nexus_crossings | +1 King of Asgard

+1 King of Asgard

Thor really should have no right to be as cheery as he is right now. Mjolnir destroyed, his father dead, his eye ruined, Asgard exploded, the last of his people crammed together onto a single spaceship on their way to seek aslyum on Midgard, one cannot really say they've been having a good day, to put it mildly.

But it could be worse.

It's taken him years to fully understand what it means to sit on the throne of Asgard, and now that kingship falls to him at last, the lack of that throne doesn't bother him at all. Asgard isn't a place to rule, it's a people to guide. And even if they couldn't save all of them, those who remain are precious to him. A new start awaits them all on Earth.

Or so he hopes.

Thor strides down the corridor of the Statesman, cape billowing behind him as he navigates his way towards the bridge. Hmm. Or was it this way? It's so easy to get turned around in this blasted thing. But ah, the sound of a multitude of voices; surely this is the way.

It takes him a moment to realize that he's no longer surrounded by Asgardians, or even Korg's crew. No, the people here are of all shapes and sizes, and the sky above him suddenly opens up, wide and blue. Not on a spaceship anymore. How very strange to find himself suddenly transported across the galaxy - again - without so much as being shot through the Bifrost. His attention is caught by a familiar voice, and despite his confusion, a delighted grin lights upon his countenance to see his good friend Rogers giving prerecorded messages in his battle regalia.

Perhaps this is Midgard, then? But no, the more he listens, the more he understands. A place between the worlds, hmm. A place to seek counsel, and befriend countless warriors from across the universe. Thor crosses his arms over his chest, and contemplates what question he should ask. Something somewhat relevant to his current situation, perhaps. "If you were put in a position of power, what would you first command?"

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England? A land on Midgard he's familiar with, to his mild chagrin. "I am Thor Odinson, and I'm afraid the mess in Greenwich was at least partly my doing. Though much of it should be blamed on Malekith, of course."

"Greenwich?" Ogilvy recognizes the name Thor, and Odin, although he wonders if he is talking to the Thor, who he has read enough books to know about. If he is, he would be very confused. "Stent worked in Greenwich, not me. I've never been. I'm from Ottershaw. And who is Malekith? Don't tell me, he's with the Martians." Ogilvy doesn't know what happened in England after his attempt to communicate, but he assumes it wasn't good.

"Martians, goodness, no. Leader of the Dark Elves. They invaded two, three years ago?" Thor can't remember. Mortal time, man, it's so tiny! "Your Royal Air Force helped us fight them off. Very helpful."

Ogilvy figures that, wherever Thor came from, humans must have achieved powered flight. "So, we finally learned to fly. In my time we were still experimenting. So...who are these Dark Elves? Like fairies?" Probably not, but those are the only other elves Ogilvy knows. "I take it you aren't human, either."

"Fairies!" Oh, but he has to stifle the laugh, no matter how much he wants to. "No, evil creatures, the size of a man and Hel-bent on destroying the light in the universe. At least, they were. I think we got them all, this time around."

He's gotten used to being mistaken for human; it's quite easy, if he's not in combat. Or throwing lightning around. "I'm Asgardian. We were worshiped as gods, once. Still are in some places actually."

"Light can be destroyed?" Such a thing goes against Ogilvy's understanding of physics, but so does the apparent existence of the Norse gods. He clearly has a lot to learn about these things. "Those creatures seem unpleasant, judging from your description."

He thinks over Thor's description of his own people, which confirm his suspicions that he is talking to the Thor. "Asgardian. I'm assuming your physiology isn't human, then, despite your appearance? You're some kind of alien?"

"Its source can, yes. It's a rather long tale, of course, how they planned to do it, but suffice to say the power was within their grasp for a time. The Dark Elves are said to have been born in a darkened universe, before the birth of stars and galaxies, and to that void they wished to return. What a shame the rest of the universe is inhabited now." Thor rather likes the universe how it is. After all, he's living in it, and so are all his friends.

