Ben Wolf (agoodman) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-04-25 18:54:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !tales, *log, snow white, thor |
Snow and Thor
Who: Thor and Snow
What: Thor comes to help Snow with a little problem.
Where: Fairy Tales door
When: Way backdated. After this
Warnings/Rating: Snow has fun. Shh, don't tell anyone.
Snow busied herself as she waited for her visitor, the motions of which she was quickly growing much too accustomed to. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from this meeting. A not-quite-Norse-god looked great on paper, but after going through a wizard and a superhero, she was feeling like options for help and improvement were slimmer than she suspected. At least the worst was over, and the storm was gone, but she still had no idea if or when it might resurface. Hopefully this Thor could help more.
In the meantime she stood on the mountain top, surveying her work. The house she was constructing was still a work in progress, a skeletal structure of ice resembling a cottage. It wasn’t what she would deem something to be lived in, but she was working toward it, and with the storm gone, making her own prison wasn’t as necessary as before. Dusting her hands off together and then against the fabric of her dress. Despite being at the highest peak of the mountain, the wind soft and cold, Snow still donned a pink and white strapless maxi dress, the skirt billowing by her ankles and the outfit more befitting a warm spring day in New York than these dying days of winter in snow covered mountains.
Of course she was unperturbed by the cold, and her gaze only shifted away from ice abode when she heard a sound behind her. That must be her visitor, and she idly tucked her dark hair over her shoulder to see who it was.
Though he had been with Ben for years and within the world of the hotel for almost two, Thor had not visited another world within that time beyond the nine that were contained within Yggdrasil. They were often enough of a handful that visiting another was out of the question, but Tony, son of Stark, had asked and after speaking with Snow of White on the journals, he did not believe her to be a Jotunn.
But what she was was still unknown. If she was not a Jotunn was she more like he was, a bringer of storms or was she more like Loki, able to wield and craft only one form of an element. He was curious to see and if he could not help her, perhaps he could petition Loki on her behalf. His brother might snarl and sneer about it, but it was nothing that Thor had not heard before.
Curiosity, and no small amount of confidence, carried him through the door. As always, he was dressed in his armor, with Mjolnir hanging loosely from his right hand. He did not feel the cold as others did, apparently as she did not, dressed as she was in the snow, yet the chill still hinted along the tops of his cheeks, turning them slightly pink. His gaze went to the house, then to the snow they were standing in. "You did all of this?"
Her gaze slid to his hammer in his hand, habit and her own self preservation making her survey his form first and check for weapons. She had handled herself in many situations, faced many that waited in the woods, and though she wasn’t afraid of him, it never hurt to take stock. In her observation she took note of the soft ruddiness of his cheeks and her brow furrowed.
“Yes, this is me,” she admitted, not hesitance or boasting in her tone. She still wasn’t sure what to make of her newfound magic, let alone be proud of it. She cast a quick glance to the house, before she looked down at the snow. “The snow’s… well maybe half mine. We’re pretty high up here. You shouldn’t be here if you can’t stand the cold, you know.” She tried to take the bite out of her words, he was helping her after all, and mostly succeeded. but scolding was a bad habit of hers and she was too good at it. “Should we… go back down the mountain?”
It seemed as though she had gained power enough over ice and the creation of structures, but storms were different. They were wind and rain, lightning and thunder, but that she'd managed to learn how to do this was a good sign.
He gave a small shake of his head at her concern. Scolding he was used to, from his father, occasionally from his mother, and from the biting tongue of his brother. Hers were nothing compared to theirs. "I have been to colder places." This was warmer than even Jotunheim got and no colder than than the mountains of Asgard became in the middle of winter. "I am fine, if you prefer to try here." Be on the top of the mountain or at the bottom, wherever she found comfort would be the best place for her to try from.
She did prefer it up there in the mountain, and she gave a little nod. Sure it had no electricity, and she missed the comforts of the modern world, but here she couldn’t hurt anyone. She didn’t have to worry about anyone. And she wondered if that was partially the reason why she wasn’t out of control again. The old worry made power skitter under her skin, her shoulders tensing and a soft gust of cold wind blowing past her hair, one push before she frowned in concentration and had it still once more.
