Still Holding On

Chapter 53

He flips the page, and it's covered in the same beautiful flowing cursive, but in black ink. He flips right by it. The next page is covered in black cursive writing, too, but the page after that is written in blue. He reads that one.

Today was a lot of fun. I got to try some different Midgardian foods — "candy," they call it, though it's not what I would usually think of when I hear the word. It's sweeter than anything I can think of from Asgard, and much of it has a wonderful fruity flavor.

Tony brought me to the grocery store, and I've never seen so much food in one place. It would very nearly put an Asgardian feast to shame, except that a feast is made of fully prepared food, which is more than can be said for the grocery store. We only went to get the ingredients to bake muffins, but I left with more fruit than anything else. I can hardly believe that Midgard has strawberries and apples and grapes. I haven't eaten them yet so I can't say whether they taste as I'd expect, but I look forward to trying them.

Otherwise, it was a rather mundane day. This type of stillness would have driven me to the brink of insanity on Asgard, but it was wonderful here. Everything is so much nicer on Midgard. I don't know if it's the novelty of it all, but I feel it has to be more than that. I can't see it changing any time soon.

I really ought to go back to bed. Tony is already asleep, and I'd hate for him to wake up and realize that I've left. I've just been eager to write something happy in this book. I hope there are more happy stories to follow.

Tony flips to the next page, and it is nothing but scribbles, blacking out every word he may have written. He remembers this one. It's from when he found Loki sobbing on the bathroom floor in the dead of night. And though the page is illegible, he knows exactly what dream was on it: a memory of the one dark, empty room Tony left him in while his body and his mind fell apart.

He flips past it. He doesn't need a reminder of how poorly this started — or how poorly it ended.

Tony and I just came back from a late-night walk.

I suppose that means I should try to go to sleep, but I don't want to risk falling back into another life-like nightmare, and Tony's already asleep so I imagine spending another few minutes in the bathroom won't bother him all too much.

This world is different at night. It feels more like home. I told this to Tony, but Midgard is so much louder and busier than Asgard is. Some of that seems to go away when the sun sets. It's still much more chaotic than Asgard, but it's closer to what I've grown accustomed to from h̶o̶m̶e̶  Asgard.

I wonder if I'll ever get used to Midgard. It's strange: I feel more comfortable here than in Asgard. Tony's tower feels so much more homely than the palace ever did, yet it feels wrong to truly call it home. This whole world feels so alien to me. I enjoy it, but I don't understand it. One day, I hope to. One day, I hope to be welcomed in this world with open arms and to call it my own the way I once did Asgard.

I finally told Tony what happened in Asgard. I don't know that I'd been avoiding broaching the topic so much as I've tried not to think about it, but the conversation seemed to lead to it and I thought it was about time he knew the truth of where I came from and why.

It was a weight off my shoulders that I didn't know I'd been carrying; a breath of fresh air I hadn't known I needed. Everything is out in the open now. He knows who I am and what I've done and he accepts me anyway, and that's perhaps the most wonderful feeling I've ever experienced.

Tony, I don't mean this to be a way to forcefully reopen the conversation, or, worse still, to close it if you have more to say. I know that was a lot to absorb, and if you decide after you've had time to think about it that there's more you'd like to discuss, I have no issue with that. My entire life fell apart in the blink of an eye, and you've been there to pick up the pieces for quite literally as long as I can remember. The least I can do is tell you the truth, as much as you'd like to hear it.