Although a thousand questions burned behind Freyja's calm eyes, she said nothing as she led Soren to the library, the one place in Asgard where silence was law, and obsession was sanctuary.
Her boots echoed through the marble halls as they passed under rune-lit arches and through spell-warded doors.
She'd picked her dress carefully that morning, a flowing gown of midnight blue threaded with slivers of starlight silk, a gift from Idunn herself.
When Soren first saw her in it, his eyes had widened… not much, but enough.
It had pleased her.
Now?
Now he was gone.
Not literally.
His body sat there beside her, in one of the floating glass reading orbs suspended above the ground, but his mind had drowned in ink and vellum.
Soren's eyes devoured each ancient tome with the hunger of someone who'd been starving for lifetimes.
His hands barely touched the pages.
Occasionally, a spark of golden magic would flicker at his fingertips as he tested a theory in real time, not even realizing he'd done it.
Freyja folded her arms and leaned against the orb's edge.
"I wore something nice today, you know…"
"Hm?" Soren didn't look up.
She sighed. "Never mind."
Over the next few days, their strange routine solidified. Soren spent long hours submerged in books, while Freyja alternated between guiding him through Asgard's most sacred places and sulking beside him in quiet corners of the library.
She tried to stay aloof at first. Proud.
But it was hard to maintain distance when a man like Soren, a mortal who moved like a storm disguised as a scholar, answered every question she posed with annoying clarity.
Even her snappiest remarks were met with calm curiosity.
He was brilliant. Frustratingly so. But he didn't act like it.
He even kept practicing the most basic forms, spells she herself had discarded years ago as trivial, and when she asked him why, he'd simply said.
"Even a blade dulls if you stop honing it."
Still, the lesson she wanted most, how to cast high-level magic instantly, remained unsaid.
One evening, as they descended from the upper archives, she finally confronted him.
"You still haven't told me how you do it."
"Do what?" He asked, distracted as he shoved another book into his satchel.
"Instant casting. All of it. You promised."
"I didn't promise." He said, lips quirking slightly.
"I just said practice makes perfect."
"That's not an answer!"
"It's the only one that matters." He replied, his gaze meeting hers now, calm, but firm. "There is no shortcut. Not for this."
Freyja stared at him, lips parting with the sharpness of a retort.
But nothing came out.
She realized then, he wasn't being smug. He wasn't hiding anything. That was his secret.
So she bit her pride. And she practiced.
At first, it felt beneath her, repeating low-tier incantations, meditating in dusty corners of the library, tracing old spell matrices with her fingertip like a novice acolyte.
But gradually, something…
She felt her control strengthen.
Her spell execution became faster, cleaner.
And every time she stumbled, Soren was there… with quiet correction.
One afternoon, while she tried and failed to stabilize a layered binding spell, she slumped to the floor in frustration.
"Ugh! I am a goddess of war," She groaned. "Why can't I do this?"
"You're not failing." Soren said, sitting beside her.
"You're molting."
She blinked. "Molting?"
"Snakes shed their skin when they outgrow it. Doesn't mean it's pleasant."
Freyja looked at him for a long time.
"…That was almost poetic."
"I have my moments."
They had grown comfortable, dangerously so. When Soren wasn't reading, they talked.
When Freyja wasn't sparring or practicing, she listened.
And somewhere between shared laughter and quiet frustrations, he began to take root in her heart.
She didn't even realize it was happening.
Until one day, everything changed.
A sudden boom echoed through the hall.
Freyja's eyes snapped open from meditation, her heart thudding.
She looked up and gasped.
Soren was standing in the middle of the training chamber, his cloak billowing from a shockwave of raw magic. His eyes glowed faintly, and a golden halo of runes spiraled around him like planets orbiting a star.
The air trembled with power… amazing real power, it bent the laws of nature.
Ancient books fluttered off their shelves. The enchanted crystals flickered, unstable.
Freyja rose slowly, as if in a trance. She stepped toward him.
"Soren…?" she said softly.
He didn't speak.
He just breathed , one long, grounding exhale and the wild aura snapped inward, vanishing like mist before dawn.
When his eyes returned to normal, they held a depth she hadn't seen before.
Then, finally, he looked at her.
"I broke through." He said simply.
Freyja was silent. Then — "…To what?"
"The peak of Magic"
"But not just sage magic. All of it. I saw the structure beneath the structures. Everything's… connected. Black magic, elemental spells, divine runes, it's all built from the same skeleton."
"And now I can see the bones."
