Sleeping again in the halls where I had grown up was strange. The same sounds moved through the palace as I tried to sleep, the same kinds of birds flew outside, and the same breath of wind echoed through the corridors. The carts that the servants pushed had the same quiet jingle when they came to a stop as they always had when I was a child.

I had never admittedly been in the guest's area of the palace, and I found that I didn't like it as much as where I had always been prior. Everything was too clean, too perfect. It looked as though no one had been here before, unlike my old home which looked neatly lived in.

All of the memories of my childhood came flooding back to me as I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. I was exhausted, yet, too... Sad, perhaps, to sleep.

I got up, noiselessly, and walked out to the balcony, standing over it, and looking out.

I could have been a hero here.

Instead, I had become an outlaw. I would see my family tomorrow. Would they love me for that decision, or hate me for it? Would they want to push me to my goals, or the goals of the elders?

I sighed deeply, and inhaled the cold, evening air, remembering a childhood that meant nothing to anyone but me.

The forest laid before me, trees as tall and ancient as a Midgardian mountain. Twin moons hung overhead. A third one was absent, new, tonight.

There was the sadness, a pressure pushing on my chest, making me feel heavy and weary. I had held up for so long without tiring, escaping my home, living on Midgard, then Asgard, so many years that I had lost to what I could only hope what wasn't a useless cause. Would just listening to the elders have proved wiser?

The prophecy troubled me most, though. What would it say? Why was I so important? Was I even asking the right questions?

I was beginning to have a sinking feeling, what I hoped wasn't a premonition, that this prophecy would not end well. I knew that it was majorly important, and those were usually the most dangerous kind.

I had the distinct feeling that I would die.

In some way, I had come full circle. Home at last, perhaps the last place where I would rest before meeting my end.

Loki had come up noiselessly behind, and carefully held me, looking out into Alfheim with me.

"I didn't mean to wake you." I said, quietly.

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(L. POV)

"No matter," I replied smoothly, carefully, not wanting to disturb her.

Being again in the halls where she was born was having an effect on Eve, something beyond the magical. It was as though she had suddenly realized fears that she had once put to rest, worried about problems that were not meant to be hers any longer. She was doubting herself, her decisions, and... Me.

"I couldn't sleep," she started. "Being here... It reminds me of when things were simple. I never had to do anything myself if I didn't want to. I had siblings, a family, a kingdom who could help me. Now all of that's gone."

"Not all of it," I reminded, gently.

Although I was behind her still, I could feel her melancholy smile. She didn't want me harmed. I could understand that much. What I didn't know was what else was troubling her. Childhood was never alone enough to drive someone to despair.

"And I thank you for that. But all I can do is wonder if it will be enough. This prophecy may be more than I can handle. It may be more than we can handle," she replied, explaining her true fears.

"Exactly what do you expect from this oracle?" I asked, tentatively.

Immediately, I felt her energy, her emotion turn to dread. I could no longer hear her thoughts, as she was now too powerful. I knew that she could read mine enough to tell that my intention was not to inspire fear. I spoke up again.

"And do you know the nature of our Fates? I know that the elves prefer science over religion."

She shook her head slowly.

"Then I think that you have been spending a little too much time around the Greeks. They are two very different concepts."

I took her hand carefully. Her fingers were small next to mine, well worn with the familiar callouses that came with wielding a blade.

"Our Fates are called the Norns, and there are three of them. No one has seen them for centuries. The tablets they carve design the destiny of the worlds, but they do not carve it until the events have taken place. They may try to predict the future, but they can't. What they tell is not set in stone. You have the will to choose your own destiny, even within what must happen in the destiny of others."

She stared out into the night sky, almost lost in thought. She was trying to force herself to say something, what she needed to get out of her head. However, whatever it was scared her, nearly into silence.

"There is another reason why I believe that you should not be here," she confessed, at last.

"And what is that?" I asked, cautiously.

"I fear that the prophecy may result in my death. Or worse... You cannot protect me from Fate. I will not be selfish if I must choose my life over the rest of the universe." She was whispering now, sounding withdrawn, some kind of hopelessness keeping her from her true emotions.

"I believe that there are things greater than Fate," I replied, with as much of a reassuring confidence as I could muster. "And one of those is what I feel when I'm with you."

