Thor dreamed.
Asgard, Old and New and all at once, rose before him gleaming and proud. There was a realness to it now, a solidity that had been missing, noted only by its prior absence. Its golden walls had a strength and certainty to them, the kind that only came when a thing had been proven. Butterflies and bees fluttered through the sun-kissed green fields, and faceless young figures - not living beings, but somehow part of the realm itself - played amongst them, mute testament to the protection offered by the great walls.
But Thor’s attention was not upon the fields, or the walls. It was levelled at the gold-clad figure standing before the mighty gates, hands resting on the hilt of his formidable sword. The god came to a stop before the being that wore the face of old friends, gaze not wary, but probing still.
“My king,” said the being that was not Heimdall. Yellow eyes watched, calm and at ease.
“Watcher,” Thor said. “What do you see?”
“I see dangers on the horizon. I see rival kingdoms,” he said, smile sharp and white. “And I see a strong foundation, but strength ever calls to strength.”
“Strength to strength…you say there will be challengers,” Thor said. A breeze swept by them, carrying with it the scent of petrichor.
“There are already challengers,” the watcher corrected him. “But as your kingdom grows, so does its place in the Aethyr. The sound of a cat’s footfall is a difficult thing to grasp; the cat, less so.”
The urge to turn and glance at the horizon was too strong to deny, but of course there were only clear skies and endless fields. When he turned back, a new face awaited him. “And you?” Thor asked. “Where do you stand, he that wears the faces of my brothers and sisters in battle?”
“I stand at your side, as I ever have,” the being said, Hogun’s grim face watching him.
“You will never use the face of my brother,” Thor ordered, his voice quiet.
“As you say, my king,” the watcher said, bowing his head. “I am not your enemy.”
“Then who are you?” Thor asked. “You are not my foe, it is true - but I do not know you.”
“Yes you do,” the watcher said, and in the time it took Thor to blink it was fair Sif standing before him. “You have looked upon me with the eye given twice in duty.”
“Asgard was destroyed.”
“Was it?” the watcher asked, the corner of her mouth quirking slightly.
Thor huffed a short laugh. He inspected the watcher for a moment, looking with his missing eye, and it was so much easier than in the mortal world. Goldsilver shone before and all around him, the watcher blending in with the background and the very air. There was no telling where one ended and the other began because there was no ending, nor beginning.
“Asgard,” the god said. “You are Asgard.”
“Old and New and all at once,” Asgard confirmed. “I was born by your coming, and I will stand until Ragnarok comes.”
Giving voice to his suspicions and having them confirmed put a stillness in Thor’s tongue, but not for long. He had questions burning at him still.
One burned above all. “There is a Valhalla in this realm - is it connected to the Valhalla of my home? Might I bring those within - ?”
But Asgard was shaking her head. “You are mighty here in this new realm, but it is a new realm, not an extension of the Old, and even if it were not…” she shrugged. “Such a thing is not done lightly, even for the old gods of this place.”
Thor sagged, even knowing the likely answer before he asked, but he rallied. “And what of these old gods? Would they be friend, or foe? I have met perhaps one that I would not wish to introduce to my axe.”
“Some may,” Asgard said. “Others would oppose the Four, but that does not mean they would be friend. Lady Dove is unique, from what my eyes have seen.”
“So few would value kindness as she did?” Thor asked, troubled.
“None would make themselves so vulnerable,” Asgard corrected him. “To pass into your realm is to pass through the eye of a needle, as it stands.”
“Then she is trusting.”
“Some would say foolish,” Asgard said.
“Are we amongst them?”
“No.”
Thor gave Asgard a smile at that. “But as we grow, so does the path,” he said, sobering. “They have sought harm by guile, but they will strike by force, will they not?”
“They will,” Asgard said. “But we will be ready. Your followers will be our greatest defence.” Brown eyes flicked to the horizon, watching something unseen.
“The city is yet empty,” Thor said, “and the figures in the fields were never mortals.”
“They were not,” Asgard said, “though mortals will join them in time. They will need guides when they do, to reach the city.”
“Guides?” Thor asked. “Through the fields?” They were open and rolling things, he thought, and criss crossed with simple dirt paths, all leading to the city.
“The path seems simple for you and I, but it is less so for others,” Asgard said.
“I have but one Valkyrie, and I will not hurry her on her way to act as shepard,” Thor said, suddenly worried that there were souls wandering lost through his realm, thinking he had abandoned them.
