to see aworld in a grain of sand
The broken edges of the rainbow bridge glint like stars. Thor is reminded of sprinkled pop tarts, Frosted Strawberry flavour, Darcy had said. “Good evening, Thor Odinson.” Heimdalls’ greeting is perfunctory, his gaze never turning from the constellations stretching out before them. Thor nods a response anyway, coming to stand on Heimdalls’ right side as has become his custom. Thor exhales quietly and mirrors Heimdalls’ posture on the ledge of the bridge still rippling with colour beneath his feet. There is hope, he thinks, staring out into the stars, there is always hope.
...
Thor is changed now, they all see it. Where before there was flash (lightening) announcing his actions and drawing the attention of those around him, now there was just the steady thrum of þorr; the sound of power cutting air in half. Where before, to find him in a crowd one had only to look to its centre and your eye could pick him out of a dozen faces, bright against the shadow of his brother. Now, Thor was often found removed to the company of his father and his warriors. Hours spent discussing the future of Asgard and sparing, wielding Mjolnir through training steps he had mastered as a child. Now, he was dispersed through the people like a current. And in the evenings, a scarlet pillar at the right hand of the gatekeeper, gaze resolutely fixed toward a world he could not see.
...
It comes upon him in quiet times, those pearls of wisdom that have been worried smooth, and he is continually surprised by the heft and weight of guilt contained in a former grain of sand. He sees now in a way he couldn’t before when he’d been blinded by his own inflated sense of self, all of the ways he’d wronged his brother. He knows that the guilt he feels is justified and that no amount of repentance will bring his brother back. He can only move forward. And if the Warriors Three notice his increasing stillness during dinning, his rigour during training, they do not comment on it. They simply join him in the gymnasiums or speak louder, laugh harder, to compensate during feasts. They are all of them carved from patience, leaning against time as it passes. Attempting to hold it and speed it up simultaneously. He doesn’t want to miss anything, he wants to get back.
...
When she can't sleep and the wind is too strong and cold on the roof Jane curls up in her trailer (her chamber) with the storybook of Eriks’ childhood fairytales. She reads about Loki and thinks mischief managed before she can stop herself. She reads about the Warriors Three, his friends, pictures their faces, and hears their voices in the words. It is a flimsy form a research, to be sure, but she keeps the book anyway. For posterity, she tells Darcy. For herself, she doesn’t say. There is blood on the sleeve of her jacket, folded away in her bottom drawer.
It was real.