The Mighty Thor of Asgard

mjolnir_retriever @ 2018-01-09T23:45:00

2018-01-10T04:47:30Z

Once Victor Creed and Logan are safely settled, Thor goes to find Baze.

And once that's done, he goes looking for X.

First stop: the main bar. If he doesn't find her there, he'll leave a note with Bar, check that the clean-up of all that blood and disemboweling is underway, and go looking elsewhere. Either he'll find her, or she'll find him looking for her soon enough.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2017-03-14T17:35:00

2017-03-14T21:50:26Z

[From here.]

The lawn outside Milliways is not much more private than the main bar, though it's more open and significantly less populated. But it's a more congenial place for a serious talk, and there are private places. You've just got to travel a ways to get to them.

Luckily, that's something Mjölnir is good for!

Loki wanted to come on a quick flight over to the mountains, right? It's fine, Thor's flown plenty of humans this way. (No, he doesn't snatch Loki up without warning or anything. But Loki knows perfectly well what the come on, grab hold, we're going thataway body language is like, and also what Thor looks like when he doesn't plan to take no for an answer.)

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2017-01-18T12:58:00

2017-01-18T17:58:55Z

Thor is in search of two Very Serious Very Official Bill Collectors From The Landlord.

Last he saw, they were making themselves pretty easy to find.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2015-08-25T11:12:00

2015-08-25T15:15:45Z

Speaking with Harry Percy was... illuminating. Sort of.

It was also confusing. Harry is much better at fuming over every word of an insult than he is at clearly explaining the events surrounding that insult.

Thor promised he'd look after Acajou's health. So that's first: he tosses himself up into the air over the Milliways lake to make sure he doesn't see any loose horses wandering unattended. Since he sees none, he visits the stable. Acajou has no nameplate, and Harry didn't give a description, but none of the horses (or other steeds) give any indication of injury or undue stress. Good enough, probably.

(Thor spends a few extra minutes hanging out in the stable. He likes horses.)

Next: to look for Javert or Teja, whomever he finds first. But mostly he's looking for Javert.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2015-02-13T01:47:00

2015-02-13T06:47:45Z

"Spiced wine," Thor requests of Bar, with a companionable slap of greeting to her polished surface.

He gets a goblet, faintly steaming. But he also gets a napkin.

"Well enough," he agrees, and vaults easily over the bar.

His court armor he banishes in favor of the deep red tunic and trousers he was wearing before that. (A little informal for a public meadhall, to his mind, but that's what chutzpah is for -- and anyway, it's not as if most people here know the subtleties of Asgardian fashion anyway. They're nothing indecent, just the sparkly royal space disco Viking equivalent of lounging around in an old t-shirt and yoga pants.) His hammer gets deposited in an out-of-the-way corner, and he sets about investigating options for specials.

Soon the sign reads:

SPECIALS:

Beer
Mead
Spiced wine
Spiced cider

There's a pot of each simmering away over a very low flame. Thor knows his own cooking skills: he got the mulling spices pre-mixed from Bar before she went to sleep.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2013-02-09T00:25:00

2013-02-09T05:25:25Z

Thor returns from Milliways to Asgard, and the same instant he left. The portal works the same here as on Midgard, then.

He will have to speak to Heimdall about the place, and to his parents. Sometime.

Thor closes his eyes for a moment, in the hallways, with no servants looking. Then he goes down to the training halls.

He leaves Mjölnir on the floor. In this mood, on this day, if he starts to break things he may not stop for far too long. His fists alone, here in the middle of the night where none will see or hear.

(He breaks three pells anyway.)

He goes back to his chambers. He cleans his formal armor of the dust of New Mexico, the sweat and grime of his fight with Loki; he polishes the gleaming disks of his breastplate. Servants could do this work just as well, but Thor wants the work for his hands. He wishes it felt like more of a penance.

Morning comes, and Loki is still gone.

Thor skips breakfast. There's no joy in food for him right now. He goes instead to speak to his friends. (Their friends.) To Sif, to Volstagg and Hogun and Fandral. To Heimdall, briefly.

