milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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"It's true, they have," Ellen admits. "And this one-"

She draws the sword, the better to show him. It's not the kind of blade you can lay across your two hands, because while it's a fairly down-to-earth straight blade, forty inches from blade tip to hilt, it's also quietly shimmering and occasionally crackling with electricity.

"This is the weapon I used to take down the man who threatened Lord Ashur's daughter," she says. "It was a gift from a Scribe of the Brotherhood, who thought I should have a respectable weapon."

Crackling quietly with electricity is totally a bonus in Thor's book.

We bet you're all very surprised by that.

"A wise scribe," Thor says approvingly.

It's important to know the value of a good weapon! And to know that a valiant warrior needs one.

"And a respectable weapon in truth. Has your sword a name?"

"Not yet," Ellen says, holding it up to consider it. "It feels like it should, though. I've never had to name a weapon before- they've either had names already when I got them, or they were So-and-so's-gift."

If it still exists, anywhere, she's pretty sure she'd recognize Chief Harkness' plasma rifle at a glance.

"I've tried to think of something, but I"m not doing very well with it."

Thor nods.

"In Asgard," he offers, "a weapon may be named for the giver or source, or for how it strikes, or anything else noteworthy in its description or its history. Or in aspiration, as with your own Mjölnir, to honor a legacy or goal."

"Mjölnir you would call Crusher in your tongue, I think." Well, in the Allspeak, so presumably it'll translate to whatever she speaks. "The hammer you gave me I named Bylta -- a heavy fall, for it strikes well, and it came to me unexpected and from a ship in orbit."

Ellen smiles. "It sounds like a good name," she says. "I know you probably won't have much use for it now that you have your own Mjölnir back-"

(She's trying to get the pronunciation right. Really, she is.)

"-but it still sounds like a good name."

She considers the sword again for a moment. "This was m built to imitate a sword that Scribe Cancio had only ever read about in historical documents. There hasn't been another blade like it built in two hundred years. The original belonged to a general named Jingwei, who they called the Demon of Anchorage. I carried it for a while, before the- before Mox and Xur's masters kidnapped me. This one feels very similar, although the balance is a little different, and there's not two hundred years of history to it." Her mouth twitches. "I admit, I use it almost as much to light my way in the darkness as to fight. Better to have the edge ready if something lunges at you out of the black, you know? There's got to be a name in that somewhere."

It's not Thor's place to offer names, unless she asks it. But his smile is faint, and real.

"Yes. There will be names to find, with such a history and such use."