She doesn't sing anymore. Not that she ever had much of a voice but winter evenings would sometimes find her at the fireside gazing into the flames and singing songs in the language of ancient long dead races. And though she danced as a child through glens swinging stick swords at imaginary foes he feet have forgotten the steps. Her tears have long since dried up and taken her beauty with them. Her eyes sink into the circles telling of sleepless nights, her mouth's a thin line, her hair lank, and she's too thin growing thinner. They whisper that she isn't eating. She wonders idly how long it would take to starve. Fearless, strong, faithful. Those words are whispered with her name thought all nine of the realms but when they fall upon her ears she wants to run and hide and clamp out the noises of the world. For what do words matter when all those she loves best are gone from her. Frigga, who was more of a mother to her than her own, murdered. Thor, her king her leader her brother her comrade her friend. She would have given her life for him in a heartbeat and her left her, abandoned her, to this to carry on through this alone. He was the last to leave her and he did so voluntarily. And the other one. The man whose name she cannot bear to think. Twice dead, twice mourned, twice lost to her. She would rip her own heart from her chest to have him alive again. To have either of them alive again. The swords she faces draw blood in the practice courts. they say her reflexes aren't what they once were. They don't know she courts her death like a lover. Sometimes she feels like she can't move, can't breathe, like all that loss and grief and pain are hitting her over and over again. Dragging her down like some beast of the sea. But she doesn't fight it. For the first time in her life she is passive to her own destruction. Determined to lose herself in the darkness that masks the loneliness and dulls the wrenching stabbing pain. Oh how she prayed for a warriors death, prayed to be a hero worthy of remembering. Her laugh is a cold bitter sound. All she prays for now is to forget. To stay there in the darkness of her mind until darkness she becomes.