Thor Hadrada had always held a deep and never ending hatred for secrets, mysteries and riddles. It was quite ironic that for his burning hatred of them, Thor had been surrounded By secrets that cut bone deep. These mysteries followed him around from his earliest memories and as of right now, he was being hounded by a new and greater mystery.

Thor had not been in the right headspace since they returned from the Shade and the Nexus of Narratives. He kept up his classic smile for the others, but something had become his unwanted companion since he stepped into those separate realities.

He had hoped that he could distract his mind from those thoughts, thus he had taken to the Hephatantian training grounds. It had always been easy for him to lose himself to the constant pushing of strainous training.

Under the blistering rays of the afternoon sun, Thor had striped down his underpants and he pumped upwards and lowered a massive bolder constantly. He had been performing this action for a full one hour and his muscles burned.

It was easy for Thor as an enhanced Knight to press the near two hundred ton large stone upwards. But having to constantly lift it upwards and lowering it at a high pace for one hour had left his muscles burning in pain and drenched in a bucket of sweat.

And yet no matter how much he tried, he could not cast out the thoughts of his life and the questions that surrounded it. Questions which reminded him that he had always been different than all of his new friends, all of them had families and origins, but Thor had nothing more than a question mark.

His strongest memory was his first, when a young twelve year old boy awoke ironically enough within a cave in the Greylands. He had nothing with him then, no memories, no last name or even clothing with his the acception of Mjølnir which he tightly held onto.

The Greylands had been enveloped by one of its rare super storm which saw multiple tornados, thousands of lightning bolts in the skies and massive amounts of rains which caused mass flooding. Thor still remembered his bare skin being pelted by such an outpouring of rain that it almost bruised his skin.

He had slowly staggered through the knee deep mixture of mud and water. He didn't know where he was, but something within him commanded him to move forward. He was found Avalonian rescue units who were saving members of the nearby farming communities that had been buried under forty meter high floods.

They all assumed that this was where he came from, he had a core after all, but too many farming communities died in the super storm, but no one could ever tell and it was a question that drove Thor mad through his fosterhood and Knighthood.

He had thought that would be the last mystery which would plague him, but then two months ago, he was flung out of the universe itself and into two wholly different universes.

The moment that he stepped into the Shade, Thor knew that something was wrong. He could hear voices and he instinctively knew that they belonged to deeper and more ancient things in the Shade. He kept his mouth shut fearing that he was losing his mind and yet the more time went along, the more that he understood what the voices seemed to whisper through the very fabric of the Shade itself.

"It walks, the potential doom of worlds in our halls."

"Doom perhaps, but the Ancients deem their champion in the blood of dragons."

"He will break, they will all break."

Some variation of this conversation passed between these creatures the longer that they stayed in the Shade. Each time he heard, he wondered exactly what it was they meant and just to make things stranger, the voices answered him.

"You know clothed one, you hear our words and in your heart, you know the truth."

That was the least insane thing that happened to him, it got even worse when they arrived within the Nexus of Narratives. In that realm of stories he was not assailed by voices, but rather than visions. The visions were far more difficult to decipher at first but as time passed in the Nexus of Narratives, Thor realised that he was having dreams of alternate possibilities.

He saw their triumphs and defeats at Nimue's hands in a thousand different ways and it was truly maddening to see his friends and allies die in a myriad of horrific ways that felt so real every time that he saw them. The visions and voices thankfully stopped as soon as they returned to Jord.

But life and fate had always been a cruel mistress to Thor and even returned he could occasionally catch a glimpse of something. Like the dark cloud which flickered in and out of his vision and hovered over every Avalonian, most especially the two Avalonian royals.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Perhaps I should come clean to Chris and the others." he thought after his two hundredth rep.

"Damn it, why is all of this so complicated!" he mentally snapped in distress before he chucked the boulder forward with such force that the boulder flew into the deep Hephatantian forest as projectile that burnt up into nothiness.

This little display gained Thor a few confused looks from the others training across the grounds. He responded with apologetic looks towards them, unsure on what possessed him and made him throw the boulder rather than simply laying it down.

"I can keep this all in forever... and yet I can never find my voice. "

Thor hated mysteries as stated before and thus he always did his best to unravel them. Even to this day he still invested his potential origin in the Greylands, and yet whenever he resolved to tell anyone of his friends about what he had and was still experiencing, it was as if some invisible force reached into him and melted his resolve away, leaving him tongue tied.

He sometimes wondered if it was simply fear or if it something else, something that was foreign and yet a part of him. It was a frustrating experience which made him want to smack something and let out all of the tension which had been built up within his muscles.

"Be careful, you might accidentally blast someone." a female voice said from besides him and Thor almost leaped in suprise. He quickly turned and came face to face with someone who he had dreamed of seeing for so long and yet every time he had an opportunity to see her, he felt his legs become weak and his voice left him.

