A/N: Sorry for the lateness! I had to give my brain a bit of a rest. Still, fear not! The chapter's here now!

With thanks to my Patrons:
Regal Eagle, Drake Razgriz

In response to reviews:
d8rkforcen1ght7: Thanks! And 'good' Shadows are exceptionally rare. Not even in the double digits.
ThunderBasilisk: Thank you! Wait... *googles the definition of angst* I don't think I'm doing angst... Angst is more like 'I'm depressed and moody'. Although I guess I did that accidentally while trying do character development instead. Oh well.
Blaze1992: Me. I say that. Sadly, the trio won't be making a return.
awesomesniper86: Yup! Hopefully that snapshot blew a few minds.
HeadlessHessian: Action will be coming... soon. (Sorry!)

Disclaimer: I don't own the IC.
Thanks to Wizz and Slack for beta reading!

Chapter 21: Back to my regularly scheduled programming.

I looked out over the Crags of Tel'naeír, watching the sun come up as four cryopods lay beside me. In the brief time since when we- I, goddamn it, had woken up as me, I'd managed to vaguely get my thoughts into order when everyone else had gone back to sleep.

One of the first things that crossed my mind was a question about identity. While Driscol, Kevin and Sparta had stemmed from my consciousness, and acted like I would, they weren't me. Sure, they'd done a good job while they were in the driving seats, and I can't say that I'd have acted much differently- apart from being a bit less of a dick than the trio at some points- but the three of them were not me.

I also reckoned that I had more than a few apologies to make on their behalf.

I kinda felt a little violated, too. I mean, having my body directed by intelligences that weren't me… fine, partly me… it wasn't something that I wanted to repeat, if at all possible. From anybody trying to take control of me, that is. Training my mental defense was now fairly high up my list of priorities- especially since I no longer had an entire consciousness to take care of that side of things.

Glancing down at the cryopods with one of my heads while the other two remained unnaturally still, I wiped away some of the frost on the glass section, revealing one of my four severed heads. I had literally no idea why Sparta had wanted to keep them, but as they were still here… putting them to rest wouldn't be a bad idea.

With a loud boom, Glaedr landed near the cliff edge alongside Islingr, the two dragons evidently in the middle of a mental conversation as they noticed me.

"Morning," I said flatly, locking both of my other heads onto them and only remembering to add on "ebrithilar" after a slightly embarrassing pause.

"You are here early, my students." Islingr commented warily, evidently a bit miffed that I'd briefly forgotten my manners.

"Yeah." I agreed, "I didn't sleep much last night. And I'm back to being an 'I' again, by the way."

"You are?" Islingr asked, her mechanical jaw dropping in shock with a loud creak.

I nodded. "I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all, really. So I'm just gonna acknowledge that it happened and move on, taking what lessons I can from it."

"A good philosophy." Glaedr commended.

"If you are willing, Cade-finiarel," Islingr said slowly, "would you consent to explaining how it felt to be three beings at once?"

"Honestly, weird as fuck."

I didn't see any of the others for the rest of the day. Islingr decided to make absolutely sure that I remembered everything that Kevin, Driscol and Sparta had learned. I did for most of it, including my Rinjai powers and the really important stuff, but I'd forgotten all about spotting different weather patterns.

I'd forgotten that because it wasn't important. When you could not only tank, but summon the worst of what the skies could throw at you, what did it matter if it was going to rain? Islingr evidently thought otherwise, and so she drilled it back into our... my heads as we flew. She was easily breaking Mach 1, and I was furiously doing my best to keep up with her. I so wanted to make a sonic boom under my own power- without having to go into a nosedive.

It was only in the evening when Islingr was satisfied, and we finally got back to the Crags. I wasn't anywhere near exhausted, but I felt like I'd had a good, hard workout. I was ready to snooze, but there was something I had to do first. Islingr bade me a quick farewell as Fundor and Lenora rocketed overhead, the familiar roar of their jet engines sounding very strange in a land that didn't even have steam power yet.

I made a mental note to spend some time with both of them soon, just to see what they were like. However, that could wait for another evening. Instead, I walked over to Saphira, who was staring through the window of one of the four cryopods in morbid horror. She was so engrossed that she didn't even notice me walk up to her until I gently tapped on her head.

"Alagaësia to Saffy, come in." I joked as she jerked in surprise.