Alien... humans seem so fond of that word. "By your reckoning, yes. I am far mightier than any human I have ever met. Uh, no offense." Midgardians can be touchy about that kind of thing; it never hurts to be careful.

Ogilvy could only imagine why the creatures Thor described were so vicious. Maybe they were incompatible with the lit universe? "It's a pity both of you couldn't have reached a compromise, and that they were so unreasonable. I wonder if that was why the Martians attacked us on my Earth - there are only so many resources to go around, and they might not have wanted to share them."

He'd been foolish enough to think he could talk to the creatures, and that a white flag would be enough. Well, at least it couldn't be said that humans hadn't tried for a peaceful solution. The Martians were the ones who chose war.

"Some are too eager for the glory of war, heedless of the potential consequences, or simply thirsty for bloodshed." He knows that all too well, both as someone who used to be so, and from the foes he has fought - Hela, most recently of all. There is glory to be found in righteous battle, but not in unwarranted slaughter.

But call him curious. "Tell me of these Martians," he entreats the human. "Your people fought them off?"

"I...don't know." Ogilvy has a dark feeling that things probably took a turn for the worse after the incident at Horsell Common, but he wasn't there to see it. "The last thing I remember is that I was part of a diplomatic team with the goal of communicating with the Martians. They were trapped in a pit. We were unarmed, civilians and scientists mostly, with one journalist, and they attacked us unprovoked. The last thing I remember is a flash of light."

It was a safe bet after that point that, regardless of Ogilvy's hopes, the Martians were not interested in making peace with humanity. For all he knew Earth had been destroyed, and he was stranded in the Nexus.

Thor frowns a little, his brows drawing together as he listens. "And then you found yourself here, I take it." That's what the PSA at the entrance had said could happen, anyway. "The people of Midgard are spirited and tough in battle; it's possible your people could have defeated them." Not without a struggle, of course, but the same is true for most people.

Ogilvy nods. That's exactly what happened - he couldn't remember anything past that flash of light and a smell of smoke that he prefers not to think about. He has a nasty suspicion it wasn't just smoke. "I hope so. They have better technology and a higher intellect than my people do - crossing the distance between Earth and Mars is no small feat, even if their cylinders were designed for a one-way trip." They must have had permanent colonization in mind if their colonists had no way home.

No small feat, he says. Kindly, Thor manages not to laugh. Or smile, for that matter. That'd be rude. "I've not fought a Martian before, but there are few creatures that do not bleed and die like everything else. If I hear any news of these invaders, I will bring it back here."

He's on his way to Earth anyway; surely he'll find out more when he gets there, right?

"I would appreciate that. I would hate for my reckless actions to result in the destruction of humanity. Still, I don't know why they attacked us. We wanted peace. I can't see why peace wouldn't be in their interest as well as ours." Ogilvy's tone is a little bitter. Maybe the Martians just didn't know what a white flag was, or what it meant?

"How are your people different from humans? I assume the differences are physiological."

Thor may not know what these Martians are like, but he does know one thing. "Some conquerors are far more interested in spilling blood than governance." There are other possibilities, of course - plundering Earth for her resources comes to mind - but that's the one he thinks of first.

How to even begin to list the differences? "Any Asgardian trained for battle would outpace any human warrior, any day of the week. Endurance, speed, strength, longevity of life... some of us have talents you would call magic. My family is one strong in such things." Even Loki, despite his lack of blood relation. Not that that matters to Thor. Blood or not, they will always be brothers.

Edited 2018-09-05 00:04 (UTC)

Ogilvy nods. The Martians certainly had made their intentions clear to him and his team, and they paid the price for their naive behavior. It was worth trying anyway, but he should have asked to go to the Martians alone so that Stent and Henderson wouldn't have been killed.

