Epilogue
Days grow long and weary when one is lonely. The silence afflicts the soul; it eats it away and all because it is allowed to. Loneliness devours and it is invited to its own feast. Beautiful days stay just as beautiful, good food is still good, friendly company is still friendly, and the heart keeps beating – but all with a background noise. All with a subconscious soul whistling about in the dark spaces of the mind.
It can be stopped. Its always possible to stop. But sometimes you don't want it to. Sometimes it reminds you of something better, gives you hope.
Ava Sijur stood at the of the broken Bifrost, her feet near its shattered remains and the whole universe before her stretching onwards and outwards, downward and up. She closed her eyes and felt the breeze that came out of the blackness that drifted in from distant realms. It was not a true blackness; galaxies glowed in the distance, stars shone perpetually – even in the daylight. But there it was; the brink of it all.
How scared he must have been. Letting go and falling into that, into its infinity….the girl closed her eyes. Heimdal was beside her. He never left the bridge now. He just stood and watched and waited. He had not seen once before and perhaps, on the whim of a hope, he was blind again. Perhaps a good man was still out there, a good man eaten away by envy and rage, a good man who was so lost to himself that he no longer saw by his own light or that of others.
She would remain lonely forever if he was no longer around. A great love, a pure love – you can never recover. You can never give up. Pain is part of the deal, pain and anger and frustration. But so is joy and hope and truth and light and the vulnerability and safety and warmth that came with those…it was like drowning. Drowning without the panic and terror, without the screaming silence. It wasn't giving up, it was giving in.
And she'd never give up on him. Never. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Not until the sun rose in the west and set in the east, not until the rivers ran dry and the mountains blew in the wind as leaves.
She promised.