The Great Hall of Asgard.
The old king Thor sits atop his throne, ruler of a long dead kingdom.
For once Asgard was the shining city, now it is but ruins.
Yet Asgard stands.
Okay, so I’m peacing out for tonight to hopefully sleep or something maybe.
But thank you all for the wonderful welcome and if you could like this if I owe you a reply then that would be a great help in keeping a track of them tomorrow.
Thank you.
mayhemthroughmischief started following you
For even a god as old and as hardy as Thor, that day had not been an easy one. For he had found himself in the past, in the days of himself as a young man, in the Asgard of old. The Asgard of his father and his mothers, the Shining City as it had once been.
And yet it was to get even harder for the Old King.
For there was one face he had dreaded coming across. One face he knew he must at long last face, but prayed to his father and his father before him and all fathers he knew of to take him back to silent ruins of his kingdom before he would come across his brother.
But it was not to be.
Familiarity. That’s what prickled on the back of the Tricksters neck when the aged figured gained his attention. Familiarity and curiosity, all too sharp eyes beginning their immaculately precise observations over a weathered, wisdom lined face that reminded him of… the Allfather. But it was in the lone eye that held the answer to whom intruded his domain without so much as an invitation.
And the only response he could give was a bitterly mocking, shallow laugh that rang deep from his pale chest. A feral smirk pulling back over pearled whites while his slender body straightened itself into a leering pose. An old Thor, like a battle scarred lion past his prime, the trials of his life now marring his face and silvering a once gilded mane - slipping from twilight to the long nights before the permanent shroud encased him completely.
“You look weary, Odinson.” The tone was humorous.
“I see the aging process favored the fathers path and not the mothers.” Taking a slow, elegantly paced step to the side, walking the length of a semi-circle around his elder. “Pray tell, why is the King of Asgard no longer warming his bones upon his golden throne? What brings you to my…domain.”
His brother looked just as he remembered him to. The sneering smile pained him more than his weary bones or the screaming scars that littered his body or the protests of the muscles of his crippled arm. That look of superiority Loki wore was more painful to him than any sword or axe that had tasted his flesh.
”Brother,” he said simply, his voice weary with age. He watched his brother’s pacing with his lone eye.
”I know not why I have returned or what brought me here. The last thing I remember where… hoards encroaching upon Asgard. I set out to meet them as King and last defence of Asgard and… then I awoke here. Now.”
He spoke with truth in his words, plainly for his brother to see. His reputation as trickster and wordsmith was known to him better than any other.
But still.
”I ask for your help, brother.”
He regarded her through his lone eye, still a piercing blue from behind an ancient and weary brow. She was much younger than he remembered her being, and so much more beautiful. Whatever sorcery had brought him here to taste the sorrow of the past would pay dearly, he would see to that.
He was not the Thor she knew, that much was plain. But he knew in his heart that he was the Thor he had never wanted her to see. He had never wished for anyone to see the day he became his father.
And yet when the day came it was to a dead Asgard.
”Time happened, my lady,” he said softly, dropping his head. “Time happened.”
She pulled her brows together, still watching him with greatest intrigue. The warrior had nothing to contribute as she continued to be baffled by such a mysterious science, someone that was not of her world, yet- He was.
Once.
Sif stands before him now, being weighted down by the depressive atmosphere he carried. It was not a good sign, it was nearly nothing at all at this point, but yet she tried to remain tall. To remain strong, and firm as she was, to see the thunderer like this.
“By the heavens, no— You cannot simply accept time as is.” There is a pause in her words, and she looks to him with hardened eyes.
“You fight it, as we do every day, as we will for eternities to come.”
To fight, and win against time.
An unlikely outcome.
Yet she still tried.
”And what would you have me do? Fight until my dying breath against the encroaching hoardes as Asgard’s last defence? That I was and that I did, but as the killing blow I awoke here, now. Somewhere my Asgard falls because it’s king hides like a coward in the past.”
