The Child

*Do not read beyond **this point** if you want to avoid being **spoiled!***

**The Child** is a young girl first seen by Imogen Parker in a dimension connected to The Alley, which serves as a marketplace and shopping centre for the supernatural. **The Child** resides in a courtyard there, and may be the ruler of this domain. She is seen as a young blonde-haired girl.

The Child is in fact one of the Fates, or Moirai, three sisters responsible for spinning and maintaining the threads of destiny. She may be the youngest, Clothos; Imogen had previously met one of her older sisters.

Unlike traditional portrayals of the Fates The Child is a distinctly self-serving being of great power, who offered Imogen a way out of her current predicament (being trapped in the dimension unable to exit via the Alley due to a pursuing Bur'nakk) in exchange for Imogen's love, Imogen's life (in the future) or for allowing The Child to twist Imogen's fate. Imogen refused. Imogen was also allowed to look in a well near where The Child sat, which could be allowed to glimpse others, including Bur'nakk in human form, which also showed a shadow of his Drox form, Charity and Imogen's friends.

Bored of Imogen, The Child was disappointed and made offers to Layla Smith. Robert Davidson saw Layla speaking to The Child, but could not see The Child, nor could she see Robert. When he tried to poke where he thought she was, he was temporarily knocked back. Eventually Barnaby took her up on the offer and she teleported him to a bar. There after some negotiation she offered him to retrieve Imogen from the dimension in exchange for something of Barnaby's. The Child was extremely intrigued by Barnaby, noticing that he had both human and Drox heritage, showing Barnaby his two strands of fate, a darker dirtier one that was much longer representing his Drox-self's fate and a shorter, bland one representing his humanity.

After some prevarication and the intervention of Imogen, who called Barnaby, advised him not to make a deal and reassuring him that she didn't mind that he was a demon, Barnaby ultimately decided to give The Child his Drox fate strand for her to use and play with after negotiating some time for them away from Bur'nakk, who was hunting down Barnaby.

Thus, The Child teleported Barnaby to Imogen's side in the demon marketplace, only for them to see Bur'nakk, who had discovered the portal and now angrily running at Imogen, only for Barnaby and Imogen to be teleported back to the storage lockers. Before she left the Child told the four that they had until midnight on New Year's Eve.

## Personality and Traits

The Child represents the chaotic aspects of Fate, liking to diverge strands and to twist them. She doesn't create the stands necessarily, but has the power within reason to do distort and twist the strands.

## Notes

* Initially, The Child saw and interacted with Robert, who tried to stop Layla from making a deal with her. The Child was frustrated by him being "annoying", and so teleported him away, firstly outside the storage unit, then to a field, then into the ocean. This was retconned after it was pointed out that Robert's fate had been affected by Layla disconnecting Robert's Book from the Library of Fates Told, rendering him invisible to Fate.
* The Fates in Classical Greek mythology are typically neutral, non-interventionist and not at odds, while The Child appears to be dismissive of her older sisters, whom she recognises favour Imogen and her friends. It is also more common for the eldest sister, Atropos, typically seen as a crone, to be considered the most malicious (Roman equivalent, Morta, lit. "Death"), as the "cutter" of the strand of life, and the youngest, Clothos, as the most benevolent.
* In Norse Mythology, there is a concept of "evil Norns", Norns being the Norse equivalent of the Fates.