He tells them, haltingly, of Loki's madness. Of Loki's fall.

It's awful telling it again, as he knew it would be. Every word is something he has to say, to acknowledge, to bring out again into the open as something that happened.

And yet it's a relief, as much as anything can be, to have his comrades to share his grief. Milliways denizens -- not even Diana, kind and noble as she is, and a friend already -- can't compare to the friends of centuries, friends who love Loki dearly themselves.

Odin summons Thor. He goes, of course.

There is something charged in the silence between his parents. Disagreement, he thinks; he knows the signs of it well enough. Odin's word as king (and Odin's stubbornness, like both his sons') usually carries the day, but Frigga has her own quieter stubbornness. It will come to resolution sooner or later, whatever the matter is, and Frigga may have her way after all.

But perhaps he's only grasping for the normalcy of argument. Loki is fallen, mad, probably dead. There is tension in every silence. A dozen times, Thor thinks for an instant he sees a dark slim shape in the corner of his eye, or hears a familiar tread, or forgets that his brother won't flicker into visibility to drawl something sardonic; a dozen times, he's wrong.

Odin Allfather speaks to the people. Thor stands behind him, in formal armor again, and Frigga beside him in her own most regal raiment, both of them sober and silent.

Every word Odin says is true. But the entire impression is misleading -- a rogue band of frost giants, the treaty that Asgard will hold to as long as Jötunheim does, the Bifrost controls damaged and the whole of it destroyed to prevent tragedy, and Loki Odinson lost to terrible mischance. Asgard is safe, Odin says. Asgard mourns, but it is safe.

When they speak to the court from the golden dais, immediately after, Odin gives a few more details, but the heart of it is the same. They will mourn, he says. Loki may by some chance live, but unless Heimdall sees him soon, they must assume him dead. He will be mourned as the prince he is: feasts celebrating his life, sober ceremony in sorrow for his death.

Thor knows this balance is as it must be. The people deserve truth, and only truth is honorable to give them, but Loki's private pain and madness is a personal matter, not to be shared with those who didn't know and love him well. Odin is wise to choose his words, and wise to be able to speak them as he does, as if there are no deeper secrets to complicate anything.

But Thor doesn't think he could speak so.

He holds his tongue, and none asks him for words, though they watch the faces of all the royal family -- the king, the queen, the only remaining prince. Loki's absence feels raw as the stump of a missing limb.

When he follows Odin and Frigga back into the semi-privacy of the hallway that leads to their apartments and his own, the doorway doesn't take him to where he expects.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2013-02-01T01:21:00

2013-02-01T06:21:35Z

It's a long, heartsick walk back along the Rainbow Bridge. Every step feels like a betrayal.

( Thor doesn't look back. )

He will go down to the training grounds, and the pells there. If he can't sleep, he can at least lose himself in battering enchanted stone. Maybe he'll even manage to stop thinking for a little while.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-09-20T18:06:00

2013-01-29T02:56:36Z

The bridge shattered even more explosively than Thor thought. He realizes, as they pinwheel towards its splintered end, that both he and Loki are going to miss it -- going to miss, and below them is still the starry chasm, not even ocean.

( But Loki is, barely, within reach. )

It's a long time before either of them turns away from the abyss, and the nebula-strewn blackness where Loki should be, and isn't.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-09-20T18:04:00

2013-01-27T09:46:38Z

Thor has fought his brother thousands of times -- in training, in play, and in real temper. They're both warriors, and Thor has never claimed to be a temperate man.

( But it's never been like this, and not because Loki holds the king's spear Gungnir. )

But he can be satisfied with this, at least: he succeeded. The Bifrost's great control room is falling to pieces as it topples off the edge of the world. Knocked out of its precise alignment, the Bifrost flickers and dies away, and its machinery falls into the star-strewn void.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-09-20T18:02:00

2013-01-27T05:55:37Z

Loki opens the Bifrost. Speeding along the bridge, Thor can see it locking into place, hear the hum of machinery, see the bright lance of its power spearing through the sky and into the void.