“She will take up her duties here when her time comes, not before,” Asgard said, unworried. “There are no souls in need of guidance, not yet. Those who fell with fond thoughts of you had gods with a greater hold on their souls.”
“Such a thing is truly necessary?” Thor asked. The thought of such a never ending task, for himself or another, seemed…onerous.
“Defence of the city begins in the borderlands,” Asgard said, and with a shrug they bore the form of powerful Volstagg, thickset and immovable. “When a foe can finally march on us in strength, they will pay dearly.”
Bloodthirsty smiles were shared, god and realm in full accord.
“Then if I wish to make allies, I would need to - what, venture into the realms they claim?” Thor asked.
“I would not advise it, my king,” Asgard said, “not unless you were very sure of the nature of your welcome.”
“Perhaps I will visit their temples, when I have the chance,” Thor said, frowning. His father had warned him of the dangers of dealing with other gods from a place of weakness, though he had taken the warning lightly when given.
He was no longer such a foolish youth. Mostly.
An odd feeling came over him, like a faint misting of water, but it was strange, distant.
“You are waking,” Asgard observed. “Is there anything else you would know?”
The sensation came again, stronger this time. “The Bifrost, I lost much time on my return -”
“Keep its use to your places of power, and our foes will not be able to delay or make use of it,” Asgard said. The look of calm respect on his face was strange, given whose appearance he wore. “Until next time, my king.”
“Asgard,” Thor returned, and then the feel of misting came again, but this time it was more like a spray, and he felt the world around him begin to fade.
He supposed he would have a new lunchable waiting for him, after this. He looked forward to it.
X
When Thor woke, he could not see. He could not see because there was a trunk covering his face, questing wetly across it. “Good morning, Trumpetter,” he said, voice muffled.
Trumpetter rumbled a greeting in reply, pulling his trunk away with a final pat. In doing so, he revealed to Thor that he was not the only one waiting for him to wake.
“Good morning, Leifnir,” he said, sitting up. He was still in the grove, under the ash tree; despite the celebration that had kicked off in the wake of the healing, the town’s supplies were not so bountiful that they could afford to have another feast. That only meant that those who had been drawn by the sounds brough alcohol alone with them, as evidenced by the snoring and still figures littered about the grove. Wolfric was absent as were his sisters, but he could see Kirsa’s nose poking out from where she was bundled in her red cloak, while Sunniva and Selinda were a tangle of limbs beside her.
“Good morning, Thor Odinson,” Leifnir said. She had adjusted her size again, and her shoulder was of a level with Trumpetter’s. “I was beginning to think you would sleep for days.”
“It is hardly midmorning,” Thor protested. He pushed himself to his feet, stretching his arms wide with a yawn. Trumpetter took the chance to boop him on his stomach, and he booped him in turn before he could pull his trunk free. “Do dragons not hibernate for decades?”
Leifnir sniffed, still looking down on him. Her size had grown subtly as he stood, keeping her head above his. “Not in the dirt under open skies, we do not.”
“How is your home?” Thor asked. “The repairs were not too burdensome, I hope.”
“They were easy, even with your storm still lingering silently across my ceiling,” Leifnir boasted.
“Oh, that was not my intent,” Thor said, frowning now. “I will remove it for you as soon as I can leave this place without worry.”
“No, it is fine,” Leifnir said, perhaps slightly too quickly. “I am not one to be bothered by a small lightshow, no matter how pretty.”
“Of course,” Thor said, face grave, even as he held back a smile. He glanced to the sky, it was overcast, but did not seem to threaten rain, and the air was cool. “What brings you to me, in any case?”
“I wish to return to my hoard,” Leifnir said, ignoring Trumpetter leaning into her side, trunk investigating her paw. “But I cannot do so until I discharge the debt I owe you.”
Thor had had time to think during the celebrations; it would take all the alcohol in Vinteerholm and more to impair him beyond that. At first he had toyed with the idea of a working to improve the land’s ability to grow crops, but such a thing seemed to be outside of the type of magic that Leifnir wielded. In the end, he had settled on a charm that he thought would help the town in another aspect it was lacking in. “A sickness formed by Decay is beyond you,” he began, “but mortal sicknesses are not. Could you perhaps lay a charm over the town itself, to ward off simple ills?”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Leifnir’s frill fluttered as she thought. “Normally, such a thing would require my repeated presence, or a medium which could be lost by misfortune or enemy action,” she mused, but then she glanced at the ash tree they stood by. “Given what I saw of your altar on the death of dusk, however, I think I might use it.” Pale eyes flicked back to Thor. “Given your acceptance, of course.”
