The Last Days of Magic and Glory Chapter #5
In this chapter, Thor fails at diplomacy.
Chapter 5: An Incident on Misheim
Thor smiled. He had a diplomatic mission to Misheim for the next two days. Thor cared little about the treaty that allowed Asgard to mine for minerals in Misheim’s deep seas and he cared even less about the prince and princess who seemed to be fighting over who would be allowed to lay with him. They were both attractive, with glowing brown skin and bright blue eyes. Thor would be happy to lay with either if their petty jealousies did not make them unattractive to him.
No, what made Thor happy was the fact that he and the horse would be able to run down Misheim’s broad white beaches next to its emerald green sea with no council and no worried friends and no mother and father to tell Thor exactly how he wasn’t allowed to live his life.
Thor gave the horse her apple, which she ate eagerly. “Watch it,” Thor laughed. “you’re starting to get a little thick in the middle.”
The horse tried to nip him, but Thor gave her another apple anyway.
The bifrost site was in the south of the central island on Misheim, far from the Capital. They arrived alone, making Thor grin and whoop and pull off his ceremonial armor to run straight into the brilliant green sea without a stitch on him. He was sure that the horse did not care. Instead, she stood patiently on the shore, watching him with those intelligent eyes.
He had no idea how old she was, but the horse often looked at him the way Loki did when he thought Thor was not acting his age or stature. He expected a similar look, but instead the horse tossed its white mane, looking happy.
Thor swam out until the horse was nothing more than a nearly invisible white speck on the white beach, diving under to watch the strange sea creatures of this world dart in and out of the seagrass that stretched to the horizon. Thor followed a creature in a great pearlescent shell that slapped its many tentacle-limbs together to propel itself. There were great big creatures as well. They looked like underwater oxen, complete with horns, and fed lazily on the seagrass. They ignored Thor as he swam among them.
Thor was so lost in the majesty of this place that he barely noticed the powerful swipes of the great white legs that approached. Thor laughed when he saw the horse, magically divested of her saddle, swimming along beside him.
“Worried you, hey?” Thor asked, petting her nose.
She neighed.
“Oh, I suppose you were only hot?” he laughed. “Maybe lonely?”
The horse swam away from him, investigating the large underwater herbivores on her own. They swam playfully for a while, before Thor noticed that the grasseaters had moved away. Suddenly the horse was nudging him fiercely towards the shore.
“Stop that!” he snapped. “I’ll go in when I want to.”
But the horse was insistent and when he next ducked his head underwater, Thor noted that he could not see as far into the distance before the water seemed to fade into a wall of blue. Except it looked almost black. Thor’s heart began to race. He would charge into a crowd of a hundred enemies with nothing but his hammer for protection, but battle was familiar as a well-worn glove. This . . . Thor had no idea what this was.
Thor immediately took off for the shore, his strong arms and legs churning the water as he fled. He was more than halfway there when he realized that unlike her fleet-footed dash on land, the horse did not outpace him. In fact, she was nowhere to be found. Thor pulled his head out of the water, searching for the white in the sea of blue. The blackness could be seen on top of the water now, and it was approaching her.
A pang shot through Thor’s chest. She had warned him about the danger of whatever-it-was, but she did not have time to escape herself. Thor knew that if he swam, he would not reach her in time. He gasped in panic momentarily, but then remembered Mjolnir. He raised his hand and called to it. Heartbeats later it was in his hand. He used its momentum to drag him through the water to where the horse was paddling, panicked. The blackness was almost upon them now and there was no way for Thor to hold onto the large horse and let Mjolnir pull them to safety. Still, he urged the horse forwards, staring down the inky blackness and wondering what it contained.
Was it a chemical that would burn their skin? Was it a school of fish so large that it blocked out the light? Or maybe one of those tides of algae? They moved fast, but the blackness moved faster. They had almost reached the shelf where the horse, if not Thor would be able to stand, when something shot out of the darkness. It was a blur of red, as wide as Thor was tall and he had smashed it with Mjolnir before his mind had time to register that it was a tentacle - the tentacle of an undoubtedly gargantuan sea-beast.
The blackness seemed to rumble with the creature’s disquiet when Thor and the horse swam on. The horse found its footing in the seagrass the same moment another tentacle shot out, only to be hit away by the hammer. Thor pulled his head above water and was surprised to see that a few of the tentacles were above the surface now. Thor had no idea how many tentacles the creature actually had, only that they were attacking from all sides now. Thor keep one hand in the horse’s mane to let her pull him while the other wielded Mjolnir.
