Ok, guys, here it is: the final chapter of this long, long saga. Thank you so much to everyone who read, reviewed, and gave me such wonderful support and kind words through this endeavour spanning over two years. I am much changed from it, for the better. I am so glad that you were along for the ride, it means the world to me, especially you guys who have been with me from the beginning (you know who you are! :) ) As always, I love you all and think you are wonderful.

People tell me it's a sin

To know and feel too much within

I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring

She was born in spring, but I was born too late

Blame it on a simple twist of fate

-Bob Dylan

''I don't think that anything really ends,'' Darcy said with a smile as she stared out across the water. She could finally see more clearly through the swirling mists, which, when parted, like the well could give her glimpses of other worlds.

They could watch over everything that was happening on Midgard, or Asgard. They could see all of the realms from where they stood now, the spaces in between as well. ''It looks different, like a darkness has been peeled back,'' she remarked. ''The color of everything has changed.''

''We're not bad artists, are we?'' Loki asked, surveying the landscape. He was smiling too.

She shook her head. ''Not bad at all.''

The Palace of Souls had imploded upon itself and left no trace, but there was a lone survivor found in the woods, a thin girl with dark hair. She was comatose when found, but a few days later she awoke, blinking her grey eyes as if she'd just come out of a remarkable dream. Peering through the mists, Darcy barely recognized the young woman whose visage appeared there. There was color in her face, which was no longer obscured by jagged locks of hair, it had been cut and styled softly. There were, amazingly, no scars on her arms. When she smiled, her teeth were straight and white. Her gray eyes were bright and deep. She was absolutely lovely. ''Is it really her?'' asked Darcy in disbelief. ''She's...she's beautiful. How?''

''As within, so without'' he replied with a smile. ''And I'll always have a few tricks up my sleeve. Just so you know. I am a god, after all.'' She laughed and grabbed playfully onto his arm, feeling so much lighter than she had in a very long time.

New York City, 24 Hours Later

Everyone was now back and gathered together at SHIELD, including the group from Norway. Though there was a definite sense of relief now that the infection had 'miraculously' reversed itself, there was still a palpable tension. Particularly because Loki and Darcy were still missing. After hearing the details, Natasha knew with a sinking heart that they would not be coming back, despite how hard Bruce was insisting that they keep looking and waiting. ''Look where?'' Natasha asked him. ''They're in a place you can't see, can't reach.'' Somehow, she just knew it deep inside, though it pained her to admit it. They had been lost once before and she had kept her promise and found them. But not this time. This time, she had to let them go. The Black Widow smiled as she realised how soft she'd gotten over the past year and a half because of Loki and Darcy. They were stubborn, and infuriating, but she was proud to think of them as her friends. The way that the assassin looked at the world was now fundamentally altered because of them, and she was both annoyed and grateful for this. But mostly grateful. ''I'm really gonna miss you guys,'' she thought to herself.

She was proved right as that one very big question in particular was soon answered with the arrival of a visitor from Asgard, the Queen. It seemed that Frigga was well-aware of what was going on, because when she arrived she had a look on her face that was both pleased and deeply sad at the same time. With a small bow, Selene handed Avi to the goddess, who gently rocked her granddaughter for a few minutes. Avalon seemed very happy to see her, she babbled and smiled. ''You are going to grow up to be very special,'' she whispered to the little girl as she kissed her on the head. Then she walked over to Jane, who was standing very nervously in the doorway. ''Come over here, dear,'' said Frigga, motioning her forward. ''We're going to need to make some plans regarding the future of this little one, make certain that she's well-cared for.''

Jane wrung her hands, blinked back tears. ''But Loki and Darcy-'' she started.

''They aren't coming back. Not this time.'' Frigga shook her head as she handed Avi to Jane. ''You made a promise, if I recall,'' she said.

''I didn't want it to be like this!'' protested the scientist as she took the baby into her arms. They were both about to cry, it seemed. The Queen shook her head again gently. ''We don't always get to decide. But you have a responsibility now, to this child and to her parents. She belongs to both Asgard and Midgard. Actually, she belongs to many worlds, but we will both be stepping in to raise her. She will have a very big family, I think.''

