Jane Foster considers the apple in her hands. Its skin softly glows in the dim light of her study, and it has the most tempting fragrance of any fruit she has ever smelt in her life. She can imagine how crisp and sweet it must be, how smooth its flesh would be on her tongue. Sometimes, when she steps back and takes a look at her life in the last few years her head spins. Everything about her life now is straight out of some cheesy sci-fi TV show: the gorgeous super-powered aliens and the mystical bridges into deep space. The last three years have been an unexpected, but not unwelcome culmination of her life's work; she knows now that the universe is even more vast than she can properly calculate and that there is an infinite variety of living, sometimes breathing sentient aliens out there in the great wide cosmos. The apple in her hands is straight out of a fairytale, one of those mythology books that she would read for hours on end as a child.
If she eats it, she will be stronger, faster, semi-immortal. She will be Asgardian, alien to herself. There are so many reasons for it to tempt her. With its taste on her tongue she will go farther than any scientist before her in exploring space, extraterrestrial life. She will see the stars and dance among them for thousands of years to come. With the apple in her stomach she will be able to stand by Thor's side for all time, their romance will no longer be tragedy: him un-aging and her and old, old woman. She can see that future clear enough: she lays on her deathbed and Thor holds her hand, whispering to her hjartað mitt, hjartað mitt, tears drying on his cheeks as she passes on. They would go to restaurants, her hair silver and long, and the waiter would comment, it's so nice to see a young man taking his mother out for dinner. Her throat would stick, the words of denial unable to leave her mouth. But Thor would smile and proudly tell the waiter that she was his wife, his beloved, and he would squeeze her hand in his, uncaring about the judging thoughts of others. He would help her through the pains of age that he did not yet know, and rub her back. And even when she was old and wrinkled he would tell her how beautiful he thought she was, and his words would taste like truth on his tongue when he kissed her; ever passionate and young. In this here and now, they were the same age, even with Thousands of years between them; his people matured and grew more slowly than her own. She would grow older than him in every way. He would tell her that none of this mattered, even as his heart was breaking for her.
Her father told her once to never make a major life decision because of a man – and she sees the wisdom in this but, but this is different. There is more to be gained from this than a life with Thor. On this her convictions are strong. Jane Foster considers the apple, all golden skinned, mythic. Frigga stood before her only hours ago and handed it to her, holding it gently, gingerly, wrapped in a soft, silken kerchief. All of this seems like some strange fairytale, more than the rest of the last three years. Jane has been sitting here in the dark mulling over everything for hours, waiting for some kind of epiphany, something to make this choice simple, easy. She teeters on the edge, wanting. The smell of the apple grows all the more enticing each time she imagines its juices on her tongue.
If Thor were to eat the apple he would become irreversibly mortal, human or, or Midgardian as his people would say. The worst thing is, if she asked him to, if she told him what thing it was his mother had given her, he would take it in a heartbeat, eating it core and all. She can imagine this too with perfect clarity. The juice of apple running down his chin and the love in his eyes. And she can imagine tasting the remnants of it on his tongue when she kissed him, chasing a thing neither of them could have any longer. His blond hair turning white in the mere span of twenty, thirty years, wrinkles collecting just as quickly on his face, around his eyes and lips. Here too, he would whisper to her hjartað mitt, hjartað mitt between kisses, his large hands framing her face as he drank her in. A child, tiny and dark haired with his clear blue, blue eyes would run around the kitchen of the farmhouse laughing and Thor would find that he was losing the touch of his once native tongue, the sounds harder to make with his mortal tongue, the words meant for gods. Thousands of years of memories fading faster until all he remembered were the feelings of that time. And he would not break, not cry or complain. He would instead lift their child above his head, laughing and tell them the story of the time that their papa was once a prince.
She thinks that her ability to see these possibilities so clearly is something left in her from the aether. She can, each day feel drops of it still in her blood, under her skin. Sometimes, in her dreams she sees things yet to pass, and sometimes she wakes in the morning her skin burning and a sharp pain coursing through her body. She has held her tongue on this, kept it secret, but she knows with a surety that lives deep, deep in her bones that this is what will kill her, that she, moreso than any other being is dying every minute she lives. The inky poison that lurks in her veins gives her other gifts too: she is stronger and faster than other humans and she tires less.
