{-Sharena-}
Peony rushed up to Triandra when she saw her. Without either of them saying anything, it was clear that it was the first time in a while that the two had seen each other… even if Triandra hardly appeared to be as enthusiastic as Peony did, and not just because she chose to hide it.
"How's everything in Dökkálfheimer? Why haven't you talked to me in a while? Were you busy? I know you could've because Plumeria's come over, like, a hundred times since you last told me what you were doing! I was getting worried, honestly, except for the fact Freyr doesn't like knowing that. It's not very sisterly of you to just stop talking to me! Do you at least have a good reason? It's fine if you were busy but not if you just… ignored me. That's kinda rude."
Triandra shoved her away. "I have better things to do than hold on to hopeless fragments of the past." Peony was taken aback by the statement and backed to the other side of Freyr.
Freyr and Freyja, meanwhile, had shorter but happier greetings. Freyja expressed her joy to see him again and they exchanged a brief hug before turning their attention to Sharena.
"To think soon you'll be like one of us…" Freyja said affectionately with a small smile.
Freyr sighed. "Please don't make this misleading." He glanced at both Lekra and Sharena before directing his next words at them, "Before I explain what you need to do, it might be better if I first explain why… to share with the two of you the story of the little dreamer.
"We first heard it from the God of War. She told us about two mortals that would eventually be born, the prince of peace and little dreamer… the former would fall under Death to handle, so the latter was the one she said to prepare for. At that point all we knew was what the two of them were supposed to do and what the God of War expected us to do to prevent it. We knew from the beginning that we shouldn't follow through with what she wanted us to—honestly I'm not sure if she ever expected us to, since she knows we don't share Death's morals.
"We waited for this child, wanting to do what we could to protect her for as long as possible. Before we had made plans to keep her safe and out of the Trickster's hands; most of them proved impossible when we knew who she was… the princess of Askr's nation. We knew we couldn't send an álfar to watch her, since it would've been too obvious. Instead, we took a dream and nightmare—which the God of War had gifted us some time earlier—and sent them to the waking realm as butterflies.
"Suffice to say the Trickster quickly caught on. What we had done was the first part of a chain reaction that led us to where we are now. If those butterflies had stayed with the little dreamer… perhaps things might have been a bit different. But the Trickster knew that what we were doing would change things and she sent the butterflies away. She put them in a world she knew would eventually perish, forcing us to either make a new plan or succumb to her will until they returned—if they returned, as at the time we didn't know if they would.
"After that we decided to treat her as a normal child; we didn't know whether or not this would affect her later in life, having never even thought of something like this before, so we went with what we did know. We played with her like any other dreamer and had recently introduced her to other children. Those two children became álfar eventually, but their forms faltered. At a point we were nearly certain they wouldn't last much longer.
"Freyja brought it to my attention that we could use a dreamer. Any of them could've done, really, but knowing that it would tie the álfar to the dreamer forever… We ultimately chose the little dreamer, since she actually knew them. What this did was bind her even more to the dream realm, something we didn't quite realize the extent of until she grew older…
"All children leave Ljósálfheimer by the time they're thirteen. Some leave earlier after reaching a certain stage of mental maturity, but no one stays longer. At least not until her. It was becoming apparent that between who she was as the little dreamer and what we did with the álfar tied her much more firmly into the dream realm than a normal child. We had to make her forget it ourselves rather than let the process happen naturally; letting her continue to come here, without either the dream or nightmare, would've endangered everything. It was a temporary fix, but thankfully our means of properly dealing with it came before the fix stopped working.
"The simplest way to say it is that Lekra came back. With their return started the reemergence of your memories, which brought you closer to us after Iztali found you. In light of all of that, we tried to determine what the best step forward would be. You will, almost undoubtedly, eventually remember everything if we made you forget again, which means you'll have to remember. You can't remember these things naturally, however… In order to keep everyone safe, we're going to have to reawaken everything that we locked away with your memories. It's by no means what the Trickster wants, but… we decided it was best to risk her annoyance than lose so much more."
Freyja smiled slowly as she stepped closer to Sharena. "You won't just be bound by mortal laws anymore… you'd be able to come here, act as an álfar… you'll be like us, like you should have been from the very beginning…"
"Know that it will be a mentally taxing on both of you," Freyr warned, still maintaining the somber air. "There will be a lot your mind will need to reprocess, with so many memories being reawakened. Sharena, it's very likely you'll experience these memories through dreams. Lekra, given how deep of a sleep she will be in, you might not even appear in the waking realm. After that, however, there will be no other consequences."
"This sounds like it's going to take longer than a couple of minutes…" Sharena remarked.
"The process won't start until you're back in the waking realm," Freyr explained. "It will likely take a long time. I'm trusting Peony to explain the details to your friends, since she and Triandra will—"
"I'm not doing anything for her," Triandra interjected, glaring at Sharena.
Mirabilis stirred. "I'll do it," she mumbled sleepily. "I'll be the one bringing them back anyway, might as well help out too."
Freyr gave her his nod of thanks. "Well, then, we're ready if the two of you are."
Sharena glanced at Lekra and nodded. "I think we're ready."
((A/N: Freyr, Freyja, and Hel were more or less given the same mission in its essence: screw over the prince of peace and/or little dreamer. That was it. Freyr and Freyja did the exact opposite in every way, though Freyja did suggest something that would technically both help Sharena and please Loki…
It's at the mental maturity bit that I remind you that most kids who reach that before turning thirteen are usually potential álfar; that child was forced to act older in order to handle whatever situation they were dealing with. This applies in any kind of situation, and not just abuse-related ones. Alfonse in particular left before turning thirteen not because of abuse specifically but the kind of maturity he was expected to have at that point. His true childhood only really lasted until he was, like, eight. And that's being generous.))
