"I didn't expect you to recognize me, Heimdall," Luna said, a hint of genuine surprise in her voice as she glanced up at the towering gatekeeper.
"After all, how could I forget?" Heimdall replied confidently, tapping his golden, jewel-like eyes. "A group of formidable warriors emerged from among the fragile mortals, rivals to Asgard's greatest champions. You have changed much, but my eyes see truths even the All-Father cannot."
"I can sense that despite ascending to a demigod, your physical vessel is incredibly frail. Why have you come to Asgard in such a state?"
"If I were in my prime, would you be speaking to me this politely?" Luna mocked, a sharp edge to her smile. "Besides, whenever Asgard throws a tantrum, you inevitably drag Earth into the crossfire. As a resident of that planet, do I not have the right to visit the source of the problem?"
"It is not an outcome we desire," Heimdall explained, his stoic expression shifting into slight discomfort. "But your world is unique. As the central anchor of the World Tree, Midgard's strategic value is absolute."
"Alright, I'm glad you two are catching up," Thor interrupted, stepping between the ancient beings to cut the conversation short. "But can you save the reunion for later?"
Cradling the unconscious Jane tightly against his chest, Thor turned and sprinted toward the gleaming golden palace in the distance.
Thanks to Thor's status as the crown prince, Jane was immediately given the highest medical priority.
Half a dozen royal healers surrounded the astrophysicist. They utilized Asgard's seamless, incomprehensible blend of quantum technology and arcane machinery to run a comprehensive diagnostic scan on her body.
At that moment, an old man with one eye and a flowing white beard strode heavily into the medical wing.
He wore gleaming golden armor, but his steps were noticeably sluggish, and his posture was slightly hunched with age.
Despite his physical decline, Ethan Hunt could instantly feel the crushing, ambient pressure radiating from the man. It was the absolute, unquestionable majesty of the Lord of the Nine Realms.
Odin marched directly up to Thor. He glared at the mortal woman lying on the examination table with undisguised impatience. "@#...%￥@#?"
"What the hell?" Ethan blinked, instantly bewildered the moment the king opened his mouth.
"That is the common tongue of the Nine Realms," Luna explained quietly. "Odin is the All-Father; he certainly knows more Earth languages than Thor or Heimdall combined, but this is Asgard. He expects others to understand him."
Ethan nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. "I just thought..."
"Thought what? That the entire universe miraculously speaks English?" Luna rolled her eyes at Ethan. "You watch way too many movies."
She walked over to Ethan and reached up, standing on her tiptoes.
"Why are you standing up so straight? Squat down," Luna ordered.
After two failed attempts to reach his forehead, Luna puffed her cheeks out in annoyance and kicked Ethan squarely in the shin.
Ethan sighed and obediently bent at the waist. Luna extended a delicate finger and pressed it directly against the center of his brow.
Instantly, Ethan felt an invasive kinetic force pierce his mind.
Before he could even analyze the directional vector of the sudden energy spike to block it, the sensation detonated inside his skull.
A torrential flood of alien syllables, phonetic structures, and linguistic syntax was violently branded into his cerebral cortex.
"Is this... a language?" Ethan groaned, shaking his head to clear the intense vertigo. The sheer density of the downloaded data had left his brain throbbing.
"The common tongue of the Nine Realms. You just need to spend a few minutes digesting it," Luna explained casually.
"Damn, that's incredibly convenient," Ethan muttered, his headache fading as he looked at Luna with a sudden, eager spark in his eyes. "So knowledge can just be forcefully downloaded into a brain? Think you could do this for my physics and calculus exams?"
"Don't push your luck," Luna scoffed coldly, instantly shattering his hopes. "Memorizing a dictionary lets you read the words, but memorizing a textbook's formulas won't make you a mathematician. You still have to do the actual processing yourself, Ethan."
"She is a fragile mortal with a fleeting lifespan," Odin's voice suddenly translated seamlessly in Ethan's mind. "She does not belong in Asgard, just as a common goat does not belong at a king's banquet."
"Thor... who is this?" Jane groggily asked, finally blinking awake on the diagnostic bed.