Turning to look up at me, her eyes widened. "S-sorry! I- I d-didn't mean... That is, I… I didn't mean to be disrespectful! It's just that these were here, and I was curious, and Amara said that I shouldn't look, but I did, and..."

I just smiled as Saphira dug herself a deeper and deeper metaphorical hole before interrupting "Calm down Saphira, it's just a dead bit of me. No big deal."

"No big deal?!" Saphira gasped in amazement. "They're dead parts of you! They should be put to rest!"

"I thought the same, which is why I need your help." I grinned.

"Well of course you-" the dragoness began before cocking her head and saying "Wait, what?"

"I," I said, stressing the word as I tried not to laugh at Saphira's reaction, "thought that laying these four bits of me to rest would be a good idea. One of them is from when I was still me, but rapidly losing control of myself. The others are from Kevin, Driscol and Sparta. One each."

"You… you're back?" Saphira gasped.

"Amara didn't tell you?" I asked, surprised.

"No, she didn't. Although she did elude that something had happened to you, leaving Eragon and I to guess at what she was talking about."

"And what do you think of how things turned out?" I teased.

I wasn't expecting for Saphira to brush her neck against one of mine in the same way that a cat would do, although I went with it.

"Welcome back, Cade."

I grinned from all three heads. "It's good to be back."

Then Saphira pulled back and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Wait… Did you call me Saffy?"

Feigning innocence, I said "Who, me? You must be hearing things."

"I was not!" Saphira denied, playfully slapping my shoulder. "You're just pulling my tail!"

I grinned. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

"I hate you."

"Only because I'm a tiny bit more awesomer than you."

"That's not a word."

"It is now!"

A few hours later, we'd wandered down the Crags until we could only see the flickering lights from Oromis' hut in the distance. For some reason, this spot just felt right to me, so it was here where we would put the dead parts of me to rest.

I'd decided that it'd have an odd kind of symmetry if I buried the head that was mine, remembering that my old body had been buried back on Earth. As for Driscol, Kevin and Sparta's heads, I was gonna cremate them, which was why I'd asked Saphira if she didn't mind coming with me. Fire wasn't my forte, but it was very much hers.

I resorted to growing to my limit before raking a slightly messy trench in the dirt with my claws, just to save what time we had before the sun would set. It was three times as deep as my decapitated head was long, but just wide and long enough to accommodate my lost limb.

After shrinking back to my regular size, I braced myself for the inevitable smell and opened the cryopod, gently picking up my full-sized, decapitated head. It looked horrible, but the smell wasn't as bad as I'd feared. It was just like the cryopod; cold and frigid, with slight undertones of rot.

I gently lowered my lost noggin into the hole, then shoved the soil back into the hole, forming a small mound of dirt. That was me covered, but we weren't done yet.

Removing the three other heads from their cryopods, I laid them on a sizable pile of dead wood that Saphira and I had managed to scavenge, facing the half-set sun. We didn't think that the elves would appreciate us cutting down any of their still-living trees just to burn them. And they probably wouldn't be dry enough to burn properly anyway.

Once we were ready, Saphira hesitantly asked u- me "Are… are you sure that I should be the one to do this? Your knight has a flamethrower. You could get it to do this."

"I know." I sighed. "But I'd like you to stay, if you don't mind. I don't want to do this alone. I want to do this quietly, but… I don't want it to seem like I'm the only one who cared about Dris, Kev and Sparta."

"In that case, I'll gladly remain." the blue dragoness said reassuringly.

"Then huff, puff, and blow the house down."

"Huh?"

I chuckled at Saphira's expression of absolute confusion. "Ah, it's this story for kids about a wolf with an industrial leaf-blower built into his body attacking the houses of pigs."

"Not literally?" my friend guessed.

"Nah. It's just more interesting to say it that way." I smiled before becoming more serious. "Now, if you wouldn't mind…"

Saphira nodded before taking a deep breath. She held it for a few seconds, then let out a blazing column of flames; blue in the center where it was hottest, orange on the outside where it was cooler, but still a raging inferno. The pyre we'd created was enveloped in dragonfire, and the last rays of the sun turned the clouds pink and orange. That probably had some kinda metaphorical message in retrospect, but whatever. It probably wasn't important anyway.

