Temptation

Long Ago....

"I love you. I always will. Even if the nine realms ended tomorrow, I would find a way." He looked down at her, and she smiled, her heart fit to burst.

In all their precious, stolen time together, she had never envisaged a moment where he would say anything like this.

"I wish..." she began to speak. "I wish we could..." he silenced her with a kiss.

"I know my love, but you and I are destined to be together in another life. This time? This time, we must be brave, strong, and true to those whom we promised ourselves."

Erik smiled at her. She was truly beautiful. He only wished he had been born someone else. Someone who wasn't so low-born. Someone who could give her the life she deserved. The life she was born to and the one she now had to go back to...

They'd met while he worked in the market. Selling his fruit, just as his father had. She'd appeared, shy and smiling one Friday morning.

Lifting some peaches, she'd smiled at him sweetly. "Good morning. May I ask how much these are?" In that instant, he'd been lost. Her eyes were bluer than the sky, her hair darker than the night, her smile brighter than the sun that gently warmed their skin.

"For you?" He gently grasped her hand in his, "like you."

"Like me?" She gazed up at him, entranced by his green eyes, captured by his warm voice and bewitched by his strong features.

"Yes... priceless..." he breathed.

And so it had begun.

Every Friday, she had come to his stall. Every Friday, she'd bought peaches, and they had fallen more and more in love. They had laughed, talked in the sun, shared kisses in secret.

Always she left, promising to come back. Always he let her, promising himself one day to make her stay.

Then, one day, she hadn't come. He'd looked for her all day, his mood growing as dark as the day, waiting.

Finally, she'd arrived, tearful and frightened. The look in her face spoke volumes. He closed up the stall and took her away to a small cafe on the edge of the market square.

They sat and drank traditional Asgardian tea. Hot as hell, black as night and sweet as love; they held hands in the corner, and she explained.

"I am not who you think I am." She whispered. "And now? I can never be who I want to be."

"I... I don't understand?" Erik squeezed her hand gently. "Explain? There is nothing you need fear, my darling Alaia."

"I... am... betrothed." She sobbed. "I cannot..." she looked at him."I can't come back. Today, now, is the last time I will ever see you."

Erik felt his heart shatter into a million pieces. He also knew that without a shadow of a doubt, it wasn't her choice.

"My darling...?" he looked at her, and she broke down.

"My name... my real name is Alaia, and I am a soldier's daughter. That much is true. My father, however, is no ordinary soldier. He is... Prince Baldur." She held her breath. Erik let out a huge sigh.

"Odin's son? So you're.." his mind scrabbled to form coherent thoughts.

"A princess. Yes." She looked at him. "My body is royal, my heart? My heart is yours." Now she smiled. "I wanted to pretend I could stay here, be with you, be loved and not have to marry some stuck-up prince with a glass jaw and an attitude to match."

Erik laughed, even in the face of their impending - permanent - separation, she managed to bring joy to him. "Oh Alaia, even now, your ready wit brightens my day." He stood, drawing her with him. "If this is truly to be our last day, then let's make the most of it."

They walked out of the cafe and into the street. "Tell me?"

"What?"

"If you could have one perfect memory to take with you..." he bent and stroked her cheek, "what would it be?"

She smiled up at him, more certain now than at any point in her life. Erik would always be her first love. She wanted him to be her first lover, too.

"I want to be WITH you." She said quietly, her eyes speaking everything her heart was feeling.

"Are... are you certain? Won't it... be noticed?" Erik may only have been a young man, and not very wise in the way of court life, but even he knew about princesses and their honour.

Alaia smiled and took his hand, "Let me worry about that. Please? My love?"

Erik was, at the end of the day, a young man in love. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, heart ruled head.

So that was how, a few hours later, Alaia, who'd arrived as a sweetheart, left as a lover.

Lying in his bed, having told her in the next life they would be together, he watched as she dressed and left.

As they parted, tears on both faces, neither imagined they would ever meet again.

Fate decreed otherwise.

There was a knock at the door, late one evening the following year. Erik and his wife Asa were sitting eating. They'd married only a few months before, and although he'd been truthful in admitting he'd been truly in love with someone before her, he'd never admitted with whom.

Asa had been widowed young, her husband killed fighting the dark elves on Svartalfheim. She had run into Erik when that same toddler son had stolen an apple from his stall. Presenting it to his mother, she'd been horrified and returned it immediately.

The rest had been history. Erik and Asa married, he became a father to a three year old and life went on.

When Asa had fallen pregnant almost immediately, he began to think the Gods had forgiven him his indiscretion, and he would be finally happy.

When she'd miscarried at six months, he wondered if indeed that was true.

Asa shoved her plate to the side and stood. "Who on earth can this be?" Erik shrugged. She looked over at their sleeping son and pulled the covers around him a little tighter.

Opening the front door, she looked out into the night. There was no one in sight. Patting her still swollen belly protectively, she turned to go in when a noise at her feet made her stop.

There in the darkness, lay a bundle. A crying, mewling bundle.

A baby girl. Days old. Wrapped in nothing but a cotton shift and a woollen shawl.

Asa lifted the child and looked at Erik, no words were exchanged, none were needed.

"The gods have given us back our child. We will love her as if she was our own." Asa carried the baby over to the seat beside the fire and sat down.

Erik looked at her, unable to believe she was so accepting. "Asa, are you... sure? I mean, the child..."

"Is yours Erik. It is the only reason someone would leave her here. They must have been truly desperate to part with their daughter. I know I never could. We should pity them more than scorn them. Someone, somewhere, is breaking her heart tonight." She stroked the newborns head. "Their sacrifice is our gain."

Erik walked over and stood, his hand on her shoulder, looking into the face of his daughter. For a moment he closed his eyes and in his mind he could see his beautiful Alaia.

"Darling, wherever you are, know that I still love you. I will always love you. And our little girl. One day she will be a princess. I promise."

He opened his eyes and kissed his wife. "Let's get her settled and work out what we're going to tell the neighbours."

Asa looked up at him. "Don't worry, I have a plan...."