Idun looked to the distance, and Bragi's eyes followed hers. He watched himself lay next to his frozen bride. Their eyes closed. “No.” Bragi said. He was begging the Idun on the dresser as though she could do something. “No.” He hated her lips when they were blue. “I've never been any good at staying,” he said almost dazed. “I erased it because it couldn't exist here. I didn't mean to leave Idun alone. I just can't erase her too.” It might be good to not be him if he had to be there. He couldn't be him without Idun. They'd been together longer than they'd ever been apart. Bragi looked away from him and frozen Idun, and thought he saw his brothers. His heart sank. If they did know him, they'd be mad. Bragi didn't want Ragnarok. He hoped they'd avert it. But if they averted it, Baldr and Hod would never come back. If he ended up in Niflheim, they'd leave him anyway. There was no hopeful someday release from death clause for Bragi.
“No,” Bragi said. He said it with more force that time. “Don't you dare talk about my wife that way. She's not weak. She's the strongest one I know. She just needs to be believed in, that's all.” He hadn't liked it when the real Idun had said this either. He looked at the frozen Idun and him in the distance. The snow buried them, and Bragi's eyes widened. He started to panic. “That's not what happened,” he protested. “That's not how it ended. She got out. She pulled us out.” Bragi remembered now.
He stood stunned as the library rose up around them. Bragi didn't know what to think anymore. He didn't know what to do. The chalkboard was brought back in, but the chalk was lost. His wife. His poor poor wife. There was a reason he hadn't let them have children. She and Nanna had similar hands, but Idun's were softer. Bragi said Idun would make it, but he couldn't without her. Who would make sure she woke up too, if he was gone? He watched the ink bleed out into the snow. Bragi looked at his hand and the tips of Idun's fingers. They'd gone black. “I'm bleeding,” Bragi realized. He met Idun's eyes for the first time since she'd started talking. "I'm so sorry."