She blew air from her lips with a sheepish shrug, a quiet apology without admitting aloud she had let her thoughts go astray. “Mr. Stark told you what I need help with?” The flicker of nervousness and anticipation threatened to bubble up inside her and the thoughtful look wouldn’t leave her features, now that she was actively trying not to lose control in front of this stranger. “How shall we do this?” She hadn’t forgotten the hammer, though she didn’t think it would play into this. He wasn’t suited like the other was, and he said he was no god, so she hadn’t the faintest idea what he was all about. “Don’t worry about the house. It’s still in progress. If I have to start again, I have to start again.” She didn’t exactly relish the idea but she wasn’t going to pretend she’d be heartbroken over the loss of it.
There were very few that he'd ever met like himself, those that could call a storm, whether it was made of rain or snow and it was with no small amount of curiosity that he watched her now. The gust of air, her frown -- he'd been much younger when he had made very similar faces to very similar acts. "With a storm," he answered. His glance dodged to the house when she mentioned it again. That was more like a Jotun, with their ability to wield ice and beyond what he could do. And from the appearance of it, even if it was still in progress as she said, she had control over that ability.
His attention turned back to her for a moment before he glanced to the sky. How had it started with him? He had made it rain by accident, getting it to stop was a new problem entirely. A furrow appeared between his brows. "Is it the beginning or the end that you struggle with?"
Something about the way he kept glancing back at the house made her worried, and she followed his gaze to it before settling it back on his face. Was it the ice? Was it the design? Did he think she didn’t need any help? Flattering as that might be, she didn't want to risk another mistake and she quietly cursed her new curse, and not for the first time.
The tension lessened as he asked his question. At least this was something she could answer freely. “Ending,” she said guiltily, wincing instead of smiling. “But I would actually like prefer it if the never started at all. It’s all new, and unwanted. But I can’t find any way to… I don’t know, lift this curse? Whatever it is? Then at least I’d like to stop it before I…” Killed bystanders. Ruined everything. That sort of thing. She nervously tucked her dark hair over her ear. “Before it really gets going.”
It wasn't until she said 'curse' that his gaze settled on her again, head tilted slightly, the furrow going deeper. He'd never considered his own abilities to be a curse -- they simply were, like breathing. "It is a part of you. The storm is no curse, nor the snow. When spring comes, the snow melts, and the water feeds the rivers and from the rivers, the farmers come to feed both land and livestock." Not being able to control the storm though, that could be dangerous to all as it had been when he could not control his own powers.
He nodded, short and sharp, knowing now where to begin. All it took was a thought, a small push to have the clouds begin to dump their water. This far up though, it took nothing from him to turn the rain to snow, the height and the cold did that all on their own. "Now, will it to stop. Make it."
In the face of his frown, one of her delicate brows shot up. “Perhaps for you, assuming you were born with this ability,” she reminded him gently. He was still helping her and she hadn’t meant it as an insult. “But considering that this never showed up in a thousand years I’ve been alive, nor in any stories about me that I’m aware of, I’m going to go with some kind of curse. I do come from a land where they’re plentiful.” Sure there were no witches around besides Faust and her sister, and her if one wanted to stretch the definition, but that hardly meant anything. Spells could lie dormant. Enchantments could be lying in wait. Stars could align just so. It could’ve been anything that set off this chill in her, and she wasn’t about to pull a curse off the table just yet.
Her hurried thoughts immediately scattered, however, with the first drops of rain. Cool, the sudden shift in the air and temperature didn’t bother her, and she merely cupped one hand over her eyes as she looked up. “Did you—” It must have been him, she quickly corrected herself, and she let out a soft, amused little laugh, as the droplets turned into wisps of snow. At least she was used to that, and it was a bit refreshing to have someone else be the source instead.
Stopping it was a different matter, and the hand over her eyes was now joined with another, and they rest atop her dark hair as she concentrated. Her brow furrowed and her eyes closed, lips pursing into a tight line and it took more than just a pushy thought to calm the snowfall. It was easier this time, the storm small and not of her own making, but it still took a concentrated effort, and it was several long minutes before she gave a frustrated huff. The snow fall lessened, the storm even more gentle, but it hadn’t abated, her concentration cracking when it didn’t yield immediate results. “You make it look so easy.”
Curses were not as plentiful where he came from, but they were often nastier, laid upon a person or a family by a seiðr worker. "I was six the first time I made it rain," he said quietly, the corners of his mouth curling. "My brother was ill and our parents, the healers, they refused to let me into his chambers." He'd been sure that he could make Loki better at the time, that he simply needed some of his favorite things to make him well again. "I spent the day trying to sneak in whenever they opened the doors. Every item they asked for, I was the one that raced to retrieve it in the hopes that they would need me to take it inside." He laughed quietly, but the mirth was turned inward, toward his memories.