Saphira stepped back to watch alongside me as the flames caught, and Driscol, Kevin and Sparta's severed heads- with great difficulty- began to burn.

"This was a triumph…" I whispered. "I'm making a note here: huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction."

Saphira glanced over at me as my mental voice rose a little in volume. "Alagaësian Saviors. We do what we must, because we can. For the good of all of us- except the ones who are dead."

Looking deep into the fire, I paused for much longer than I meant to before going on. "But there's no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying until you run out of cake. And the saving gets done, we'll shoot Galby with a gun, for the people who are still alive.

"I'm not even angry. I'm being so sincere right now. Even though you broke my heads and killed me. And got me torn to pieces. And blew me up as well. But now you burn, and it hurts because I'm me and you're gone…"

I kept singing through my… slightly modified version of 'Still Alive', not entirely sure why I'd started in the first place. But it felt good to just do something that honoured Driscol, Kevin and Sparta in my own way. While I was human, I'd made a joke with my friends that I wanted them to play Halo 3's 'Never Forget' at my funeral, even if it would be seventy years before I croaked.

Despite dying way before anyone expected me to, I was pretty sure that they would have played it, just for me. Kevin, Driscol and Sparta hadn't really said anything on the subject, but I felt that 'Still Alive' would have made them smile if they were still here. And it was technically true, as well.

"And believe me, I am still alive. I'm saving people and I'm still alive. I feel kinda crappy, but I'm still alive. While you died I was still alive. And now you're dead, I'm still alive. Still alive… still alive…"

My mental voice petered out at the end, replaced by the roar of the fire. That had ended a little more morbidly than I'd intended. It probably wasn't the best sendoff I could have given, but that would have required fireworks and explosions. This was just nice and quiet. I'd left the past to rest, and opened myself to the future.

"You sang that well." Saphira said as we watched the flames together.

"Thank you."

"But you don't sing that way normally. You usually just yell the words."

"I yell along to rock and metal. You're supposed to shout, play air-guitar and have a good time with that stuff. It's naturally awesome. With songs like 'Still Alive', you have to sing properly to understand what they mean. And if you want the context behind it, play Portal."

"I will."

The next day, I was up and ready at the training grounds- human sized- and doing… probably not what I should have. Omen was sheathed in a pile of Skölir's plates that lay next to a leg of my Knight. My Rinjai wasn't in use. And I currently wasn't pummeling anything into dust.

Instead, I was shooting lightning at an archery target from a pair of finger-guns. As you do.

Okay, I was just doing it because it felt fun, but that's besides the point. And no, I did not make 'pew pew' noises. None. At all. Nada.

Still, my antics made some Elves copy me and pull a Palpatine to try and hit the archery targets, and that was fun to watch. Quite a few of them actually managed to get bullseyes, although more of them saw it as an interesting pastime rather than a valid attack. Which it was, really. I didn't really see a use for finger guns unless all three of my heads were occupied. And even then, I might be able to persuade a proper lightning bolt to zap whatever I was going up against. So yeah, it was just a 'hey, this is cool' thing, rather than a proper attack.

And so, I occupied myself until Saphira swooped in with Eragon, Amara following once there was enough space for her to land. I glanced over at them all from one of my heads, waved, then turned back towards Eragon in a double take.

"Err, cuz, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" I asked Amara, disregarding the usual 'good morning'.

"Yeah." Amara confirmed as I began to walk over. "Eragon's a little unsettled by it all."

"But this isn't…" I said, trailing off as Eragon dismounted Saphira, and left two large footprints where he landed.

Okay, so I should probably back up and explain what was going on. In the books, Eragon had been transformed at the Blood-Oath celebration so that he had the strength and reaction time of an elf, as well as the unnatural… aesthetic, let's say. But here… he'd gained about a head in height and looked seriously toned. Not Hulk levels, but kinda like Captain America with a side of Doomslayer. He could have easily been mistaken for an Olympic heavy weightlifter, but there was a kind of ruggedness to him that made me think more of a superhero than an athlete.

"Christ…" was all I could say as Eragon gave me a slightly depressed look. "What kinda muscle magic have you been using while I wasn't looking?"

He managed a weak smile at that. "You tell me. I was unconscious while this happened, but it's good to see you again, Cade."

"Thanks." I nodded back. "It's good to be driving again, but let's talk about you, and your new guns. How are you taking this?"

