milliways_bar | (no subject)

When Thor steps into the bar this time, he's looking much more normal. (For Earth. Not really for Asgard.) He's in black jeans and workboots, and a sturdy brown jacket over a t-shirt -- borrowed clothes again, but this time they mostly fit, and they're suited to the New Mexico winter he's come from.

Of course, humans feel cold rather more acutely than Asgardians do, but Thor is pretty close to human at this point, like it or not. Anyway, he's used to wearing heavy layers of clothing. The jacket's honestly kind of a comfort.

He also steps up into Milliways, because he thought he was getting into a van.

Milliways is unexpected this time too, but his confusion passes rapidly. (And it's much less existential this time. Half a day and a good meal after his first Milliways entrance, Thor has his feet under him much more solidly.) He heads for the bar, although he's perfectly willing to be flagged down along the way.

[Tinytag: Thor Odinson, Darcy Lewis, Leela]

[OOC: Closed to new threads, sorry!]

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Elle doesn't react to the Polite Thing To Say (though it is interesting how people are quicker to compliment her control than her power), and returns the battery to the plastic box with the others.

But then, she raises her hand toward Thor again, flat and palm up, and larger sparks snap up from her skin, eventually collecting into an electric blue ball of light.

(Even if it is still kind of small.)

"Can you do that?"

It's not at all daring, but just like she's asking him to mimic her movement. It's a guess, sure - but Elle is used to the idea that for some, their abilities would be too much for even the Bar room. This seems like a safe middle ground.

Edited 2012-06-09 03:50 (UTC)

Thor regards it with interest, but he shakes his head.

"Not so small as that, either. Had I Mjolnir now, I could call the lightning to my will, but I have never tried to hold a ball of it so."

It's an interesting idea. But he's not sure what purpose it would serve, even if he could keep the charge that small.

We say again: neither Asgard nor Thor is much for subtlety, as a rule.

Elle closes her hand, and the sparks dissipate.

"If you had what?"

"Mjolnir."

Mjölnir, he actually says.

"My hammer."

"You - need a hammer for it?"

And it has a name. But what knowledge Elle has of Norse Mythology hasn't managed to kick in yet.

Thor tips his head slightly, brows wrinkling slightly in what might either be equivocation, or qualified agreement.

"Mjolnir gives me the means to call lightning and control storms. Nonetheless it took me some time to learn my part of it, in my youth."

Not all that long. Just a few decades to get good solid control. (This actually isn't all that long, when you measure your lifespan in centuries."

Well, it doesn't take her too long to construct and accept the idea of the Hammer With a Name as an intermediary.

So she can move on to ask, "So you control it? Take it from somewhere else?"

Beat.

Perhaps thinking it's the straighter question: "You don't make it?"

Thor doesn't often have to explain this. He takes a moment to think of how to say it.

Especially to someone who presumably doesn't know much of Asgard, but does work her own electricity-manipulation.

"I am the charge that begins it, I through Mjolnir." Or Mjolnir through him, maybe. Mjolnir isn't exactly a point-and-click kind of tool. "I call the lightning to myself from the sky, and then direct it where I will."

It's not too hard for her to process. Plenty of people in her world have abilities that involve "calling" to things. It's just not at all how Elle thinks of her own power.

Her face remains impassive, but her head tilts.

"What happened to your hammer?"

Um.

Thor's face darkens slightly, because Thor's poker face is nonexistent. It's not directed at Elle, though.

The actual answer is, my father banished me from Asgard and stripped me of my powers and birthright, and my hammer is lodged a mere fifty miles away but it no longer comes to my hand no matter how I call for it.

What he actually says is, "I do not have it in this world, for the moment."

Elle's face remains the same. Not because she has a poker face, but because the way she is now isn't too great at facial expressions.

"You can't use another one?"

Look, she really doesn't know how this works.

Thor looks slightly taken aback. Because he is.

"No."

Does he need more detail than that? Probably.

"Mjolnir is an ancient weapon of power, given to me by birthright and by proof of worth, not merely a tool."

Aaand taken away from him by proof of unworthiness in his father's eyes, but -- but Odin will relent any minute, and Mjolnir will come to his hand as ever once he retrieves it. Right?

It does seem like kind of a big thing to just leave somewhere.

However, what Elle says is: "I guess you probably couldn't use it in here, anyway. Unless you went outside."

"Not for that power," Thor agrees. "It would wreak great devastation."

Which, well. He could use it!

But it's probably not advisable.

Or, relatedly, polite.

Elle's quiet for a moment, silently deciding whether she wants to ask anything else.

Then, once she's decided on the phrasing: "Are you human?"

People at Milliways really are perceptive, compared to the Midgardians he's met so far.

"No," Thor says, with a faint, brief smile.

"I am Asgardian."

Currently trapped in a mortal form, but details.

It doesn't take her too long to decide -

"I don't know what that means."

Thor hasn't had to explain this so often in his life as he has the past two times he's been in Milliways.

(Get used to it, buddy.)

"It means that I am from Asgard. It is another realm than what humans call Earth."

For Elle, on the other hand, explaining was and is often part of her job. But as she is terrible at it, she can feel Thor's pain.

"So you're not from Earth."

She's fairly certain that's what he means by "another realm."

"Is it... like another planet?"

"Yes. But not orbiting your sun."

She's quick.

He's not her first human-looking-alien-person.

"Do all Asgardians..."

Instead of finishing the sentence, she just lets a few more sparks crackle over her hand.

"No," Thor says immediately, and matter-of-factly.

And takes a moment to consider his words.

"We are all stronger than humans. More resilient, longer lived. And certainly some of us have other weapons and powers at our disposal, or have studied the arts of magic. But I am the only one who wields Mjolnir's lightning."

Wielded past tense, Thor. But Thor hasn't really accepted yet the possibility of serious long-term limits.

"Why?"

Maybe it's not the best question to ask given the whole past tense thing. But having a hammer suggests it's not the same as Elle's 'because science' reason.