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Lyf didn't have anymore dreams about Odin or the void. They repeated this to themself over and over, stared into a mirror and said it again, then wrote it down in a journal just for good measure.
…. They did suppose it didn't look great for their mental state that twenty pages of that notebook were taken up with the phrase Odin isn't here anymore in increasingly illegible handwriting.
Every time they laid down to sleep, they told themself it would be fine. Nothing would happen. Sometimes they were right, though those were the nights plagued with nightmares of screaming and roiling chaos.
So when they fell asleep and came to a scene of them sitting next to Odin it was almost a relief. She and Lyfrassir were sitting at the edge of the tallest building in their hometown, but the sky above was an infinite rainbow mass.
They sat with their head rested on Odin’s shoulder. One of her hands held theirs, her thumb rubbing slow circles into their palm.
“I know you haven't actually changed your mind,” she said softly. “You keep saying that you don't want this, but we all know better.”
An important thought crossed their mind, but they were so tired they instantly forgot it. They took a moment to wonder how something so important was so easily lost.
“What's keeping you? Is there something else you need me to do?” She pressed a kiss to their forehead, soft and motherly and burning into their flesh like an iron brand. “You just need to ask, darling one.”
Lyf closed their eyes. “I don't know.”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Disappointment edged the concern in her voice. “I've been working so hard to help you, and you always turn me away in the end. You told me you wanted this.”
Did they? Yes, now that she mentioned it, Lyf remembered begging for her embrace. The day that Ivy had so carefully styled their hair because they were too despondent to do it themself.
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” They asked. She made things so confusing.
“Do you really want that?” Screams started tearing through the air, the last radio transmissions of the Yggdrasil system before it was destroyed. The ones Lyf had to ignore to run away and heard in every trauma fueled nightmare. “I can leave you to this, if you want.”
“No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” Lyfrassir gripped the sides of their head to keep the shrieks from splitting their skull.
It stopped as Odin gently wrapped her fingers around their wrist and lowered their hands to their lap. “I don't like it when you make me do that,” She whispered. “Seeing you in pain hurts me.”
“I'm sorry,” they repeated, voice weakened to a rasp.
“I only want to help you. Just let me.”
They nodded numbly. They were so stupid. No matter how many times this happened, Odin would be right, because she could back it up with terror and wisdom. Lyf had to stop questioning it because she could make the pain stop, and that was enough to be right.
“Now; what do you want?”
“... can you keep coming back? To keep away the nightmares?”
Her blood red lips pulled back into a grin, the points of her canines glinting like fangs in the Bifrost light. “Of course.”