"And when they did not, the rains began." He stepped closer to her, the snow clinging to his blond hair as he stopped by her side. "Before I could flood all of Asgard, they let me see him and the rains stopped. When he was well, my father took me outside of the city and made me practice for days." He'd been thoroughly impatient as a child and it had taken days of frustration before he could get even a trickle from the clouds. "It took weeks," he laughed, Mjolnir humming faintly at his hip. "And every afternoon I'd come home and stomp through the Citadel like a bilgesnipe." He shook his head at his own antics before he turned to her.
"But I learned, as you will, once you--" And he finally reached out to her, his hands large but gentle as they went to lower her wrists first. "Relax." Once he had learned how to do that to not let his frustration keep him from what came to him naturally, it had gone much better. He stepped back to eye her posture again. Balance at her hips, but there was too much tension in other muscles. "Breathe in and out, deeply. This is not a battle. The storm will yield."
Snow couldn’t help the soft lift of her mouth as she spoke of his brother. She always did have a soft spot for family, even if hers often made her want to tear her hair out. It wasn’t hard to imagine the man in front of her as a little boy, simply taking that laugh she heard and picturing it on a small blonde boy many years younger. She let herself imagine this Asgard, and the rain that he pulled from the sky. She had barely registered that he was approaching her until the last second, and she inhaled as his hands held her wrists, her eyes flying open even as his hands slid away. It had been a lifetime or so since she had found herself often, too often, grabbed by strange men and though she learned to fight down the instinctive response to it, the reaction of her newfound ability was still immediate. The need to protect herself, to shield, rising up inside her before she could stop it.
The air around them dropped to even colder temperatures, a gust of icy wind rising up from nowhere and the snow falling hard once more. It lasted a few seconds before her frown deepened as the weather softened. The snow was gentle, returning back to it’s soft fall in a still air. She did as he instructed, her breaths in and out as she had done during the harsh winter she caused months ago, focusing on giving as much reprieve to the villagers as she could, trying to still this storm inside her. Finally it dissipated, the storm vanishing and the tension starting to slowly, very slowly, unfurl from her taut muscles. “Nothing yields to me without a battle,” she corrected him, though she sounded a touch more weary than angry, her hands smoothing back her hair that the winds had mussed. “I don’t do well with relaxing.” Her expression turned just a tad amused, as if she recalled too many people wondering aloud if she even knew the meaning of the word. “Did you find it so easy relaxing, knowing that you had this power inside of you? Knowing it what it could do?” What it could destroy.
Oh, how he understood that sentiment. War was a way of life for Asgard. Battles were revered, songs of great warriors sung, and a good death was one of the best things that any of them could obtain with their life. But he noticed the change in her voice, as he noticed the tension that came when he touched her. Touch had always been calming to him, but he knew those that touched Sif without her will were likely to find themselves at the wrong end of her staff. Perhaps Snow was like her.
"Aye," he said with a small smile. He had never feared his ability to call the storm, not the lightning, nor the thunder, nor the rains that could flood. His problem had not come from the power, but the patience required to learn how to use it. "I wanted nothing more than war when I was younger. To hear the skalds sing of my skill in battle." And he had chased that fight to Jotunheim before he was banished to Midgard. "There is more than this, even to us. We return home to remember what we fight for, to tend our homes, to grow our families. This is the same. Without winter, what is spring?" The sky was often thought of as his domain, but his mother had been of the earth, and he could feel both keenly.
There was something very familiar of how he talked of battle, and Snow supposed it was that she hadn’t heard anyone talk about it like that since in many years. There had been no shortage of warriors in the Homelands even before the Adversary came, and she thought she had more in common with them than the spellcasters, even if that was the mantle she wore now. Then again, wasn’t he the same way too? Controlling storms but still armed. Not everything could be solved by magic and there was a bit of comfort to know she wasn’t the only one who would remember it so.
