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Thor thought he was leaving his chambers for the palace hallway. (He also thought that the only doors to Milliways seemed to be on Earth, and not Asgard.)

And yet: Milliways.

The Thor that casts a look across the barroom looks notably different than anyone here will have seen him before. He's clad in armor, and carries a large war-hammer easily in one hand. And there's a subtle radiance to him that wasn't there before -- not an actual glow, but as if the light is hitting him differently, so that all the colors of his body and clothing are just a tad more saturated than those of anything around him.

Other things Thor looks: weary, and heartsore.

Thor wouldn't necessarily mind companionship right now, but this -- this brightly lit room full of bustle and strangers and curious faces and lives untouched by his brother's life and his brother's (probable) death -- is exactly what he doesn't want. That one look done, he heads straight for the back door.

You'll be able to find him out back, striding alongside the lake, or sitting on a rock some ways away from the bar with his forearms on his knees and his hammer resting beside him.

Or, perhaps, you'll just see a strangely isolated thunderstorm moving rapidly over the lake towards the mountains, with what the keen-eyed might perceive to be a humanoid form in its midst.

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Thor accepts it. Because it's offered; because she means it for comfort, and if nothing can really be comfort right now, at least it's delicious tiny sweets well-meant.

(Harm, again, does not and never would occur to him as a thing to worry about.)

--Oh. Right.

"Yes," he says.

"I was bound to mortal form before. I am no longer."

So... shiny color-saturation. And shiny armor.

"Um." Normally, the processing of 'no longer bound to a mortal form' would encounter lots of questioning in her mind before she worries about the whole dying thing--but it's been that kind of day for her today, so she might be a little quicker to jump onto it.

Is that what happened? He died? ...Well, yeah, that'd suck a huge one. "Does that usually mean you look...better than before?" This tact thing is hard.

Thor didn't realize he was being unclear, but figuring out what modern Midgardians have context for involves a lot of trial and error anyway.

Also he doesn't have a lot of energy to work on preemptively guessing about those things right now.

"It means that I have the powers of an Asgardian again," he clarifies, and selects another tiny koala before he offers the bag back.

(This one is holding a tiny sailboat.)

Oh. Well, that...mostly that just puts her concern for what happened right back into the proverbial square one, but that's okay. He's not dead, this is a plus.

Hopefully.

"Asgardian." She eyes him up and down for a moment, and keeps the 'seriously?' addendum to herself. He seems pretty legit, if she remembers anything from schooling correctly. "So the hammer there looking insanely huge isn't just me. Right?" What? That thing has to be the size of a breezeway block on a stick.

She pauses for a minute to take back the bag, at which time she gets a sleepy-looking koala with a blanket. "Do you like these?"

Edited 2013-02-03 07:32 (UTC)

"Mjölnir?"

Yeah, he is indeed that Thor. Or, well, another universe's version.

"It is real."

He's a little confused why she'd think it wasn't, but whatever. He's not gonna dwell on that.

"They are delicious," he adds, with truth if not enthusiasm. (He'd probably have enthusiasm if she'd caught him in a good mood. Tiny crunchy chocolate things! But nothing much is going to get that tonight.)

"M-- Yeah, no, I figured it was real. It just looks kind of huge, but maybe it's because I'm tinier than you are." 'Smaller' just seems like a bit of an understatement here, and a comical one at that.

"You can have as many as you want." She has fruit snacks too. It's kind of amazing that she can eat that much candy and still be the size she is, but then she moves around a lot. "...Can you say that name slower? I'm not great with foreign languages."

"Mjölnir," he says, obediently slow. That vowel is never gonna fit into either English or Japanese, alas.

But he will accept Myolnir or whatever her best approximation is. One can hardly ask for more than a respectful attempt.

And yeah, Mjölnir is pretty large! It looks proportionally huge when Thor is holding it, and just plain outsized next to anyone who doesn't have a similar height and bicep quotient.

She tries it again, and with much of a similar result as the first time, but she gives it a good try; norse words are not her forte.

"What does it mean?"

"Crusher, I think you would say."

Or, well, that's his best translation from older Asgardian to the Allspeak, so presumably it'll translate into the equivalent in... whatever she speaks. American, or English, or whatever they call their tongue, he thinks vaguely from her accent.

"...Pretty apt, that. As a name," she says, eyeing the hammer. "Is it just a bludgeoning tool?"

Yeah, subtlety is not high on the list of Asgardian virtues, culturally speaking.

"No."

And then, because Milliways is full of people who have been confused by things Thor considers basic logic, he clarifies, "Though it serves well for that, as a war-hammer must."

Look, Darcy thought a super-sledge might be for renovations.

"...Okay," Nori says, taking this slow. "What else does it do?"

Y'know, other than look incredibly and hilariously imposing.

Well, okay.

"Returns to my hand, carries me through the air, and summons the lightning to my call. It responds only to its wielder."

Thor would be a lot less distracted about this list under ordinary circumstances. But he does still love his hammer.

"Mjölnir is one of the great treasures of Asgard."

"I hope 'wielder' means something a little more specific than whoever can pick it up."

No, she hasn't tried, and no she's not going to. "Lightning, huh? It's pretty fun to play with, at least. I've never flown outside of a plane, so I can't say much about that."

Magnets, however, and anything with those properties, infuriate her.

Thor looks a little amused, although there are other emotions too in the back of his mind.

"Only those Mjölnir judges worthy can pick it up, no matter how strong they may be."

She's welcome to try, if she likes.

"Somehow I'm doubting it'd find me worthy of much of anything," she says, with a degree of both sarcasm and blunt, bald honesty in her voice that says much more than she could put words to about her current situation.

"Other than maybe being a great target."

...Uh.

Well, THIS conversation just took a nose-dive into awkwardness!

(Thor does not spend a lot of time dealing with self-deprecation -- at least, not the sort that doesn't come over top of plenty of solid ego of its own.

Like, you know. Loki's.)

"I see no reason why I would strike you," he assures her.

Even if he had cause for some reason, he's pretty sure he wouldn't have cause for hitting her with Mjölnir. It's really overkill for a human.

She blinks at him for quite a while at that.

"That's good to hear. I wasn't really thinking you'd hit me with it, not if you've waited this long. I was trying to joke." Clearly, her humor lacks something important in the way of actually being funny.

...Okay, if he's making mistakes like that, it's clearly time to wrap this up soon before he accidentally hurts her feelings badly or something. Thor has no desire to hurt anyone else tonight, especially someone so young and well-meaning, but he meant it when he called himself poor company.

"Forgive me," he says, as much to the lake as to Nori.

His heart is so weary.

"I am not at my best tonight."

"It's okay. I don't joke much," she says. "I kind of suck at it." Now he knows why.

At any rate, she fishes a couple of cookies out of the bag, and sets it carefully down, leaning against his ankle. "They might not help, but I don't think they'll hurt."

Thor turns his head to give her a small attempt at a smile. It's not much of one, but it does soften his face.

"The fault was not with your jest."

He bends down to fish carefully in the bag -- it's small and, to Asgardian strength, very fragile -- and selects another few koalas.

"I think it would be best if I ceased to inflict this mood on others. But I thank you," small trainee warrior whose name he doesn't actually know, "for your company. And for these small delicious sweets."

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