Page 25 of Thor

"No, of course not. The monster and its mistress have no knowledge of you. How could they? You were born a thousand years into the future from their time. No, it is the witch who will come seeking, and what she seeks is me. Even if she finds me, even if she tortures me, I will never tell her about you. I will keep you safe."

It should have sounded reassuring, and it did, but Sibyl couldn't help but worry. She'd seen documentaries about all sorts of things, and she knew everyone cracked under torture, eventually. Even thousand-year-old Norse gods.

"I think I'll head up to the store this morning, and see if I can get you that hammer," she said. As well as every box of condoms they had, so she didn't run out. "Any advice on what to do if I encounter your witch or her monster on the way there?"

"Hide," he said. "If you do not challenge them, or try to fight, they should not notice you, for you are no threat to them. So if you hide, and do not draw their attention, you should be safe."

Yep, that sounded like a good plan. The best they had, anyway.

TWENTY-NINE

"Who is this?" Thor asked, pointing at the back of Sibyl's laptop. It was a word he still didn't understand, except that it was the name of her strange device.

Her face flushed. "Um, that's Chris Hemsworth. From the Thor movies. People have told a lot of stories about you over the years, regarding you as a god, and a mighty hero. I'm sure most of them are made up, but it's possible that there's some truth in them. I mean, in the movies, Thor loses his hammer, just like you have. Twice, actually, if you count when his sister broke it in Ragnarok."

Thor started. "Ragnarok has already happened?"

Sibyl laughed. "Well, no, not really. It was the name of the movie."

"What is a movie?" So many words he did not understand. At least Sibyl had the patience to explain them to him.

"Uh, well, a movie is a story, told by actors. Sort of like a play, that has been captured and recorded..." She stopped. "You had storytellers in your time? People who would tell tales of heroes and great deeds and gods, and when they told the stories, sometimes they used different voices for the different people in the story?"

"Yes, of course." He'd enjoyed those as a child, though he hadn't heard many as an adult. Likely because the best storytellers had not survived Erik's attack on their village, and those who remained were not so skilled at such things.

"Well, if you imagine each person in the story being played by a different real person, acting out the events like they'd happened...and we have a sort of magic that can take a copy of the performance, so that anyone who has a copy can see the story, as these people portrayed it..." She looked at his face. "It's too much to explain, isn't it? A thousand years of technological advancement and even I don't know how to describe it, because I couldn't tell you how a camera works. My cousins could tell you – they've studied media at university."

Thor nodded. "Perhaps we could visit your family?"

Sibyl let out a shaky laugh. "Not without a plane and a passport. My family are all back home in Australia."

"I have not heard of this place. Is it far?"

"Only the other side of the world. Australia's in the Southern Hemisphere, near the Antarctic, while we're up here near the Arctic Circle."

Thor frowned. "How do you reach them without sailing off the edge of the world?"

Sibyl coughed. "Fuck. A thousand years of advancements, and I forgot about that one. How about we watch a movie, and I can show you that, at least? We can save the geography lesson for afterwards."

Thor nodded. "Sure."

THIRTY

Afterwards, Sibyl thought she probably should have found something set in Thor's time instead of the present day, but when she'd realised that the first Thor movie was the only one she'd actually downloaded onto her laptop, she figured it'd be funny to find out how Thor the man reacted to Thor the alien deity.

She'd even managed to hook her laptop up to one of the meeting room projectors, to give the movie a more cinematic feel.

He'd been quiet at first, just watching the opening sequence with a thoughtful look on his face, and Sibyl dared to breathe again.

Then the movie cut to a Viking village in what Sibyl imagined was Thor's time. Still he said nothing, and she hoped it wasn't too different to his reality. Well, except for the two comic book alien armies, of course. That couldn't possibly have happened.

Maybe she should go to the kitchen and see if there was any popcorn. She pulled her jacket back on, ready to brave the cold in the corridor.

Thor snorted. "The handle on that hammer is far too short. The balance on such a weapon would be terrible. You'd be more likely to drop it on your own foot than hit someone in battle."

Sibyl couldn't help but agree with him. "Not like your hammer at all. The handle on that is much longer, more like the axe we used to chop wood in winter back home. Something you can swing and do some serious damage with."

He paused to stare at her. "You have seen it."

---