Havoc and Retribution

It's Not Goodbye

The Avengers move behind Jay/Sigyn like a wave, cresting against the part of the Yggdrasil where the Norns do battle. They punch, kick, dodge, shoot and blast across the branches until they stop at the precipice with Athronei's Darkness below, Jay/Sigyn on the very tip of the branch, poised to swan dive down toward their sisters.

They look back at only one person, their gaze a caress, a kiss for the storyteller. Then they leave the mortals behind to claim an immortal legacy.

Three Norns now ring the sprawling Dark, Neona's gleeful shout at Jay/Sigyn's arrival echoing across space. Verdandi locks eyes with Jay/Sigyn, even across the expanse, distance and space no longer restraining Jay/Sigyn to a mortal form.

Jay/Sigyn reaches into the darkness, the light from thousands of crystalline leaves reflected in their eyes.

Across the truck of Yggdrasil, Verdandi mirrors her, spreading her fingers into the swirling shadows.

Ready? They telepathically ask their sister.

No time like the present, Verdandi thinks in reply.

She hears Jay's laugh in her head at the unintentional pun.

Then they both grab ahold of the incorporeal form of their sister and embrace.

The shadows sweep up their arms with questing tendrils, reaching greedily for Jay/Sigyn's power, trying to suck up the rainbow light arcing over their shoulders. But Jay has known shadows, has battled Hel for months. And Sigyn fell to shadow but found her way back, through both her daughter and granddaughter and now great-granddaughter. Athronei's Darkness is something they understand; its spiraling quest to consume is something they both struggled out of in their own way over time.

And this Darkness, despite its menace, is a Darkness that is their sister. They may be shattered, may not remember Athronei the way Athronei remembers them, but the connection is still there, strengthened by Verdandi's life-giving presence. They can almost feel the touch of Verdandi's fingers across the cosmos, her gentle urging, showing them what they need to do.

Then Neona joins them, bright blue eyes both the startling blue of a newborn and the timeless orbs of a goddess. She gives them a focal point, weaving around the two of them, helping them contain the pulsing Darkness.

Neona, Norn of Birth is a Norn of moments, the blink of an eye that births new life.

As the Norn of Death, Athronei is her antithesis, the slow fluttering of the eyelashes as a life passes.

In between these points are Life and Afterlife, Verdandi and the Norn Sigyn/Hel was, threading the way over millennia, weavers of what happens between those moments.

Neona brightens against the stars, a reverse black hole in the storm of the Darkness. Verdandi and Jay/Sigyn move around her, dancing, weaving, moving with speed and grace, reconnecting ties that were lost long ago, anchoring themselves again, two points, two bridges in the cycle of life.

Watching from the branches of the Yggdrasil, Vanir, Aesir, Avenger and trickster alike have no words for the sheer magnitude of what is occurring in front of them.

Sister, Verdandi calls, reaching into the Darkness, feeling her way between Neona and Athronei, reaching for the connections she long maintained.

Sister, Jay/Sigyn calls, reaching for Athronei, the last Norn who saw them as they were before the Dragon lay down across Vanaheim, drawing her body across space from Athronei to Neona.

They reach for Neona, Verdandi reaching outwards from Birth to Death, Jay/Sigyn dancing from Death to Birth. The light around Neona brightens so much that it eclipses the shine of Yggdrasil, eclipses the Darkness and the lines of rainbow light Verdandi and Jay/Sigyn blaze across the stars.