“Maybe someone else will bring spring,” she said idly, her hands in her hair stilling as she realized what she said, and how her sister’s face sprang to mind. She made a decision not to tell Rose and she was sticking to it, easier now that her sister had disappeared. They weren’t some pair of season bringers, regardless of how conveniently matched their powers were. She pushed the thought away with a shake of her head. “Again, you make it sound so easy. At least you’re optimistic about it. I nearly took Stark’s head off by accident with an ice blade when he and I tried to get this under control. Are you sure I’ll ever get to your level of ease with this?”
It was a possibility, and one that he gave her a smile for. He had no doubt that spring would come, that summer would follow (a season he had always felt closest ties to), that fall would inch in and herald the coming of winter. "Spring will come." Whenever it was ready, it would come. He'd seen it every year; it was as unchanging as the Nine Realms on Yggdrasil.
That smile was still there when she mentioned her practice with Tony. "With practice." As with most things. He'd hated those afternoons spent so far from the city and his friends, but he had learned despite all attempts otherwise. Never let it be said that he wasn't a willful child. Or, that he wasn't as she had said, and optimistic. Even Loki was not immune to that particular view, though many, including Loki, chastised him for holding such a foolish ideal when it came to his brother. If he believed Loki gone, then Loki would be, and there would be none that could bring him back. "It is already a part of you and," he cast a glance to the house made of ice, not far from them. It was a far cry from almost beheading the man of Iron. "You have learned much already."
"Spring will come," she echoed, taking a soft bit of solace in his reassurance and smile. It was a thought that flitted in her mind often, as if remembering it would ease her worry that she had done so much irreparable damage to the world with her terrible winter. His words, with his knowledge, held more weight and a touch more worry melted from her shoulders.
As their attention shifted to the house, one hand rubbed the back of her neck as they surveyed her handiwork. "It's been easier up here. I'm not as worried about--About catching someone else in quick storm. Or being caught." It was bad enough that so many already knew about her secret. The thought of more stumbling upon her was always a distant worry, but they were high enough that only the greatest of fools would come up here to disturb her peace. "Houses and swords, that's all I can make. Not exactly the most useful when trying not to kill innocent bystanders."
He nodded in response to her reasoning. It was something like Odin had done, to take him far from where he could cause damage to learn what he needed to. "Then make a shield." A shield could be round, like the ones of old, or elegant like the one that Sif favored. And houses were protection of a sort and she already could build walls, and a wall could just as easily act as a shield for innocent bystanders.
He glanced down at the snow they were standing in and held out his hand, about hip height, palm flat. "Make a wall, this high and stay behind it." If she could build a house -- and the evidence was right there -- he did not think she would find it difficult. Trusting that she could do it he walked in front of her, hammer still within the leather straps. He didn't want to hurt her, but sometimes a simple demonstration was in order.
Somehow the idea of constructing a shield hadn't occurred to her, and the surprise was clear in her eyes. Then again, she hadn't meant or even really thought to make a sword with Stark so she supposed it was more that her mind wasn't as martial as it had been. It had been quite a few decades since she had found herself fighting with more than words. Snow supposed it was to be expected.
The suggestions kept coming, and she took a few steps back to visualize what he was asking her to do, her hand rising to run a thumb over her lip thoughtfully. "A wall," she echoed quietly. A wall she could do, and she took a moment before she raised her both her hands, sending a wave of ice upward, jagged edges glinting in the sunlight. And some of them as high as his chest.
"Damn," she sighed, taking a step closer and surveying her handiwork, not seeing a display of control but an imperfection of her demonstration. Another look and she focused her power, the ice weakening at the hip level Thor had pointed out, and her pale hands started to snap the ends off, discarding them over her shoulder. "It's a work in progress," she reminded him, snapping off another edge and holding it in her hand, a makeshift dagger if she ever saw one. She tossed it back down to the ground. "Do you ever... I don't know, wished that you had something more... practical?" Maybe storms, in general, had more uses but ice powers? She could have easily done without.
The first few storms he managed to create had all been fierce ones, his powers barely under his control and he wasn't surprised to see the wall go far beyond what he had asked for. It didn't stop him from crouching down while she went back to work cleaning it up and gathering up snow between his hands. He packed it slowly between his palms, roll it over between his hands until it was smooth and tightly packed.
"No." Simple and to the point. The corners of his mouth began to curl up. "What would you wish for?" And then he let loose the snowball, aiming for her torso, just above the wall that he had asked her to build.
