Harry clenches her jaw shut, her entire body on edge and begging to release all her power in one go and beat her enemy down until he couldn't dare to hurt hers again. It takes all her willpower not to let it, to leave its only evidence in the force of her glare and the bite of her tongue.
"Earth. Is not. Your playground!"
The ground shakes and the air trembles with the force of her voice. She can see the Earthlings have to brace themselves against it to remain standing and it aches in her, a bit, that she doesn't have control enough of herself to spare them this. But then she sees Odin, the one who calls himself Allfather, fall to his knees and remain there; and the sheer pleasure she receives from that is enough to make her not care if she oversteps right this moment.
She'll mourn it later, when the outsiders are gone and have learnt their lesson.
"Earth is not your playground," she says again and takes a step closer, looking down on Odin and forcing him to look up at her, reminding him of his place.
"You come here as you please; show your tricks and powers and make the Earthlings either fear you or awe you as you please. Content with knowing that you are somehow better." Her lip draws up in contempt as she bares her teeth. "Claiming that you are Gods. Allmighty and immortal."
Odin starts to stand, bracing his hands against the dirt. "It is not our fault that midgardians think-"
"Silence!" she almost roars out and Odin falls back down. He bites his teeth too, but his bones are old and she is grinding against them and she doubts very much that he does it for the same reason as she does. There is a fear in him, along with his ego, that she lacks. That she isn't capable of having. "Silence," she repeats, her voice quieter but no less forcefull and steady.
The Earthlings stare at her with wide eyes; as do the Aliens. Odin has ceased to look at her, instead turned his cheek to her. She doesn't care.
"You think that I do not know? Of what you did when you first came here?" Harry begins, almost curious despite herself.
Odin flinches. It's a small enough an action that she wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been looking. But she had and it just confirms her thoughts that he hadn't, actually, thought that she knew.
She almost wants to laugh. "How precious," she says, her voice laced with sarcasm and overbearingly sweet. "You actually did. Well I can tell you right now, Odin Allfather," she lets her scorn of the name bleed through as she says it, "that I know everything you've ever done on this planet. Every stone you've thrown and every man you've struck. Every bit of magic that you've used and every lie you've told." She bares her teeth. "Every name you've claimed."
He cringes as she spits the ground in front of him. His actions testament of the guilt he dones't feel but should. "Every single name you've claimed, without right and without leave."
One of the Earthlings coughs and takes an uncertain step forward, calling her attention to him. Phil Coulson, one who's died once already and will die twice more before she takes him. A long time from now, though, so it doesn't matter much. "Excuse me, ma'am, but might I ask as to what you're referring to?"
She smiles at him and knows it isn't a pretty smiles. Still, his bland expression doesn't waver and she's somewhat impressed; he deserves the truth for that if nothing else.
"I'm talking about how when he and his people came here, thousands years back in time, fighting a war on our lands that did not belong here and should never have come, he desecrated the beliefs of an entire Faith. On purpose and without shame."
"It was to protect-" Odin starts to say but falls silent when she turns to glare at him, not quite daring to oppose her to her face.
"You may claim that all you want, Odin, but it still doesn't make it true. I can read your heart like a book, it's all there clear as day." She crouches before him and takes his chin in her hand, forcing him to look into her eyes. She sees the big blond man who calls himself Thor start toward her in the corner of her eye but doesn't give him any notice. He won't get close enough. "And even if it all were true it would not matter. The names weren't yours to take. The decision not yours to make."
She sees herself reflected in his eyes, otherworldly even in her mortal body. Her anger revealing so much of what she normally keeps under wraps.
"The decision was ours." She says solemnly. "And you took it like you've taken so much else; and you've mocked us with it ever since. Coming here, again and again, displaying your name and having our people, my people, pay you respect you haven't earned for actions you haven't done."
She pauses for a moment and searches his eyes, smiling at what she finds. "But you've grown weak, now. Haven't you, Odin? Your lands have shrunk and the magic lessened, the sheer strength sapping out of your bones, day by day a tiny bit less. It's not just in your mind," she tuts at him. Then she leans closer, puts her mouth to his ear and whisper. "See, we don't believe in you anymore. An entire faith, gone. Nothing more than history."