Another familiar face soon appeared, as Nicholas Fury returned from wherever he had been. He stood and waited politely until Frigga had departed, and then he approached the Black Widow, who clenched her fists in exasperation upon seeing him.

''The fuck?'' was all she said, glaring sharply. He smiled. ''I knew you wouldn't back down.'' At her outraged confusion, he explained, ''SHIELD didn't have a chance. Sheer force of might, weapons—those wouldn't have worked. As an organization we were, in a sense, powerless. But you weren't. I can read people very well, too.''

Natasha opened her mouth and then closed it again. She rubbed her forehead tiredly, trying to process the information. ''So this was all, what, some sick kind of test?'' she asked, once she could speak.

''Not at all,'' Fury corrected. ''It was a hunch. And when I get those,'' he said with another wry look, ''they're usually right.'' He patted her on the shoulder, and then walked away down the hall.

''This fucking place,'' muttered Natasha, heaving a sigh. She rested her head against the wall for a moment and then raised it when she heard the sound of footsteps. It was Steve. His voice was soft when he said, ''Can I show you something?'' The assassin nodded and silently followed him downstairs to one of the sealed evidence rooms on the sub-basement levels. ''I can't explain what happened,'' he said softly. ''I've never seen anything like it.'' The Captain sounded haunted as he opened the door. ''Me either,'' said Natasha.

''I found your missing patient, Olivia,'' Steve added as they entered the room. ''But she's...'' he gestured to the bag laying on one of the examination tables and then slowly slid down the zipper. Inside was the body of an ancient woman, so old that she was nearly dust. It had begun not long after the infected began to recover, she aged an alarming amount in a short span of time and there was nothing that could be done about it. It was simply the natural order, an order that had been unnaturally suppressed.

''She's resting now,'' Natasha said. ''They're all resting now.''

To Darcy, Loki was now more beautiful and more powerful than he'd ever been. The fury, the rage that had always been living under the surface had calmed. Something long-fractured had finally healed. They walked together into the grove of trees. She'd created the place from a dream that she'd had some time ago, her hands had been bound over her head, a voluptuous maiden being taken by a monster and loving every minute of it. The long soft garment that she wore slid from her shoulders and fluttered to the ground. Loki's form changed, she rested a hand against him, felt the cold skin beneath her fingers, marvelling once again at the beautiful colour, the fascinating texture. ''I love you,'' she told him, looking deeply into his eyes. ''This way, every way.''

He smiled and bent his mouth to kiss her, feeling her gasp and tremble delightedly at the cold as he lowered them both to the ground. Darcy leaned back and pressed her body into the soft grass, letting him take her, claim her again and again out beneath the trees and open sky, the two of them alone and undisturbed inside this dream with nothing but the sound of the wind rushing over the leaves, the distant murmur of water, and the faint, faint echoes of a song.

They had changed the flow of the water, once the song was done. There would be no chance of the Wyrd being corrupted again. Now, only the dreamers would decide. Now, the two of them were Watchers, from their corner of a vast eternity. They were not lonely. They could reach out in dreams and visions to say hello. Darcy had feared that with this would come bitterness, but no, only peace.

Darcy herself had a dream. They dreamed differently there, with waking eyes, as visions came falling down like curtains or snow. She saw Helen and Ethan. They met in a field, walking slowly towards each other. They stopped, inches away, and regarded each other with a quiet look that Darcy couldn't quite describe, a look full of longing and shadows that brought tears springing into her vision. In his hand, Ethan was holding a marigold. Helen smiled.

And then she dreamed that she walked among headstones in a graveyard, but she was not filled with sadness. She looked down at the two graves. ''Lugh Retnick,'' read the first. Beside it was ''Anna-Lily Retnick.'' Darcy smiled and kept walking.

Cloud Marlowe never forgot the two mysterious people who she'd met at Retnick's house, who had been so nice to her. Once she woke from her coma and saw herself in the mirror, she burst into tears at how pretty she was, and knew, somehow knew, who had been responsible for this miracle. She found a home as well, she was taken in by Heid, Selene, and Prudence, who helped her continue her studies of magic, (though she already knew a great deal).