She considered the question, head canting to the side as she smoothed over the top of the ice wall. “Oh I don’t kno—” The words fled her as a snowball collided into her, the white on her pink dress tumbling down to the ground a moment later. The look she gave him was of utter shock, very little annoyance. “What are you, five?” The cold felt like nothing to her; she was more surprised anyone had the audacity to do that.
So she ignored it, her hands returning to the small crevices of her wall, contemplating how to fix the problem. “As I was saying,” she resisted the urge to pointed glare at him, “something helpful. Something that doesn’t hurt anyone when falling in large quantities. I don’t know,” she gave a small shrug. “Maybe nothing at all.” Her eyes were trained on her hands, her focus there on her wall. So she wondered if he saw it coming, the way her hand shot out to the side, sending a small snowball in his direction in retaliation. She only gave him the barest hint of a smirk when she heard impact.
His mouth pulled wide at the question. It didn't bite like it could have and he readied another snowball while he listened to her and he was almost ready to let it loose when her hand shot out and a snowball of her own hit him square in the chest. It didn't hurt -- but these weren't meant to and it slid down his chest armor as mush.
"Anything could hurt mortals in large enough quantities," he pointed out, the amusement audible in his voice despite the nature of their conversation. "But without the snow, how would there be snowball fights?" And then he did laugh as the snowball he was working on went flying through the air, once more aimed at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Sure, too much of anything is a problem but there’s a significant difference between making it snow and making it rain… I don’t know. Rose petals. Something.” She had made an offhand gesture to excuse her bad comparison when she caught his words, and then his laugh. He was more prepared this time but now so was she. She only had a moment to hitch her breath in surprise when her rose up, forearm covering her chest and a furrow of brow and concentration.
In the next moment, the snowball was hitting a shield of ice. The circular surface echo a soft tinkling sound, the snowball not hitting too hard and the thin ice cracking under the weight. Another thought had an additional layer of film creeping over its surface and adding strength, as ice curled around the other side to securely fasten her new protection to her arm. When she lowered her arm, she surveyed her quick handiwork, begrudgingly impressed but only slightly. It was small, enough to cover her arm and shield her chest, and it wouldn’t have lasted long, but it was quick, and she supposed that was progress.
“Is that how we’re going to do this now?” Though she lowered the shield, she didn’t release it completely, and her free hand rose up as she concentrated, the air chilling around her fingers, the air moving to aid her into making another ball of snow. “I’m no good with projectiles. I only ever trained with a sword.” Still, if her expression was anything to go by, red lips curling up into one of the few genuine smiles she allowed herself, she seemed more at ease with anything remotely martial in nature. It mattered little how ridiculous she looked in her modern pink dress and her makeshift ice shield. She felt more relaxed in that moment than she had since he arrived. She gave the notion only a second’s consideration before the snowball solidified in her hand, and she was lobbing it in his direction, the smile at the corner of her mouth still lifting.
Her ease was not lost on him and it was a good thing. The more comfortable she grew with her powers, the more at ease she felt with them, the easier they would work. And if she could see the good in them, then it would be to her benefit. "Then make a sword." He told her, but without a hint as to how to make one, or what to think of while making one. She needed no help with creating something from the ice.
And if he thought otherwise, the next snowball that crashed against his shoulder was evidence otherwise. He laughed again and then it began in earnest as he lobbed snowball after snowball at her. There were those that enjoyed learning for learning, and others that found a more physical process for learning was better. And he had told her all that he could of how her powers were not a curse, but until she saw otherwise, there would be no understanding (to be fair, it had take him longer to understand his own).
The snowballs finally stopped when he began laughing too hard to continue. Of the things he had considered when he first spoke to her, this was one he had never conceived of, but was no less enjoyable for it. With an 'oof' he landed in the snow, one hand up to signal a stop before he fell back and laughed at the sky. "It is a good thing, this ability."
His instructions were always so easy: Make this, do that. For him, such things were like breathing and she didn't bother to hide the roll of her eyes. "Later," she said, though it was no promise.
Besides, who needed a sword when she had snowballs? Every one he threw at her was returned with gusto, and she lost herself in the simple game. She hadn't done anything quite like it in many years. When he fell to the ground she ceased her fire, the cold air swirling around her hands until it stopped completely. Only then did she approach him, stopping near to him and pressing her hands to her knees, holding down the hem of her dress. The soft lift of her lips hadn't left her yet, and amusement still shown in her eyes despite her attempts to take on a more serious expression. "We'll see about that." Though really, she had a sinking feeling he was right.