"You mean all this, right?" Eragon laughed humorlessly. "I… I feel like a freak, if I'm honest."

I nodded. "Okay, that makes sense. You're skipping this morning's training and coming with me."

"What?" my mega-muscled friend asked in surprise.

"As one of the leading experts in understanding what it's like to have your body changed into something you don't feel comfortable with, and definitely the most experienced person in this realm on bitching about it, I completely get what you're going through." I said easily. "Now let's take a walk, and we can get this off your chest before it really starts grating on you."

Eragon took a deep breath and nodded, which was good enough for me.

Turning to look up at Saphira and Amara, which felt weird, I said "We'll be back later. Don't wait for us. We'll be fine."

We found a small lake and tried our best to skip stones across it before I started talking. "So, what bothers you the most?"

Eragon skimmed his stone across the surface of the lake, getting four solid skips before his stone sank beneath the crystal-clear water. "I don't know. It's partly from just being like this, and partly from being changed to be like this against my will."

"I get that." I nodded. "I got flight, more powers than I can list off the top of my head, and I'm a butt-naked badass," my friend laughed at that, "but, it was insanely hard to adjust. I was previously pretty much just like you before all this started. Just an average Joe. I had zero preparation for what I was getting myself into- zero warning too. I was effectively flying blind, with some dysfunctional instincts to go off, but I got myself a good teacher."

"Islingr." Eragon remembered, searching for another good stone as I launched my own. "You never did explain how you found her Eldunarí- or those of Fundor and Lenora."

"So you know that dragons have those now." I said.

"Yeah. Fundor showed Saphira and I what his one looked like. Do you have one?"

"Yup." I nodded. "More than one. Even though, by all rights, I shouldn't."

Eragon's eyebrows rose in interest. "Really? Why shouldn't you have them?"

"That's a discussion for another day." I said, getting the conversation back on track. "Anyway, my point is that, like you, I had my body changed to something that I didn't like, but I gradually learned to adjust and accept it."

Eragon snorted and began to protest, but I cut him off.

"Hey, I'm not saying that it'll happen overnight, but just put some thought into this. For me, I suddenly found myself in a position to help people, and make a real difference in the world. And after so long of us being partners in crime, I reckon that you feel the same, but about being a Rider."

"Yeah." Eragon sighed. "And you're saying that even though I look like an overgrown Urgal-"

"Dude, you have mega-muscles and you look like a superhero." I corrected. "That's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I don't feel like me any more." my friend cut in. "I feel… better than I have been. But I'm not sure if I want to feel like this."

"Better, how?" I asked as I skipped my stone. It sank after the second time it touched the water.

"Stronger, obviously." Eragon snorted. "Faster, more agile. I can see further and clearer, smell and hear more than I could before, and I feel more when I touch things, too. I'm not entirely sure if I believe it."

"You're preaching to the choir there, 'Rags." I grinned. "Welcome to the club of all that jazz. At least you didn't get extra limbs, like me."

"I suppose not, but there's something else, too." the young Rider continued in a worried tone. "I've only told Saphira about this, and she said to ask you about it…"

"What is it?" I asked, turning back towards Eragon.

To answer, he took off his shirt and turned around, revealing the pitch black, tribalistic tattoo that Rosa had fixed to the back of his right shoulder. With a muttered word in the Ancient Language, what seemed to be a hybrid of snake and dragon scales revealed themselves, as dark as night. They were concentrated around the tattoo, although they seemed to be spreading down the line of where Eragon's scar once was.

I gasped, then carefully tapped a claw against the black scales, then against his skin. There was a noticeable difference in the texture, but from what I could tell, the scales were manifesting on top of his skin, rather than replacing it.

I tried to find an explanation. In the books, Durza had sliced Eragon's back open, and that had either caused his seizures on its own, or there was some kind of unspoken spell from the Shade. However, with Shadow-given enhancements…

"I might be able to help," I said, "but I'm really not sure how much I can do. It's probably not gonna be much."

Eragon looked over his shoulder at me. "So you can explain that, right?"

"Explain it, and maybe stop it. So… if I had to guess, this started with Durza." My friend's face paled. "When we fought him in Farthen Dûr, he'd got enhancements from a Shadow that's lurking somewhere in this world."

"You said that there was one lurking around" Eragon grimaced. "But enhancing our enemies… I don't like that."

