97. The Last Psypher

THE PARADISE GARDEN

When Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Jack, and Thorgil arrived at their destination, it was with a distinct lack of villains.

"Where'd they go?" Twilight, returned to her unicorn body, spun around, looking for any sign of Malekith, Algrim, or Ingway.

Rarity sighed, looking at the armor and tunics that littered the ground from the six transformations from human to equine bodies. "And there goes another set of good clothing…"

"Maybe we should just be glad they AREN'T here?" Rainbow Dash suggested.

Jack shook his head; he and Twilight were thinking the same thing. "If they left us alone here, that's because they want us to be alone here. We have to be careful not to fall into their trap."

"Everyone QUIET!" Thorgil snapped. The others were silent at her request, and she used the opportunity to listen to the birds in the surrounding woodland, the power of the dragon blood within her allowing her to tap into their speech. Birds were such blabbermouths, she was hoping one of them would have seen two Dark Elves and an Asgardian turn up and call out their location. However, all she got was gossip about where to find the sweetest blueberries of the week. "The birds haven't seen them," she related.

"Uh…everypony?" Pinkie Pie drew their attention. "Look where we are!"

The others turned to face the direction in which she was looking. Yggdrassil was quite close, less than a mile away, towering over them, reaching into the heavens. It was even more magnificent up close.

"Why would they bring us here?" Jack wondered out loud. "And what did they need us for?"

"Maybe it's because we've spent so much time here," Thorgil suggested.

Twilight felt Thorgil was on to something, but was not quite sure what. "You don't think they…did anything to Yggdrassil, do you?"

"Maybe it's not what they did," Applejack posed. "Maybe it's what they're gonna do."

"We have to go check on it!" Rainbow Dash cried. "They might already be there!"

"What if that's exactly what they want us to do?" Twilight asked. "What if they want us to go to Yggdrassil? Think about it. They brought us here and then just let us go right in front of it. What else would they want us to do?"

All were united in mental agreement: Twilight was right.

"So…what do we do?" Fluttershy asked.

"I…don't know," Twilight admitted.

"Well, I do," Thorgil insisted. "I don't care if it's a trap. We have to go to Yggdrassil."

"That's exactly what we CAN'T do!" Jack argued.

"We don't have any way to get back out to Odin or Thor in time to tell them about this!" Thorgil pointed out. "And do you really think that if we decide not to go to Yggdrassil, they're all just going to leave it ALONE? They'll think of something bad to do to it if we don't go! What we need to do is get there and stop them from doing whatever it is they want us for! We've done that before! Just when they think we've let them do exactly what they want, we turn around and get in their way!"

"She's right," Twilight admitted. "We can't just take the chance that if we leave, Malekith will leave the tree alone. Going to it is exactly what he wants us to do. But if we don't…if we're not even there to stop him…"

"We can beat him any old day!" Rainbow Dash agreed, taking to the air.

"I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Rarity admitted.

"I think we HAVE to!" Pinkie Pie contributed.

"I'm thinkin' the same," Applejack added.

"We have to protect that tree no matter what!" Fluttershy insisted.

"I…can't think of what else we should do," Jack admitted.

"Well…all right," Rarity relented. "If you're all confident this is the right thing to do."

"I don't think any of us is," Twilight clarified. "I think it's the only thing we can do."

"So let's go." Thorgil turned and marched toward the great tree. The others followed soon after.

...

Some ways back, concealed in the tree line, Malekith, Algrim, and Ingway waited. Malekith had made sure to silence the birds so they would not give away their position. They watched the six ponies and two bards set off down the path toward Yggdrassil.

"I…have forgotten, Lord Malekith," Algrim whispered somberly. "I have forgotten why we wanted them here…" He tried in vain to dig through the charred mess that had once been rational thought in his head. Only snippets remained. It seemed as though the depths of his brain had been frozen solid, or locked up. Even finding a metaphor was difficult.

"We must let them lead us," Malekith reminded him. "They have walked this path before, and the only way we could reach where we want them to go is if we follow them."

"Yggdrassil?" Algrim asked, looking to the tree of life.

"In a sense," Malekith replied. "But we could have gotten to Yggdrassil on our own. It is a part of Yggdrassil that they must lead us to. Now come, follow me. And both of you, be quiet."

Malekith stealthily exited the tree line, starting along the path that the eight had walked, keeping to whatever foliage cover he could find. Algrim mimicked his steps exactly, and Ingway brought up the rear of the group.

...

"I have a feeling I've been this way before," Jack muttered as the eight entered a thick forest. The path before them was clearly laid out, the trees practically parting to let them pass.

"Where do you think we're going?" Fluttershy asked.

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "I've been through this valley so many times to get to different places."

The skirl of a falcon got their attention. While seven heard it as purely noise, Thorgil heard it as "Look over here!" Thorgil strode toward the call, confused. Nestled in between the trees was a patch of hanging vetch flower, bright purple. The falcon that had called out was resting on the ground, below the flowers.

"What are you doing here?" Thorgil asked. "Is your wing hurt or something?"

"No," the falcon told her. "I'm here to help you."

"With what?"

"What's it saying?" Jack asked.

"It wants to help us," Thorgil replied. "I don't see how."

"You will need me at Yggdrassil," the falcon insisted.

"And how do I know you're not part of the trap Malekith has waiting for us?" Thorgil retorted.

"I suppose you don't." The falcon was matter-of-fact. "But I have yet to pay Malekith back for what he has done as well."

"What do YOU have against Malekith?" Thorgil was utterly confused. "You're just one falcon!"

"Trust me when I say that my anger toward him is more than well deserved," the falcon said. "Bring me with you and I promise that I shall help you escape whatever trap Malekith has laid."

"You're not any ordinary falcon, are you?" Thorgil found the bird very suspect.

"You catch on quickly," the falcon replied. "But I'm afraid I cannot tell you much. Not yet." Saying what he knew out loud was dangerous when Malekith was about. "I will tell you once we have stopped Malekith."

Thorgil sighed. "All right. Come on."

The falcon eagerly hopped up onto her shoulder.

"You're just going to trust it?" Jack asked incredulously.

"It's just a falcon," Rainbow Dash retorted.

"Don't take anything for granted," Twilight warned. "That falcon might be more than he's letting on."

"I think he is," Thorgil admitted, "but I don't think he's dangerous. Besides, if he were, I think he knows I could just run him right through with my spear."

The falcon bristled at this.

"Do you have a name?" Thorgil asked.

"I'd rather not say it," the falcon told her. "If you're that concerned, you can give me one of your own."

"He says we can give him our own name," Thorgil relayed. "I don't feel like it. If any of you have any ideas, go for it."