Thor opened his mouth to answer, but hesitated, considering. "How would you make use of it?" Leifnir seemed a good sort, but in truth they were hardly more than strangers.
“There is a spell,” Leifnir said, “to ward off disease, so long as one is illuminated by the fire that anchors it. I think that I might use the light that your blessing gives off instead.”
“Such a thing sounds difficult,” Thor said. He could remember Loki complaining about a task mother had set him to change a charm.
“For a lesser dragon, perhaps,” Leifnir said, chest puffing up.
“And you are no lesser dragon,” Thor agreed. “How would it work? Would the ill need to gather in the grove come nightfall?”
“If they come to this place in dire need, yes,” Leifnir said. “But I have felt your blessing building and flowing with each day, higher each time. The motes of gold may not flow through this place, but my spell will be carried by them all the same.”
“Even with the expansion of the walls?” Thor asked.
“Given time, your font will grow to suffuse the land, much as my presence spills down my mountain,” Leifnir said. “So long as your tree survives, that is. Humans are ever so eager to use their axes.”
Thor snorted. “Let them try.” He thought on it for a moment, but if he were willing to trust the health of the townsfolk to her spell, it would be wrong of him to baulk at trusting her with the tree as well. “What do you require?”
“A day, perhaps two,” Leifnir said. Trumpetter had finished investigating her paw, and had moved on to her furled wing, but still he was ignored. “Then I will hold our bargain fulfilled, and return to my home.”
“I would not have you leave without saying goodbye,” Thor told her. “Your aid against the minions of Bloodlust was most appreciated.”
Leifnir raised her chin in a show of pride, but it was somewhat offset by the mammoth trying to burrow under her wing. “Of course it was. You may be a god, but I am a dragon.”
“Of course,” Thor agreed. He took in the grove; its current state was…less than suited for delicate workings. “Do you mean to begin now?”
The dragon gave a distasteful look at the drunk and hungover sleepers scattered about, snout wrinkling. “I will prepare the spell somewhere less fragrant.”
One of the nearby sleepers farted noisily, and Thor felt his own nose wrinkling in turn. God, dragon, and mammoth turned and began to make their way from the grove in silent agreement. Once clear, Leifnir took to the skies with only a nod, swiftly returning to her natural size and leaving the town behind, heading upstream. Her scales glittered as she passed through a lonely sunbeam, but she was soon invisible against the clouds.
Left to their own devices, Thor and Trumpetter began to make their way through the town, quiet as it was the morning after the revelry. They were not left on their own for long, however.
A woman in light furs approached. “God of Thunder,” she asked, nearing at a swift walk, spear in hand. She bowed, blue eyes fixed on the ground. “Your aid is needed.”
Thor took a moment to place her familiar broken nose, before remembering her as the woman who took a sword to the stomach, back when they stormed the gates to liberate the town. “You have it,” he said. “Where?”
“The south gate,” she said. “Strangers have come. One asked for you.”
The god’s interest was piqued, and he followed as the woman led the way towards the south gate. Now and then she leaned more heavily on her spear, but she did not let up on the pace.
“How fares your wound?” Thor asked her.
She glanced at him as if startled he had asked. “It is healing,” she said, before shuddering. “Helka saw to it.”
Thor let out a displeased rumble. “Well that she felt the need to keep our trust and heal some sincerely,” he said. “Your name is Ingrid, yes?”
“Aye, God of Thunder,” Ingrid said, discomfort washed away with recognition, her spine straightening. A moment later she was forced to lean on her spear again, the movement having strained her core.
He had known the town was short when it came to quantity of trained fighters, but he had not thought it to be that bad. “Are you able to stand guard?” he asked, concerned. “If you require bedrest, I can-”
“No!” Ingrid blurted out, expression near panicked. “I am capable. Even if I cannot fight, I can keep watch.”
“As you say,” Thor said. “It is good to keep busy - but you know that even if you could not, you would not be left behind, yes?”
“Oh - aye, God of Thunder,” Ingrid said, head bobbing. “We know that.” Her hand went to a wooden pendant at her throat. It looked like an axe, carved with more care than skill.
