Thor began to stride forward towards the great twisting tower before us. “Come, Details,” he spoke, but the arrogance didn’t shift through his voice anymore. All it was, was loud.
I pushed forward, though the effort of doing so pulled me away from the details that were swirling around and through me. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to follow. I wanted to watch, I wanted to take in every feature there was.
“It will all be there when we are finished,” he intoned, “Trust me, it is forever.”
We walked along the path and up into the great tower, though through most of it I was lost in a daze. Here, here I could count the rays of the sun. The rays were trapped within each object. Each leaf of each plant, each side of each building, all was light.
Being a small-time goddess, I didn’t get to hang out much at the homes of the powerful divinities. Here I was, walking through Asgard of all places....
“Details,” Thor rumbled from my side, “Pay attention: you are about to walk into a pillar.”
I blinked up at the pillar Thor was indicating – the one I was about a centimeter from. I smiled back at it, a touch giddy.
Thor sighed heavily. “Why do you have to be the goddess of details?” he mumbled to himself. “Couldn't you be something manageable, like forests or knit wear?”
I didn't answer. I stared up at the great ceiling above us and counted the light.
As I did, I felt the divinity and power swell within me.
“Stop gorging yourself, Details.” Thor shook his head, beard glinting in the light, eyes shining. “While the pillar won't mind if you walk into it, step on father's beard, and we'll see how many details you can pull in before he stabs you with his spear.”
I laughed melodically.
I sounded like I was on drugs.
The doors before us – the gilded, arched, carved ones that depicted, in unimaginable detail, all the realms of the gods – opened. They didn’t grind, nor scratch against the floor. They flowed like breath on the breeze.
They revealed a simple room. A dark room. Black, save for a single throne in the center. On the throne sat Odin, one golden eye glinting out through the gloom.
The contrast from the room of light outside was startling.
The act of standing before a staring, hardly-amused, mostly furiously-annoyed looking Odin was sobering.
As the doors closed behind us and the light was cut off, I felt my pall of wonder close with it. I rapidly became aware of where I was and who I stood before.
I sucked in a breath though there wasn't technically air in Asgard.
Odin, sitting on his simple throne, was all I could see. He looked mad. Furious in that way that only a king of the gods can. His gaze promised some world-destroying fury and smashed-up frost giants.
“What have you done?” he asked, voice a slice through space.
I shivered and shook. My lips jutted forward, but I didn't speak a word.
Did Odin think this was all my fault? Did he think I’d somehow organized to be kidnapped by a range of sea monsters and evil gods? Did he think I’d brought it all on myself by centuries of working for the Immigration Office?
“Father,” Thor began, voice so sedate and softened I hardly recognized it.
“Thor, Zeus, Jupiter – what have you done? How did you let this happen?” Odin shifted forward in his chair, his single eye not directed anywhere in particular, but somehow directed everywhere at once.
I realized he wasn't talking to me. I slowly slid my eyes to the side to stare at Thor. His face was ashen, his gaze directed towards his feet.
“You let him escape. You had him, yet you let him go,” Odin's voice scythed through the paltry distance between us.
Loki. That's what he was talking about. Odin was admonishing Thor for letting his wayward former best buddy escape. Odin was genuinely annoyed at that. Loki had confirmed on more than one occasion that he was going to bring down Asgard – Odin included – at Ragnarok. For a god who had lived as long as Odin/Cronos/Saturn, I doubted the guy was too pleased at his impending doom.
Thor didn't answer.
“How did we let it come to this?” Odin rested one arm on the side of his throne, one on his knee, and stared down at Thor. “How have we let it come to this?” he repeated.
I had the distinct impression his words belied far more than I could imagine.
Thor lifted his chin. “I don't know,” he answered.
Odin let his own head dip, and when he brought it back up, his single eye stared fixedly my way. “Goddess Officina,” he intoned powerfully.
I nodded, but didn't answer.
He let the silence draw on for some time, enough time for me to grow powerfully uncomfortable.
“You are involved,” he said, “Beyond what I once thought.” He leaned back in his chair. “They seem to want you for some other purpose.”
“Want me?” I found the courage to speak up. The topic was one of particular importance to me, after all.
“They have plans for you,” he clarified without clarifying the situation at all.
“Plans? What plans? Who are they?” I stopped myself from flapping my hands around in a frazzle, though the sentiment was there in my high-pitched tone. Being told by one of the oldest and greatest gods of Earth that 'they' had plans for me wasn't a comfortable, peachy experience.
“The ones who are rising,” Odin mumbled, hand still resting on his knee.
Oh, those guys...? Rather than point out to Odin that his definition wasn't illuminating, I let my eyes widen.
“You, I feel, are at the center of this. They require your power to fulfill their ends,” Odin continued, his single eye glinting and sparking.
Oh... that wasn't good. It did explain the unusual number of kidnappings in my recent past, though.
I took a small swallow.
“I should have foreseen this,” Odin appeared to admonish himself. His gaze shifted from his one outward-staring eye, disappearing behind his eye patch to stare at the world within. “I didn’t. We cannot, however, let them succeed. They threaten our existence.”
