9.

Thor had not known how true the words were until they came out of his mouth. He wondered if Loki had heard, wherever he was now. He wondered how he had come to fall in love like this, not a week after moving away from the world he had known. He had not come out here to fall in love, had never really factored it into his future before. He wanted to argue with himself, to say that he could not possibly be feeling this. But if he was nothing else he had always hoped he was at least honest with himself. And it was true. He was in love and his love was dead.

So why did he stubbornly persist in feeling as though he was at the start of something wonderful? As though there was something to be found here if he could just work it out. He tried to replay the events of his dreams. He had never had a dream like this, not ever. He supposed if he was told he could have this relationship but they would only ever consummate in dreams, he would take that right now and consider himself luckier than most. He shook his head, laughed at himself; this was ridiculous.

And then, just to cement the idea that he and his ghost were moving in together, settling down almost into a domestic routine, Loki had given him that seemingly random instruction just before he winked out like a light.

Check the electric.

Well, Thor figured, he could do that at any rate, and he already had an idea of what he would find. He had begun to work it out last night and when he got down to the kitchen to peer at the energy inverter his suspicions were proven correct. The energy display was reading considerably lower than last night, though he knew for sure this time, that he had not used anything.

It was clear to him now that Loki's manifestation was dependent upon the power. That he was leeching energy from the solar panels, running on it as though he were a kitchen appliance. Thor half smiled to himself at the idea and he could almost hear Loki reply in his head – oh very funny, what does that make you-a garden tool? He could almost see him roll his eyes.

Thor boiled a kettle and sat down with his tea. The simple act took the energy down to zero.

"I wish," he said aloud – "I wish Loki, you could at least leave me enough to make breakfast."

He sighed. The house offered up no reply. He supposed it would almost be worth saving all the energy for Loki; it was too quiet without him here. He sighed again, giving in, without the slightest bit of real distress, to the acceptance that he would have to go into town and get chips for breakfast. He did, sitting on the wall, over-looking the sea whilst the gulls came to bother him and offer up their intent interest in his activities. He foolishly threw one of them a chip, and within moments the sky was full of wings and beaks and squabbling. Thor was torn between wanting to watch them eat and tender possessiveness towards his breakfast.

In the end he left the hard bits for the gulls, brushed greasy hands on his jeans and headed off in search of the library. They already knew who he was when he went in to introduce himself, stooping at the threshold because the centuries old door was just a little too low for him. It was strange how in a place like this, where the population was so low, there was room enough to go for a long walk and never see a person, where the houses were so spaced out – that everybody knew who everybody else was. In the city you did not even know your own neighbour, were lucky to have a friend in the same apartment block let alone knowing any of the hundreds you might bump into just walking down the street.

They even had a library card ready for him. When he expressed his surprise the lady at the desk told him Heimdall had arranged it. He could not quite remember ever mentioning to Heimdall that he would come here and might have been annoyed at the presumption if he were not, after all, here.

"I'd like to read up some of the local records," he said, awkwardly.

"You'll be wanting the microfiche then," the lady said.

"The – what now?"

She nodded;

"It is an archaic system – here I'll show you".

He followed her through to a shadowy corner of the library, short rows of ancient screens and miles of filing cabinets running back into the dark. It was more frightening than the theatre or his haunted house.

"What period were you looking at?"

"Er –" he guessed, trying to remember the dates Heimdall had mentioned – "2015, I think, maybe some years before."

The woman nodded again and moved off into the labyrinth to find the right filing cabinet. When she came back she ushered him onto a seat, turned on the screen in front of him and fed some files into the back of it. As the thing hummed into life, newspaper articles appeared on the greenish screen and she showed him how to trawl through them. He did not really want to look specifically with her there and she sensed this, the way, he was noting, English people did, nodded one last time and said she would leave him to it, to shout if he needed any help.

The microfiche was hideously frustrating, tedious and complicated to get used to, but after about an hour's irritation, and a venture out into the world to find a take away tea, he began to get the hang of it. The next frustration was trawling though reams and reams of information that was utterly useless to him until finally he came across an article headed –

"Innovative New Director Brings Experimental Performance to Whitstable Theatre!"

Thor peered in more closely; he gathered that the off the wall modern director, renowned for "Bringing a frightening air of realism to a fantastical subject matter," was opening a ground breaking new interpretation of Norse Mythology as a surreal musical stage performance airing for its first run in the small Whitstable theatre. The first article he read had little further to say but a little while later he found a second announcing that local actor/ musician Loki Laufeyson had been cast in one of the leading roles. This time Thor stopped for longer; there was a small photo of Loki accompanying the article and even though he knew he would look the way he had dreamt him it was still a mild shock to see this confirmed. All of a sudden Loki was grinning up at him out of the past in blurry underwater green in the dull library light.

"Loki –" he whispered, reaching out a finger to touch the screen. It blipped when he touched it so he moved his hand quickly.

A little further down the reviews began to appear. One of them slated the entire production in no uncertain terms;

"Ragnarok's a flop!" it read "For all that Mr Thanos attempts to give us this subtle and surreal twist on the well-known story he may just as well have entitled it "RagnaROCK The Musical!" But then he found another article, written just after the closing night –

"Despite the general hokiness that this entire production has become defined by," he read, "Everyone agreed that there was something deeply unsettling about this final night's performance. It is difficult to know if this was the production itself or if events have been coloured by the subsequent disappearance of the local lead actor. However it is generally felt that the last half hour truly defined the director's signature style in bringing realism to the unrealistic."

Staring at the screen Thor was not sure quite what to make of this; he just knew that something in the description of the final night's "Realism" had left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He got up, checked out a couple of books on Norse mythology, thanked the librarian and headed home.

_x_

Yeah it's just a short plotty bit today, though hopefully it is a plot that is thickening somewhat! I was gonna go further but it was getting too long so I've split the plot chapters up a bit, more to come soon!

Btw cause I haven't done this in a while, anyone interested in finding me on tumblr please come do so at shadow-in-the-shade. :-)