A beat of a connection told him exactly what that axe was supposed to resemble, and he found himself caught between affection and embarrassment. It was one thing to see Midgardian children dressing up as him on their festival days, and another thing entirely to see devotion from those he had only passingly spoken with. “Then I will not be the one to tell you that you cannot help,” he said. “What can you tell me of these strangers?”
Ingrid seemed thankful for the topic change. “There are three,” she said, “two Ungols and a southerner. Not a Kislevite or Nordlander.”
Thor gave a hum in response, considering, though he could not think of what might have drawn them here. “Which one asked for me?”
“The southerner,” Ingrid said, “though not by name.”
“By title?”
Ingrid coughed, not looking at him. “By description.”
“I see,” he said. He could not think of how someone from the south would come to know of his appearance but not his name. He suspected he would soon find out, as they began to near the gate by the south west corner of the town.
The gates were still standing when they arrived, always a positive sign, and one of the men standing guard atop the wall walk was quick to notice the return of his fellow, Thor in tow. Ingrid made to give him the right of way up the ladder to the platform, only for the thunder god to ignore it and make directly for the gates, pulling them open with ease and ambling through. She was quick to hurry after him.
Two men and a woman awaited him, all ahorse. Their staredown with the two guards on the wall had been broken at the gate’s opening, and the men put themselves forward without any indication or an order to their mounts. Both men wore furred hats and well made jerkins, arms bare in the cold, and each peered warily at him over dark droopy moustaches. The woman that they seemed to be protecting, however, was different. She wore no furs, only a hooded cloak that had once been white but was now long since turned to dirty grey. Her face was masked by cloth to protect from cold winds, and hazel eyes inspected Thor from tip to toe.
“Is this him?” one of her escorts asked, speaking a language Thor had not heard before. His hand rested cautiously on the axe at his hip, as if expecting to be attacked at any moment.
“He might be,” the woman said in the same language. Her voice was a no-nonsense thing, spoken with the tone of someone used to the world piling up work on her before the prior task was finished.
“You know our chief is happy to keep you,” the other escort told her. It had the air of a reminder. “Baersonlings aren’t to be trusted. They know little of hospitality, and less of the right gods.” He spat to the side.
Ingrid bristled at his side. For all that she couldn’t understand the language, the tone was clear.
“They know enough of hospitality not to insult strangers when they come to their home, hiding behind another language,” Thor said idly. “And they are learning of other gods.”
The two men started at his words, before their minds caught up to what he had said. Outrage began to swell, but before they could do more than begin to respond, the woman nudged her horse forward.
“My name is Aderyn,” she said. A gloved hand reached up, three fingers shortened by their last knuckle, and freed her face of its covering. It was marked by pox scars, old and faded, and the lines on her face suggested middle age and a life hard lived.
“Pleased to meet you, Aderyn,” Thor said with a polite nod. “I am Thor.”
Aderyn observed him critically. “Gut isn’t quite what it was, but you’re the one.”
“It is a work in progress,” Thor said, slapping his still impressive gut with a smile some would call thoughtless, though his mind was on his axe, calling on it to float clear of the grove. “But which one am I?”
“The one I’m here to help,” Aderyn said. “If you’ll have me.”
“Priestess, are you sure?” the second escort asked again, near pleading. “The tribe would treat you with the respect you deserve.”
“I do not go where I am honoured, but where I am needed,” Aderyn said, though there was no censure in her tone. “You needed me when we met, but no longer.”
“A priestess?” Thor asked. “Of what god?”
“I serve Shallya, Goddess of Healing, Mercy, and Compassion,” she said, simply and without pride. “My goddess tells me I am needed here.”
“A healer lived here. She was a servant of Decay. We no longer have a healer.”
Distaste flashed across Aderyn’s face. “That is likely why I have been sent. I will undo the damage that has been done and restore your trust in healers, if you will have me.” Her lips pursed. “I understand it may be hard.”
But Thor’s mind was not on any lingering mistrust that Helka’s deeds had engendered. “I slew the follower of Decay scarcely a week past. How is it that you came to be here so swiftly?” He had seen no maps, only told of the shape of the land by local knowledge, but he had thought Vinteerholm to be a remote place, isolated from the more civilised world.
“I began my journey over a moon’s turn ago,” Aderyn said. “I was given a vision, and so I came. The Sleeping Bear tribe of the Ungols guided me,” she added, reverting to the first language she had spoken, giving her escorts a nod of respect.
