Necessary Good, Unnecessary Evil | No rest For Wounded Souls [Bucky Barnes]

I Never Wanted To Lose You

"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."
-George Moore

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Nova's POV

Every inch of my body seems to be lighter and at the same time, energized.
I feel at one with the emptiness embracing me, unable to tell where my body starts and where it ends.
Suddenly, my mind awakens completely, and I realize what is happening.
The spell, I have to remember.
Pictures slowly start to form and memories flood my mind.
They are so many, so fast it's impossible to see anything clearly. But all of them manage to imprint in my brain.
A sharp pain hits my head, knocking the breath out of my lungs.
Places and faces I've never seen before... voices and events that I don't know. These are memories, but they are not mine.

"Call mother!" I hear Loki shout, and my breath hitches when suddenly I feel my body again.
I slowly open my eyes, seeing Thor kneeling in front of me, holding my face.
His mouth moves, but I don't catch what he's saying, too overwhelmed by the memories almost drowning me.
Gradually, the room stops spinning, making it easier to focus on what's going on in my head.
Memories passed from one generation to another, that's what Loki meant?
I still feel dizzy, but somehow I can find what seems to be some control.
Frigga rushing through the library catches my attention, and I hold up my hand, stopping her from interrupting the process. "Give me a minute." I heave, my mouth dry as my heart keeps pounding in my chest. "I've got this."
"What happened?" I hear Frigga ask.
Loki chimes in, walking toward me. "Something went wrong. The spell backfired." He says, stressing each word.
"Something is stopping it," Frigga observes, grabbing my hand and gently holding it in hers.

I squeeze my eyes. The pain seems to want to split my head in half. "I'm getting some memories back, but not mine," I say, gritting my teeth.
Thor startles, staring at his mother. "We have to stop it." He urges.
I shake my head, shifting in my seat. "I can handle it. It's going to work," I shudder, struggling to keep my focus.
Loki hesitates, glancing at me. "You're going to break your mind," he warns, picking up the book he was using before.
"Do it, Loki," Frigga instructs. Without hesitation, he begins to read from where he left off.
I shut my eyes close again, and surprisingly, everything stopped.
My eyes catch a pale light, and after a second, I get into a small living room. That's my house. I remember it.
I hear the front door breaking open, and I realize what's going on. That's the last night before Hydra found us.
Two men walk in, and I feel my heart sink.
The memory starts to glitch, and all I can see are fragments.
A man with a buzz cut walks in front of me, putting a bag over my head.
I remember him. I know him... that's Drago.

"Nova?" My eyes snap open, and I gasp for hair, jumping on my feet.
I move my eyes around, noticing I'm back in the library. Loki, Thor, and Frigga are staring at me, worried.
"Are you alright?" Loki speaks again, staring at me.
I swallow the lump in my throat, nodding my head. Now that I'm not dizzy, I can actually dig into all the new information I have, almost gasping when I find what we were looking for.
"On the 22nd cycle, the discord of the old against the new will flood the Ethereal Gates with crimson lymph. As the result of shameful acts, a new head will grow, and it will sit on top of the throne, either to rebuild or to burn down into ashes the ruins of the first realm. The first of its race bonded with stars' power and deep reasons, nothing will take it down, but itself. " I chant without even having to think about the words as I'm speaking.
Loki's eyes widen, and he rushes to take a book from a shelf. "That's must be the prophecy." He states, getting behind his desk.
I frown, too confused to process whatever just happened. "What does it mean?" I probe, walking towards him.

"A cycle is an arch of time. Two hundred sixty human years." He begins, looking down at his book.
"The Ethereal Gates is the gateway between Agapi and the rest of the universe." Loki goes on, and I sit down, struggling to follow his rant.
He keeps speaking to himself, shifting between aisles and yellow pages.
"The old and new could be a reference to the two parties currently fighting in Agapi." Thor hints and his brother nods in agreement.
"The council is the old part. The resistance is the new one," Loki says, looking up at his brother.
I shake my head, completely lost. "I thought the council itself was divided."
Frigga nods, chiming in. "It is, but they won't fight each other. They can't." She states.
This whole story is more tangled than I thought. "What about the rest?" I wonder, looking at the three of them.
Loki writes something down and reads it a few times. "The crimson lymph must be blood. It's telling us there's going to be a lot of blood." He's thinking out loud, not caring to involve us in the process.