"Well, we found him by a vetch flower," Fluttershy pointed out. "I think he looks like a Vetch."

"Vetch," Thorgil repeated to the bird. "You like that?"
"It will do," the falcon confirmed.

Jack finally realized when and where he'd seen the scene before. "I know where we are!" he announced. "We're at – "

The scenery finished the sentence for him. The forest gave way to a clearing, and the pathway led directly up a slope to a parting in Yggdrassil's massive roots. The tree was ever more impressive up close, and those who came upon it were struck silent by its beauty and power. Birds fluttered all around, and a deer trotted by casually. At the cleft of the roots of the tree, a well had been built: stone, with a bucket on a rope perched on its edge. Around it was an absolute horde of bees, buzzing loudly. Their hives and honeycombs hung thick on the surrounding branches.

"Mimir's Well!" Thorgil gasped.

"Is this what Malekith wished us to lead him to?" Jack breathed.

"Remind me what that is, again?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"Mimir's Well contains the song-mead that gives you the gift of poetry," Twilight recounted. "Though it can also give you knowledge about how to solve important problems. You have to give up something important in order to drink from it, though. That's why Odin only has one eye. He paid it to the well in order to learn how to watch over the Nine Realms."

"We've already drunk from it," Jack reminded them all. "That's why Malekith needed us. He couldn't have just gone to the well on his own. He needed us to lead him here."

"So what do we do?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I'm surprised Malekith isn't here already," Rarity remarked.

"He'll come," Twilight stated. "I know it. I think he wants to drink from Mimir's Well."

"Why?" Thorgil asked.

"I…don't know," Twilight admitted.

Vetch screeched. "You want us to do WHAT?" Thorgil barked at it. Incredulously, she related to the others, "Vetch says one of us should try to drink from it if we don't know what to do."

"Mimir's Well does give important knowledge and answers to problems," Twilight recalled. "We could learn how to stop Malekith from doing whatever it is he wants to do!"

"Couldn't we just use the Elements for that?" Rarity asked.

"Then Mimir's Well would teach us the answer to a different problem," Twilight hypothesized. "Anyway, it's worth a shot!"

"But what have we to give up?" Rarity asked.

"One of you has already paid."

The voice was raspy, female. It seemed to come from within the cloud of bees. The eight turned to look for the speaker. As they did, the bees ascended into the branches of Yggdrassil, returning to their hives.

"Twilight Sparkle has already given up something valuable," the voice continued. "She earned the right to drink from Mimir's Well when she gave her staff to Rumplestiltskin in order to return thunder to her friend. And she is studying the arts of the bards, is she not? Send her forth. But ONLY her."

Twilight looked nervously around at the others. They all regarded her with confusion…except for Vetch, who regarded her with intensity. Twilight knew that was the way all falcons looked – it was just their faces – but Vetch in particular seemed to know that Twilight was meant to fulfill this destiny. His gaze urged her onward. Twilight swallowed hard before beginning to climb the hill.

At the top, she levitated the bucket in a magenta aura, lowering it into the depths of the well. She heard it splash below, then brought it up. As Twilight raised the bucket back to herself, feeling her heartbeat more strongly than she had felt it previously, she caught a glance back at the cleft in the roots to see a figure cloaked in black. Startled, she took a step back. Then a few steps forward to get a better look at the figure. There were friends and enemies of hers native to other worlds who would have recognized her right away. However, to Twilight, the woman was a stranger, and a strange one indeed. She was short, about half the height of the average human. Her wrinkled skin was a distinct shade of lavender. She bore only one eye in the center of her face, and as it stared at Twilight – no, into her – Twilight got the distinct feeling that while the eye did belong to the woman, it just wasn't hers. "Who are you?" Twilight asked.

"Some people call me 'Atropos,'" the woman answered. "They think of me as a Fate. Some people call me 'Skuld.' They think of me as a Norn. It makes little difference to me. Though I know you're about to whine and be indecisive about it, so you might as well go with 'Atropos.'"

"Atropos," Twilight repeated. "Fate…Norn…you know the future. You knew we'd show up."

"Yes."

"Can I…ask you something?" Twilight wanted to ask if good would win. If they would stop Malekith. If the Nine Realms would be saved.

"No," Atropos said flatly. "That would be missing the entire point of giving you the bucket, wouldn't it?"

"Right," Twilight realized. "Sorry."

"And that's all you get," Atropos informed her. "You have to figure out what to do with it once you drink it."

Twilight nodded. "I will."

She dipped her mouth into the bucket, drinking the water. It was cold and sweet. Twilight felt more awake for having drunk it. The more water passed her lips, the stronger memories came flooding back to her. She remembered being a filly, hatching Spike's egg and passing the examination that inspired Celestia to take her on as a student. She remembered first meeting each of her friends in Ponyville. She remembered Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Crystal Empire. She remembered the Starlight, and each world she had seen since boarding it. She remembered Svartalfheim, standing in the troops that had marched to it, and facing down Malekith. She remembered Ingway the most clearly. His face, his outline stood out sharply in her mind.

Twilight's head snapped upward from the bucket. She'd seen something else in her mind. Not a memory. Something that had not happened yet. Something that was supposed to happen. Something she was supposed to make happen. "Ingway has to touch Yggdrassil," she muttered. She didn't know what good that would do, or how it was related to their current situation. She didn't know why that was more of a solution than using the Elements of Harmony on anything. However, Mimir's Well would not lie or mislead. What she had seen was what she would have to orchestrate.

She turned and charged down the hill. "EVERYPONY!" she cried. "I know what we have to do – "

Twilight skidded to a stop. Seven pillars of dark smoke stood where her friends had been waiting for her, and between them and her stood Malekith, Algrim, and Ingway.

"No," Twilight whispered.

"Yes," Malekith replied, grinning with all of his pointy teeth bared.

"What do you even WANT with the water from Mimir's Well?" Twilight snapped. "What question do you need answered?"

"Not a single one," Malekith told her, drawing from within his armor a glass vial. "But Mimir's Well draws from deep within Yggdrassil itself. Its water runs within the tree."

Twilight didn't have to wait for him to spell out his objective. "You're going to poison Yggdrassil through Mimir's Well," she realized. "You just needed Jack and Thorgil to lead you there because they'd been there before, and you couldn't go there unless they showed you the way."

"Precisely."

Malekith held out his hand, and Twilight realized what he was about to do. Suddenly remembering her revelation at the hilltop, she screamed out, "INGWAY! YOU HAVE TO – "

Before she could finish, all had turned to darkness.

...