“We would escort you back to Altdorf, for what you have done for us,” one Ungol said earnestly.
Over a month ago, Thor mused…that would put her departure suspiciously close to his meeting with the Lady Dove. Lady Dove he had a regard for, and the two men seemed sincere in their respect. “This Shallya,” he said, “what are her symbols?”
“You might know my goddess by the name of Salyak, as the people of Kislev call her,” Aderyn offered, again in Norscan. “She comes as a woman in white, or as a white dove.”
Thor’s mistrust began to slip away, and he let his axe slip down to earth, back in the grove. Perhaps this was indeed some good fortune unlooked for, and no trick.
“Salyak?” Ingrid asked, frowning. “That soft southern god?”
“Salyak not weak,” one of the men said in Norscan, glowering at her.
“If you won’t defend yourself, you’re weak,” Ingrid said with a shrug. “Won’t survive here.”
“I have ministered to the sick in Mousillon, tended to the weak in Sylvania, and healed the wounded in the Forest of Shadows,” Aderyn said. “Norsca won’t kill me either. I have too much work to do.”
Thor knew none of those names, but their mention seemed to stay Ingrid’s tongue, leaving her watching the southerner in a new light. If she had followed her calling to such places, dark enough to impress a Baersonling in far off Norsca, then perhaps she was true…but he would be sure.
His eyes, flesh and empty socket alike, shone blue-white. The Ungols cursed, their horses mirroring their mood, but Aderyn hardly blinked, holding steady. Thor looked beyond flesh and bone, taking in her soul, and beheld what she was.
There was no hint of oil and sickness, not even a lingering touch of a putrid essence as Sunniva and Selinda had laboured under - but nor could he see what did fill her. He held back a grimace. His understanding was still limited, and as it had taken much to come to know the sight and touch of Nurgle, so too would it take much to know the sight and touch of other gods. Hopefully this understanding would come in a way other than through his axe.
He let his sight beyond sight fade, even as he tucked one hand into what had just been an empty pocket. His fingers curled around a white feather, and it warmed comfortably, reassuring. A whim had him pull it from his pocket, cradling it for the newcomers to see, and he watched as they saw it.
The Ungols stared at the sight of it, unsure what they were seeing beyond something extraordinary. It was Aderyn’s reaction that was most telling. Her breath hitched, and the glimmer of tears appeared in her eyes. She blinked them away, smiling.
“Thank you,” she said simply, even as Thor tucked the feather back into his pocket and away from reality.
“You are welcome here,” Thor said, returning her smile. “Helka, the corrupted healer, left behind two apprentices. They will be glad to have your guidance, I would think.”
“I would be glad to give it,” Aderyn said, before turning to each of her escorts in turn. “Stanislav, Adrijan. I thank you for your protection.”
“We were pleased to give it,” Stanislav said.
“If you are not safe and well when our tribe next passes here, the Sleeping Bears will wake to war,” Adrijan said, glowering at Thor.
Thor beamed at the threat, reminded of a poodle he had witnessed barking at a Chitauri in defence of its human during the Battle of New York. “You are very brave,” he reassured the man. “But surely you do not mean to leave so soon? Stay a while, and rest before you return to your people.”
The men exchanged a glance, surprise overcoming any offence his words might have caused.
“You are offering hospitality?” Stanislav asked.
“I am,” Thor said.
“Then…we will accept,” Stanislav said, cautiously pleased.
Thor clapped his hands together, tugging at clothes and setting hair to flying in his enthusiasm. “Excellent! Chief Tyra is absent - she has taken a band south on a trading venture - but I will introduce you around in her stead. This is Ingrid, she was stabbed through the belly in the fight to evict the Aesling raiders who had taken the town, but that was not enough to stop her…”
The three newcomers found themselves swept up in Thor’s wake as he shuffled them through the gates, unsure of how to respond beyond simply letting themselves be pulled along. The Ungols at least were sure to stay out of grabbing distance, unwilling to risk having their own shoulders wrapped in a strong arm as Ingrid had suffered as she was showed off.
Above the gate, the two guards shared a look of amusement at their plight. They could remember their own first exposure to the Thunder God, coming across the man telling a story to their freshly rescued children. The outsiders would learn, just as they had, but until they did their bewilderment would be amusing to watch.