One night when Asleik went to sleep, he had the strangest dream. He felt he was being drawn into a deep trance, and heard a woman's voice. It sounded familiar and comforting, but he couldn't quite place it. He spoke with her often, asking her where she was from, but each time she repeated the name of her realm, it sounded like she was speaking with a thick accent that he couldn't understand. It was as if there was a barrier between the person on the other end and what Asleik was allowed to know.

This started to happen more and more, until Asleik learned that it was not just a dream, but a message he was supposed to receive. Having no guidance and no one to confide in outside of his friend Amund, another orphaned son of fallen parents, he kept the messages to himself. Asleik didn't want to jeopardize the possibility of losing the connection by being too bold. As such, he treated them as private gifts.

The girl on the other end of Asleik's visions was kind, and seemed to be lost herself. She showed him a world that looked something like his faded memories of Vanaheim, only it was drier and certainly much darker. She shared with him the falling lights that plagued her realm as well. This is how Asleik knew she could not be far away. The quiet conversations they would share were of a private and personal nature, but never overstepped the boundary into anything beyond the basics; Asleik knew that if he could share something with her, she must also bear magic, which increased the likelihood that other magicians were watching. He wanted to make sure his people were protected from the darkness that he was certain still existed.

The messages suddenly stopped for a number of days, which made Asleik feel hopeless and lonely again, like he did months prior. He confided in Amund that something had gone wrong with the search for new life, and he was unsure if the charge given to him by the people of Einheim could be fulfilled. His friend was very understanding of Asleik's disappointment, and Amund held him close and tried to offer the best submissions of comfort he could muster. If there was nothing viable outside of Einheim, it would mean that the realm was doomed to fall apart. They could not survive forever without outside resources.

Sometime after Asleik had resigned himself to the realm's fate, something changed in the messages. He fell asleep as usual, but was approached by the girl in his dream and not just her voice. He could not see her clearly, nor did he know her name. But she held out her hand to Asleik, and beckoned him forward. He stepped into the light, not sure of what he would find there. Asleik did not let fear keep him away.

She spoke to him with absolute confidence. He did not doubt her.

"Please, my friend, try to remember," she said.

The place materializing around them looked familiar, like something he hadn't seen since childhood. It was a grand, golden room, covered in cogs and wheels. The walls themselves were spinning. The lights were initially very bright and loud, almost blinding him, until the room came to a halt and the lights shut off.

Standing before Asleik was a young man who looked to be a ruler, but he had short hair. His cape was a deep blue, like the deepest ocean Asleik could fathom. The man had a smile, and seemed to be welcoming Asleik into his arms.

"You know these men," the voice persisted. "Who are they?"

Turning to his left, and then to his right, Asleik knew that, deep down, he recognized the other men. He fought within himself until he could remember their names. It was his uncle, Thor, established beside the blue-clad man. Heimdall, the Gatekeeper, stood on the other side. But this was not a memory; it was as if he was glimpsing at an alternate universe. How could this be?

A voice that sounded similar to his own and no longer like the girl's was speaking out and asking questions. Some of the words were jumbled and difficult to understand. But Asleik tried to answer as best he could. He interpreted all of the words as some kind of test, for he had no other reference.

"What do you see?"

"I see... Asgard."

Narvi kept looking around the room, but did not approach the men in the vision. Even though Thor was family and Heimdall had been kind to him, Asleik could not be sure that this was not a trick. He did not move forward.

"Where are you in Asgard, my dear? Who is there with you?"

"Who is that?" He asks aloud, receiving only the same words in response from a different voice. Asleik takes a closer look at the man in blue. He then recognizes that Heimdall and Thor look older than he remembers them: tired, and graying. The connection with the woman is giving Asleik bits of his memory back with every passing moment. The flood of knowledge is all-consuming. And now, the man in blue becomes more than just a stranger. The stranger looks so strikingly like himself that Asleik can only think to say one thing about him.

"I am in the... Bifrost. I see... I see my brother? I see Thor. I see Heimdall."

"Is that all? Do you see Modi?"

Narvi is frustrated by the voice, unable to give a solid answer without a real question. He remembers Modi. His anger starts to bubble to the surface.

"I do know Modi. I do not know you," he replies carefully.

There is some silence while Narvi watches the countenance of the man in blue, his suspected brother. He cannot remember his name, but Asleik is now almost sure of it. It seems some sort of crisis is happening in the room, for the smile of the man is falling, morphing into tears. Thor's face makes the same response. Heimdall in return also begins to falter. Asleik has no answers.

"What is your name?"

Asleik can feel the room spinning again, as if he is being blocked like before. He interprets it as danger. He cannot trust this unknown sorcerer.

"I do not know my name. I do not know your name."

"What do you mean, you do not know your name?"

"I cannot give you my true name. I do not know it."

Asleik is insistent on not sharing too much, for if the magician on the other end means to bring them harm in Einheim, he knows full well the danger it could pose for his realm, his friends, and himself to be too lax with his tongue. He does not want to risk their lives in this process.

"What name do you go by?" the voice asks, sounding frustrated.

Asleik considers what harm could be done with something as simple as his name. So he gives it.

"They call me Asleik."

In his vision, the man in blue reaches out to him. There are so many tears. Asleik is so focused on the man in front of him that he misses the question from the voice. He wants to reach the man in his vision:

"I am here, stranger. I am here."

Asleik reaches out and grabs the man in his vision, and they embrace. He is comforting the man. Could it truly be my brother? The voice asks him if he is in a new realm. It is a word he does not recognize.

"N...Narvlheim? I do not know such place."

"Do you know you belong to the house of Loki?"

Loki? Asleik has to wonder why the voice knows the word. Why it rings in his heart. Why the man in the vision is so teary to see him, why the man in blue needs Asleik. He is the only son left...only son. Loki-son? Asleik repeats it a few times, trying to remember why the word slips off his tongue.

"Lokison...Lokison..."

"Tell me, where are you?"

The voice of the vision is getting more aggressive and angry. Asleik is defensive in response.

"I am in a lonely place. Do I know you? Do you know my name?"

"Do you come to destroy us?"

A different voice comes in, this one also terribly familiar, to the point that it makes Asleik want to wake up and get out of the vision. The voice makes him start to shake, convulsing his entire body in tremors. Asleik cannot place it. He feels thrown backward, as if he is again falling from the palace of Asgard, watching his mother's eyes disappear. Asleik is so lost in his own half of the vision that he no longer responds, and cascades back into his own world

But he knows one thing for certain: Einheim is certainly not alone.