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Description

The darkness opened reluctantly to the ghostly glow of the Three. The last deathless human knelt before them, chin to his chest.
"Stand, Passenger," Groza bid him with an impatient wave.
Eyes still averted, he laid his burden at Sluka's feet, who dug her hands into the tumble of rich, primordial material. A satisfied cackle rang in his head, bypassing his ears.
From the corner of his eye he saw the glint of light caught by Mora’s blade as she motioned him to her side. He knelt again, raising his blistered hands to her. Blood trickled between his fingers and down his forearms to his elbows as she placed the blade in them. He wiped both sides against his palm, careful to avoid touching the glowing death mark on the handle, before picking up the whetstone. He couldn’t stop the slight tremor of exhaustion as he worked, even as he felt Mora’s judging eyes on him.
He wanted to prolong his task, to take whatever rest the cold stone offered, but she denied him that, yanking the sickle out of his hands. He shuddered as her blackened fingers and the sharp tips of her nails brushed his skin. The blade caught the glow of her hair, her ghostly pale skin and her empty eyes, casting it towards his face. In the silence, he heard the blade sliding along the lifethread, taut between her teeth and her fingers, and then came the pitiful whine of it breaking. Tiny droplets of blood sprayed his thighs. He clenched his hands into fists to suppress the urge to wipe them off.
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This is the first of a series of illustrations based on a short story I have been developing, inspired by Slavic folklore. The three Fates are mythological creatures that appear in a number of different pantheons and even though obviously their ambiguity and power always enticed me, they always felt very vague to me. I "stumbled" upon one of them while doing a portrait study - Mora, the Fate of death, the one who cuts the lifethread of human lives. The other two visited me later - Sluka (whose name means luck) and Groza (meaning threat). I just had to develop them some more, to sate my own curiosity perhaps.
Both the other two portraits and the story are still in progress, but you can check out the progress on Mora and the sketch of Groza here:

A little trivia: the inscription on her blade says "death everywhere" in Bulgar runes, but it's more or less made up by me, based on the sounds each rune represents. I wish I could find an authentic inscription but those seem to be very rare.

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Description

The darkness opened reluctantly to the ghostly glow of the Three. The last deathless human knelt before them, chin to his chest.
"Stand, Passenger," Groza bid him with an impatient wave.
Eyes still averted, he laid his burden at Sluka's feet, who dug her hands into the tumble of rich, primordial material. A satisfied cackle rang in his head, bypassing his ears.
From the corner of his eye he saw the glint of light caught by Mora’s blade as she motioned him to her side. He knelt again, raising his blistered hands to her. Blood trickled between his fingers and down his forearms to his elbows as she placed the blade in them. He wiped both sides against his palm, careful to avoid touching the glowing death mark on the handle, before picking up the whetstone. He couldn’t stop the slight tremor of exhaustion as he worked, even as he felt Mora’s judging eyes on him.
He wanted to prolong his task, to take whatever rest the cold stone offered, but she denied him that, yanking the sickle out of his hands. He shuddered as her blackened fingers and the sharp tips of her nails brushed his skin. The blade caught the glow of her hair, her ghostly pale skin and her empty eyes, casting it towards his face. In the silence, he heard the blade sliding along the lifethread, taut between her teeth and her fingers, and then came the pitiful whine of it breaking. Tiny droplets of blood sprayed his thighs. He clenched his hands into fists to suppress the urge to wipe them off.
---

This is the first of a series of illustrations based on a short story I have been developing, inspired by Slavic folklore. The three Fates are mythological creatures that appear in a number of different pantheons and even though obviously their ambiguity and power always enticed me, they always felt very vague to me. I "stumbled" upon one of them while doing a portrait study - Mora, the Fate of death, the one who cuts the lifethread of human lives. The other two visited me later - Sluka (whose name means luck) and Groza (meaning threat). I just had to develop them some more, to sate my own curiosity perhaps.
Both the other two portraits and the story are still in progress, but you can check out the progress on Mora and the sketch of Groza here:

A little trivia: the inscription on her blade says "death everywhere" in Bulgar runes, but it's more or less made up by me, based on the sounds each rune represents. I wish I could find an authentic inscription but those seem to be very rare.

---

Support me on:
Artstation Instagram