( I have to destroy Jötunheim, Loki said, but he can't possibly mean this. )

Loki meets him with his favorite acrobatic leap and a vicious downward stab of his spear, and Thor parries it with a smash of Mjölnir as he has hundreds of times in friendly fights, and this, this Thor understands.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-09-20T17:49:00

2012-09-20T21:48:57Z

He's sinking gradually, comfortably into blackness. It feels like sleep, like floating in a warm bath; all the pain and noise drifts somewhere above him. Time stretches into irrelevance.

( Something tugs at his mind, from far away. )

"We must go to the Bifrost site," he tells his friends. All his friends, but mostly his old comrades, the ones who will accompany him to Asgard, the ones who know what all this means. The ones who were betrayed too. All amusement has leached out of him now, leaving only grim anger. "I would have words with my brother."

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-09-16T03:22:00

2012-09-16T08:47:47Z

Days pass at Milliways.

(Less for Thor than some might think. Time is funny sometimes at Milliways; Thor has no idea that sometimes he's gone upstairs and come down days later on what seems the next morning.)

Thor eats and drinks, he sleeps now and then, he walks outside. He tends Bar, on the occasion she asks it of him. A dozen times he reaches for Mjölnir to carry him into the sky, before his hand closes on air and he remembers, again, that he has lost all right to Mjölnir through his own folly, and that he is bound to this human form for the long future of his exile.

He speaks to new friends, and for all their strangeness they're a comfort to his heart. He never sees Sif, though at Ellen Park's word he looks for her. He never sees anyone else of Asgard.

He goes to Ellen Park's world and speaks to small green servants of a strange race for her. Together they forge a truce between their peoples. He comforts himself a little with that: at least he's done this much good. At least he can do this.

She brings him armor and a hammer, in token of gratitude for his aid. It's a kind gesture, and an honorable one. The armor is strange, bulky and mechanical, but Ellen assures him that it brings the wearer strength -- not so much strength as Thor considers normal, but more than this frail human body can muster. And the hammer, the sledge as she calls it, is at once strange and familiar to his hand. There are too many feelings at war in his heart; too many, certainly, to burden Ellen with in trade for such a well-meant token. He takes her sledge in his hand, feels the heavy balanced weight of it, and thanks her sincerely. What Heimdall thinks from his watch at the Bifrost's gateroom, Thor does not know.

Days pass, and his father remains dead.

None of the pain softens. The pain, the grief, the self-castigation and guilt. But the facts do sink in; with days of exile to think about his mistakes, Thor can do nothing but acknowledge the truth of them, and the truth of his loss.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-08-14T23:11:00

2012-08-15T03:15:49Z

The sky is purpling into darkness.

Thor is halfway around the lake, sitting under a tree, jeans-clad and ~~broody~~ thoughtful.

Earlier, he was in the bar. Later, he'll go in again, and acquire more food and drink, and see what companionship he may find. Milliways has been good for company so far. But for now, he has his thoughts -- weighty companions, and insistent ones.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-08-05T05:18:00

2012-08-05T09:19:00Z

Jane, now swathed in a large pale sweater, leads him along the wet streets he carried Erik down not long ago, and back to the building where they do their science work. Thor wonders at this, since he remembers no yard or garden there, but he follows willingly. Jane asks him a little of the evening's events, of the army called SHIELD and Erik's actions, and Thor does his best to answer all she asks, but mostly they walk in silence.

( Her plan becomes clear when she leads him inside and up the stairs, past their rooms of equipment and windows, and through another door to the roof. )

Thor doesn't expect to sleep any time soon.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-07-27T02:08:00

2012-07-27T06:36:33Z

Milliways deposits them back on the sidewalk of Puente Antiguo, right outside the bar. Thor's acquired a jacket of something called flannel -- at Erik's drunken insistence, though Thor likes the weight of it, and is bemused to find that in this mortal form he notices the chill of the desert night.

