Chapter Text
The Bifrost was quiet. This was unexpected to say the least, it looked as if it’d make a cacophony of noise. Instead it was silent, deathly quiet, Fria couldn’t hear herself breathing. Was she breathing? It was unclear, opening her eyes only led to blinding colors. She certainly couldn’t feel herself breathing. She couldn’t feel much of anything really. So she drifted.
Forcing her eyes to open an undetermined amount of time later, the colors began to solidify into spiraling, swirling strands of pure light morphing into the black. She looked down to confirm she was alive, she found nothing where her body should be. She should have a body right? Fria was conscious, she knew this. But there was nothing besides darkness and ribbons of technicolor.
“Oh fuck- oh shit, Hel, not like this.” A voice echoed through the Bifrost.
Lyf? The scene abruptly changed, it would have given her vertigo- but she had the sneaking suspicion she wasn’t capable of that anymore.
Metal walls, electric wiring, a drip of technicolor blood. Inspector Second Class Lyfrassir Edda, impaled in the side with a kitchen knife.
“Oh shit.” A man clearly in the position of having thrown the knife, wild hair and even wilder eyeliner, was speaking now, “Marius is going to kill me.”
“I’m going to what now?” Marius von Raum stepped into the room, across the metal floor, the floor a liquid rainbow was slowly running across. “Lyf.” He drew a gun and fired point blank without pausing.
Huh, wonder who that was. The knife man. Well, the dying man now. Blood, red now, joining technicolor on the floors. Oh, Lyf was dying, weren’t they? For some reason that didn’t sound right. That was Lyf right? She didn’t remember Lyf with shock white hair, and certainly didn’t remember them dead. How long had it been even? Lyf was dying.
No.
Technicolor blood reverses, suctions back into wounds, removes a kitchen knife and stitches flesh together. Lyf shudders in Marius’s arms and comes back to life.
“See they’re fine!” Marius shoots the other man and Fria fades back into nothing.
It's a long while, or maybe it's a short while, before she hears Lyf again. Time didn’t run quite right in the Bifrost. Even if it did, what would she judge it by? The same swirling colors repeated over and over again? No.
“FUCKING HEL DVILLE!! AGAIN??”
Following the voice without hesitation this time, she’s back in that metal walled kitchen. Lyf’s gotten stabbed by another kitchen knife, but simply pulls it out and throws it directly into another man’s head. It's the same one as before? That didn’t seem right… he’d died, right?
Marius is laughing. Lyf is grinning.
/Kiss your boyfriend dumbass./
“Fria?”
But she’s gone again.
The next time they’re on their own, some back alley street of a wartorn planet, clutching an infected bullet wound in their side. They flop down against a dirt caked wall.
/That’s extremely unsanitary./
“I know, I know. I do know a doctor now, you know?” Lyf laughs before wincing, holding tighter onto their side.
/He’s a fraud./
Lyf laughs again. “So it is you. Keep me company for a bit?”
/I don’t exactly have anywhere better to be./
“Working on that.” Lyf smiles, leans back against the wall. Where were the other Mechanisms? What were their names again?
So she stays for once, as Lyf slowly bleeds out in the dark dingy alley of a nowhere planet. Imagines herself sitting beside them, like co-workers after a long day at work. They were co workers right?
“Yes I’m sure La Cognizi! Do you think I would have stabbed myself if I wasn’t?”
“Well Lyfrassir Edda , you keep doing it and nothing is happening! You have to give up sometime, it's been centuries, you're tearing yourself apart!”
Fria is pulled into a different room this time, full of large glass tubes and questionable chemicals. Lyf has a knife drawn, a winged woman is trying to wrestle it away from them.
“I can’t give up on this Raphaella.” The winged woman has taken the knife now, set it on a table behind her beside other instruments Fria can’t identify. “I can’t leave anyone else behind.” Lyf’s voice is breaking and oh, how Fria wishes she had arms. Wishes she had arms and wings so she could comfort Lyf like the winged woman was right now. Tell them it was okay, that whatever they had failed on was alright, that they should stop hurting themselves. Even if that meant she’d fade away again.
/Lyf./ She’d put emotion into it if she was able, but she had no vocal chords. No face to show concern. Nothing to comfort Lyf besides a name, void of emotion.
Somehow that’s enough. Fria watches as they pull back from the winged woman looking shell shocked.
“It worked.”
“What?”
“Fria?” they speak into open air, the winged woman staring at them as if they’ve gone mad.
/Lyf./ She can’t summon other words, she’s not quite sure why. The winged woman jolts, rushes across the room to a screen displaying something in a language Fria can’t make out.
“Fria,” they’re smiling now, grinning at the winged woman. “Can you try and stick around this time?”
/Lyf./ They look concerned at this, share a look with the winged woman.
“Fria,” she says, “Can you focus on this?” The winged woman holds up a small glass vial, reinforced by metal plating, some sort of glowing wire inside.
Fria doesn’t respond, simply focuses. She’s still floating, has been for a while now, until suddenly she isn’t. Black fills in the edges her vision, tying her consciousness to the small glass vial. Her consciousness, she’s still got one of those. Its narrowing now, tearing away from something outside of her as her entire mind is pulled inward. For the first time in a millenia, her vision goes dark.
“Are you sure it worked?”
“We’ll know when she wakes up.”
Fria blinks her eyes open. There’s an ache in her neck. Wait.
She jolts bolt right upward onto her arms. Her arms. She runs her hands over them, and they’re solid. Arms probably aren’t supposed to be hard last she checked but Hel- she’s got arms now. Her eyes scrunch up, she’d be crying if she could. No tears are coming out but that alright because she's got a body again and she's rocking back and forth on a table that she can feel underneath her feet. Smiling ear to ear, (fuck she didn’t think she’d be greatful to have ears again) she can feel the gears turning in her face. Gears? That’s not quite right… But then again it doesn’t matter because she’s got a face now, and that's more than she’s had in millennia. Oh gods it’d been millennia hadn’t it.
“Fria? Please god be Fria this time, I don’t want to have to explain another eldritch entity to Jonny,” the winged woman is saying. Raphaella. That’s Raphaella, and she can remember that now. Fria's nodding now, standing up and walking over to her on unsteady wooden legs. Wooden? Wooden arms are thrown around the two of them and she knows this isn’t how her limbs are supposed to feel, but she can feel them again and that’s enough.
“Missed you.” Her voice sounds different, which she guesses was to be expected. Arms are wrapped around her now and Hel that’s nice. Nice to feel grounded to something for once.
It’s a little odd, adjusting to a body again. She keeps walking into walls, forgetting she actually interacts with them now. It's weird, but infinitely better than the void of the Bifrost.
She’s not exactly a part of the crew (probably will be someday, things happen like that) but even the apprehensive glares of those who didn’t know her beforehand remind her that she’s there. That’s enough.
It has to be.