the relationship between the entity and the common element
• whether or not a bard has built a tale or a song around it (also on the quality of the tale
• whether the entity to develop
• whether oaths are involved

Using this broad range of criteria, Lachesis assigns a developmental value to the story for each entity.

Passing on the Story

Lachesis then passes each skein which resulted in a story back to Clothos. And she passes each story to the entities for which it was assigned a value.

Each of these characters or objects then stores the story in an array which is maintained by Atropos, the third and final fate. These arrays determine the total number of stories which can be stored by any entity's object.

See also Clothos, Atropos and Lots of Lachesis.

— Scotus - 10 Sep 2000