Page 35 of Thor

"Sleipnir? Oh, you mean his horse? It's part of the Norse myths. Odin had a horse that could travel with unusual swiftness, on its eight legs. There are also rumours that Loki was its mother..." Even Sibyl found that one hard to believe. There were trans people in the present, but she couldn't imagine things would have been the same a thousand years ago. Hormone treatments and surgery would have been non-existent, for a start.

"Of all the details to survive for a thousand years...Loki was Sleipnir's mother, or at least the horse thought so. He found the foal beside its dead mother, and he raised it. The creature did not have any more than the normal number of legs, but he did run uncommonly fast. Loki was never much of a rider, and after the beast tossed him off a couple of times, Loki gave him to Odin. He never bucked Odin off, that's for sure."

Sibyl could only shake her head, as they walked up to the reception desk at the tiny airport that served the town.

"You are here for the helicopter, yes?" the woman behind the desk asked.

"Yes. Flying across the mountains to the archaeology dig for the university," Sibyl said. She pointed to herself and Thor. "Both of us."

She expected the woman to protest, but she just shot Thor an admiring glance and nodded. At least he'd bundled the hammer up in his cloak, instead of carrying the weapon openly.

"The pilot is ready to take off when you are. Do you have any luggage?"

Sibyl shook her head. She'd left everything back at camp.

"I tell him you are ready to go, then?"

All too soon, they'd climbed aboard the helicopter, which looked like it could easily take a dozen more passengers than just the two of them. The only time Sibyl had seen helicopters this big was up in Broome and the Pilbara, ferrying staff out to the offshore oil and gas rigs. More than big enough to take an ice encrusted body back to the lab – even if he'd been as big as Thor in life.

Sibyl had to help Thor with his safety harness, because he'd never seen anything like it before. It took her a moment to work out how to fasten her own, but the pilot was too busy doing his pre-flight checks to care much about his passengers. Also, it turned out he was waiting for a carton of French champagne that Karl had ordered. He'd been waiting a long time to find his ice man, and now he'd finally found one, Karl evidently wanted to celebrate.

The pilot handed out headphones, like they did on charter flights back home. Sibyl considered making a joke about the inflight movie, until she realised Thor didn't know what to do with his headphones, and she needed to help him before the pilot noticed anything strange about his passengers.

Takeoff was...phenomenal. She'd never been in a helicopter before, and there was so much more to see outside than through the tiny porthole windows on a plane. In fact, she was the one behaving like a first-time tourist, while Thor just sat back with a smile on his face, watching her.

That's when she realised he was used to flying, what with having wings and all.

Bloody smug Norse Hotness.

The flight was over far too soon, as the twinkling lights of the camp came into view, beside the temporary helipad they'd created with a ring of lights. Just like they did at remote site air strips back home. Only at home, the lights weren't reflected by ice and snow.

The pilot shooed them out of his helicopter, depositing the box of champagne in Thor's arms, before turning to greet the rest of the expedition team.

Four men – it was too dark to see their faces – carried what Sibyl could only describe as a body bag. It evidently took all four of them to lift it into the helicopter, and secure it to the middle of the cabin, between the rows of seats. Then they returned for a second body bag, and laid it beside the first.

Then they all climbed out, except for the pilot, and the helicopter flew off with its precious cargo.

"Let's take this to the mess tent," Karl said, taking the box from Thor.

Sibyl was surprised Karl hadn't gone with the ice mummy. It was his dream find, after all.

Lara must have thought the same thing, because when they trooped into the mess tent, she said, "What? Not flying back to civilisation with your baby to make sure they take care of him?"

Karl just laughed. "Freyja's on her way up to the lab right now. She'll take the delivery. He couldn't be in better hands. She is a doctor, after all."

Lara had already set out cups – the same ones they'd used for the mead – so Karl popped open the first bottle and started pouring.

When everyone had a glass, he raised his. "To Odin!"

They all repeated the toast, and drank. Sibyl searched the tent for Thor, but he'd vanished.

How did they know it was Odin, then, if Thor hadn't told them? And who was in the second body bag?

She sidled up to Karl. "Why are you calling him Odin? Did he have a name badge on him?" Like Thor had worn the suit with Freyja's name badge on it last night.

Karl laughed. "No. He was still too deep in the ice for us to see much of him, but he had a patch over one eye and a spear in his hand, so it seemed a good enough name for an important man. I'm sure the university will name him properly, so it doesn't matter what we call him. Ah, but your glass is empty. Let me get you more champagne! Not only will you have the hammer to research, but an entire Viking grave to investigate for your PhD! Never have we had such a successful season, and it's not even halfway through. You and Jorunn are our lucky charms."

"You mean...Jorunn found the ice mummy?"

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