(no subject)

[mjolnir_retriever]

Loki is settled, and Thor is --

is --



Thor has too many feelings roiling inside of him for calm, and nothing at all productive to do with them. And the longer that's the case, the less easily he can keep all those feelings inside, and keep a calm head for everything needs to be done. He knows this. He's been ready to punch something, to batter the world into a better shape, since Loki in Hal Monmouth's flu-ridden body first croaked brother? from the floor.

So.

There's a thunderstorm outside: boiling clouds, lashing rain, lightning leaping from cloud to cloud. And there's an Asgardian inside, roaring.

Later, when the rain has slowed (but not yet stopped), and the clouds have lightened (but not yet parted), Thor is sitting on a rock on the far side of the lake, well away from the bar and easy passersby, slumped with his forearms on his knees and his head bowed. He'll straighten up if anyone comes by, and he'll go in soon, but -- not quite yet.

[OOC: IMDB flu-related, though Thor himself is not currently suffering from it. Open to threads either when he's in the storm or after, but when he's in the storm he's not likely to respond much or at all, so it might be just a reaction post kind of deal. Afterwards, he'll respond to friends, but non-friend threads will probably be quite short, though they're still welcome if you want to take your chances.]

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

That was an excellent storm! The sort of thing a person doesn't mind being soaked by!
Or at least the kind of thing Bahorel doesn't mind being soaked by; it only improves the point of Getting Outside to Clear the Head. A storm like that is like shaking off a headache, even if everything is still rainy and gray.

--Oh, but there's someone who's not at all gray, even in this weather. Thor would probably stand out in the catacombs; he's certainly obvious here. And obviously in a lower mood than Bahorel's ever seen on him, too. Hell, that probably explains the storm.

Bahorel won't push. Sometimes a mood needs letting alone, and he knows it. But Thor's a friend, as Milliways goes, so he goes over to see if company is wanted or not.

[mjolnir_retriever]

See, this is one reason why Thor and Bahorel get along so well. He appreciates the good head-clearing capabilities of a storm properly!

Sometimes, there's more to clear out than other times, though.

He's preoccupied by his thoughts enough that it takes him a little while to notice Bahorel's approach. Thor is in any case not the kind of warrior with hair-trigger, wary hypervigilance -- he's not physically vulnerable enough for that -- and Bahorel has no powers that would trip his other senses. But still, he does notice before Bahorel reaches him. His head lifts; his back straightens automatically, his shoulders square, he takes up space like Odin's son again.

But he doesn't try to put any kind of mask on his face. That's not who he is, and it never will be, and Bahorel's not a subject who might need their prince and commander to be cheerful and strong for them. So he just waits, watching Bahorel approach, without a sign of welcome but without a sign of unwillingness, either.

He's heavy company right now. But that's obvious.

(He's also nowhere near as soaked as Bahorel, despite having been literally in the middle of the thunderclouds, and still being just as actively rained on. It's not that he doesn't get wet, it's just that his clothes shed it and his hair seems to just end up photogenically damp without plastering to his forehead or anything. Asgardians, geez.)

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel nods greeting, when he's near enough. "What's going on?" He doesn't bother to ask *if* something's wrong. That would be inane."Something at home, or--?" He makes a gesture to take in Milliways generally, not without concern; anything that could happen in Milliways to put Thor in a mood bodes poorly for the less godlike residents.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Don't worry! Loki around near the less godlike residents is probably totally fine!!

...Thor hasn't gotten that far yet. It helps that Loki is currently acting relatively benign, and is currently trapped in a magicless human body, and also is swooning gently sideways with fever every so often.

He breathes out, and looks away, across the lake.

"There's an illness. Do you know of it? It sets aside a person's mind, for a time. Instead another's consciousness reflects into their body, even from across the cosmos."

Such a simple thing, when set out like that. (You know, if you're Asgardian.) Nothing like ordinary, but comprehensible enough. More so than all the sniffling and nose-blowing, frankly.

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel frowns for a moment, thinking. " You mean-- people suddenly acting like someone else, different memories, different expressions, all that?" He thinks about it a little more, and considers Thor's description. "--Sets aside their mind--that's a good way to put it. I've seen it here, yes, though it's been- a year? Two? Since it touched anyone I knew well enough to be sure it was illness." People come and go in Bar all the time; even those who live there can't be certain if any passing patron's acting strangely because they're ill, or because they're truly a different person. But Legle acting for all the world like a stranger to his friends-- that was impossible to miss.