He stopped himself. Even as King, even if not King in this time, he would not allow himself this moment of weakness. Once there was a time where Sif was greatest confidant, but now he could scarcely bring himself to speak freely around her.
But he couldn’t help himself one time.
He stared past her into nothingness, into the space between spaces.
”My father would think me weak,” he said softly.
And there it was. Beyond the pain, beyond the age, beyond the years and scars. There sat a little boy with golden hair scared he might not prove his worth to his own father.
For even a god as old and as hardy as Thor, that day had not been an easy one. For he had found himself in the past, in the days of himself as a young man, in the Asgard of old. The Asgard of his father and his mothers, the Shining City as it had once been.
And yet it was to get even harder for the Old King.
For there was one face he had dreaded coming across. One face he knew he must at long last face, but prayed to his father and his father before him and all fathers he knew of to take him back to silent ruins of his kingdom before he would come across his brother.
But it was not to be.
She circles him like a predator stalking its prey, circling in, until when the poor creature least suspects it, she strikes for the kill only to slink off back into the shadows with her prize. Thor had played this game with her many a time as a young lad, but he was a lad no longer and he was in no mood for game.
He growled, baring teeth that looked days away from yellowing and rooting.
”Silence yer tongue, wench, lest I cleave it from your mouth. In no mood for games am I.” As he spoke, powerfully and not unlike his father did, droplets of spittle flew from his lips to be caught in his beard.
For a king, no less the king of the realm eternal, it was not a pretty sight, but then it had been many a year since he had ever needed to think of such appearances before others.
Fear flickered in Amora’s eyes but briefly, quickly replaced by wonder. Oh, he was a sight to behold. All of Thor’s bravado, his compassion, pride, his love, everything that made the golden god what he was.. It was gone. Whittled away by years and circumstance to leave this brittle husk of a man. He looked a king, but inside… Oh, how the Enchantress wished to get but a glimpse of what that soul must look like.
She was positively shivering with joy at the mere prospect.
“Games?” Amora echoed, her lips parting in a smile that could never look anything but sinister. “Oh, my dear king-” She practically spat the word as she gave a low, mocking bow. “I play no games with one so fearsome and war-torn as you. I merely observe that which should not be. And I wonder.. how does that which should not, be?”
Emerald eyes narrowed as she stood before the old king, her hands on her hips. Thor was a mystery, wrapped up in such energy that made her very bones ache in warning. This man was dangerous, she knew, and trifling with him was as courting disaster.
It made her want to rip him open just to see what was inside.
His left arm had been ripped from the elbow years upon years ago, now it was fitting with a replacement forged from Uru and blessed with the Thorforce not unlike the weapons his father would have forged in the dwarven workshops of Svartalfheim. When he clenched it to a fist at her incessant mewling the sound of metal on metal rang through the hall.
”Know this, Enchantress, twister of words, if I am to discover that you played any part in my being here it will be far worse than the might of Mjolnir that you fear.”
Thor of old would never dream of conjuring such malice to his words, but he was not the Thor of old. He was not the golden son of the Shining City. He was the not the boy who would play with his brother on the Rainbow Bridge under the watchful eye of Heimdall. He was not the young man who raid the villages of Midgard of meat, mead and women, having his fill of any and all he came across. He was not the protector of Midgard and warrior of the Avengers.
He was king of a silent castle and an empty kingdom. The last remnants of the Realm Eternal. Weathered by the ages and battles that would have gone down in history had there been a soul to transcribe them.
He was not yet ever shall be Thor, Son of Odin.
This Asgard was all too familiar to him, but it was not his Asgard. Here, he did not sit atop the throne to dead and silent kingdom. Here, there was life and laughter and love and all things he remembered from millennia ago.
No, this was not the Asgard of Thor. But the Asgard of his father.
Long ago he had been taught the art of moving through crowds unseen and while it had been centuries since he had to employ that art, he still managed to fool most everyone he passed.
He had no recollection of his coming here, no reasonable answer for his appearance in the past, but by his eye he would find answers.