This had gone way beyond me being the mildly-disliked Immigration Officer. I was just the small-time goddess of details! I didn't have magical weapons, and it took a great deal for me to muster enough strength to fight off one measly sea monster. I was hardly likely to be the center of some evil plot to destroy the gods.... Not unless it was by systematically demoralizing them every time I rejected their visa applications to do inappropriate things on human beaches.
I stared up at Odin, not wanting to point out that he had the wrong goddess here. He meant Artemis or Freya or Venus – someone who stood for something greater than a couple of details and facts.
“We cannot let them win. They will take all.” Odin sat back in his chair, though slumped was a more accurate description. His body was heavy with a great visible weariness.
Whatever could make a powerful god weary was heavy. More than enough to squash me flat.
I looked over at Thor. He seemed caught up in something. A feeling, a notion, a possibility, a potential. Some imagined circumstance was playing across his face like light playing across the surface of the ocean.
My head started to hurt again.
I wasn't good with situations like this (not that many would be all that great when it came to being stuck in the middle of god-destroying plots, apart from German philosophers). I couldn't deal with the unsaid or mysterious. I needed facts, I needed details, I needed information. I couldn't hope for a vague impression. I couldn't stand back and try to form the whole picture from the wisps of mystery that lapped all around me.
“What is going on?” I found my voice again, pressing a hand to my forehead as I spoke. “Why me? I'm a small-time goddess of details. I don't have power—“ I began.
“All have power.” Odin stared straight ahead. “In all there is the same. Every divinity is divine. We are all equal – we are all gods.”
It was a strangely so
cialist statement for a king, and it was one that didn't ring true for me. Though I did know that, yes, technically all gods were god-like, I still knew I could never hope to have as much power as Thor, Odin, or Loki.
That's when Odin closed his one remaining eye. “A god does not make themselves, they are made. The belief of their followers endows them with meaning – with power. When the belief shifts, so too does the power.”
Was Odin suggesting that, all of a sudden, the people of Earth would start worshiping details like never before? Was he suggesting there would be a sudden and explosive proliferation of weather-watching nuts or maths-loving boffins? Would people everywhere start trawling through pages of computer code and staring at each pixel of every picture their computer screens offered? Would gallery-goers start counting how many brush strokes made up their favorite art works? Would bankers nip into their vaults to count every single note by hand?
I doubted it.
“I’m just details and facts,” I tried to reason with him.
“You are neither,” Odin replied sharply, “They simply empower you.”
I gave a frustrated sigh. “I... I don't have anything that anyone would want.” I looked around the ground by my bare and dirty feet. I was still in my wet, muddy, torn PJs. I still had dirty bedraggled hair. I felt like picking it up and pointing at it dramatically and asking Odin if he thought terrible destruction-loving gods would need my power. I knew it wasn't going to work. Odin was Odin – all-powerful, all-wise, and more than half beard. I couldn't argue with him.
I didn't understand. None of this made sense. I didn't have enough facts. I didn't have enough details—
Thor put a hand on my shoulder. “I will deal with it.” He looked up at his father. “I will solve it. I will stop it before it can begin.”
As this had already begun (unless a triple-attempted kidnapping was freshening up for the main event) Thor could hardly stop it before it had started.
Then again, he was Thor and Zeus and Jupiter. He had a yacht, a magical hammer, and a greasy black suit. He also had more wisdom and power than I would like to admit.
“You must.” Odin let his eye drift up until he stared at the zenith of the ceiling. “If you do not....”
Yep, that was end-of-the-world-Ragnarok talk, even if it was dramatically veiled.
“I will stop them,” Thor intoned powerfully. “I will stop him,” he added far more quietly.
“It will not be easy,” Odin warned.
As if saving the world/universe was easy – especially when the bad guys were gods.
“I will prevail. I will be victorious,” Thor's voice rang out.
Odin's good eye seemed to lose focus, and I knew that he was returning his gaze inwards.
I felt cold, confused, heavy, sick, overcome, and a lot like I wanted to mope into a corner and drape my arms over my head until it all went away.
Thor's grip slid down my shoulder. His fingers spread wider, felt more pronounced over the coarse, wet press of my clothes.
That detail broke through the heady mess of potential hysteria. That detail shone like a light through the darkness.
While I still didn't know what was going on, this new fact lodged itself in my mind with far greater primacy and importance.
The feel, the warmth, the expectation, the meaning of his touch.
Then Thor slapped me on the back. “Time to go save the universe, Details,” he said with a note of mirth. “We better get you to a weather station before you freak out, though.”
I turned slowly to stare at him. Though it appeared that Odin was deep within himself – and therefore unlikely to snap at us to stop play-fighting in his godly throne room – I wasn't comfortable with shouting at Thor in Asgard.
Still, I dipped my head down a touch and snorted. “I still don't see what this has to do with me,” I said, tone bitter, but voice quiet.
He snorted. “You think being kidnapped by two sea monsters and three gods is coincidental?” He crossed his arms and tried to grin.
Tried.
This was mostly an act, wasn't it? No one, even if they were an arrogant, rude, and stupid triple-god, could go from having a super serious conversation about saving reality with their all-powerful dad, to joking about it several minutes later.