Swinging the hammer underwater was inefficient and left a trail of bubbles that further masked his visibility. This wasn’t working. Instead, Thor stood up on the horse’s back, swinging the hammer hard enough to shoot him into the sky and down into the blackness where the tentacles seemed to originate. For one heart stopping moment, Thor was blind, underwater, facing a beast he could not see, but then Mjolnir connected with something huge and soft and the water vibrated with the creature’s pain. A tentacle came at him, knocking the air from his lungs and for a moment Thor thought he might be drowning. But he held out a hand and grabbed on to the next tentacle that came for him. Letting it lift him out of the water when it tried to shake him off. In the frenzy, Thor could just see that the horse had made it out of the water and was neighing and kicking up into the sand frantically, distressed about him.
With the one being he cared about out of the water, Thor summoned a lightning bolt and the monster was no more.
Thor was covered in ink and monster guts when he finally landed on the shore. The horse’s formally glowing white coat had been stained a mottled grey. Thor reached out to his companion, burying his face in her neck and running his fingers through her tangled, wet mane.
Then there was nothing to do but laugh and laugh until he had no more in him.
“I suppose you’re enjoying this peaceful diplomatic mission?”
The horse did not deign to respond.
Instead, they made their way along the coast until they found a small stream, which they followed inland until it became a series of pools at the base of a small waterfall. After seeing what was in the ocean, Thor was a little apprehensive of the stream. But the water was clear and the horse placed herself under the waterfall, letting it pound the ink out of her coat.
Thor laughed. “You are fastidious for a horse.” But he joined her.
Thor left his armor off so he could dry under the sun, walking naked down the beach next to the horse.
***
As it turned out, the beast that Thor had killed was worshiped by the people of Misheim as a kind of storage vessel for all the evil in the world. To kill one was to release the evil it stored and it was considered more noble to be devoured than to harm it. Thor had to offer a good number of Idun’s apples in order to make up for the diplomatic incident. Frigga was not pleased.
“You never bother to learn anything about a place that doesn’t have to do with battle!” Frigga shouted.
“I am friendly with the ambassadors!” Thor protested. “I was listening to their every word and no one mentioned that I should refrain from killing any giant sea monsters that would attack me.”
“You don’t learn about the dangers of a place from the ambassadors who live there and are likely to take such dangers for granted. You learn from reading a book!”
“I read.”
Frigga looked skeptical. “Your father is going to be very disappointed.” She gestured to where Odin still slept, shrouded in gold.
“Let him be. I was attacked and I defended myself. Was I supposed to allow it to kill us?”
Frigga sighed, taking Thor’s hand. “I know you are young yet, but a moral decision can become immoral if one does not take the proper steps to avoid making it altogether. You cannot go smashing your way through the world with that cursed hammer simply because you cannot be bothered to think before you act.”
“Mjolnir is not cursed.”
“No, not literally. But it allows you the power to rely on your strength when you should be using your wits. Loki would never have gotten himself in such a situation.”
“No, Loki would have goaded me into that ocean so he could watch a giant sea monster try to eat me and the prince and princess turn on me.”
Frigga could not argue. In fact she looked sad that she had reminded herself of Loki’s absence. While Thor alternated between missing his brother, being happy Loki was at least being spared the monotony of court, and hating him for abandoning Thor to this, their mother had become increasingly upset. Thor tried to tell the horse that she should ask Loki to return for their mother’s sake, but Thor could never tell if the baleful look in her eyes was because she was no more capable of communicating with Loki than Thor or because Loki simply refused to return.
“Thor, my son, you are not ready for the throne and neither is your brother. I wish you could be more analytical and he could be more straightforward, but neither of you seems inclined to change. You disappointed me today.”
Her words felt like a stab to the gut, but they also made him angry. He didn’t ask for these responsibilities and his parents had hardly prepared him. They’d let the brothers be children and soldiers and mages instead of telling them useful things like the need to research a planet’s wildlife before a diplomatic mission. When Thor was busy learning to be a warrior with his friends, they could have told him then that he should be a little more like his brother. Or they should have just decided to make Loki king and punished the mischief out of him.
“I’m sorry, mother,” Thor replied, before slamming out the door from Odin’s chambers and towards the stables.
He’d saved their lives. The horse would understand.