''They were real, I know they were,'' Cloud said one day as she looked out the window into the backyard, where they were preparing for the first harvest festival. ''They saved me. They saved all of us. They were wonderful, and beautiful, and they shouldn't ever be forgotten.''

''They won't be,'' Heid assured her.

Just to be sure, every so often, Cloud lit a candle and sat in quiet thought, reaching out with her mind and seeking her friends, who she still called ''William and Lucy'.

They liked seasons, and so they decided that they should have some in the Dreaming. Loki smiled deeply. Darcy could feel it too, a soft and deep connection, close and far-away at the same time. ''What is that?'' she asked.

''A prayer,'' he answered.

''How is she?'' Darcy asked Loki, who was now peering down into the Well, looking at Avalon.

''She's perfect,'' he replied with a proud smile.

Avi looked exactly like a blending of the both of them, with the pale skin and sculpted cheekbones of her father, and her mother's wide eyes and full lips. She was talented, too, but they'd already known that. She was telekinetic, could manipulate energy. She had an IQ so high that it couldn't be measured by any known test, and Bruce had given up trying to figure her out. She had become an ambassador of sorts, fostering diplomacy between the worlds as the times changed and it became more and more necessary to do so. People listened to her. She was important.

They visited their daughter in dreams, and she came to be aware of their presence; even when she woke she could sometimes still feel phantom kisses on her forehead, the memory of being held in loving arms, sang to, soothed. When she was old enough, her aunt Jane sat her down and told her the whole long story of the two lovely people in the photograph that had sat beside her bed for as long as she could remember, and she was proud. She had always known that they were special, they had an aura of magic about them, like a king and queen in a fairy tale.

Epilogue

A very, very long time later

History would call the darkness that had befallen the earth under the Reckoner the time of the next great plague, they looked back on it with a shudder, the way they looked at the Black Death in Europe all those centuries before. The world had been altered at its very core, reality was different.

Now, one autumn day, the newly renovated art museum was featuring several new collections that had been acquired, and a crowd of people milled through to see the works.

''She appears in several paintings from around the same time period, by the same artist, yet her identity remains unknown,'' the tour guide explained, gesturing. ''She's simply referred to as 'The Goddess in Rapture,' because of the expression on her face and the slightly mythical quality of some of the works. Many of the paintings were discovered in an apartment in Paris that remained sealed off for more than half a century. The artist remains unknown.''

Standing toward the back of the crowd, one figure waited until the rest of the group had moved on to the next exhibit. Then she moved forward and approached the painting. She appeared to be only about twenty, though she was much older. she was an uncommonly beautiful young woman, with her long wavy black hair, full lips and soft pale skin. But perhaps her most striking feature was her eyes: they were almost iridescent, a shifting kaleidoscope of blue and green hues. She stood there for a long time, looking at the familiar faces in the painting, feeling a small sadness tugging at her heart. Then she heard footsteps behind her, turned to see a well-dressed young man walking towards her with a smile. He had dark hair and warm brown eyes. People always said that he looked just like his great-grandfather, the late Tony Stark. ''Hey, Avi,'' he greeted her.

''Hey Orion,'' she answered softly. They stood together in silence for a moment, looking up at the paintings. ''I've said it before and I'll say it again—your mom was a fox.''

Avi elbowed him in the side but she laughed. ''Yeah, she kinda was,'' the girl admitted.

''Do you miss them?'' he asked.

''Yes. I'll always miss them...but they're not really gone, you know? They're just not here.'' She smiled softly, thinking about the photograph that was framed and sitting next to her bed at the apartment that she and Orion Stark shared. Her aunt Jane had spoken fondly about Avi's mother and father, often with tears in her eyes. ''I like to imagine that they're walking together in some other world, under other stars. And I'll be with them again one day, somewhere far from here.''

Orion nodded and patted her on the shoulder. ''How about some shawarma, kid?'' he asked.

''Alright, but you're paying,'' she told him.

Loki and Darcy watched this, and smiled. If you could see them, they still looked young, as if frozen in a single moment in time. Together and in love.

And so, like many others, this story does not end but continues on the way it began: with a look, a meeting of eyes. Wheels turned behind the scenes again and again, prompted by some unknown force. Like a whisper, like a song that even the wind and the trees have forgotten.