When a face he recognised from long, long ago bowed before him, he stopped. He never could sneak past, no matter their age. Sif. He would have smiled if wasn’t in the slightest concerned it might shatter his face.
”Aye,” he said simply. “T’is. And I have about as much clue as you do of my being here.”
Scrutinizing the details that were on him, she stiffened, still in a slight shock over the entire encounter. Yet, she was in no position to doubt the realness of such a prospect.
Sif said little, listening to the age tear at his throat with restless aggression.
There was a pillowing sorrow that gutted her underneath her surface, slowly churning her into a state of melancholy.
“Thor.”
His name comes out like a ghost.
“What has happened to you?”
He regarded her through his lone eye, still a piercing blue from behind and acient and weary brow. She was much younger than he remembered her being, and so much more beautiful. Whatever sorcery had brought him here to taste the sorrow of the past would pay dearly, he would see to that.
He was not the Thor she knew, that much was plain. But he knew in his heart that he was the Thor he had never wanted her to see. He had never wished for anyone to see the day he became his father.
And yet when the day came it was to a dead Asgard.
”Time happened, my lady,” he said softly, dropping his head. “Time happened.”
thor-kingofasgard started following you
“Well, well, well…” Not much in these dreary days can pique the interests of one so dreadfully un-enamored with the state of things as Amora, but this might well be enough. In fact, it might be far more than enough. This man was not from their time; it was plain enough to eyes that wished to see.
“You don’t belong here,” she practically coos, slinking out of the shadows to gaze upon that which was so familiar and yet so foreign. “What was it those dreadful mortals call the fool wrapped in a flag? ‘A man out of time’? You must feel oh so much closer to him now.”
Impossible heels tread silently on the stone floor of Asgard as Amora circles the old king, so weary and battered. This man has seen centuries more of grief and hardship than anyone in Asgard today. And yet, it is undeniably Thor.
“You have risen to take the place of the Allfather, it seems. Weary is the head that wears the crown, but you passed weary centuries ago. Your father was the Father of All. You, though… you look more the Father of Nothing.”
She circles him like a predator stalking its prey, circling in, until when the poor creature least suspects it, she strikes for the kill only to slink off back into the shadows with her prize. Thor had played this game with her many a time as a young lad, but he was a lad no longer and he was in no mood for game.
He growled, baring teeth that looked days away from yellowing and rooting.
”Silence yer tongue, wench, lest I cleave it from your mouth. In no mood for games am I.” As he spoke, powerfully and not unlike his father did, droplets of spittle flew from his lips to be caught in his beard.
For a king, no less the king of the realm eternal, it was not a pretty sight, but then it had been many a year since he had ever needed to think of such appearances before others.
♕ thor-kingofasgard seeks audience with the lady.
At first sight, the man that protruded from the blend of the background was Odin. She knew his appearance well, and to mistake him for another would have been a grand mistake on her part.
“Hail, Asgard.”
Sif barely caught a glance on one knee before she had noticed something worthy of intrigue. His eye was, perhaps comparable to that of Odin’s, but holding a completely different, more vibrant blue that she knew very well.
She stood to her full height, recognizing her mistake.
“It cannot be.”
This Asgard was all too familiar to him, but it was not his Asgard. Here, he did not sit atop the throne to dead and silent kingdom. Here, there was life and laughter and love and all things he remembered from millennia ago.
No, this was not the Asgard of Thor. But the Asgard of his father.
Long ago he had been taught the art of moving through crowds unseen and while it had been centuries since he had to employ that art, he still managed to fool most everyone he passed.
He had no recollection of his coming here, no reasonable answer for his appearance in the past, but by his eye he would find answers.
When a face he recognised from long, long ago bowed before him, he stopped. He never could sneak past, no matter their age. Sif. He would have smiled if wasn’t in the slightest concerned it might shatter his face.
”Aye,” he said simply. “T’is. And I have about as much clue as you do of my being here.”
