The storm came without warning.
Over the dark pine forests of western Norway, the night sky twisted into impossible colors—purple spirals bleeding into crimson, streaks of gold that carved through the darkness like wounds in reality itself, lightning that didn't follow any natural rule.
The villagers in the valley below whispered that the gods were angry again.
"It's happening again," one elder murmured, his weathered hands trembling slightly as he clutched his cup. "Just like the tales say. When the sky bleeds color, the gods are at war."
But most dismissed it as superstition. Strange aurora. Unusual atmospheric conditions. Nothing more.
They were wrong.
Deep in the forest, where moss swallowed old stones and forgotten stories slept beneath the earth, where even the bravest hunters rarely ventured, stood a small, decaying temple.
It was a relic from an age before Christianity had swept through the north. A place of the old faith, the old gods, the old ways. Its wooden pillars leaned at odd angles, victims of time and weather. Its carvings were faded almost to nothing—serpents and ravens and symbols that few living souls could still read.
But the runes still hummed faintly—like a heartbeat waiting for something. Waiting for someone.
Inside that lonely place, a girl knelt in prayer.
Eira folded her hands tightly, the cold air misting with her breath in small clouds. The temperature had dropped sharply over the past hour, though she barely noticed anymore. She'd been here since sunset, as she was every night, maintaining the vigil her family had kept for generations.
Only seventeen, with pale blonde hair tied in a simple braid that hung over one shoulder and eyes reflecting the soft blue of the rune-light, she looked more spirit than human in the flickering glow of her oil lamp. Her clothes were simple—rough wool and linen, practical for the harsh Norwegian winters. But there was something ethereal about her in this place, as if the boundary between worlds wore thin around her.
"Give strength to this land," she whispered, her voice barely audible even in the temple's silence. The words were old, passed down through her bloodline, their original meaning half-lost to time.
"Give peace to our people."
She had repeated these words every night since her grandmother passed. Since the responsibility of temple guardian had fallen to her alone. Her mother had left years ago, unable to bear the isolation, the weight of duty. Her father had died when she was young.
Now there was only Eira.
And the temple.
And the waiting.
The storm answered instead.
A deafening crack tore through the sky—not the rumble of distant thunder but something immediate, something that shook the very air itself.
Eira jerked her head up, eyes wide. The earth trembled beneath her knees, sending vibrations up through her bones. Dust rained from the rafters above, centuries of accumulated grime suddenly dislodged. The oil lamp flickered dangerously.
Something outside—something massive—had struck the forest with the force of a falling mountain.
The runes on the walls flared brilliantly, blazing with light they hadn't shown in decades. Eira gasped, pressing herself back against the altar.
"What—?"
Another tremor. Stronger this time.
She grabbed her heavy wool cloak from the hook near the door and ran.
The cold wind howled as she burst through the temple doors, nearly tearing them from her grip. The ancient hinges screamed in protest.
Trees were shuddering violently, their branches whipping back and forth like the arms of drowning men. Leaves spiraled through the air in impossible patterns. The aurora above her twisted violently, swirling into a vortex of blinding green and violet light directly overhead. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure—like watching the sky itself tear open.
Eira had lived in these forests her entire life. She knew every trail, every clearing, every ancient marker stone. She knew the woods in all their moods—serene summer afternoons, harsh winter nights, the gentle melancholy of autumn.
She had never seen anything like this.
Then she saw it.
A crater—fresh, steaming, and glowing faintly with residual energy—split the ground not fifty steps from the temple. The impact site was enormous, easily twenty meters across. The surrounding trees were flattened outward in a perfect circle, as if pushed by an invisible explosion. Their trunks were snapped like kindling, their roots torn from the earth.
The ground itself had been transformed into something like glass at the very center, melted by incomprehensible heat.
Eira's heart hammered in her chest. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to hide, to get as far from this place as possible.
Instead, she moved closer.
The edge of the crater was still warm, the dirt crumbling beneath her boots as she carefully picked her way down. Steam rose in ghostly wisps, carrying a strange scent. Something metallic and sharp that made her nose wrinkle.
At the center lay a man.
