3Sebastian stared at the girl he'd grown up with, and once again found himself wondering how he could know so little about her. He wanted to ask her what she was so afraid of, what was haunting her, and where she went after dark. The faint whisper he heard, which was so soft it could have been the wind through the leaves above them, did nothing to answer his questions. He wished it was the wind, but the wind doesn't pray 'He' doesn't find out.
"How could you? You knew what would happen, knew you weren't strong enough for it, and yet you still ignored the Elders. I'm sorry Laetitia but I'm not taking half the blame this time." Sebastian watched as her back straightened and she flickered a little, he readied himself for her attack. Sure enough it soon came.
"Always the same aren't you Sebastian? Always doing exactly what the Elders ask, never questioning, only blind obedience. You always seem to assume I need your help, always think you have to rescue me from the mistakes I make and the trouble I get into. Did you ever wonder whether I need rescuing? Don't you ever wonder why I keep doing these things and why I purposefully aggravate the Elders whenever possible? I hate it here - I hate being .so stifled! I hate being dictated to and I hate not being allowed to make my own decisions. I hate being told how weak I am and how I wouldn't last without the 'superior powers' of the Elders. I'm more capable than all of them and that's what they hate about me. They keep trying to curb me and turn me into another drone that they can control but I've seen the other world Sebastian, I've seen it - the tenth world. It's incredible, so alive and wild and. . . unmanaged. They don't need Elders there, they make their own choices, and things change there. It's so beautiful and uncontrolled, and I feel like I belong there. That's why I released Angrboda - so they'd banish me. It's the only way I can leave here without being called back."
"So who's 'He'? Why don't you want him finding out that Angrboda is free? What will he do? I need to know if there's going to be a danger to the colony Laetitia, I need to be able to protect them all. Even if you don't care for them, I do."
She looked at him, not wanting to share her fears, not wanting Sebastian to hate her, and took a deep breath. "I forgot about him, truly I did, but she reminded me. I released her and she got into my head like smoke or something. She just took over everything and it was like these fingers gently running down my spine, and my head was empty of everything but her voice. It was so soothing, so seductive, but so untrustworthy. She thanked me for releasing her and promised I wouldn't be hurt, and then she left, but as she did there was this image in my head and I remembered him." Laetitia was crying softly now, something Sebastian had never seen, "I don't know how I could have forgotten him, how anyone could have forgotten him but we all have even the Elders. Once he was a story we told to our children, a warning for them, to scare them into behaving and not attempting things beyond them, but he's a forgotten horror, a joke at best. We're too proud now, too sure of ourselves and it's said that pride comes before a fall. He's going to be the cause of that fall."
"So who is he? Give me a name, anything. I just need something to go on." Sebastian was getting scared now, a rare occurrence, and was trying desperately to remember anything his parents had told him when he was a child that could shed some light on who this mystery being was. Laetitia sighed, and turned away. She began to walk towards the Round House where all meetings were held, pausing to mutter,
"Loki."
Sebastian's mind raced, the only Loki he recalled was the fire god, "But he was killed at Ragnarok by Heimdall, how could he affect us now?" "Ragnarok has not yet happened, the Norns have lost their sanity and Angrboda will free her husband and offspring. They will bring the true Ragnarok, and I don't intend to be in this world when it is ended. The world will live again, but I wish to be alive to see it." With that Laetitia entered the Round House, ready to accept her punishment.
The gods looked at one another, confused as to what they were doing. "How did I get here? The last thing I remember was." Tyr broke off as the memory became clearer. The other gods were staring at Odin, chilled by the look of horror on his face. He stared at Fenrir, the wolf-son of Loki, and spoke only one word, "Ragnarok." The gods wept, horrified that they would have to go through that ordeal a second time, and each with the same unspoken fear - that if this could happen once, it could happen again and Ragnarok would repeat over and over and over.
Sigyn turned to empty her bowl of the venom which filled it, hastening to do so as she could already feel the earth shaking as she moved to the far corner of the cave. Quickly returning to her husband, she once again held the bowl under the mouth of the snake above him, preventing the venom from touching him and causing the convulsions that rocked . "She's been freed Sigyn, she's going to release me. Again. Someone must be thanked for this, you will find them and bring them to me once I am free." Her love for her husband was great, but Sigyn remembered the Ragnarok that had destroyed them both. She never wanted to experience that again, never wanted to lose Loki a second time. Loyalty or love? She had to choose one, and her decision would affect the end of the worlds.
They all felt it, the time slipping back, the re-tangling of the threads of fate, the restoration of the Aesir. The Elders froze, unsure of what to do, and painfully aware of all the worried faces turned towards them. Laetitia closed her eyes, preparing herself. "It's Angrboda. She found the Norns, she's moved the threads and it's going to happen again. Ragnarok. The end of the worlds. The doom of the gods. And before you start talking about how we have three years of winter in which to prepare, we haven't. She's missed that part, she's undone the work of the Norns, and spun it into the pattern she wants. It will be very different this time, more violent if you can believe that, more pain, more bloodshed. It will be how she wishes it to be, with no hope for people in the new world, because Lif and Lifthrasir are not within Yggdrasil. Balder will rise still - there are some things she cannot change. She'll release Loki and her plans are different enough to encompass his survival. Heimdall will die soon, by Loki's cunning. As before he will blow his horn to signal Ragnarok, but that will seal his doom as Loki will bathe the horn in the venom he has been tortured by. The only way to stop Ragnarok occurring in the way Angrboda wishes is to appeal to Sigyn, to convince her to interfere. Angrboda's lust for Loki has caused her to overlook his wife, so Sigyn's fate is not controlled by the weavings of the Norns, she has free will. Appeal to her and you may have a chance." Laetitia opened her eyes and looked around the room at her kinsmen, "I am not willing to risk my life on Sigyn's whim. I plan on going to the tenth world, there I may be able to find another way to end this. Your fate is your own to decide." She walked from the building, leaving a shocked silence behind her, broken by the most senior of the Elders.