Next Chapter: Understanding and the Lack Thereof
Chapter 5: An Incident on Misheim
Thor smiled. He had a diplomatic mission to Misheim for the next two days. Thor cared little about the treaty that allowed Asgard to mine for minerals in Misheim’s deep seas and he cared even less about the prince and princess who seemed to be fighting over who would be allowed to lay with him. They were both attractive, with glowing brown skin and bright blue eyes. Thor would be happy to lay with either if their petty jealousies did not make them unattractive to him.
No, what made Thor happy was the fact that he and the horse would be able to run down Misheim’s broad white beaches next to its emerald green sea with no council and no worried friends and no mother and father to tell Thor exactly how he wasn’t allowed to live his life.
Thor gave the horse her apple, which she ate eagerly. “Watch it,” Thor laughed. “you’re starting to get a little thick in the middle.”
The horse tried to nip him, but Thor gave her another apple anyway.
The bifrost site was in the south of the central island on Misheim, far from the Capital. They arrived alone, making Thor grin and whoop and pull off his ceremonial armor to run straight into the brilliant green sea without a stitch on him. He was sure that the horse did not care. Instead, she stood patiently on the shore, watching him with those intelligent eyes.
He had no idea how old she was, but the horse often looked at him the way Loki did when he thought Thor was not acting his age or stature. He expected a similar look, but instead the horse tossed its white mane, looking happy.
Thor swam out until the horse was nothing more than a nearly invisible white speck on the white beach, diving under to watch the strange sea creatures of this world dart in and out of the seagrass that stretched to the horizon. Thor followed a creature in a great pearlescent shell that slapped its many tentacle-limbs together to propel itself. There were great big creatures as well. They looked like underwater oxen, complete with horns, and fed lazily on the seagrass. They ignored Thor as he swam among them.
Thor was so lost in the majesty of this place that he barely noticed the powerful swipes of the great white legs that approached. Thor laughed when he saw the horse, magically divested of her saddle, swimming along beside him.
“Worried you, hey?” Thor asked, petting her nose.
She neighed.
“Oh, I suppose you were only hot?” he laughed. “Maybe lonely?”
The horse swam away from him, investigating the large underwater herbivores on her own. They swam playfully for a while, before Thor noticed that the grasseaters had moved away. Suddenly the horse was nudging him fiercely towards the shore.
“Stop that!” he snapped. “I’ll go in when I want to.”
But the horse was insistent and when he next ducked his head underwater, Thor noted that he could not see as far into the distance before the water seemed to fade into a wall of blue. Except it looked almost black. Thor’s heart began to race. He would charge into a crowd of a hundred enemies with nothing but his hammer for protection, but battle was familiar as a well-worn glove. This . . . Thor had no idea what this was.
Thor immediately took off for the shore, his strong arms and legs churning the water as he fled. He was more than halfway there when he realized that unlike her fleet-footed dash on land, the horse did not outpace him. In fact, she was nowhere to be found. Thor pulled his head out of the water, searching for the white in the sea of blue. The blackness could be seen on top of the water now, and it was approaching her.
A pang shot through Thor’s chest. She had warned him about the danger of whatever-it-was, but she did not have time to escape herself. Thor knew that if he swam, he would not reach her in time. He gasped in panic momentarily, but then remembered Mjolnir. He raised his hand and called to it. Heartbeats later it was in his hand. He used its momentum to drag him through the water to where the horse was paddling, panicked. The blackness was almost upon them now and there was no way for Thor to hold onto the large horse and let Mjolnir pull them to safety. Still, he urged the horse forwards, staring down the inky blackness and wondering what it contained.
Was it a chemical that would burn their skin? Was it a school of fish so large that it blocked out the light? Or maybe one of those tides of algae? They moved fast, but the blackness moved faster. They had almost reached the shelf where the horse, if not Thor would be able to stand, when something shot out of the darkness. It was a blur of red, as wide as Thor was tall and he had smashed it with Mjolnir before his mind had time to register that it was a tentacle - the tentacle of an undoubtedly gargantuan sea-beast.
The blackness seemed to rumble with the creature’s disquiet when Thor and the horse swam on. The horse found its footing in the seagrass the same moment another tentacle shot out, only to be hit away by the hammer. Thor pulled his head above water and was surprised to see that a few of the tentacles were above the surface now. Thor had no idea how many tentacles the creature actually had, only that they were attacking from all sides now. Thor keep one hand in the horse’s mane to let her pull him while the other wielded Mjolnir.