"NO!" Twilight screamed as the dark tendrils erupted from the pure blackness to surround her again. Despite having experienced it before, she was still unready for their sharp points to dig just under her skin and pin her in place. Last time, she'd gotten out of it with a burst of witch magic. She wasn't sure she could conduct it without her staff. Besides, that would rob her of the strength she needed to deploy the Elements, and this time, she would need them to do a little more than just lock a box. At least this time, the tendrils weren't infused with the ice and fire of her spells.

But then again, Malekith hadn't known she would try that this time around. Curious, Twilight called her wand to her hand. "Incendio," she muttered, turning it on one of the pinions.

It caught completely aflame and crumbled into dark dust.

Twilight readied to cast another spell, but as soon as the tendril was broken, another rose to wrap around her in exactly the same position, its point pressing into exactly the same place that the last one's had. Twilight realized she would need to take them all out at once.

"I'm still by Yggdrassil," she remembered out loud. "I didn't go anywhere else!"

She closed her eyes, reaching into the ground for the life force, directly into the soil where Yggdrassil's roots ran and the life force was at its absolute strongest in the Nine Realms, perhaps in the entire multiverse. She barely had to ask for fire. Fire erupted around her, incinerating the tendrils and melting away the dark walls of her prison. Twilight was briefly afraid of being burned by her own flame, but the fire knew its caller and was polite enough to leave her alone, only flickering just close enough to her skin to make her worry but never touching her.

The dark prison was burned clean away; Twilight stood in a ring of fire on the green grass at the base of the hill. The song-mead inside of her heightened her senses, and she felt the fire's heat and the absolute blueness of the sky give her a rush of energy; she nearly laughed. The flames then subsided, leaving a burned circle in the grass. The powers that were in the garden weren't completely happy about that when all was said and done, but it was a manageable sacrifice.

At the same time, all of the other pillars but one exploded. Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy, all as Mahou Shoujo; Rainbow Dash, as a witch; Jack; and Thorgil, with Vetch on her shoulder, all burst free. The former four all held their weapons; none had even needed finales in order to break the prisons. Jack lowered the staff of St. Columba, looking fairly shell-shocked. Thorgil just looked confused. "I have NO IDEA how I just did that!" she announced.

Rarity gasped, looking to the last pillar. Applejack had used up her finale on the battlefield and was low on magical energy. "APPLEJACK!" Rarity cried, running to the pillar and firing several arrows into it, levitating and manipulating her bow with her horn. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Jack, and Thorgil followed her, all attacking the black smoke in full force.

Twilight instead focused on Malekith, spotting him near the hill's crest. She took off at a run to try and intercept him. Even without her staff, she still had a lot of power, and she could feel it surging within her, ready to be unleashed to stop him.

Ingway and Algrim very nearly broke into pursuit after Twilight, but both became frozen in place, unable to move. They each felt the gnarled hands of a woman caress their shoulders; this was accompanied by the feeling – not a painful one, more of an awareness – of threads running through their bodies, in and out of their skin, holding them to the ground, and had any outsiders turned to look at them, they would have seen golden threads binding them in place and preventing them from moving.

Algrim was at a loss. He would have been able to explain the phenomenon if he had his full mental capabilities intact. Ingway, however, recognized the cold touch upon his shoulders, realized what it was when the threads ran through him. "Norns," he whispered hoarsely.

Clotho watched him, making sure he stayed bound. Clotho: the spinner of life, the guardian of beginnings. She hovered over Ingway, so young compared to the allies he'd come with, still able to change.

Lachesis stayed by the side of Algrim. Lachesis: the measurer of life, the watcher of the progression of time. She held down Algrim, corrupted but a survivor.

Twilight wasn't fast enough. Malekith had already reached the hill's summit, and Mimir's Well was within his view. He laughed. "It was easy! TOO EASY!" He drew back his arm to throw the vial into the well.

That was when he caught sight of Atropos. Atropos: the cutter of the thread of life, the proclaimer of the end.

"You have sacrificed nothing," she informed him. "You're not allowed to come this close to Mimir's Well if you have sacrificed nothing."

From her pursuit, midway up the hill, Twilight saw the bees erupt from their hives with an angry hum, descending en masse upon Malekith. When she realized what was about to happen, she cried out, "MALEKITH! NO!"

The vial of poison dropped to the ground and rolled down the hill.

When Twilight got back up to the hill, she was greeted with the sickening sight of Malekith's corpse, dotted with the tiny marks of bee stings. The insects had gotten in under his armor, and the last of them filtered out from beneath his breastplate as Twilight came upon the scene.

"Did you…did you have to do it?" Twilight asked, looking at Atropos in shock.

"He had sacrificed nothing," Atropos repeated.

...

One of the elder Hesperides sat in the upper branches of Yggdrassil, dangling her legs over the side, letting the cool breeze blow against her face and billow her hair out like a flag. To her right, a branch stretched out toward Jötunheim, delivering the life force; she couldn't see the end of it if she looked down its length. To her left was the massive trunk of the tree, a highway for squirrels and other rodents. Erytheia kicked her feet a little, smiling softly.

Her bliss became contaminated. It was the inexplicable feeling that something was wrong. The muscles of her face tightened. She held out against it for as long as she could. It was eventually replaced by a more definite feeling. She was well attuned to the tree and its ways. When something that usually should have been fixed far below it found its way to the surface of the garden, she knew. Her eyes snapped open.

Erytheia dropped from her sitting branch to the one directly below her, then the one below that. She ran along that limb until it let her leap to a different section of the tree entirely.

As she made her way down, the others made their way up. Arethusa, Hesperia, Aegle, Lipara, Chrysothemis, and Asterope all found their way to her from different angles. "Something is wrong," Hesperia said. "Didst thou feel it?"

"I did," Erytheia confirmed. "And I believe I know what has happened, though I fear for us all if this is the case. The roots of Yggdrassil no longer tremble as they had. Yet a chaotic presence has revealed itself in this land. One that is not Light or Dark, but answers to no order. I believe Nidhogg has come up from beneath the roots and walks this land."

Lipara, Chrysothemis, and Asterope all gasped in horror. Lipara nearly fainted; Asterope held onto her shoulders to stop her from doing just that.

"If Nidhogg has come…" Arethusa removed a bronze bangle from her wrist. It transformed into a sharp sword. "It is not in peace."

"That I know," Erytheia said, removing a ring from her hand and letting it take the form of a shorter blade.

"Sisters." Hesperia had drawn a sword of her own, taken from an earring. "We must protect the tree."

Aegle produced a thin blade from what had been an upper armband. Lipara, Chrysothemis,a nd Asterope all made for their own weapons before Aegle shot them a disapproving look. "The three of thee, stay here," she commanded.