It was then that he realised that his body was awash with multiple orange bolts of electricity constantly danced across body, all building up and awaiting to be let loose in a burst that would have no doubt left many injured and him facing down an enraged Ishtar Ddraig. He wisely despersersed them as harmless sparks that would send a shiver down ones spine rather than shocking their nervous system.

"Meghanada." he acknowledged the black skinned and white haired step sibling of the distateful Theseus Troezen. Meghanada's smile was graceful and Thor wished that he could take a picture of it and thus save this beautiful moment for all eternity.

"We are on a first name bases now, Argentum Ddraig. Some would say that is inappropriate for an higher officer to a lesser officer." she said with a teasing smile which should have made obvious that she was joking and yet Thor could not stop the stuttering mess that trailed out of his lips.

"Well... I... I uh.... I am sorry."

Meghanada could not help herself and she let out a wild laughter which did not match her petite frame and was more like the storm magic which the two of them shared between eachother.

"Don't be like that, I was simply pulling your leg, Thor." she wheezed out in between her roaring laughter. Many of the Hephatantian's training close to them sent looks of irritation and confusion at Meghanada's mad laughter.

"I am sorry, I couldn't help myself." she repeated as her laughter died down and she whipped hot tears which now streaked down her cheeks. "It has just been a long time since we spoke."

Thor and Meghanada's relationship was complicated, they had known eachother since they first saw eachother at the Spixan military base in the city of Anabia. They hadn't spoken much because Thor always felt his stomach grow uneasy and he could only perform the smallest of small talk to her. It probably didn't help that Thor really disliked her brother, of course he would never actually tell her that.

"It has been a while, hasn't it." he nervously scratched the back of his neck as he realised that he had not even thought that much about her since his return. "I am sorry, everything has just been so hectic."

"I bet that it has. It must have been something saving the entire world and all that."

"I wouldn't say that I saved the world." Thor felt his cheeks burn up at her praise.

"You were a part of it, you should be proud about your achievements." she spoke with a sad smile.

"Is something wrong?" Thor asked her.

""Just a little jealous, that's all. We tend to grow up all our lives hearing about these amazing heroes of old and amazing feats that people sing stories about to this age and it honestly sucks to have missed out on our generations greatest adventure."

"Don't feel too bad. We are on a deplomatic mission to grow Avalons allies, so you are already in an adventure that people will tell stories about." Thor kept a upbeat tone of voice as he spoke. "I can picture it now, Meghanada Troezen and the Voyage of the Viper."

Meghanada chuckled. "I am sure everyone will know about it. And I am sure that you will be in the song as well."

"Go on, ask her now you fool." the voice in his head shouted and ordered him.

Thor took in a deep breath and he let the words that were fumbling around in his stomach to roll out. "I would like to invite you to train with me.... unless you are already doing something... then it's okay.... I am sorry."

"By the Ancients, what the hell did you just do. Please don't be weirded out!" Thor yelled into his own brain hoping that some higher power would simply reverse time and erase this perceived mistake. Meghanada smirked and layed down her now and helmet before she began stripping her upper body clothing.

Thor instantly felt his body heat up until his face was red as he watched Meghanada disrobe. "Wh... What are you doing?!"

"I am taking off my top armour."

"Why!" he snapped as he looked away to avoid seeing Meghanada's near naked top half which was only covered by a tight tank top.

"Because it is hot as hell out here and I am not soaking my cloths with sweat. Besides, you have taken your shirt off and you could fill a bucket with that." she gestured at his chest and for the first time since they began talking, Thor was aware of his bare chest which glistened underneath the sun from the coat of sweat.

He instantly brought his hands up in some ineffectual attempt to obstruct her view of his body. Meghanada simply sighed and used her hands to force down his whilst stating. "Don't be so prudish, it's not as if I haven't seen your bare chest.... Besides, it isn't so bad to look at."

Thor finally relented from the struggle and he nodded in acceptance, but as the two parted hands Thor was struck with a new vision for the first time since departing the Nexus of Narratives. He saw a city laid to waest By a recent battle which had littered the city with hundreds of impressive war machines and a thousand more dead bodies.

The stench of the dead invaded his nostrils and he gagged as he back stepped upon something wet and mushy. He quickly turned and laying there were the battered remains of Hamanymu, Ursa and Pyrrha. Thor had seen this sight many times from his visions in the Nexus of Narratives.

He heard a rough coughing fit and from the bodies crawled a Meghanada Troezen who looked like she had been through hell. Cuts leaked blood across her body and chucks of her clothing/armour had been ripped apart. She looked at him in shock as if she could actually see him.

"Thor, how are you h..." she then halted with a gasp as a bloody blade was run through her chest.

"MEGHANADA!" Thor screamed in rage as he watched her body collapse dead.

But this righteous anger died and gave way to confusion as he locked eyes with her killer. Within their purple eyes he saw madness, their grin showed off more shark like teeth than a human should and across their flesh black purple veins pulsed in such an intensity that they appeared ready to burst through the skin.

That was not what halted Thor, it was the face looking back at him. Distorted it might have been, but he knew it and this dark creature was Chris.