Freyja stared at him, awestruck.
She stepped closer, unconsciously.
"What happened just now?" She asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Her fingers twitched at her side.
She wanted to touch his hand. To ground herself. To ask a hundred more questions.
But instead, she simply stood there, the hum of lingering power dancing across her skin like warm static.
And for the first time in centuries… she didn't feel like a goddess.
She felt like a student.
A woman.
And he, impossibly, looked like something that had already begun to outgrow even gods.
Even after the surge of power had faded, a strange silence hung between them.
Soren stood on the balcony overlooking the Bifrost ridge, his cloak fluttering gently in the wind. Below, Asgard gleamed like a city carved from starlight, its spires catching the last of the day's gold.
"Freyja." Breaking the silence without turning.
"I may soon leave Asgard… and return to Earth."
The words didn't land at first.
Freyja, who had stepped up beside him to admire the view, froze. Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
"I see…"
It was all she managed, two words, hollow and light as breath.
Soren didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't show it.
His eyes remained fixed on the horizon. "I've learned what I came here for."
"I've seen Asgardian magic, studied its roots, and now that I've broken through, staying would only slow me down."
He spoke with logic. Clean, cold logic. The same way he dissected spells.
Freyja nodded, her throat tight.
"Of course. That makes sense."
That evening, he didn't return to the library. Instead, he asked her to follow him.
They walked in silence past the golden groves of Yggdrasil's lower roots, through hidden trails only a few ever used. Freyja didn't ask where they were going.
Part of her didn't want to know.
Eventually, they arrived at a lake, wide, still, framed by glassy stones and floating crystal lilies. It was one of Asgard's quietest places, a haven untouched by battle chants or court politics.
Soren stepped forward and raised his hands slowly. Energy shimmered around him like a living veil.
"Watch closely."
A series of runes burst into life beneath his feet, spiraling outward in elegant formations. The surface of the lake rippled, glowing softly as magic bled into it.
Then, before Freyja's eyes, the impossible unfolded.
A bloom of white lotus flowers erupted across the lake, delicate, shimmering with dew despite no rain. They unfurled like time-lapse illusions brought to life, floating like gentle dreams upon the water.
Freyja gasped. "This… This isn't from Asgard."
"It's not." Soren said quietly.
"They're called lotuses. From Earth."
She knelt by the shore, brushing a petal with trembling fingers.
"They're beautiful." Her voice softer than she meant it to be.
Soren watched her for a moment, then waved his hand.
A single lotus floated toward him, plucked itself from the water, and hovered before him.
He caught it, carefully.
When he turned to her, the light caught the flower just right, crystalline dew refracting into tiny rainbows.
"Here."
"For you."
Freyja stared at it. For a heartbeat too long.
Then, carefully, she reached out and took it.
"…Thank you," A soft pink crept across her cheeks.
"I… I've never been given a gift like this."
Soren's gaze lingered. The war goddess in her usual armor was formidable.
But now, in a starlit dress, lotus in hand, eyes vulnerable, she looked… adorable.
He smiled faintly.
"You look like spring."
Freyja looked up sharply, startled by the compliment.
Soren cleared his throat. "Anyway. The lotus isn't just pretty. It's a demonstration."
With a motion of his fingers, new runes formed midair, glowing silver lines that spiraled into a three-ringed formation. He walked her through each line, each symbol, as the formation rotated slowly in the air.
"This is a natural magic array I've been developing. It draws ambient magical energy from nature trees, earth, even water."
"It stores it inside the body, like a backup well."
Freyja blinked, focusing. "So… even in a dead zone, I could still cast?"
"Exactly."
"The longer you wear the formation, the more your body adapts. Eventually, you won't need to draw through spells or circles at all."
"You'll resonate with magic directly."
He showed it again. Then again, slower, letting her trace the lines with a finger.
"Once you internalize magic."
"The incantation becomes optional. Even the gestures fade. You move, and the spell obeys. Like a second heartbeat."
She looked at him and realized: this was what she had been chasing.
"Why… are you telling me all this now?"
Soren gaze drifted toward the moonlit lake. "Because I'm leaving. And because… you deserve to know."
The wind stirred her hair, and for once, she didn't mask her expression.
"I don't want you to go."
It was barely above a whisper.
Soren didn't speak. But he didn't look away either.
They stood there, between flowers and stars, caught in a moment that felt impossibly fragile.
And in Freyja's hands, the lotus still glowed, a small, delicate thing.
Like hope.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream