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The sky bloomed into hues of gold and crimson as the sun completed its round of heaven once more. Thor moved quietly - as he often did when he so chose - across the room to where his wife and daughter sat in a rocking chair facing the open doorway and out to sea. He had heard Carol snoring softly as he’d fixed them both hot chocolate in the kitchen, and come before the task was done with a mind to carry them both to bed.
Eyes stared up at him from Carol’s arms, still newborn-dark and fathomless. Thor chuckled softly, scooping the baby up to lay in the crook of his arm. Even with the swaddles, little Astrid did not reach from his elbow to wrist. “Hush now, Starlight.” She stared up at him unblinking, and Thor brushed a fingertip gently over the curve of her tiny nose. “You should be sleeping.”
Thor considered putting Astrid down somewhere, picking up Carol so she could sleep in a bed, but another glance at their baby’s wide, bright eyes cured him of the idea. Instead he adjusted the recliner and covered Carol with a blanket (a hand-stitched quilt gifted to them by Darcy, of all people) and stepped out into the gathering dark of the night.
The sliding door whispered as he closed it behind him, and Thor walked out into the gathering night. Astrid yawned and stretched, a tiny newborn grumble-squeak following as she peered up at him, blinking in the cool of dusk. Thor placed his free hand over her as he raised his gaze to the sky. “You should sleep, Starlight. See? Even the sun goes to rest once in a while.” He yawned hugely, surprising himself; he needed very little sleep. It seemed, though, that very little was a great deal more than none at all, and in the three weeks since Astrid’s birth it felt like that was what he’d gotten. Not that he minded. The last light of the day died, and he looked down to the babe with a smile as her breathing shifted. Fast asleep.
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“I want the wolf story.” The sky blushed blood-red crimson, and Thor ruffled Astrid’s wild blonde hair as he came to sit beside her, pressing a mug of hot chocolate into her hands. The girl took it eagerly, swinging her feet as they dangled over the edge of the balcony. “Please.”
Thor chuckled as he considered her. “Sköll and Hati?” Astrid nodded vigorously, and Thor noted the shadow of sleepiness clouding her eyes. He wondered if she would manage to stay awake through the story- she did rise with the sun, after all. “Not much of a peaceful bedtime story,” he commented as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to rest against his side.
“I want to tell Maggie,” Astrid managed to explain around a huge yawn. She slurped her hot chocolate. The skies were streaked with pink and gold.
“Very well. Hróðrsvitnir had two sons–”
“Fenrir wasn’t really Uncle Loki’s child, was he? He’s a wolf.”
Thor only shrugged. “That is a question for Uncle Loki, I think. For him the telling of a good tale is at least as important as the truth.”
Astrid nodded solemnly, her face lit pink by the magnificent sunset.
“Hróðrsvitnir had two sons,” Thor began again, “Sköll and Hati. Like their father, they were immense and cunning wolves, the largest and fastest–”
“Mockery and Hatred,” Astrid yawned, her drink complete, “that’s not very nice.”
“Well done, that is correct,” Thor praised as he moved her cup away. “They were always hungry, and as I said, they were very large. The two brothers loved to run and hunt, as all wolves do, and for their great size no amount of deer or goat or sheep or man could slake their hunger. But they saw Sól and Máni, who streaked across the skies in chariots drawn by great strong horses, the sister during the day and the brother at the night.
"And the brother wolves thought, ‘They look good to eat.’ And they thought, 'I like to eat horse. I think I should like to eat god as well.’ They licked their chops and wagged their shaggy tails and they agreed this would make a great game.
"But brothers have a way of fighting, and they could not agree to run beside one another; Hati would grow angry at Sköll panting beside him and bite, and Sköll did not like the gleam of Hati’s teeth in the corner of his eye and he would bite, too. So the brothers split up, and made a contest; they would each chase one out of Sól and Máni, and the first to catch their prey would lead the two brothers for the rest of time.”
The last light of the sun was fading now, the great disc dipping finally below the horizon. Astrid spoke again, voice thick with sleep. “What happens when Sköll and Hati catch the sun and moon?”
“Then Ragnarok will begin,” Thor answered quietly, the old wound where his eye had once been tingling as he thought of it, “and the world will end.”
“No it won’t,” Astrid yawned as she snuggled against him, “you won’t let it.”
Astrid started snoring softly before Thor could respond, the last light of the sun gone from sight.
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“Father, I really must insist.”
Thor only smiled, unmoving from where he’d stood on a Midgardian coastline, watching the sun dip slowly beneath the horizon. His cloak streamed behind him, voluminous and red as ever, its rich hue reflected in the skies. When he finally turned to face Astrid- tall, with her father’s muscle and her mother’s fire, the scarf she’d had since babyhood a slash of crimson draped across one shoulder- a grin bristles the whiskers of his beard, now more grey than blond.
“Insist?”
Astrid rolled her eyes and closed the gap between them, folding her arms across her chest before bumping shoulders with her father. “I am asking seriously, Dad.”
Thor chuckled softly in the back of his throat, side-eyeing his daughter before turning his gaze back to the sunset. “I know you are. You will forgive me for being reluctant, I hope. I have not done it before.”
Joining him in watching the sunset, Astrid did not press him again straight away. It was a fair enough point. But his advancing years were why she’d grown sure it was necessary, so it didn’t take long - the sun had not yet fully set- before she once again spoke. “It is said that Odin used it many times. It won’t hurt you.”
The look in her father’s single blue eye was stern then, and that was rare enough in itself that Astrid ceased her speech. “And I am not Odin. Perhaps you will never know how much I am not him.” There is no hint of self-doubt in the words, now; long has it been since Thor considered himself unworthy for diverging from the path set by his father. Long has it been since Thor worried over his worth at all. He sighed as Midgard’s sun vanished below its seas once again.
“We had a home here, do you remember?” He smiles at the long-distant memory, and hangs an arm over his daughter’s shoulders.
“I could never forget,” Astrid replied, her voice soft as she turned in to her father’s embrace. “Though I didn’t realise it was right here.”
Thor ran a hand over his daughter’s hair as though she were small once more. “Close enough. The sea has risen since then, the coast shifted. But it is close enough.” He sighed long and heavy, and bent slightly to kiss Astrid on her forehead.
She was still for a moment, listening to the rhythm of the waves as she weighed what words to speak. “I need you, Dad. You refuse to use the apples, and-”
“Your mother needs them, Starlight.” Astrid sighed and nodded: there was no arguing with him on that, even had she wanted to.
She turned to watch the last light of the dying day; reds and golds giving way into purple and deep, inky blue. She yawned, but stifled the familiar tiredness that came with the setting of suns. Her father was tall and silent beside her, radiating that same solid strength he always had.
Her shoulders slumped a little, almost imperceptibly. She didn’t know what else to say to convince him; entreating for his help and guidance had always been enough before. Perhaps she had underestimated the power Odin’s memory yet held over him. He’d been wrong earlier; she knew very well the lengths he’d gone to to be better- not greater, but more decent, more good- than her grandfather.
She would have to find another way. Perhaps her uncle would know some trick. He was even more stubborn than her father.
“I will do as you ask.” Thor’s words startle Astrid from her thoughts with a jolt. “Perhaps I will be gifted with dreams of friends long gone.”
The King of Asgard squeezed her father tightly to her, relieved beyond measure. “I promise we will come up with a better name for it.”
“Odinsleep. Thorsleep,” Thor chuckled, and when Astrid looked up at him he looked a younger god. “You’d better, or I’ll change my mind.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t. Mom would have your hide.” Astrid laughed, beaming ear to ear and glowing soft as stars, as she retrieved Gungnir from where she’d driven the spear into the soft beach sand.
“And I’d enjoy it,” Thor laughed, following Astrid up the beach, standing beside her in readiness to travel in the Bifröst.
“So gross,” Astrid made a face, laughing again as she lifted the spear, and the two of them vanished from the planet in a blast of prismatic light.
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