Harry smiles, cruel and true. "For once, I'm glad a faith went under. If nothing else then for the pain it causes you." The she leans back just to watch him shatter a bit more, see the pearling sweat on his forehead and how the wrinkles etched in valleys on his skin deepen and multiply in new branches.
"This man isn't a God," Harry says and stands up, dismissing him and turning to Phil Coulson once more. "Not in any sense of the word."
"Then what is he?" Phil Coulson asks mildly. "And why does it matter?"
"A greedy fool," Harry says. "He is a dying greedy fool of a mortal. And it matters because faith and worhip doesn't just give power to Gods, it can be given to anyone. Whatever becomes of it."
She walks away from the crater slowly, feeling the eyes on her keenly. Only Thor and Odin doesn't look to her; Thor because he is focused on his father, confusion and dread filling him, and Odin because he's turned in on himself, knowing what she's going to expose. What it'll bring.
"Did you know," she begins, "that the Asgardians were losing? When they came here and fought their war against the Frost Giants, they were losing badly. They died a dozen for every Forst Giant, their magic too weak and their bones too fragile. They were going to be defeated here, the battle taken to their own lands sooner or later."
"No, that's not true," Thor says, tearing his eyes away from his father. "We were stronger, pushing them back away from here to Jotunheim. We were not losing; Odin Allfather led our men to victory."
Harry laughs. "Oh, he did. But first he led you to defeat. Come on, Odin. Tell your son and heir. It's only fair, after all, should he wish to continue the family tradition."
Odin shrinks in on himself further. His voice gravelly and broken as he speaks, shamed for this, at least. "It's true. We were. We were not winning."
Thor looks at him, betrayed that the stories he's grown up on are not real; because he knows that whatever comes next won't be pretty. Truth seldom is.
"You were not strong enough to win so your father sougth a way to gather more strength. But he did not have time to train new men, did not have time to engineer new weapons, did not have the knowledge to destroy his enemies. He knew that he and his men were doomed. That's when he saw it. When he got his idea and dared to take it."
"What did he take?" Thor asks, quietly.
"Our faith," Harry says, helpless and grieved. "Our beliefs and our magics, our will and our soul. Our very Gods to whom we trusted and loved."
Harry turns to Thor. Sees his building grief with more than just her sense of the world, with her very eyes. The blue of his eyes sparking like lightning, grown to be as it's told. "Faith is the most powerful thing in the World," she tells him. "It can do wonderous things. Monstruous things.
"Your father shed his very name," Harry says and sees Odin sag even further. "Then he made your mother shed hers, too. Then he made his warriors shed their names. Then he made the women and childred left in your world shed their names. Then he made your world, the realm which you call home, shed its name. He made everything he could and more, shed its name. And in that he made you Nameless.
"To be Nameless is a horrible thing," she says quietly. "One I wouldn't wish on anyone. For that alone, he should suffer. But that, what he did there, is not a grievance he has either with Earth or with me. No, our horror is in what he did after."
Harry looks to the Earthlings one by one, sees their names and their lifes and their deaths. She settles on Erik Selvig. "Not many people follow the old faith in your birthplace anymore, do they. The myths and legends are no longer real, just spoken of in stories for children. Thousand years back and it was not so. Back then, everyone believed. Everyone made sacrifices. Everyone prayed."
Erik Selvig looks unnerved with her focus on him but nods in assent.
She turns to Thor again. "The Nameless man that was your father, Thor, saw that, and so he did unspeakable things and took the name of Odin Allfather as his own."
Harry rages and the sky trembles.
"I have come to claim his head."
Odin meets her eyes and Harry smiles at him. "Isn't it funny that Earth, the planet and the people that you all scorn and are so quick to deem worthless and inconsequential, are the one who inherits Death." She takes a step closer to him, a sword made out of light materializing in her hand. "Isn't it just hilarious that the Master of Death was born of Earth."
She stops a few feet away from his kneeling form and places the tip of the sword delicately at his throat, just beneath his chin. The edge is so sharp that just a tiny flick of her wrist makes the blood flow in a great red river.
"Everyone believes in me, Odin," she promises him.
"Even you."