A giant of a man, easily over six feet tall, with a build that suggested immense strength. He was dressed in strange, battered armor that looked far too heavy for any mortal to wear. The metal was ornate, covered in designs and patterns that seemed almost alive in the shifting light. His red cape was torn and scorched, spread out beneath him like a pool of blood. His long golden hair was tangled with dirt and ash, matted against his face.
Lightning-shaped burns crackled faintly along his bare arms where the armor had been damaged, glowing lines that pulsed with each shallow breath. As though the storm itself had thrown him here. As though he had fallen through the very lightning.
Eira's breath caught in her throat.
She had seen the old carvings. The ancient statues that had survived the Christian conversion, hidden away in caves and forgotten groves. Gods with impossible strength. Warriors who commanded the heavens. Wielders of storms.
This man looked like he had stepped directly from those ancient depictions.
But this one was unconscious… and bleeding.
A dark stain spread across his armor, mixing with the dirt. His breathing was labored, each inhale a visible struggle.
She knelt beside him, her hands trembling as she pressed two fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse. For a moment she felt nothing, and her heart sank.
Then—there. A pulse. Faint but strong. Steady despite everything.
"By the old gods…" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the dying wind. "Who are you?"
His eyelids fluttered weakly, responding to her voice. His lips moved, forming words she could barely hear. He brought one massive hand to his chest, groaning in pain that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his physical wounds.
"…Mjolnir…" he whispered.
Eira frowned, leaning closer. "What is that? Your name?"
The man didn't answer. His eyes—she caught a glimpse of them, blue as a storm-tossed sea—rolled back, and he collapsed fully into the dirt, going completely limp.
Eira looked back toward the temple, barely visible through the settling dust and damaged trees. She had no idea who this was—or what the danger might be if she helped him. He could be dangerous. A criminal. A madman. Her rational mind listed all the reasons she should leave him here, should run to the village for help.
But leaving him here, wounded, bleeding, in the freezing night?
Her conscience wouldn't allow it. Her grandmother's voice echoed in her memory: "We are guardians, Eira. We guard the temple, yes—but we guard more than that. We guard the old ways. The old oaths. And the oldest oath is hospitality. Aid to those who need it."
With surprising strength for someone so slight, born from years of physical labor maintaining the temple alone, she hooked her arms under his shoulders and dragged the armored stranger across the ground.
He was impossibly heavy.
But she persisted, step by agonizing step, toward the ancient temple.
The runes along the doorway flickered as she crossed the threshold with her burden—something they had not done since her grandmother's time. The blue light pulsed in rhythm with her racing heart.
Or perhaps in rhythm with something else entirely.
Eira dragged him to the central chamber, to the stone slab that served as the temple's altar. With a final tremendous effort, she heaved him onto it. The man groaned softly but didn't wake.
She collapsed to her knees beside the altar, panting from exhaustion, her entire body trembling. Her arms felt like they were made of lead. Her back screamed in protest.
The runes glowed brighter.
Much brighter.
Eira stumbled back, startled, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten. "What—? The seals… they're reacting to him?"
The light spread from the doorway to the walls, following the lines carved into the ancient wood. Patterns she'd studied her entire life suddenly blazed with power, illuminating the chamber in stark blue-white light.
The ground rumbled deep beneath her feet, a sensation that went beyond hearing. She could feel it in her bones, in her teeth, vibrating through her entire body.
A sound like cracking ice echoed up from the earth below. Not metaphorical ice—actual ice. Deep, ancient ice that had been frozen for millennia, now beginning to fracture.
For the first time in her life, despite having spent countless nights alone in this temple, Eira felt true fear inside the place her family had guarded for generations.
The glowing runes seemed to whisper in a language she barely understood. Old Norse, perhaps, but older still. The tongue of the first men who had built this place. Or perhaps a language that predated humanity entirely.
She caught fragments: "...keeper...""...sleeper...""...throne..."
Eira looked at the unconscious man on the stone, her throat tight with apprehension.
His chest rose and fell steadily now, though his face was creased with pain even in unconsciousness. Lightning-scars traced patterns across his exposed skin, glowing faintly with each heartbeat.