"Magic?" Just a few days ago Ogilvy would have insisted that there was no such thing as magic or Asgardians. He was a trained scientist with a scientist's mind, and there was no room for such a thing in his worldview. But he'd also insisted that there was no such thing as Martians, and look how that ended. If nothing else, recent events have expanded his narrow perspective. "What kind of magic?"

Edited 2018-09-05 09:25 (UTC)

"Depends on the person. My mother's main talents lay in illusions, my father's in prophecy. As for me..." Blue sparks crackle around his hands, a matching electric blue glow in his eye, and high overhead, the sky darkens and rumbles with thunder. It lasts for only a moment, though, before Thor relaxes his power, himself and the sky both returning to normal in tandem.

Ogilvy is impressed, mostly because of his own curiosity about the stranger's powers. Illusions are interesting. He has some understanding of those, even if it is a very basic understanding. Prophecy wasn't something he believed in, not before now, anyway. But it is Thor's thunder powers that truly fascinate Ogilvy.

"You...can control the weather." A quick, nervous laugh. "Well, you are Thor. I wouldn't expect anything different."

Edited 2018-09-06 00:32 (UTC)

Ah, he is recognized! A proud smile is on Thor's lips immediately, though he suspects this particular fan will not be asking for a selfie. "Mostly the lightning," he clarifies, which is about as humble as he's going to get, to be honest. "But any storm I command would come with rain and wind, yes."

Ogilvy's nervous smile turns into an outright grin. "I'm not an expert on mythology, I'll have you know, but I read a lot when I was a boy. The tales of Asgard weren't unfamiliar to me. Never knew about the part about you coming from space, though."

"Yes, that part seems to have become forgotten over the centuries," Thor agrees easily, pleased to see the nervousness leave Ogilvy's posture. Having people awed of him is one thing. Fear is an entirely other matter, and after seeing what evils Hela reveled in, Thor never wants anyone but his mortal enemies to fear him.

"Or perhaps it was not understood in the first place. Midgard's come a long way since the Jotun War, as have its people."

"It's 1900 in my world, when I left," Ogilvy explains. "We've come some way, though we're nowhere near as far along in technology as you must be. I'm assuming your magic has a physical basis - I'm a scientist. Until recently, I didn't believe in magic at all." He still wonders if there's a more down-to-earth explanation, but he isn't sure how that would work.

"Jotun War?" Ogilvy's curious again at the unfamiliar word. "Who are Jotuns? Are they from space, too?"

An unsurprising conclusion to draw - Jane had been much the same, and Thor gives a similar answer. "What you call science, your ancestors would have called magic." It may not be a satisfactory answer, but Jane was never satisfied with his explanations either, her frame of reference too different from his own to fully reconcile happily.

It's quaint, isn't it, how humans so often refer to things as being 'from space' as if their own planet was not. Thor smiles at the thought, not so much at the subject of discussion. "Frost giants, from the realm of Jotunheim. They invaded Midgard fifteen centuries past, starting with a land called Norway. My father led the charge to repel them from your borders."

Ogilvy didn't understand the Martians' technology, either, but maybe humans would get a chance to study it in the future. He had hoped they would choose to share their wondrous technology with humankind, but that didn't happen, of course. It was a terrible disappointment, since Ogilvy had believed humans and Martians could teach each other.

"I suppose your ancestors must've made an impression on us if we wrote stories about you and thought you were gods." Ogilvy wonders if there was only one interacton between Thor's people and humankind. Probably more than one - Thor seemed familiar with Ogilvy's people. "Before the Martians came, we hadn't met people from other planets in my country." He was honestly surprised the Martians chose Surrey. His guess was that it was chance, though they easily could have landed in the Channel or the Atlantic Ocean instead.

"I should hope so!" Thor says with a laugh. "Having legends to reference, misinterpreted as they might have been, made proving my identity much easier several years ago. Our long absence led many to believe we never existed, but I don't think your people would have advanced so far with us looming over them." No, that kind of direct rule is far more dictatorial than Thor's liking.

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