She didn't need words to ask the question. Did I mean what I said? She turned around, her eyes a deep emerald, highlighted by the silvery moons, gazing deeply, into my own. I held her gaze with what I hoped was sincerity.

"There's nowhere that I've ever felt more whole than by your side. I never thought that I would need anyone again. But Fate has already been cruel. You have had your happiness, your childhood stripped from you. You are willing to give your life. To have so much taken away would be hard for anyone. What more can the universe want to take?"

She ran her hands absently down my back, making me shiver. Her eyes looked deeply into mine, whether searching my thoughts, or just holding my gaze, I would not know. She had already sacrificed so much. What was she so terrified to lose?

Finally, with the weight of a thousand stars, she spoke.

"You."

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(E. pov)

"What was it that you said to me, once?" He asked, musing, almost, remembering.

He was trying not to show how deeply my answer had reverberated through him. I felt it though, like raindrops usurping the surface of the ocean, a thousand new feelings setting some thoughts alight, while quenching others.

"Ah, yes. I remember it now. 'You will never lose me, unless I want to be lost.'"

I shook my head softly, letting out what might have been the ghost of a laugh, now not even a breath.

"It was different, then. It was my choice. This is beyond us."

"Nothing is beyond us, beyond our choices. The Norns rely on our destiny to be created by us. The universe and its authority may do what it likes, but it will never be enough to separate what we have if that is our will."

"How can you know?" I whispered.

I suddenly wished that he too could silence my troubles as I had silenced his that night in the throne room. I wanted him to reach into my mind and stop the doubt and fear at its source, even if it meant that I wasn't in complete control. I was tired of always having to solve my own problems. I was breaking.

But he could not change my thoughts, and the questions tore at me, begged for response. How could he be so sure that we would have our happily ever after?

"I can't know. But what I am sure of is that I will fight for it with my last breath. And if you will too, then we will never have to imagine a world without each other. I will always be at your side. We will face it all together."

I felt my fears ebb, although my confidence did not yet dare to return.

"I am troubled by so much..." I had lost most of my true worry, and now donned a deeper sorrow, more brought about by the place that I was in. I missed home. I missed my family. I wished that things could have remained as they always had been.

Looking out into the night, into the glassy surface of a lake in the distance and the moons in the sky, of a similar view to the one of my childhood bedroom, the sadness came in waves, each successively stronger, waiting, until the moment when the levee broke and the tears came flowing through.

Loki held me as I cried.

He understood, I think, that sometimes it all seemed like too much grief, that we have seen too much sorrow, and that sometimes, it catches up to us.

Sometimes, the monster wins.

I pressed my cheek into the front of his robes and for the moment tried to concentrate on his soft embrace, soothingly rubbing my back, feeling the sorrow with me. Not speaking, and not needing to.

For the first time, I allowed him into my mind, into my thoughts, for him to understand that I trusted him, that I needed to trust him, that he was my only remaining lifeline in the storm that was my destiny.

That I really and truly prayed with everything that I had that he would stay as my rock.

That this wasn't just another one of his tricks.

XXXXXXXxxxxxXX

(L. pov)

In the end, she fell asleep in my arms, on the ground of the terrace.

When her mind became clear, and her breathing grew soft, I lifted her and carried her back to the bed, tucking her in carefully.

I had never seen her so vulnerable, so...wounded. When she had allowed me to explore her thoughts, I had realized how truly broken she had become, how well she had hidden it, even from herself. And still more miraculous, she had trusted me with some of her deepest secrets, her own insecurities and doubts.

She had her own demons just as I had mine.

But somehow, she had looked beyond the monster that I was. She wanted, no, *needed me to do the same. I was her last hope, the last defense in what should have been a perfect life, but was instead ruined.

Just as mine had been.

I longed to find a day where we could be at peace, with no prophecy, no nation searching for us. Eve, however, would not rest so long as any world was in danger, would not stand aside and watch from the shadows.

Who are gods meant to pray to? That was a question I often asked myself. Tonight, I prayed, to everything in the universe, that we might have our peace at last, free from the hel that it had become.

Eve wanted it just as much as I. Which was why she couldn't know of my plans.

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FORESHADOWING. and also some cutesey couplesy stuff. Fun to write, especially all of the emo bits. Thanks for reading and reviewing and such! XX