I could see the press of concern crumpling the corners of his eyes. I could make out the slight pitch to the corners of his lips.
“Details,” he dipped his head, “Are you staring at my nose again?” He held my gaze.
I spluttered.
He grabbed my arm. “No more games. We must go save the gods.” He began to pull me towards the door and, apparently, towards my impending doom and Ragnarok.
As he pulled me from Odin's throne room, I began to realize things had escalated. The last time I'd left the one-eyed god, I'd been forced to join Thor in a mission to find out who had nicked Odin's monstrous underground-facility sea-pet. Things had gone up a notch. It was world-saving time.
I was still stuck with Thor/Zeus/Jupiter.
I didn't resist as Thor pulled me along on our mission – I couldn't.
Chapter 9
I'd like to say that after our quick discussion with Odin, Thor changed tune. I'd like to say that after it was impressed upon him by his own ruddy father that this situation was of the important, potentially world-ending variety, that the hammer-wielding god got down to business.
I would be lying.
If I’d thought the prospect of Ragnarok was one that would put a firecracker under Thor's butt and get him at least acting, if not proactively, then I was wrong.
Sometimes it felt like the triple-god was on the wrong side of adulthood. After countless millennia of being a tough and in-charge guy, he was still growing up.
If I’d entertained a glimmer of hope that old golden beard would slick back his eyebrows and get on with saving me proper and saving the rest of the universe at the same time, I was sorely mistaken.
Instead of going straight to the Integration Office, or making an appointment with one of the wise goddesses, or booking a ticket to an oracle somewhere – we ended up in the Ambrosia.
Yep, that's right. The world was ending, I was being hunted by a trio of powerful and angry gods, and Thor sat across the table from me enjoying happy hour.
Thor chucked back another ale. He jerked his head, slamming the glass into his face, the golden ale sloshing all over his cheeks and down his beard. Rather than pool down the sides of his mouth and splatter across his clothes, the liquid disappeared the instant it touched him.
I glared at him. I sat in a large overcoat, which I’d borrowed off a passing mystery god, and had my arms tightly crossed around my middle as my eyes narrowed further every time Thor gulped back another ale. I was still in my bedraggled PJs underneath the overcoat, and they were still damp. My hair was a sandy, dirty, clinging mess that stuck to my neck and itched the skin something shocking. My feet were also bare and unclean.
Thor looked the picture of perfection. Inexpertly-drinking perfection anyway. He was still in his shiny, powerful armor. I’d suggested – being dirty and bedraggled – that both of us should find the time to change before hitting the streets and finding out who wanted to destroy the universe. Thor had grabbed my wrist and pulled me on (something he was doing an awful lot, especially when I complained about anything at all). He had assured me there was no time to change. The universe was in jeopardy and we had to save it regardless of what we were wearing.
He'd taken me straight to the Ambrosia. Fortunately, we had gone through the back door, as the sight of a giant, magical-armor wearing Nordic god and one dirty and bedraggled pj-wearing details goddess wouldn’t be a welcome sight on most city streets.
Thor was slowly gathering his entourage around him. At first, his usual drinking buddies seemed unsure about my presence at the table. They rightly thought that having the immigration officer sitting next to them would spoil some of their fun (especially if their fun consisted of recounting all
the illegal and frankly un-hilarious exploits they'd gotten up to like racing titans in diamond mines and setting off volcanoes to roast marshmallows).
I sat there, dripping, itching, and seriously put out.
What an ass.
“Details,” Thor roared, downing his two-hundredth beer. He was acting drunk, though he couldn't become inebriated (no matter how much alcohol he consumed, I doubted anything could make him stupider). “Stop looking at me like that, Details,” Thor said as he banged a giant hand down on the table and leaned in with a massive ear-to-ear grin.
All the other gods at the table cheered at the move. They would cheer at anything. If Thor declared that two plus two equals four, they would all give a rip-roaring cry of joy. If Thor declared that he was potty trained, then they'd bring the roof down with their cheerful shouts.
I let my teeth sink so far into my bottom lip I could have chewed right through it.
He pointed a finger at me. “You know what you lack, Details?”
All the other gods leaned in. The god of merriment who sat next to me hiccupping with constant laughter, leaned in so far that he jostled my arm, making my wet, sandy hair slap me in the face.
He was like an eager puppy waiting for his master to throw him a titbit. They all were – all of these gods were hanging off Thor's words as if being here with him was the best thing the universe had to offer.
“You lack imagination,” Thor said, and there was a flicker in his eye. His tone was still jovial and his words still elicited a raucous and out-of-proportion laugh.
“I lack imagination,” I repeated and shook my head. I wasn't about to point out that if these groupie-gods thought sitting and watching Thor drink beer with all the accuracy of a potato gun was rewarding, then they lacked imagination, too.
“Yes.” He leaned back, resting his hand on the table.
He looked serious.
Everyone laughed and laughed.
For my part, I let my fingers curl up until my neat nails dug neat and evenly into my palms. What a total jerk. “If I lack imagination, Thor,” I said, hardly able to unclench my jaw, “What do you lack then?”
Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) Page 14
