Page 51 of Daddy's Justice

He held me then, tightly in his arms. He kissed me gently and rocked. We stayed like that, cuddled into each other, for a long moment until Forseti broke the silence.

“Little goddess, we need to talk now.” Forseti pulled out a chair from the table and bid me to sit. I didn’t want to; I knew the chair would be hard against my freshly paddled behind. I sat anyway. I cringed as the tender skin hit the coolness of the wood. I marveled again at the fact that while I felt no pain from the blade on my neck, I felt tremendous, nearly unbearable pain from Forseti’s punishing hand. He pulled another chair out and sat directly across from me. Reaching out, he took my hands in his.

“How much do you remember from last night?”

I remembered it all. As the conversation between he and Loki came back to me, I leaned toward him. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me I can go back to Earth, to see my family.”

“It is true, little goddess. You can’t ever go back to Midgard.”

“Earth! My home is on Earth.”

“No, little goddess. Your home isn’t on Earth anymore. Your home is here.”

“But my family…”

“Morrigan, I need to tell you something now. You aren’t going to like it, but I need you to listen until I am done and not interrupt me.”

Odin had erased me from their memories. I could all but feel my heart shatter inside my chest. My family and my friends no longer knew I existed. With a wave of a hand, Odin erased me, no us, all of us, from the memories of those who live on Earth. The cases of the dead women, the valkyries I had worked months on would disappear. All of my achievements, gone. My struggles and my victories, my friendships, my relationship with my parents, the adoration of my nephews, gone. It was so much more than being deprived of a family, more than if I had I lost them in a tragic accident or them me. Had they been told I had died, they would have grieved, sure. But they would have been left with the memories of the times we had shared before. They would have had the love between us to remember me by. Instead, I was wiped clean, like I was no more than a mark on a chalkboard.

“There is nothing I can do, then? Nothing? I can’t say goodbye?”

“They wouldn’t know who you were, even if you tried to say goodbye.” He was gentle in the telling, but the truth fell hard on me.

“I will never see them again?”

“You can watch them from here, as your mother watched you growing up. I know it isn’t much, but it is something.”

It was not much of anything at all. Tears streamed down my face, manifesting the pain that I felt inside. My world was changing, and there was nothing I could do about it. Forseti stood, shoved the chair back and knelt in front of me.

“You will forge a new life here, a life with me. I will love you and give you everything you need, Morrigan. I promise, I will spend the rest of eternity doing everything in my power to make you happy. Please, won’t you try?” There was a desperation in his plea.

“What choice do I have? Odin has taken all of them away.”

“No, little goddess. He hasn’t taken all your choices away. You still get a say in whether or not you choose me.”

“Oh, Daddy, don’t you see? That was never really a choice, either. My soul chose you the second I set my eyes on you.” I knew then that I would be spending forever with him.

---