st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

(no subject)

Thor was accustomed to stressful situations. You didn't get to be his age without having more than your fair share of life events that sent you spiraling headlong down a cliff.

In Thor's case, sometimes quite literally.

Life at the inn had proven to be significantly less stressful than life back home. Sure, Thor was restless much of the time (he had, after all, routinely traversed the galaxy via ship or Bifrost), but for the most part he found himself enjoying the mundane and relishing in the calm of it all.

That calm had been disrupted by specters from the past and future.

Thor hopes that he isn't disrupting Corbie's calm when he raps on the door to his neighbor's room.

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"I'm glad," Thor says, smiling lightly. He's relieved the experience went well for her. "I got to see my mother. Probably not as strange as seeing yourself, though."

Corbie sat up a little straighter. It had indeed been strange--among other things she wasn't ready to think of herself as a parent--but hell with that. "How'd that go?"

"Good," he says. "I had not expected to see my mother again until I died and stepped through the gates of Valhalla. Seeing her again was one of the greatest gifts I could have asked for."

Thor exhales.

"She saw Loki, too, though his visit with her wasn't as pleasant."

Not sure what else to offer, Corbie only said a soft, "I'm sorry," and leaned in, ready to listen.

Thor offers Corbie a small, encouraging Really I'm okay kind of smile.

"The Loki here now is from the Loki from my past. He's already dead where I come from. Mother took him to see what led up to that and he really believes that it was all part of some plan he doesn't know about yet."

Corbie frowned faintly, her head tipping to one side. "Plan?"

"I don't know," Thor says, briefly steepling his fingers over his nose. "My brother was killed by this madman named Thanos. I told him what happened and it sounded like he was going to do things differently, but now..."

For a moment, it doesn't make sense as to why he's telling Corbie, of all people here, but then it does. Loki refuses to listen. Steve doesn't know anything about any of this yet. Tony and Quill are both messes right now themselves.

Corbie made sense in the way no one else did.

"If he remembers, he plans to stay course. If he doesn't remember, he'll die just as well. There's no way for me to stop him."

What the hell did you say to something like that? Corbie knew that changing the timeline where he'd come from was a goal of Thor's, that it was something he was dedicated to.

Apologizing seemed small and thin. Wordlessly she reached out and lay her hand on his knee, giving it a squeeze.

"Thank you," he says, setting his hand on top of hers. "I guess I just needed to say it. Loki was always going to do what Loki wanted to do. I should just be grateful that we have more time."

"Should don't make it that easy, though." If feelings worked based on what reaction a person should have, the world would make a lot more sense. Corbie had never had such luck bringing her emotions to heel.

Edited 2018-12-31 20:05 (UTC)

"You're right." Thor offers Corbie a weary smile. He gives her a few pats on the hand. "You said you weren't sleeping well?"

Corbie gave a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a nod. "It's been busy. Met a ghost of me, and my grandmother, and... well, someone from Mildmay's past." That was not her story to tell. "And Mildmay's very sick."

Thor hums at Corbie's response and presses the back of his hand to Corbie's forehead.

"You don't feel warm, at least."

Corbie's eyes fell closed under that touch and she let out a long breath. "Yeah, I feel okay. Just tired. It's almost good to be tired, though, means I'm actually doing something around here for a change." Nothing like finding out that your only remaining family was definitely going to die no matter what you did. She could hardly complain. Mildmay should pull through just fine, just... she knew from experience how rough it could be.

"I understand the feeling." Thor looks up at the ceiling. "This place feels more like a prolonged vacation than anything."

Thor's thoughts inevitably wander back to Loki. Try as he might, whenever he tries to find something to distract himself with, his thoughts always seem to trail back to his brother. Thor had been considerably more successful at distracting himself from these thoughts when Quill was the only one he knew here.

"Prolonged vacations are very confusing," Thor says. "I traveled to all kinds of worlds, but it was never really to really to sightsee or relax."

That'd changed a little in the past few years when he had more of an excuse to stick around Earth for awhile.

Corbie had no experience of vacations at all, really. That was something rich people did. Her station in life, people worked six days a week and went to church on the seventh, rinse and repeat until you either died or got too old and infirm to keep working and hopefully had family to take care of you. "It can," she ventured, trying to find a way to skirt around the direct question, 'Are you all right?' which she didn't think he was about to answer, "leave a body feeling awfully unmoored."