"But - !" Chrysothemis whined.

"You are too young for this battle," Aegle told them.

Lipara sighed with relief. "I wasn't looking forward to taking on Nidhogg anyway!"

"Remain in the branches, where thou shalt be safe," Erytheia told the younger three. "The four of us shall stop the threat of Nidhogg."

Erytheia took a running leap off the branch where she stood and into the lower limbs of the tree. Arethusa, Hesperia, and Aegle followed, swords drawn. Just frightened enough to not wish to follow, Asterope, Lipara, and Chrysothemis ascended the tree into the higher branches.

...

The combined work of Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Jack, and Thorgil honing their magical efforts broke Applejack's prison open. "Thanks, y'all," she panted. "Wasn't sure how I was gonna get outta that one."

"Twilight!" Pinkie Pie cried, looking to the hill. The eyes of her six companions, as well as those of Vetch, turned to follow her gaze.

Lachesis and Clotho, seeing what was coming down the hill, relinquished their hold on Algrim and Ingway, allowing the two freedom to move. Ingway felt it best to remain still for the moment and assess the situation. Algrim, on the other hand, ran fully two steps toward the hill before the sight of what descended halted him.

Twilight carried Malekith's body by magical levitation, somberly treading the path back down the hill. She lay the Dark Elf lord's corpse at the hill's base. "I'm sorry," she stated sincerely, her eyes cast downward.

"No…" Algrim felt as though something within him had cracked in half, and one of the halves had fallen away, into an abyss. "NO!" He ran to Malekith's body, kneeling at its side, lifting it into his arms. Though his eyes surveyed the bee stings, his mind was in no state to make sense of them. All he knew was that Malekith and Twilight had gone up the hill together, and when they'd come back, only one was alive.

"Ingway," Twilight said, looking up and facing the Asgardian. "I drank from Mimir's Well. I know you have no reason to do what I say or even trust me, but I saw a vision when I drank the song-mead. I don't know why, but you have to – "

Algrim tackled her, his fingers locking around her throat. "YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!" he screamed, shaking Twilight. "MALEKITH IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!" Tears poured from his eyes. "I…LOVED…HIM! COULDN'T YOU UNDERSTAND?"

In a panic, Twilight blasted Algrim with pure energy; he was thrown back, across the field, almost to the tree line. When he landed, it was at the feet of the figure who had just emerged from the woods.

"Who the heck are YOU?" Applejack asked.

Recognizing the figure, Ingway seethed, "Melvin."

"I see it is up to me to make you realize that I am not, nor have I ever been, merely the faery I let you believe I was," Nidhogg told Ingway. "Today, you shall cease calling me by that name." To Algrim, he commanded, "Get up."

What scared Twilight wasn't the way that Nidhogg was interacting with her enemies. It wasn't the words he'd said to Ingway. It was the fact that Clotho and Lachesis were staring blankly at him, making no response to his presence. Lachesis finally faded away, teleporting to an unknown location.

"Where are you going?" Twilight asked Clotho in a panic.

"He isn't like the gods!" Clotho replied. "Fate doesn't hold the same power over him! We already know it, so why should we try to fight it?" She, too, vanished. The voice of Atropos came from behind Twilight: "Yet what we see is not without hope. He can fight fate. The stubbornness of gods and mortals is something else." Twilight then knew that all three Fates, or all three Norns, had disappeared.

As Algrim stood, taking his place next to Nidhogg, Applejack stormed toward the faery-like Old One, drawing her wand. "Now you hang on just a second – "

When Nidhogg put up his palm, a blast of energy threw all six ponies, Jack, Thorgil, Ingway and Vetch stumbling to the ground. He crossed the field and made his way to the hill with quick strides with Algrim in tow. Without even pausing, Nidhogg reached down, picking up the vial of toxin that Malekith had dropped.

The others eventually found their balance; Twilight, as the closest one to the hill, ran up it yet again in hopes of staving Nidhogg off. Nidhogg was quicker, making it to the summit before she could catch him.

The bees surrounded him, but their stings had no effect. Nidhogg knew he could cast them away with a simple spell. The Norns did not have sway over him, and neither did the outer defenses of Yggdrassil. The bees, however, did present an annoyance.

"Algrim, are you still loyal to me?" Nidhogg asked. "Are you still of use to me?"

"I remember…you gave Malekith life," Algrim answered. "He is gone. You are all I have left to be loyal to."

"Then you would be of use to me," Nidhogg confirmed. "You would have been a valuable warrior to me, Algrim. That makes you a worthy sacrifice."

A small blade was drawn, then swiftly swept across Algrim's throat. Blood poured, and the Dark Elf dropped dead. The cloud of bees lifted. An offering of death was not a pleasant one. Yet Nidhogg had abided to the rules.

"You're one of the Old Ones, aren't you?" Twilight seethed.

Nidhogg turned to face her. "What makes you say that?" he mocked.

"The Fates didn't have any power over you," Twilight said coldly. "You could have walked right through those bees, and you know it. You just killed him because you could!"

"There are many mortals and gods who regard the lives of others so callously," Nidhogg informed her. "However, you are correct. I am one of the relics that has existed since before Chaos."

He turned to throw the vial at Mimir's Well.

Twilight caught it in midair with magic, pulling it back toward her, as Jack, Thorgil with Vetch upon her shoulder, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and even Ingway gathered behind her. Sensing the gravity of the situation, Rarity lent her own magic; the magenta aura around the vial changed from magenta to a deeper purple.

Nidhogg thrust his palm at the glass vial, and both unicorns' auras disappeared as the bottle was flung full force into Mimir's Well. It shattered against the inner wall, and the toxin splashed into the water below.

Yggdrassil did not literally scream. There was no audible disturbance. However, there was no better way to describe the effect felt across the entire garden once Mimir's Well was poisoned.

"In a few moments, Yggdrassil will begin to wither and die," Nidhogg explained. "Though for me, a few moments is still too long. Too long have I waited below the roots of this accursed tree, trying in vain to topple it from below. It is time to bring it down from above." He smiled directly at Twilight. "It appears you have a choice to make."

Nidhogg began to change shape, growing, losing the outline of the faery body he'd been inhabiting. As he grew and grew, he crashed into the lower branches of Yggdrassil, dislodging some of them and letting them thump against the grass below. The dragon was beginning to take form.

"We have to use the Elements to stop him!" Rainbow Dash cried.

"No!" Applejack countered. "We gotta use 'em on the well!"

"We have a choice to make," Twilight reiterated, looking from Nidhogg to the contaminated well. That had been his plan: to make them spend the Elements on one or the other. And whichever threat was not thwarted would attack the source of all life in nine different worlds, not counting the very plane where it was situated.