The apple would cure her of this sickness, this too is certain, a known quantity in her mind. Once she thought that all magic was science yet to be known, but now she considers that this is not quite true. Would she know the true answer to this quandary as an Asgardian? What other burning questions held tight in her heart would she find truths for? She is Persephone, tempted beyond her weak human will by the sweetness of forbidden fruit, longing for the taste of it on her tongue and for the answers it will bring.
Jane Foster considers the apple.
She sees another future. She stands, scepter in hand in the grand, vaulted throne room on Asgard at Thor's side, dressed in clothes finer than she has ever worn. He is her beloved, a man she knows more than she knows herself. They have stood side by side, fought side by side for thousands upon thousands of years. Thor's hair is white and grey like his Father's and her own a glowing silver. The people bow before them and they are at peace, bothered only by the aches and pains of age and decay. Their daughter kneels before them, dressed in fine armor, her dark hair long and beautifully braided, and Thor declares her the queen of all Asgard. She is a golden eyed warrior and leader and her brilliant smile reminds Jane of her mother's. They were wed thousands of years before, twice. Once on Midgard, surrounded by their closest mortal friends and Jane's family, the Rabbi Jane has known her whole life presiding over the ceremony. A second time in front of his kingdom and his family, everything an embarrassment of luxury and drink. She stumbled over words in his tongue as she promised to share a life with him and he her. They lived a life on Midgard for some time, buried their mortal friends. At her mother's funeral, Thor squeezes her hand and whispers, soft and soothing, hjartað mitt, hjartað mitt.
The visions were passed now and she was sitting alone in her study, gasping for breath. In the mirror across the room she can see that her eyes are as golden as the apple.
Jane Foster considers the apple.
Then.
She bites into the apple, its sweet juices running down her chin. It is even sweeter, softer, more crisp and perfect than she had imagined it to be. She eats bite after bite of it until only the core remains. There is not a single seed within it. Still she craves, desires, beyond control and thought the taste of it. This way madness lies, she thinks. She eats the core, gnashing it between her teeth. Her body feels warm and her stomach full. A kind of soft contentment settles over her that she has never once in her life felt. Her vision blurs on the edges and she sees visions she cannot name with words as pain rips through her body.
Then she sleeps, upright in the chair body boneless and exhausted in a way that she has never felt. Thor finds her there in the morning and she wakes to his gentle touch. He meets her eyes and he knows what she has done.
"hjartað mitt," he says, voice thin and soft, gently rolling over the sounds.
There is some kind of grief in his eyes, but mostly there is such love in his eyes, such feeling that she aches of it. She thinks, perhaps the love she sees in his eyes tastes just as sweet as the flesh of the apple. To test this hypothesis, she moves forwards and kisses him, long and deep, savoring the taste of him. Her new senses taste things on his lips that she does not have names, words for. He tastes sweeter than the apple. His eyes crinkle in happiness and she can feel him smiling through the kiss. When she finally breaks away. She feels warm and out of the corner of her eye in the mirror across the room she can see that her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are still golden.
Thor has questions; she has long become an expert at reading his face, and she can feel his wondering just by looking at him, but for now, she is content not to think. They have all the time in the world.
Jane leans in for another kiss, and whispers in the space between their lips, voice barely more than puffs of air, "hjartað mitt," she mimics his pronunciation as best as she can and hopes he understands.
By the way that he kisses her, she thinks he does. Her heart full of love, stomach filled with the sweet deep taste of the golden apple, and the taste of Thor on her tongue as she kisses him, she moves into a future that is no longer as clear to her as it once was. The aether is washed from her blood and her skin, leaving the barest taste behind. The inky poison content to settle down and never rise again, as alone as it is. Her heart is filled with love and the future is an unknown quantity stretching ahead of her for a long, long way.