[cutting_edgex23]

X looks up, rain and storm winds lashing her face and hair.

There's a moment of quick internal discussion, and then she turns blue as flame, launching herself skyward with deceptive ease.

Thor helped the Enigma Force once. Perhaps it's time to see if it might return the favor.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Thor turns, in the heart of the storm, watching the blue flame streak up towards him. X, and the power she bears inside her. His face is wet; it's mostly rain.

(A power inside her, that comes out at times, in partnership -- no. It won't answer. He knows that. Loki is not that good at sharing. And who would want to be trapped in a frail human body, without the magics he takes such joy in, only emerging into the sunlight now and again? It works for the Enigma Force, but it won't answer here.)

X knows him, has seen him brought low, has fought by his side and showed him pieces of her world. She's the dearest comrade he has in Milliways. He offers no apology for his poor company right now, no greeting. Only waits, in the lashing storm, for X and Captain Universe to approach to whatever extent they plan to.

[cutting_edgex23]

A small space of calm air accompanies X, though she -- or the Enigma Force -- keep it contained to the space just around their body. It makes things -- easier.

"Thor."

There's a slight overtone to his name, just this once.

"You will want company? Or we can wait. For you."

A pause.

"To want company."

[mjolnir_retriever]

He could keep track of her -- of them -- in the storm anyway, if he were thinking about it. It's a storm of his own. But with that bubble of calm air, and the winds that skim aside for it, there's no thought needed. It's a beacon as bright as that blue star-scattered flame.

"I would gladly ask your counsel, my friend," he says.

"But calm is far from me now."

That's not telling them to go away. That's just, you know, a probably unnecessary warning of how this conversation is likely to go, and that if either of them wants a calmer one, holding off a while on the talking thing is going to be a better bet.

The way lightning keeps crackling all around him is probably also an indication in that direction, though.

[run_barry]

Barry Allen is not afraid of lightning (or so he tells himself now), but having just awakened from a coma that he was put into by being struck by lightning, and having just faced off against someone who could control the stuff (along with other weather effects), he's understandably wary as he watches the storm from the back porch.

The booming thunder heard from inside is what drew him out, and the dazzling display has kept his attention raptly on the sky. His mouth is hanging open because he's absolutely positive he sees a man up there amid the flashing storm.

When the figure descends from the clouds Barry doesn't think twice, he races over to where the man sets down; traveling across the expanse and around the lake in almost no time.

A streak of lightning marks his approach and Barry skids to a stop in the wet grass a few yards from Thor. Cautiously he regards the man, working his throat several times before finding his voice.

"Are you-- are you okay?"

[mjolnir_retriever]

--Whoa hey hi kid.

(There's some kind of power going on there. Nothing familiar, and nothing overwhelmingly strong, but something that tickles the edge of a sense and makes Thor look over right as Barry skids to a stop. Right before, really, but that's by human reaction times; Thor does not have super speed.)

"No," he says, because Thor is a direct kind of guy.

"But it's not a matter for easy remedy."

It... hasn't actually occurred to him that Barry might be worried about him in a lightning strikes and plummeting from the sky kind of way. He's Thor! He's fine! And physically he does look entirely fine, huge and whole and standing tall with a massive hammer in his hand. If there's still some electricity crackling around Mjölnir and the fist that holds it, it doesn't seem to bother him. But his eyes are red-rimmed, and he really doesn't look like he's been having the best day ever.

[OOC: Let me know if you don't want Thor picking up power from him, and I can edit! Thor's senses are not the most highly attuned for this kind of thing, so I'm happy to be vague and to adapt to however you want to play it.]

[run_barry]

The 'no' widens Barry's eyes a bit and he starts looking the man over for injury, wondering if he could even carry this dude if it came to that.

Thor's bearing, though, and the lack of signs of injury clue Barry in that maybe he's not hurt, but the other kind of not okay.

"I saw you up there, in the lightning," he says, gesturing up while his eyes flick down to the big whopping hammer that still seems to be sparking.

"Is there... anything I can do to help?"


[ooc: No worries! That's perfectly fine with me. ^^]

[mjolnir_retriever]

"Not unless you know something about the transference of minds."

He might! You never know.

Yep, that big whopping hammer sure is big, whopping, and acting like a cartoon electrical socket.

[buh_bye]

There is Death standing below the storm looking up disapprovingly, well this version of him. It isn't his true form and of course, but who knows other powerful beings might be able to see it, or sense it.

He's always so baffled at the need for these children to throw such tantrums.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Yeah, well. Thor and Death have different attitudes towards a great deal, including (but not limited to) emotional expression.