"Which one?" Pinkie asked in a shaky voice. She extended a hoof between the two: "Eenie…meenie…" She gulped. It was the most important game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo she ever would play. "Miney…"

"The well," Applejack decided. "That poison'll get it for sure, no matter what, but we can still try an' stop 'im from takin' the tree down up here!"

"Applejack is right!" Twilight agreed. "Girls…"

The six ponies clustered. The sphere of light surrounded them.

Thorgil ran directly at Nidhogg. "We have to protect them!" she cried.

"THORGIL!" Jack screamed in horror. "YOU DON'T HAVE A WEAPON!"

Thorgil knew that well. That was why she stopped to pick up from the ground one of the sticks that had been dislodged from the tree. It was roughly spear-sized, and quite sharp where it had been broken off. She expected Vetch to take off and become airborne, but the falcon held his position on her shoulder. "Why are you still here?" Thorgil snapped at him. "Do you have a death wish?"

"I am helping you!" Vetch insisted. "Do you think you escaped Malekith's prison on your own?"

Thorgil didn't have time to question that statement. Nidhogg's transformation was complete, and the dragon was enormous, his body stretching down the hill, his tail uncurling into the forest, his head towering into the branches of Yggdrassil. To most, it would have seemed an insurmountable challenge. Perhaps, Thorgil mused momentarily, if she still wore the Rune of Protection, she wouldn't have charged; the Rune would have made her value her own life too much to take on such an impossible opponent. And in that moment, she stopped wanting the Rune. The silly thing would have let her offer up the lives of Jack and the six ponies in order to keep her own.

Thorgil jammed the makeshift spear into Nidhogg's ankle. It did no good whatsoever. Nidhogg's massive head reached down to gobble Thorgil up, but she was faster than it, darting for another ankle. If she couldn't do anything against the infamous reptile that gnawed on the roots of Yggdrassil, then she would at least distract it.

"THORGIL!" Jack ran toward Nidhogg, his staff suddenly ablaze with fire. He, like Twilight, had felt how easy it was to access the life force, though it had felt reluctant; it was sick already.

Upon seeing the great dragon, Ingway had contemplated returning to the form of the Darkova. It had become clear that he and Nidhogg were not on the same side anymore. Yet he had no reason to help the others, and was the destruction of life not what he had wanted? But that was when he had thought Velvet and Cornelius dead. If their safety had been guaranteed, however that might be, it would have been different. Above all, Ingway realized that Twilight had attempted to address him twice. He had no doubt that she had drunk the song-mead, and more than anything, he was curious about what she was trying to say to him. Perhaps if he knew, it would offer more clarity as to his path: to let Nidhogg destroy or to make a potentially futile move against him. His absence of action at first filled him with revulsion, as it seemed a coward's way, but he truly did not know what to do.

The rainbow of the Elements poured down the well as though liquid, splashing into the waters, mingling with them. The poison was completely ousted by the multitude of colors; when that work was done, the rainbow dissolved, and the six ponies were dropped harmlessly onto the grass. If the disturbance that had rocked the garden earlier was a scream, then what swept over it next was a sigh of relief.

Nidhogg batted Jack, Thorgil, and Vetch back with a single claw, sending them bowling into the ponies and in turn knocking down Ingway. Twilight landed hard across one of the other sticks dislodged from Yggdrassil by Nidhogg's growth. Nidhogg, finding all his obstacles neatly arranged in one place, inhaled sharply; his breath would put them all to death.

Jack and Thorgil were quickly on their feet; Jack brandished the staff of St. Columba, and as Vetch returned to his post on Thorgil's shoulder, she held out her new spear as though it were a staff. Twilight, moved to act, did the first thing her instincts told her to do. She leaped up, levitating the stick she'd fallen on to her side, far too used to operating with a staff.

The words came to Jack, Thorgil, and Twilight at the same time. They spoke them like a poem, a stanza about safety and life. As soon as the words were spoken, they were forgotten. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Ingway all heard them clearly, but afterward, would have been unable to recite them. The three staffs radiated, thrumming with the connection to Yggdrassil. It was no ordinary lorica. The power of the three combined formed an invisible dome over the group of nine, and when Nidhogg breathed a cloud of pure venom over them, it was unable to penetrate the protective shield, instead pouring around it until it dissipated.

"How did I just DO that?" Thorgil asked incredulously.

"I told you," Vetch reiterated. "I'm helping you."

"So that was you and not me," Thorgil said sourly.

"It was you," Vetch informed her. "But I'm tapping into your potential through our physical contact. I'm bringing it out in you faster than you would have learned it, and once I'm gone, you will have to learn to do it on your own."

"Who ARE you?" Thorgil asked incredulously.

"I'd rather not say with Nidhogg around," Vetch replied. "Now be on your guard, because he's going to try and attack again!"

Nidhogg knew full well that the lorica would not hold forever. They could not perform it twice in a row, much as the bearers of the Elements were unable to use them on him. He readied another breath.

A sharp pain dug into his back, and Nidhogg roared toward the skies. Erytheia drew her blade from his skin, spinning it in her hand. "SISTERS!" she cried. "AT THE READY!"

Hesperia and Aegle rushed the back of Nidhogg's front shins, slashing at them. Arethusa darted in front of Nidhogg, blade drawn; he took the bait unknowingly, his head striking downward toward her, and Erytheia ran along the back of his neck, aiming her sword toward his neck. Once he felt Erytheia's footsteps, as well as the blows from Hesperia and Aegle, Nidhogg reared up on his hind legs, flicking his head back to throw Erytheia off. Erytheia tumbled through the air before landing neatly in Hesperia's arms; Aegle and Arethusa hacked at Nidhogg's hind feet.

"The Hesperides!" Twilight realized. Before she or any of her companions could rush forth to join them in battle, she felt a hand strongly clamp across her shoulders.

"What were you trying to tell me?" Ingway asked frantically. "What did you see in Mimir's Well?"

"Yggdrassil!" Twilight's head whipped back to look at him. "You have to touch the tree!"

It made the least sense of anything Ingway had heard. However, he wasn't about to question it. It had come from Mimir's Well, and he did not know what else to do. Without a word, he turned and ran toward the nearest massive root of Yggdrassil, stretching his hand out. As soon as it made contact with the tree, Ingway disappeared.

"Where'd he go?" Thorgil asked in a panic.

"Wherever he was supposed to," Twilight answered. "Right now…we need a plan."

Rainbow Dash looked directly up into the bright blue sky, noticing for the first time all of the fluffy white clouds scattered across it. "Who's up for a storm?" she asked.

