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"He committed a crime. He's in jail!" Erik threw his hands up as he paced around the cramped space.
"I can't just leave him there," Leila who was soaking wet and wrapped in a towel, argued.
"Why?" Asked Erik.
"He said he would tell us everything! Anything he knows, it's more than we do."
"Look! Look, It's myeu-muh!" Darcy was studying a book on Norse mythology and pointed to a drawing of a decorated warhammer.
"Where'd you find this?" Jane asked, walking over to look at the picture.
"The children's section; I just wanted to show you two how silly his story was." Erik scoffed. Jane turned the page to a drawing of Loki, god of mischief, as the other two women studied it.
"You're the one who's always pushing me to chase down every possibility, every alternative. This is the alternative. He is the alternative." Leila said.
"I'm talking about science, not magic!" Erik said, exasperated.
Leila crossed her arms. "'Magic's just science that we don't understand yet,' Arthur C. Clarke."
"Who wrote science fiction."
"A precursor to science fact!"
"In some cases, yes."
"If there is an Einstein-Rosen bridge, then there has to be something on the other side. Advanced beings could have crossed it."
"Leila," Erik sighed.
"A primitive culture like the Vikings might have worshipped them as deities." Darcy interjected.
"Yes! Yes, exactly. Thank you." Leila gestured to her.
"Mmhmm." Darcy nodded, and all three women turned to look at Erik.
He sighed, resting his head on his hands.
-
A knock at the door of Jane's camper startled both Jane and Leila, waking Leila from her sleeping bag on the floor.
Jane hurried over to the door, opening it to reveal Thor carrying Erik over his shoulder.
"Is he okay?" Leila asked, pushing herself off the floor.
Thor chuckled. "Yes, he drank, he fought. Made his ancestors proud."
"Put him on the bed," Jane pointed to her bed in the corner of the trailer.
"How'd you get out? Of jail, I mean." Said Leila.
"Doctor Selvig helped me! He said I was a colleague of his." With a grunt, Thor lowered Erik onto Jane's bed. He looked around at the messy RV. "Are these your chambers?"
The two women exchanged a look. "Well, it's more of a temporary situation." Said Jane. "Sorry, I don't usually get visitors," she began putting dishes that had been sitting in the sink away. She shot a desperate look at Leila as Thor began looking around.
"Want to sit outside?" Leila offered.
-
"It's a great place for thinking. I come out here whenever I can't sleep, or trying to recall particle data, or when Darcy's annoying me. I come up here a lot, actually." Jane said as the three of them sat close together on the roof of the office. They wrapped blankets around themselves against the cold night air.
"Here," Thor pulled Jane's journal out of his jacket and handed it to her.
"Wow... thank you."
"I know it's not everything. I'm sorry, it was all I could get."
"No, this is great! I don't have to start from scratch now."
"I'm glad."
Jane sighed. "S.H.I.E.L.D. Will do everything they can to make sure this research never sees the light of day."
"You must finish what you started. You're right." He pointed to her journal. "May I see?"
Jane handed him it, and he flipped through the pages before landing on a drawing of planets. "Your ancestors called it magic, and you call it science. I come from a place where they're one and the same thing." Thor started drawing on the page. His sketches looked like branches surrounding each of the planets.
"What's that?" Asked Leila.
"My father explained it to me like this, that your world is one of the nine realms of the cosmos, linked to eachother by the branches of Yggdrasil, the worlds tree." He continued sketching around the planets, eventually ending up with a sprawling tree connecting all of them. "You see it every day without realizing. The images glimpsed through... what is it called? Ah, the hooble telescope."
Jane chuckled. "Hubble."
"Hubble Telescope." Thor corrected himself.
The three of them laughed. After quiet settled upon them, and Thor spoke again, "so, the nine realms. There is Midgard, which is earth. Here. Alfheim. Vanaheim. Jotunheim. Asgard, that's where I come from," he pointed out each with his pencil as he went.
He continued on, until Jane yawned and got up out of her seat. "I'd better get some sleep." She headed down to where her trailer was parked.
"Thanks for getting that back for her." Leila said, "I'm actually... really glad you're safe." A breeze caused her to draw her blanket closer to her.
"Of course. You have been very kind to me, and I've been far less grateful than you deserve."
"We did hit you with a car a few times. And pepper sprayed you. Think it about evens it out," Leila chuckled.
"Perhaps I had it coming," Thor shrugged and shifted in his seat. "Leila, I have noticed something... different about you. The mortals cannot sense it, but I can."
"What about me?" The young woman quirked an eyebrow.
"May I see your pendant?"
Leila was growing uneasy. He must have seen it on accident, as it usually stayed tucked inside of her shirt. She reached up and unclasped the chain, then placed it in Thor's hand.
He turned it over in in his hands, studying it. It was simple, a silver disk with an etched tree on the front. Thor turned it over, reading the writing on the back before looking back up at her. "kan du hitta fred i evigheten."
"What does that mean?" She leaned forward in her chair. It sounded like some dialect of Scandinavian, but she wasn't sure.
"May you find peace in eternity. An asgardian blessing, usually when someone is saying goodbye to a loved one for the last time."
"Huh... it was the only thing I had with me when my parents adopted me."
"It is beautiful. The writing is Asgardian, but I am unsure of exactly where it came from." Thor held the pendant back out to her and she took it, holding it in her hand gingerly.
"I wonder where it came from." Leila ran a finger over the engraved words.
kan du finne fred i evigheten
May you find peace in eternity.
-
Big thank you to remuslupout for the beautiful new cover! I absolutely love it!!