Does Thor notice him? Sure. Milliways has plenty of powerful people, but so does Asgard. He notices the bright spot of power down on the ground below him.

Does Thor care? Nnnnot so much right now, no.

Lightning sears the sky, and thunder roars, and rain lances down to strike the already sodden ground. Thor is up in the storm.

[buh_bye]

Well, of course they have differing views, Death is so much older than most of the other patrons here. You know, being one of the oldest things in existence in his own world.

His true size is comparable to skyscrapers, depending on how high up the storm is his head might be somewhere up there. Though for the most part, he keeps his form compacted into the one he presents to humans. A giant pair wings move in the rain as a hand opens a black umbrella that his human for just happens to have.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Okay.

Have fun with your walk in the rain, Death! Whether your head is getting rained on at human level or up in a stormcloud, it's all the same to Thor, right now.

He's kind of preoccupied.

[livinginmyglass]

Viola has no reason to connect the rain to the blond man sitting beside the lake, but she knows the posture of someone in distress. She approaches as loudly as she can squelching through the wet ground, spattering mud up onto her stockings, breaking twigs as she steps on them-- to give him warning of her approach, time to tell her to go if he'd prefer not to be disturbed.

But if he lets her get close enough, she says tentatively, "My lord?"

[mjolnir_retriever]

Thor is not the hypervigilant kind of warrior -- he is, frankly, a little too impervious to most physical harm for that kind of alertness in most situations -- and she has no aura of power to alert other senses. And he's more than a little preoccupied.

So Viola gets closer than she might otherwise, before he notices. But still, he spots her in plenty of time to... not look over, and neither welcome her nor warn her away.

When she speaks, though, he does look over.

It's a human kid who... was talking to Loki while Thor was at the bar, actually. Hmm.

He's not putting on a mask of good humor or anything, but he does dredge up some reserves of courtesy. Lordliness comes with it, automatic and unthinking: his head lifts, his back straightens, his shoulders go back, and he sits once again as if this rock on the Milliways lawn is a throne, and his by right. "Yes?"

[livinginmyglass]

She can't help but bow in the face of such a pose. She doesn't know who he is at all, but his high status is so plain.

"My lord," she says. "I wondered if I might speak to you of-- of a friend of mine and, I think, of yours. Of he who beareth Henry of England's face, but the mind, if he told me true, of one called Loki, and well known to you."

She thinks they're family from what Loki said, but without Loki's actual face or voice to judge by, she doesn't want to assume.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Thor's never going to demand this kind of deference, at Milliways. No one here is his subject, nor owes him any fealty.

But he's also perfectly comfortable with it. If the kid wants to bow and use titles and courteously deferential speech, Thor is not in the least discomfited to be on the receiving end, and he can be graciously lordly all day long.

"Speak thy thought," he says, and if he's bracing himself it doesn't show; he says this gently.

His eyes are red-rimmed, and it may or may not be only rain on his face. But his face is calm and his voice is level and his back is straight, and he shines, clean and gleaming, here among the mud.

[mergich_singer]

There's a barefooted woman in a long, rosette-spotted fur coat, hood up against the remnants of the rain.

(She could have stopped it, or at least re-routed it around her, but the end of a rain storm isn't so bad. And if someone wanted it to be here this badly, they may as well see it through to the end.)

She walked over the mountains to get here, and so her path takes her past the man slumped by the lake.

[mjolnir_retriever]

They've met, right? Thor has a vague recollection. He's good with names and faces -- centuries of diplomatic training, not to mention being inherently very much a people person -- but he's more than a little preoccupied by his own thoughts right now.

So he notices her, certainly.

And he's not going to tell her to go away, or anything, but all the same he's not going to be the first to green anyone right now. She can come closer, if she likes, or she can pass on by; that's up to her.

[mergich_singer]

She gives him a look over with those very, very blue eyes.

(Yes, they've met. Once.)

"That was a very impressive storm."

Amusement is lurking, very faintly, behind her words.

[mjolnir_retriever]

Thor's own eyes are blue, and like everything about him, are subtly more color-saturated than his surroundings or a human being's. Still, there's nothing specifically magic about the color. Hers may win out.

And more metaphorically, there's not a lot of brightness going on in his spirits right now.

He inclines his head slightly, in weary acceptance of the compliment and its accuracy. (Thor is not a man for false modesty. And he's not feeling particularly arrogant just now, but to say that he's capable of making an impressive storm is, he feels, rather like saying that rain is wet.)