[Inspired by "Kratos meets the Norns" cutscene]

The Norns:
"You are the sum of your choices, nothing more. The threads of your life are not woven by chance, but by repetition. Each strand speaks of habit, of instinct, of the path you always walk.

And because your choices never change, you will learn that Hana will leave you. She will go to another, her arms around him, her laughter filling places where once it was yours. And you — you will do what you do best."

Me:
"Hana!?"

The Norns:
"Again, he misses the point. His eyes are fixed on the second act, blind to the final curtain. He clings to her name as though it were the whole tale, when it is merely a line within it.

You think this is about her. It is not. It never was. She is but a catalyst, a flame to the dry tinder of your spirit. The fire that follows? That is yours alone."

Me:
"She was everything! I gave her my trust, my heart, my years — and she left me, as if none of it mattered! How could that not be the point!?"

The Norns:
"You rage, you ache, you drown. But this fury, this despair — it is not new. You carried it long before she came. She merely revealed it.

You tell yourself it is betrayal, you tell yourself it is loss, but beneath it all is the same truth: When wounded, you destroy. You lash out at the world, at yourself, at the very foundations of what you could become.

This is your pattern. This is your fate."

Me:
"Then what am I supposed to do? Just accept it? Accept her choice, accept the pain, accept that I'm doomed to tear myself apart?"

The Norns:
(all three voices together now, like waves crashing in unison)
"No. We do not speak of doom. We speak of mirrors. Fate is not chains around your wrists, it is the path carved by your footsteps. The prophecy holds because you repeat yourself.

You always destroy.
You always collapse.
You always bury yourself in anger and call it strength.

Break that choice — and the pattern breaks with it. Your threads may yet be rewoven. But you will not find that freedom in her, nor in the one who now stands beside her. You will find it only in yourself."