"In my defence, I didn't know that Drurza had been enhanced until he started monologuing. But anyway, as he was a Shadow- and in retrospect, this seems obvious- that," I tapped one of the dark scales, "these are made from whatever energy Shadows have. Fortunately, Rosa contained and isolated them while she was healing you, so they're just appearing on the surface of your skin."

Hmm. Rosa's intervention might actually explain why Eragon looked more like a rugged powerhouse rather than a half-elf. Dragon Aspect power would probably be enough to change the original purpose of the dragon's magic.

Eragon sagged in relief. "Thank goodness. When I first saw them, I was worried that I was turning into a dragon or something."

"Nah, that's my job." I said dismissively. "And don't let Saphira hear you say that. She'd probably be offended. Still, the fact that they've popped up after a lot of magic entered your body is worrying. I'm not sure what's going on, but my best guess is that Rosa's seal on that stuff might be breaking down."

"That's… troubling, but you said something about being able to remove it?" my friend asked hopefully.

"Yeah. I'm not entirely sure how it'll respond to my Rinjai, but I'm hoping I can just kinda brute force it out of you, tattoo and all."

"We may as well try it." Eragon decided. "I don't want this on me any longer than necessary if it is Shadow stuff."

I nodded, then pulled on my connection to the rift. I probably wouldn't need a full Rinjai aura for this, so it was better to only use as little as possible, for Eragon's sake. I didn't want to hurt him.

Orange, liquid rift flared into being around my right hand, then settled into a gauntlet-like layer over it. Flexing my limb around, I nodded to myself and gently pressed it to Eragon's back.

He almost instantly yelled in pain and recoiled, jumping away from me and into the shallows of the lake. Dispersing the rift energy, I waded into the water after Eragon as he threw himself backwards into the deeper water. Worryingly, a small amount of steam billowed up around him as he sighed in relief.

"Holy shit, are you okay?!"

"Not really," Eragon groaned. "My back feels like it's on fire, but the pain's going."

"Let me have a look." I demanded, snaking my heads around to see.

There was a long pause.

"Well?" Eragon asked.

"The scales have mostly gone, but your tattoo's fine." I reported. "So… kind of an improvement, I suppose?"

"Not for how much it hurts." the young Rider groaned. "It felt like you were branding me or something."

I winced. "I'm sorry! I swear I didn't-"

"It's fine." he groaned as I helped him to get up and stagger to the shore. "You were trying to help, it's just that it… oh, how do you say it?"

"Hurt like a bitch?" I suggested.

Eragon chuckled before he cut himself off with a wince. A minute or two of silence later, and he remembered to breathe again. "Saphira's mad."

"Uh oh."

"It's okay, I explained what happened."

"Yeah, my 'uh oh' still applies because of that."

"Relax, she's not going to try and kill you."

"Says you."

We would have gone on for longer, if we hadn't heard a faint, desperate scream in the distance of "Mommy!"

Eragon and I froze and locked eyes, switching from goofing around to being deadly serious in an instant.

"That sounded like a kid."

We didn't even need to speak to agree on what we'd do next. I grew to my preferred size as the young Rider grabbed his shirt, then leapt onto my back in a massive jump. With heavy, thudding beats of my golden wings, I leapt into the sky.

We were ready to save someone.

Snapshot 29E:

Snorri stared at the Shadow in shock. "By Loki's absent honor…"

Glaive lowered what passed as her head. "Null found out that Rift only holds back Limbo for so long on the people she picks. Then she cuts the lifeline, and Void is waiting with a net to ensnare us. I still can't feel half the emotions that I used to be able to. The most I get is twisted satisfaction and cold indifference from… from killing. I physically can't feel joy or happiness any more. Void took that from me. F-From all of us Shadows."

At that moment Snorri felt something shift behind him, and Heart walked over to Glaive and embraced her. "I know it's getting old Glaive but… We'll get them back, we'll help you and Hetan get your emotions back completely, it's a promise."

"Promises are only words." Glaive said icily. "And you know as well as I do that this gesture means nothing to me."

"That depends on who's saying them, and you'll eventually learn how to feel happy again." Heart gently retorted. He then turned to Snorri, facing him with a calm, neutral expression.