( Erik Selvig, who's only acquired water and some more time for the alcohol to drift through his bloodstream, stays in ebullient high spirits right up until he faceplants onto the sidewalk. )

"Yes," he says, "of course," and gestures for her to lead the way.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-06-27T22:38:00

2012-06-28T02:49:57Z

The car's journey is long, though not as long as it was in Jane Foster's van, with the way uncertain. Thor changed obediently (though the space is very cramped) into the fresh t-shirt and button-down Erik gives him. Erik seems to think the combination is too light for the desert night, but Thor doesn't care. The clothing is insubstantial, but Thor doesn't feel the cold; perhaps he's still Asgardian in this.

Perhaps.

Neither of them talks much on the drive back to Puente Antiguo.

But true to his word, once they're in town Erik Selvig steers them to a place of drinking that he calls a bar. Like Milliways, Thor thinks, but it's not much like. The same long table called a bar, with stools set before it, and other seats at smaller tables around the perimeter, but that's where the similarities end. This place is dark and dingy, full of loud music and sharp smoke and flashing lights whose colors would remind Thor of home, if their patterns weren't so alien. There are men behind him playing a game of knocking small balls about on a green table.

Erik leads the way to the bar, and asks the barkeep for two beers. They come in bottles of dark brown glass, chilly to the touch. Thor drinks and finds the brew thin and sour and weak. But he's not so ill-mannered as to complain of a gift, and he's not of a mind to complain of much right now anyway.

He drinks slowly, Erik Selvig at his shoulder nursing his own bottle.

It's a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. These people have been good to him, however little he might have earned their kindness.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-06-24T19:52:00

2012-06-03T23:50:30Z

Thor doesn't know how much time passes, after Loki leaves. After he says farewell to his brother for perhaps the last time.

His body seems numb; everything outside it is very faraway. His head is a sea of black despair.

His father is dead. The truce is broken. Loki, who has never wanted to rule, is burdened with Asgard's throne when war -- disastrous war, a war that was hard-won when Odin was in his prime -- batters at its very borders. His father didn't believe that Thor loved him and intended (stupidly, stupidly though he went about it) only good. His mother does not want to see him.

As well she might not. Thor is justly exiled, justly disowned. He thought he was doing the honorable thing, but instead he has brought about his father's death and endangered everything he loves.

No wonder he's no longer worthy to lift Mjolnir.

The humans question him again, but he barely listens, and he makes them no answer. They go away again.

He has nothing to offer them.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-06-03T19:45:00

2012-06-03T23:46:29Z

Thor's estimate was right. They don't reach Mjolnir's resting place until long after sunset. By then, clouds cover the moon and stars, turning the night sky into a featureless black arch.

( The air smells ionized and heavy, familiar as a homecoming. )

When the humans wrestle him to his feet and drag him away from Mjolnir, he doesn't resist them.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-06-03T19:44:00

2012-06-03T23:45:03Z

[Shortly before...]

Jane's van rattles down the winding desert roads. They're unpaved, and far more rudimentary than the wide roads between the hospital and Puente Antiguo. A horse would do well on this sort of trail, and an Asgardian steed could run faster than the speediest car, but the van shakes and bumps at every irregularity. Privately, Thor revises his assessment of its capabilities downward. They won't reach Mjolnir until well after nightfall, at this rate. Especially since the van seems required by its nature or Jane's command to stay on the roads instead of taking a more direct route, as if a few rocks and crannies and scrubby bushes would defeat its wheels. Still, it serves well enough for this purpose.

( Earlier, Jane snapped out a furious tale of government scientists, craven thugs stealing her work. )

Thor has no better words to give her, not with any certainty of greater success. He'll show her, soon enough, and then she'll be better able to understand the rest of his answers. For now, instead, he watches the New Mexico desert roll by. It's a fascinating country.

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mjolnir_retriever @ 2012-06-03T19:42:00

2012-06-03T23:44:25Z

Thor steps through the door from Milliways, and he finds himself where he expected to be all along: in the bleached-bright sun of a Midgardian desert, surrounded by the dull grey stone of the lot where this hospital's conveyances are stored. Midgard's sun is so different from Asgard's, as if the light itself is stripping color from the world.

( He strides out across the square. )

He doesn't know what made her change her mind, but he's glad of it. Jane Foster, even if she doubts his sanity, is far better company than any steed. He's smiling again, bright and glad, as he opens the van's door.

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