...

Ingway thought, at first, that he had been transported to Ringford. He remembered the scenery from it: the deep green and tall grass, the trees that bordered it, the palace in the distance, and the Phozons that drifted through the air, offering night-lights against the deepening dusk. Looking up, he saw that the sky was streaked with color, like an aurora borealis.

"Ingway."

When he heard the female voice, he looked straight ahead, and his heart stopped.

She was a pale girl, on the cusp of maturity, and her stance was slightly bow-legged. Her thick golden hair was bound into a pair of braids that hung just below her shoulders, and a crown of daisies was woven across the plaits. She wore a white bodice with an orange, spherical brooch over the heart; long, puffy sleeves and puffed-out legs of shorts completed the ensemble, all limbs patterned with stripes of dark and light green. Her feet were enclosed in white slippers. Upon her back was a pair of glimmering teal-green wings, akin to those seen on butterflies.

"Mercedes," Ingway breathed. "No…it cannot be…it is merely a vision…"

Mercedes shook her head. "Oh, Ingway. I'm real." She walked toward him, scooping up one of his hands in both of her own so that he could feel her touch. "See?"

"But…how?" Ingway was awestruck. "You…you are dead…"

"I did die," Mercedes confirmed with a nod. Upon her face was a bemused smile. "Just…not in the way everyone else dies, I think. I'm here now."

"And where is here…?" Ingway looked back up into the sky. The aurora had begun to take on strange patterns. Scenes were visible within the streamers of light. The white fortress of Jötunheim, the dark chasms of Niflheim, the mountain of Alfheim, the wastelands of Svartalfheim where war still raged, the towers of Odin's palace in Asgard, the green pastures of Vanaheim, the magma rivers of Nidavellir, the lakes of flame of Muspelheim, the wooden ships afloat on the seas of Midgard.

"Yggdrassil," Ingway realized. "This…is the tree of life. They had told me you were here…but I did not know it was like this."

Mercedes frowned. "I saw them when they brought you back and told you that. It might've been true, but they let you believe exactly the wrong thing! I'm not gone! I was right there, watching! You just couldn't see me!" She looked up into the sky as well, surveying the scenes. "I can go anywhere I want in any of those realms! You just…can't see me. I'm part of Yggdrassil now, Ingway. I think that's what my mother always knew I would be when she gave me 'Yggdrassil' as a true name. Or maybe I'm here because that's my true name."

"She knew you would be condemned to this life of solitude?" Ingway asked her.

"Don't you get it?" Mercedes was growing frustrated. "I'm NOT alone! I can go everywhere you see up there! No, no one can talk to me, but I can still look at all of it and be happy! Ever since you came back, I've been following you a lot. Do you know how hard it was to watch you…" She bit her lip, then shook her head, changing the subject. "There are also the birds and the squirrels on the outside of the tree. I can feel them from in here. So they keep me company too."

Ingway wanted her to finish her earlier thought. "It was hard for you to watch me become a monster. Is that what you were going to say?"

"NO, Ingway! It was hard for me to watch you hurt so much!"

Ingway was taken aback.

"No, I didn't like what you were doing!" Mercedes snapped at him, and by then the two were locked in full eye contact. "Yes, I wanted you to stop! I didn't want you to destroy all of my realms! But I knew why you wanted to do it! Odin wasn't fair to you! He wasn't fair to me either! I just wanted to be able to tell you that I was happy where I was. And that I miss you. And that…I care for you, Ingway. I truly…truly care for you."

It was hard for her to admit, he could tell. He became aware that she hadn't let go of his hand the whole time. He brought his other hand up to clasp hers. "Mercedes…all of the misdeeds I have done in your name…I had said I loved you, but now I know…I can never return your pure feelings." There was a catch in his throat, and as his vision blurred, he knew he was crying.

"I know how you feel about me," Mercedes told him. "I don't think it's so different from what I feel about you."

"But…Mercedes!" The horror of it all finally descended upon Ingway. The visions in the sky, the small realm Mercedes inhabited, everything Yggdrassil touched. "I did not know…but I should have realized that everything I had set out to destroy was something you watched over, something you loved! Your only escape! If you truly are this much of a part of Yggdrassil…then there is you in all of the Nine Realms. There is you in all of the life force that touches them…there is you in the likes of Malekith and Odin! When I declared my war upon life…I declared it…" His voice grew ever quieter. "Upon…you…"

He closed his eyes. He couldn't look at her. All of his attempts to avenge her had been strikes against her. If he could not even be true to the only thing he said he loved, then did that not make him even worse of a monster than Malekith? That was how he felt.

He was aware of the sensation of her hand cupping his cheek. "I forgive you," she said softly, sincerely.

"Mercedes…" he whispered. "How can I ever make up to you…all that I have done…"

"I think you'll figure it out," Mercedes said happily. "You always were good at figuring things out. Actually…I've been watching everything happening outside with Nidhogg from here. Doesn't that Melvin know when to QUIT?"

Her sudden outburst drew rather inappropriate laughter from Ingway. He was still surprised that she was so quick to forget his sins. He opened his eyes to look at her once more. "He may destroy you," he realized.

"That's why I have something for you," Mercedes announced. "Stay right here!"

She let go of him, flying across the field, ducking behind a tree. When she returned, she bore in her arms a black crossbow tipped with a bright red crystal. "This is Riblam," she announced.

"A psypher," Ingway gasped.

"It was mine, remember?" Mercedes told him. "I used it against Onyx. I guess after I died, it came with me. It's real, too. I think it's more real than I am, since it wasn't really destroyed. But it isn't doing me any good in here." She held the crossbow out. "The dwarves fixed it so that it could break Odin's own psypher. That has to be able to do some damage against Nidhogg, right?"

Ingway did not feel at all worthy of what she was implying. He stared, dumbstruck, at the crossbow.

"Ingway!" Mercedes urged. "Do you want something to help fight Nidhogg, or not?"

He gently took Riblam, the last true psypher in existence, into his own hands. "I…I thank you, Mercedes."

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "Oh, and Ingway? Could you…could you do something for me after all of this is over?"

"Anything," Ingway promised.

"Well…can you…move on?"

"What?" Ingway didn't understand what she was asking.

"From me," Mercedes clarified. "I do care about you so much, Ingway. But I'm in here, and you belong out there. I know you miss me, but we can't be together. I'll always think of you as a friend, and it's going to take a while before I stop thinking of you as more than that. But there's just nothing the two of us can do. I don't want you to miss out on your entire life because of me. So…could you please move on from me?"

"It seems an impossible task," Ingway admitted.