"Who are you…?" she whispered again, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
Outside, the storm roared like a living beast, renewing its fury.
And deep below, far beneath the temple's foundations, far beneath the frozen earth—
Something ancient stirred from its millennia-long sleep.
Something that had been waiting for this moment.
Something that recognized what now lay above it.
The temperature in the temple dropped sharply. Eira's breath came out in thick clouds. Frost began to creep across the stone floor, spreading outward from the walls in crystalline patterns.
She grabbed another blanket from her supplies, draping it over the stranger with shaking hands.
"What have I done?" she whispered to the empty temple.
The runes offered no answer.
Only their steady, ominous glow.
The storm raged until dawn, clawing at the ancient temple as if trying to tear it from the earth like a rotted tooth.
Eira didn't sleep. She couldn't.
She sat on the floor near the altar, wrapped in her thickest blanket, watching the stranger breathe. Watching the runes pulse. Listening to the increasingly frequent tremors that shook the temple's foundations.
Each time the ground rumbled, she tensed, wondering if the floor would finally give way. Wondering what would emerge if it did.
By the time the first gray light of dawn seeped through the wooden cracks in the temple's walls, the wind had finally died—but inside the temple, trouble had only begun.
The stranger's condition had worsened.
Eira sat beside the stone slab, wringing a wet cloth in trembling hands. She'd been tending to him for hours now, doing what little she could with her meager supplies.
His fever had spiked dramatically. His breaths were shallow, uneven, sometimes coming in gasps. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cold that now permeated the temple. His armor felt heavier than iron, and she'd struggled for nearly an hour to loosen the straps and buckles—some of which seemed to be held together by mechanisms she'd never seen before.
The moment she freed his chest plate with a final click, she heard it—like a faint echo of thunder passing through his ribs. A resonance that vibrated in the air around him.
This man was anything but ordinary. That much was certain now.
Even weakened, even wounded and feverish, power radiated from him. She could feel it prickling against her skin like static electricity before a lightning strike.
Eira dipped the cloth into the basin of cold water again and dabbed his forehead, wiping away the sweat that immediately reformed.
"You'll be fine," she whispered, even though she wasn't certain. Even though everything about this situation suggested otherwise. "You have to be. I dragged you all the way here for a reason, right? The gods wouldn't... they wouldn't have sent you here just to die."
Would they?
The stranger groaned, shifting slightly. His head turned on the stone, golden hair falling across his face.
His eyes opened—just a sliver.
Eira froze as she met eyes the color of a storm—deep blue, intense, fierce even in weakness. They were unfocused, glazed with fever, but there was something in them that made her breath catch. Ancient. Powerful. Otherworldly.
He looked at her with confusion, pain, and something like disbelief.
"…Midgard…?" he murmured, the word barely more than a breath.
Eira blinked, trying to process what she'd heard. "Mid… what?"
He tried to sit up, muscles tensing, but the effort made him wince sharply. His face contorted in pain and he gasped.
She pushed him back down with both hands—not hard, but firmly. "Don't move! You're wounded. Badly wounded. You need to rest."
"Where is… Mjolnir…?" he rasped, his voice rough like grinding stones. Each word seemed to cost him dearly. "My hammer... where...?"
Eira frowned, glancing around the temple as if the object might have materialized nearby. "Is that your weapon? Or your friend? Or…?"
But he didn't answer. His strength was already fading again, his eyes sliding closed despite his obvious effort to keep them open.
"No, wait—" Eira leaned forward. "Stay awake. Please. I need to know—"
Too late. He'd slipped back into unconsciousness.
She sat back on her heels, frustration and worry warring in her chest.
Midgard. She knew that word. Her grandmother had taught her the old stories. Midgard was what the ancient texts called the world of men. Earth. Which meant...
"You're not from here," she whispered, looking at his face. Even in pain, even unconscious, there was something noble about his features. Strong jaw. High cheekbones. The kind of face that belonged on ancient coins or carved into monuments.
"You're really from..." She couldn't finish the sentence. It was too absurd. Too impossible.
Another tremor shook the temple. Stronger than the others.