The first thing she saw was a grumpy old man in gold armor pointing fingers at her and speaking an aggressive, alien dialect.
Before she could even ask for a translation, the old man's harsh words suddenly converted into perfect, insulting English inside her head.
While she was initially shocked by the telepathic translation, the sheer arrogance of his words quickly ignited her temper.
She was dating the Prince of Asgard, for God's sake. Couldn't these aliens show her a shred of basic respect?
Jane decided she needed to establish some boundaries. She wanted to prove she wasn't some pushover; Cinderella had her own dignity, too.
"Excuse me, but this is a private matter between me and Thor," Jane said, sitting up and glaring defensively at the old man. "Who are you to interfere with us, and why are you talking about me like that? Just who do you think you are?"
She felt proud of the delivery. It was assertive, established she wouldn't be bullied, and set a firm boundary. Perfect.
The old man stared down at her, his single eye entirely unamused.
"I am Odin," he boomed, his voice echoing with absolute, terrifying authority. "The All-Father, King of Asgard, Protector of the Nine Realms, and the father of that idiot boy you are dating!"
Jane froze, the blood draining from her face. 'Oh my god.'
The entire medical wing plunged into a suffocating, awkward silence.
Thankfully, Thor stepped forward to run desperate interference. "Father, please. There is a volatile, parasitic substance inside her. I need your help to—"
"Her world has its own healers," Odin interrupted coldly, waving a dismissive hand. "Send her back and let them deal with it."
"That won't work, Odin," a childish voice chimed in.
Luna stepped out from the background, her presence instantly shifting the heavy tension in the room. "I'm afraid you are the only one who can extract this sickness from the girl."
"You are a guest, and I welcome you to Asgard," Odin began, turning his hardened gaze toward her. "But this matter is—"
Odin abruptly stopped speaking. His lone, wise eye widened in a rare display of genuine shock as he analyzed her ambient energy signature.
"That aura... You are Selene," Odin breathed, his posture stiffening. "And you have ascended. You are a demigod."
"I am," Luna replied, her expression turning complicated as she looked up at the aging king. "But you are a shadow of the man you once were, Odin. You've grown old."
It was a brutal truth. The Goddess of the Full Moon, Selene, was an identity Luna had used millennia ago.
Back then, the gap in their status had been astronomical. Odin had just crushed the Frost Giant rebellion and was at the absolute zenith of his power. Luna had merely been a wandering, exiled princess from a slaughtered lineage.
"Yes... I am old," Odin admitted softly.
It was an undeniable fact, one that even the mighty Lord of the Nine Realms could no longer conceal from the universe.
The admission made Odin look at Luna with profound complexity.
In his memories, she had been a minor anomaly—a local militia leader who had briefly aided the Asgardian vanguard on the Midgard front.
Now, this formerly insignificant mortal had not only achieved godhood, but she was actively regressing in age through reincarnation, retaining her eternal youth while he slowly withered away.
Asgardians possessed lifespans vastly superior to Earth's humans, and as a demigod, Odin's lifespan should have been measured in millions of years. Yet, his body was failing long before that theoretical limit.
It was the tragic destiny of Asgard's kings. His grandfather, Buri, and his father, Bor, hadn't even lived as long as he currently had.
Buri had fallen in glorious combat against Ymir, the progenitor of the Frost Giants. Bor had perished from grievous, incurable wounds shortly after winning the apocalyptic war against the King of the Dark Elves.
Odin was arguably the strongest All-Father in their history. He had inherited the fractured realms, crushed all opposition, and unified the Nine Realms. He had even personally slain Ymir.
Under his rule, Asgard had reached its absolute peak, building a terrifying, awe-inspiring empire feared across the known cosmos.
But millennia of brutal warfare had exacted a catastrophic, hidden toll on his body. The lingering death-curse inflicted by Ymir was a slow-acting poison that even an All-Father could not endure forever.
Odin was dying.
The only reason he hadn't succumbed to the Odinsleep permanently was that his foolish, hammer-wielding successor simply wasn't ready to bear the weight of the throne.
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Word count: 1504
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