"It won't after a while," Mercedes assured him. "Maybe you'll find another bratty princess who needs your help to become queen. Anyway…before you go…I just have one more thing I want to give you." Her face flushed deep red.

Ingway lowered the crossbow. "What is that?"

She approached him slowly, and he knew what she wanted to do. She gently, briefly, pressed her lips against his. "Because I only kissed you the one time when you were a frog," she whispered afterward. "I wanted…one more time."

"Thank you, Mercedes," Ingway whispered in return. "It was something I had wanted as well."

"Now get going!" Mercedes suddenly barked. "You helped me take down Melvin last time, so I'm helping you this time! And hurry up before he destroys everything!"

Ingway turned around to see that a corridor of light had opened up behind him. He knew where it led. "I shall always remember you fondly," he vowed. Then he took off running into the passage. Behind him, he knew the scene was fading. Mercedes' domain inside Yggdrassil would once more belong to her and only to her. He would never re-enter. But Riblam remained solid in his hands, journeying with him to the world outside.

...

Rainbow Dash's radius of flight grew ever larger as she collected clouds to return to the centerpoint over Nidhogg. She kicked cloud after cloud into the mass, building up an enormous cumulonimbus. The sky's endless blue darkened into the deep gray of an impending storm, casting shadow over all below.

"All right, everypony!" Twilight called out. "You know what to do! Just like we learned at the school of bards!"

Even though she, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were magically exhausted, the healed Yggdrassil had plenty of magic to supply to them when they (as well as Jack and Thorgil, with some crucial assistance from Vetch) reached out to it. When they asked for rain, they received a deluge that soaked Nidhogg thoroughly.

"FALL BACK!" Erytheia cried, realizing what the bards were doing.

Arethusa turned to regard the bards, and she recognized the one at the lead. "No…it can't be…"

"YOU ARE CLEAR!" Erytheia yelled at Twilight as she, Arethusa, Aegle, and Hesperia charged off the battlefield.

"LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!" Pinkie Pie ordered.

The rain turned into a blizzard. Nidhogg's vision was obscured, and he felt the strikes of hailstones upon his skin. The wind picked up at the bards' behest as well, whistling against him.

"Now try on some weather witch power for size!" Rainbow Dash aimed a great kick at the cumulonimbus, willing quite a bit of her magic into it. First came a great rumble, the sort that struck hearts with a sense of impending doom. Then lightning bolts sizzled down from the cloud, striking in a circle around Nidhogg, locking him in a cold, electrical cage. The thunder continued to boom all the while.

"WE'RE DOING GREAT!" Twilight yelled over the cacophony of the weather phenomena.

"YEAH," Applejack called back, "BUT WHAT NOW? JUST KEEP 'IM THERE FOREVER?"

A bright flash of white light heralded Ingway's return. He stormed forth from the roots, raising Riblam up to his shoulder.

"WE'VE GOT COMPANY!" Pinkie Pie screamed. "AND HE BROUGHT A NEW TOY!"

"WE CAN'T FIGHT HIM AND NIDHOGG AT THE SAME TIME!" Jack bemoaned.

"BUT WE CAN TRY!" Thorgil rebutted.

"WAIT!" Fluttershy yelled. "LOOK WHERE HE'S AIMING!"

Ingway pointed the crimson crystal of the weapon directly at Nidhogg, ignoring the others completely. He had only one target: the creature that would destroy Yggdrassil, and Mercedes along with it.

Riblam's crystal glowed with energy drawn straight from Yggdrassil itself. Ingway watched the striking lightning, careful to adapt to its pattern. He couldn't waste a single shot getting struck down by it. When he saw an opening, he fired. Pure red light arced through the air, between the bolts, and into Nidhogg's heart. The dragon screamed. Ingway released the next shot. Then the next. Then the next. The crystal dimmed with each shot until it went completely dormant. Every single shot from Riblam, the piercer, struck Nidhogg directly in the heart.

The dragon's silhouette became fluid, unstable. It seemed that he was having a hard time holding his body together. And he was. Riblam had struck Nidhogg directly at the core, and with a power he did not comprehend. He hadn't gotten a good look at it through the blinding snow. He had assumed that there was no mere crossbow that could pierce his hide. But what had struck him was not the bolts of a crossbow. It was strong, and it was tied to Yggdrassil, as though the tree itself had shot him. Yggdrassil did not want him dead; how could it? It did, however, want him to be much less powerful. And so he faltered. He couldn't hold his own form together. He needed to be smaller in order to even balance himself physically. So he chose a smaller form, the one the tree wanted him to be in. Even then, he could tell that he did not have the range of power that body usually had; when he attempted to access it, he felt sick and woozy.

"TURN DOWN THE STORM!" Twilight cried. "I CAN'T SEE HIM! I DON'T KNOW IF HE ESCAPED!"

"WHAT IF IT'S A TRICK?" Jack yelled back.

"THEN WE SHALL BE AT THE READY TO FIGHT!" Erytheia suddenly stood among them, leading Hesperia, Aegle, and Arethusa. "CEASE THE STORM SO WE MAY SEE NIDHOGG!"

Twilight, Jack, Applejack, Thorgil, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rarity willed the storm to slow down. Rainbow Dash, seeing the snowfall thin out, stopped circling the cloud, refusing to allow it any more lightning.

The snow had built up thickly on the ground. In its midst, Nidhogg had taken on the form of the blond faery once more. His arms were wrapped around his chest; he shivered. "You…could not have." His voice betrayed how much effort it took him to even speak. "What…power…"

His eyes alit upon Ingway, and he saw what weapon the Asgardian truly held. "It is not…possible…" Nidhogg gasped, still shaking. "That weapon…it should not exist…"

Ingway gave him a stare colder than the surrounding snow, and gave him nothing else.

"I cannot…fight…" Nidhogg's ankle gave out, and he was brought to one knee. "This is not…over…"

He faded slowly from view, becoming transparent, then invisible.

"Is he…!" Fluttershy gasped.

"He is not dead," Erytheia confirmed. "He has merely left this plane for elsewhere."

"And I have a good idea about who he's going to meet up with," Twilight stated, thinking of Discord. "Even if I don't know exactly where that is."

"Do you realize where you stand?" Hesperia blurted. "In the territory of gods."

"Hey!" Thorgil snapped. "The Norns sent us here once before – "

"I wouldn't interrupt the Hesperides," Twilight advised.

Hesperia nodded with a smile of professionalism. "Though perhaps we should have expected that the Element bearers were to tread this ground. After all, they did approach Olympus itself."

"This is after that?" Twilight was taken aback. "I guess I didn't measure where these realms were on the timeline compared to Olympic Greece."