"As you can see, we're victims of an unfair system that wanted us to be nothing more than puppets on strings. We don't care who's side is going to win or lose, or the war at all. We only want one thing: to live as much of a normal life as we physically and mentally can." He then pointed at Null, who was looking at the scene with a sad aura emitting from him. "Null offered us this little bit of peace- a small ray of hope in this multiverse of torment. It's thanks to him that we've all met. Thanks to him we have hope for some of us to regain our emotions and learn how to live again."

"Like that'll happen." Glaive snapped, tearing away from the hug that Heart was still giving her. "What happened to make you fully feel again only worked because you were insane, even by our standards."

Glaive pushed herself to her feet, shoved her hands in her pockets and stomped away, down towards a wooden jetty that looked over the lake, where one could see the 2 silhouettes of the young girls splashing at each other with the water.

Heart sighed sadly, before calming down and continuing. "This is a place for people to not feel like outcasts because of our appearances or actions." He then pointed at Mark, Violet and Arianne, all looking down after hearing it. "All of us- former Plainswalkers and former Shadows alike- are here because we want our own little slice of peace."

"So you're all… people… like me." Snorri summarised. "Unwanted, broken, kicked to the curb by the gods."

"Yes." Null said, making the former Plainswalker turn to look at him. "After all, even I fall into one of the categories you've given."

"You do?" Snorri asked, rather taken aback.

Null nodded. "Yes. Primordial though I may be, I was not born in Limbo, and I do not know who my 'parents' are. I have lived a long, long life despite that, always trying to find a place of peace in a multiverse of chaos. And that place is here; The Dream. A realm of possibility. And I've brought your consciousness here tonight to offer you to stay." After a moment Null realized he might have said something a bit too creepy, and quickly tried to fix it. "Not by not making you ever wake up! I mean by giving you the chance to physically join us here in The Dream. You can either stay permanently or pop in and out at your leisure, although we all meet on Sundays, just to make sure we're all doing okay and occasionally play a few rounds of truth or dare."

Snorri gasped. To stay here, not ever having to worry about the Plainswalkers coming after him, or the Shadows from killing him? To have people who didn't judge him for what he'd done. To simply have company after so long? This was paradise.

"Why would anyone leave?" he asked. "This is like Valhalla on Midgard!"

"Well," Mark said, glaring down at a new hand of cards, "As Glaive is still a full Shadow in all but name and attitude, she helps us by keeping track of Shadow activity. If anything realm-threatening goes down-"

"Which is nearly everything they do-" Violet interrupted.

"Then we subtly and anonymously alert the Plainswalkers to counter them." Mark continued. "Cele and Luna aren't even immortal, and they have their own family back where they come from. They're only here because Heart managed to make himself their honorary uncle or something."

"I think they accepted so quickly because otherwise either Kali or Mach would have gone insane dealing with their antics daily." Heart chuckled.

"And the rest of you?" Snorri pressed.

"Arianne and I live in a realm that never appeared in Earth's fiction." Hetan said. "It is quiet there, and life is still young."

"Mark and I stay here to give poor Null a little company." Violet said, earning her a mock glare from Null.

"I don't get lonely." The Primordial protested.

"Much." Mark and Violet chorused.

Null rolled his eye and turned his full attention to Snorri. "Sorry, back to the point. You can either choose to stay here, in The Dream, or pop in and out, or just continue as you are and forget about us. The choice is completely and utterly up to you, Snorri. Take your time to think about it."

For Snorri the answer had been on the tip of his forked tongue since the offer had first been given. "Although I've only been here for less than an hour, I can't give this up. Having seen this, please, don't deny me my choice to stay."

Null nodded and gently said "It's settled then. By tomorrow, you'll be part of our little family."

Then Heart walked towards the door, although he turned as his hand touched the handle "Sorry everyone, But I've got to get the girls to have some actual sleep tonight, otherwise they'll miss the traders' annual caravan… And I don't think we can survive another year of complaints because of it." As he opened the door, Heart smiled warmly at Snorri one last time. "Welcome to the family in advance. I hope you'll feel at home with us soon."

"Me too." Snorri agreed. "It seems that the Norns had us reborn as enemies, but they weaved our fates together as friends. And I thank them for it, with all of my being."

With a last smile, Heart left the house, gathering the girls outside before leaving the dream. The rest of the night passed with Snorri slowly but surely finding his place between this small, but heartwarming family.