Swinging the hammer underwater was inefficient and left a trail of bubbles that further masked his visibility. This wasn’t working. Instead, Thor stood up on the horse’s back, swinging the hammer hard enough to shoot him into the sky and down into the blackness where the tentacles seemed to originate. For one heart stopping moment, Thor was blind, underwater, facing a beast he could not see, but then Mjolnir connected with something huge and soft and the water vibrated with the creature’s pain. A tentacle came at him, knocking the air from his lungs and for a moment Thor thought he might be drowning. But he held out a hand and grabbed on to the next tentacle that came for him. Letting it lift him out of the water when it tried to shake him off. In the frenzy, Thor could just see that the horse had made it out of the water and was neighing and kicking up into the sand frantically, distressed about him.
With the one being he cared about out of the water, Thor summoned a lightning bolt and the monster was no more.
Thor was covered in ink and monster guts when he finally landed on the shore. The horse’s formally glowing white coat had been stained a mottled grey. Thor reached out to his companion, burying his face in her neck and running his fingers through her tangled, wet mane.
Then there was nothing to do but laugh and laugh until he had no more in him.
“I suppose you’re enjoying this peaceful diplomatic mission?”
The horse did not deign to respond.
Instead, they made their way along the coast until they found a small stream, which they followed inland until it became a series of pools at the base of a small waterfall. After seeing what was in the ocean, Thor was a little apprehensive of the stream. But the water was clear and the horse placed herself under the waterfall, letting it pound the ink out of her coat.
Thor laughed. “You are fastidious for a horse.” But he joined her.
Thor left his armor off so he could dry under the sun, walking naked down the beach next to the horse.
***
As it turned out, the beast that Thor had killed was worshiped by the people of Misheim as a kind of storage vessel for all the evil in the world. To kill one was to release the evil it stored and it was considered more noble to be devoured than to harm it. Thor had to offer a good number of Idun’s apples in order to make up for the diplomatic incident. Frigga was not pleased.
“You never bother to learn anything about a place that doesn’t have to do with battle!” Frigga shouted.
“I am friendly with the ambassadors!” Thor protested. “I was listening to their every word and no one mentioned that I should refrain from killing any giant sea monsters that would attack me.”
“You don’t learn about the dangers of a place from the ambassadors who live there and are likely to take such dangers for granted. You learn from reading a book!”
“I read.”
Frigga looked skeptical. “Your father is going to be very disappointed.” She gestured to where Odin still slept, shrouded in gold.
“Let him be. I was attacked and I defended myself. Was I supposed to allow it to kill us?”
Frigga sighed, taking Thor’s hand. “I know you are young yet, but a moral decision can become immoral if one does not take the proper steps to avoid making it altogether. You cannot go smashing your way through the world with that cursed hammer simply because you cannot be bothered to think before you act.”
“Mjolnir is not cursed.”
“No, not literally. But it allows you the power to rely on your strength when you should be using your wits. Loki would never have gotten himself in such a situation.”
“No, Loki would have goaded me into that ocean so he could watch a giant sea monster try to eat me and the prince and princess turn on me.”
Frigga could not argue. In fact she looked sad that she had reminded herself of Loki’s absence. While Thor alternated between missing his brother, being happy Loki was at least being spared the monotony of court, and hating him for abandoning Thor to this, their mother had become increasingly upset. Thor tried to tell the horse that she should ask Loki to return for their mother’s sake, but Thor could never tell if the baleful look in her eyes was because she was no more capable of communicating with Loki than Thor or because Loki simply refused to return.
“Thor, my son, you are not ready for the throne and neither is your brother. I wish you could be more analytical and he could be more straightforward, but neither of you seems inclined to change. You disappointed me today.”
Her words felt like a stab to the gut, but they also made him angry. He didn’t ask for these responsibilities and his parents had hardly prepared him. They’d let the brothers be children and soldiers and mages instead of telling them useful things like the need to research a planet’s wildlife before a diplomatic mission. When Thor was busy learning to be a warrior with his friends, they could have told him then that he should be a little more like his brother. Or they should have just decided to make Loki king and punished the mischief out of him.
“I’m sorry, mother,” Thor replied, before slamming out the door from Odin’s chambers and towards the stables.
He’d saved their lives. The horse would understand.
Next Chapter: Understanding and the Lack Thereof