Eira grabbed the edge of the altar to steady herself. Dust rained from the ceiling. The oil lamp swung wildly on its hook.
When the shaking stopped, she looked down.
The floor had cracked.
Not much—just a thin line running from the center of the room toward the far wall. But through that crack, she could see something.
A faint blue glow.
Ice.
There was ice beneath the temple. Ancient ice, glowing with the same eerie light as the runes.
"Oh no," Eira breathed. "No, no, no..."
The morning sun struggled to pierce the clouds, sending thin rays of gold through the old temple's cracked roof. Eira had barely slept. Every few minutes, another faint tremor rattled the floorboards. Sometimes a distant thud. Sometimes a low, icy groan that resonated up from the depths.
Something was alive beneath the temple. Something that had perhaps been sleeping for centuries, waiting for the right moment, the right catalyst.
And whatever it was… it was getting closer to the surface.
Eira walked toward the stone slab again, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. The stranger's condition seemed to have stabilized somewhat. His fever had broken slightly, though his brow was still creased with discomfort—as if even unconscious, he was fighting some unseen battle.
Fighting his father's judgment, perhaps. Fighting the loss of his power.
She nudged his shoulder gently with one hand, the other hovering near the small knife at her belt. Just in case.
"…Can you hear me?" she whispered. "If you understand me at all, please… wake up. I need answers. I need to know what's happening."
His eyelids twitched, responding to her voice.
Slowly—painfully—he opened his eyes.
Storm-blue met her gaze again. Less clouded now. More aware. But filled with a deep, profound confusion that bordered on anguish.
"Where…" he rasped, his throat clearly dry and raw, "—am I…?"
Eira let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "An old temple. In the forests of western Norway." She reached for a cup of water she'd prepared. "I—um—I brought you here because you fell from the sky. Last night. During the storm."
She helped him drink, supporting his head. He took the water gratefully, though his hands shook as they gripped the cup.
His face tightened, memory flooding back. She could see it in his eyes—the moment he remembered everything. The confrontation. The judgment. The fall.
"Odin… banished me." The words were bitter. Heavy with betrayal and shame. "Stripped me of my power. Cast me out like..." He couldn't finish.
Eira blinked, setting the cup aside. "Odin? As in… the Allfather? The god from the old stories?"
He closed his eyes briefly, frustrated—whether with himself or the situation, she couldn't tell. "Yes. That Odin. Father of—"
He stopped himself, jaw clenching, muscles tensing.
"None of that matters now. I am nothing. Just... mortal."
The last word came out like a curse.
He pushed himself upright with a grunt, clearly determined to prove he wasn't as weak as he felt.
Eira stepped forward quickly, hands raised. "No, wait—your body—!"
Too late.
The instant he rose to his feet, his knees buckled. The strength simply wasn't there. He collapsed to one side, and Eira barely caught him before he hit the stone floor. His weight nearly took her down with him.
"You shouldn't be moving!" she scolded, struggling to support him. "You're still injured. Whatever happened to you—it wasn't just physical."
He growled in humiliation, a sound that was almost animalistic. His face flushed with embarrassment and anger—but the anger was directed inward.
"I am Thor," he declared, though his voice lacked its former strength, "Prince of Asgard. Son of Odin. I do not need—"
"Prince or not," she interrupted, surprising herself with her own boldness, "you can barely stand. And titles don't mean anything if you're dead."
He froze—genuinely surprised by her nerve. His eyes widened slightly, as if no one had ever spoken to him this way before.
Which, Eira realized, was probably true.
She blinked, suddenly aware that she'd just shouted at someone who claimed to be a god. Someone who, despite his current weakness, radiated power even now. Someone who, by all accounts, could probably kill her with his bare hands once he recovered.
But she didn't back down. Couldn't. Not when he was being so stubborn about something so obvious.
"You're injured," she insisted more softly, helping him back to the altar. "Just… rest, please. Let your body heal. Whatever you lost—we'll figure it out. But not if you kill yourself trying to prove you're still strong."
Thor looked away, breathing hard. His jaw worked silently, pride warring with reason.
His pride was wounded as much as his body. Perhaps more so.
After a long moment, he nodded stiffly. "...Very well."
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