"When you're protector of the Nine Realms, you spend a lot of time doing things that aren't drawing or cooking."

Mostly it was fighting and searching for Infinity Stones.

"It will be something to bring back with me, though. Not sure how much use I'll get out of either one of them."

Corbie's brow furrowed faintly. "'Cause you won't have time or 'cause they're not necessary?"

Thor hums, thinking.

"Both, probably."

Probably more of the former than the latter.

Corbie hesitated, pressing her lips together in thought. And then she figured what the hell, may as well take that stab. She got up and sat herself next to Thor on the couch, grabbing his hand and leaning in to rest her cheek on his shoulder. "It's not all for nothing, even if nothing changes when you get back."

And whether she meant Loki or Thor's newly acquired skills or both... well. She left it open to whatever he needed it to mean.

Corbie's cheek, pressed against his shoulder is a welcome comfort.

"I need to believe there's some reason I was brought here," he says. "Why I come from a time much later than everyone else. If things can be changed, that's reason enough."

"Why?" she asked softly.

For Corbie the idea that she was here for a reason was actually rather painful. Why take her away from not just her time and place but her whole world to come to a place where she was always two steps behind, where her goddess may or may not be able to hear her anymore, and where she might well never see Felix again? It was too much.

"Before I arrived here, some things happened. Some really not great things. Worse than Loki dying."

After Asgard was destroyed, Thor had thought that nothing could be worse than Loki dying, but he was wrong.

"If I'm not there, trying to change what happened, I need to believe that I'm changing things here and now."

Edited 2019-01-02 06:00 (UTC)

I need to believe.

How often had Corbie heard those words, from other prostitutes, from soldiers, from her gran, from students, from people she met in church. People who had hit a low they'd never known was there and trying to pick themselves back up. With any of those others, particularly back home, Corbie had always been able to fall back on faith. But what did you say when the person you were talking to was a god?

Who or what did gods turn to when their faith faltered?

That was a potentially terrifying question and Corbie probably wouldn't have the nerve to really look at it for a while.

In any case, she saw no advantage to rushing her answer. So she took her time, thinking about what those soldiers had needed when they'd paid their way into her company. "Could be," she said, "that all of you having this time together, where you don't have to worry about fighting and dying, that's the changing. People can only do so much and go so far before they just need a fucking break so they don't burn out. Time with people and things they love. Sure, people can and do keep going when they gotta, and that sounds like your lot, but... if you're here for a reason, could be an extended vacation with the people you care about is what you need."

Thor thinks of the Sweet Rabbit, who had expressed similar sentiments on their way to Nidavellir. Rocket here didn't remember him; he didn't know Thanos, never met Thor, and Thor felt sad and happy for this at the same time.

"I wish I could feel that way," he says, "but I'd give up my blissful life here with everyone here if I could just go back and kill Thanos."

Corbie squeezed his hand. "I believe it. But if lessons and meaning worked that way, life'd be almost simple." Not easy, never easy. But simple.

"You're right."

Thor turns his hand around so he can wind his fingers through hers.

"Thank you."

Corbie blinked up at him. "You're welcome?" She wasn't entirely sure how she'd helped, but if she had...

"It's nice to talk about it with someone who isn't directly involved," he says, looking at her. It's true.

He lets go of her hand, pats it a few times, then smiles.

"Yeah." Corbie gave him a shy little smile. "Then I'm glad I could help."

Edited 2019-01-04 00:49 (UTC)

"I should get back to the room," he says. "Loki was not the only one to be visited by ghosts and take it badly."

Tony had, too.

Corbie nodded. So many people were on edge right now, skeletons tumbling out of closets, future shadows looming over their present lives. For Corbie specifically, There was still a long, ugly talk that she and Mildmay were probably going to need to have once he was well enough to sit up and sustain a conversation. If Jackson ever let her, she'd probably have to talk to him about his ghost, too. "I don't know what it'd be, but if there's anything else I can do..." she shrugged. "Well. I might be in Mildmay's room, but I'm around."

"You know where I'll be too," he says, tilting his head to the wall he shares with Corbie's room.

And with that, Thor heads heads to the door and back to his room.

What he said had been truthful. He did feel better talking to someone who wasn't directly involved; there was no need to be as careful with his words and feelings around someone who wasn't part of it.

He just hopes the same thing isn't going on for her and Mildmay.

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