"Wait…what?" Jack couldn't make sense of what she'd said. "What were you measuring? Why didn't you think something that had happened…happened?"

"Just…forget about it," Twilight told him. "Seriously."

Her stare warned Jack that he was treading upon dangerous waters by asking about her relationship to time, so he backed down.

"We owe you all for your protection of Yggdrassil," Arethusa stated. "As well as your protection of Zoë. For that, we shall ensure your safe passage out of this land and into whichever of the Nine Realms you wish to enter."

"Then could y'all help us get back to Svartalfheim?" Applejack requested. "Thor prob'ly still needs our help!"

"Are you forgetting?" Rarity reminded her. "Our armor was discarded. We would turn up completely – "

A bundle of white fabric dropped onto her head. "Oops!" Pinkie Pie giggled. "Missed!"

Rarity levitated the fabric off of her head, trying to keep her mane as little tousled as possible, and unfolded it to reveal her white bard's robe. Pinkie distributed the robes back amongst the others.

"We should take Malekith and Algrim's bodies back," Twilight decided.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "And why?"

"Don't they at least deserve to be buried back in the homeland they were fighting for?" Fluttershy asked, and Twilight nodded.

"…Guess y'all got a point," Applejack relented.

"Um…I don't see it," Rainbow Dash interjected. "Why can't they just be buried here?"

"Malekith was horrible to us," Fluttershy told her. "But he was still fighting for something he lost. If we can give that back to him, then we should at least do that." She looked sadly up at the hill. "And I think Algrim lost even more than that…and deserves more."

"Their souls are in one of those afterlives anyway!" Rainbow Dash protested. "It's not like they care from there!"

"It's still…right to give them a proper burial," Jack argued. "It's just…what you're supposed to do. Even to your enemies."

"And I know I should be the last one to feel bad for THEM," Twilight brought up, "but I feel like the way they died was…well…it wasn't fair."

"Malekith knew the ways of the Norns," Aegle stated grimly. "He was not Nidhogg. He knew he could not defy fate. There was nothing fairer than his death."

Twilight could see there was no sense arguing. "Will you at least let us bring the bodies back? I can handle carrying both of them." She levitated both as she spoke, positioning them to lie straight, legs together, arms at their sides. She also levitated the branch of Yggdrassil that she'd used to contribute to the lorica and the storm, stashing it away with her other weapons.

"We shall allow it," Aegle told her.

"We don't really want them here anyway, after all they've done," Erytheia brought up.

"If all are agreed," Hesperia suggested, "we should begin our journey."

"Right!" Applejack glanced over the group, at Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Jack, Thorgil, and the ever suspicious Vetch. She turned to look behind her. "Ingway, are you comin' – "

But Ingway had already vanished.

...

Chapter 97:

· A lot of this chapter was done "on the fly." I had a basic idea of what I wanted to do here going in. Most of the core concepts remained the same: I wanted Malekith to die by not paying for the song-mead, and I wanted the final "boss" to be Nidhogg. However, I only came up with the idea of Ingway seeing Mercedes one last time and receiving her psypher a couple chapters back, believe it or not. Which is weird to me because that ended up being the crux of the scene, and the interaction between Ingway and Mercedes was one of my favorite things I have written since we entered the Nine Realms. The Hesperides, I decided to add a couple weeks before starting this chapter. The Fates were added once I started writing it, because I went back to the Mimir's Well chapter of SoT and realized the Norns played a HUGE role there.

· I feel a little bad not having Thorgil's ability to talk to birds play more of a role until RIGHT EXACTLY NOW. Lots of Deus Ex Machina in this chapter.

· If you know what's up with the falcon – and you probably do – then I will say the name "Vetch" is significant because it is the alias of my favorite pop culture incarnation of the relevant character, and I'm using this incident as my EoHverse canon "explanation" of why he goes by that moniker in the work where he does.

· The description of Mimir's Well was taken right out of SoT. Bees and all. The bees were Farmer's idea. They parted if you'd sacrificed, and they buzzed angrily if you got too close without having given anything up. I knew I needed to kill off Malekith and Algrim this chapter in order for them to be dead by the time Thor: The Dark World started (it's kind of weird, killing off a character when you've already written the future where he's alive and kicking again…MALEKITH WILL RETURN). The bees seemed like a fitting conclusion for at least one of them at the time.

· In SoT, Jack convinces a Norn who appears to guard the well that Rune has paid up a lot a long time ago, and deserves to have song-mead to get his voice back. Hence Atropos standing by the well, and hence my loophole abuse of Twilight paying her staff up to Rumplestiltskin working as song-mead payment.

· Why the Fates? It was actually the animated series of Disney's Hercules that tipped me off. In SoT, the Norns are rather…nondescript. One is described as "young" and one as "shady" and that's about it. I decided to overwrite that with some amalgamation. HTAS has the Three Fates "moonlighting" as the Norns in the Norse pantheon, and Phil chews them out for "double dipping; workin' two mythologies!" Looking into it, the Fates and the Norns actually HAVE been linked by more than a couple mythological scholars. And why not? We have two pantheons where a trio of women dictate fate. There was some story exchange somewhere down the line if you ask me. I went with their names as Fates, as well as their Disney designs, because that was easier for me to write, and I get the feeling it's easier for you as readers to visualize.

· If you'll recall back on 616th Earth, Malekith's pocket dimensions all reacted violently in different ways to each of the Mane Six. He remarked that he knew their weaknesses from their past meeting, and that they weren't as strong as they were when they met in the past. (Time travel and verb tense don't mix.) What's happening here is that Malekith thought he could contain them with a garden variety pocket dimension, but they've already beaten something tougher he cooked up, so it was no sweat to break out. Malekith observed this and wised up a little before his assault on Avengers Mansion…but not quite enough.

· Erytheia gets the main Hesperide POV here because when I first introduced the Hesperides, she was the only one who didn't speak when Hera turned up. So I'm making up for that with overtime.

· I struggled between placing this before or after Zoë defected. I don't think I established anything that would have stated when 616th Midgard is relative to Olympic Greece…? I ended up going with "after" to make SOME linear sense.

· "I truly care for you" and "I can never return your pure feelings" are Mercedes and Ingway dialogue from one of the alternate endings where Mercedes is the one sent to kill Ingway. It's a super feelsy scene…and unfortunately one that leads automatically to the bad ending of the entire game, so it's not really canon.

· Mercedes' psypher is the only one not sacrificed to the Cauldron in Odin Sphere. It instead ends up embedded in the roots of Yggdrassil. It also was canonically enhanced by the dwarves to be able to break Odin's psypher, making it the most powerful psypher in that canon.