Sorry. As usual, my estimates of time/distance are off. Apologies.

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Weariness plagued him.

It dogged Odin's every step and wavered in film behind his eyes. It weighted his hands and dragged at his old bones.

It was not as it had been before. Now he was old. He feared, sometimes, that he might have waited too long. That the journey back might be too long, even for the man he once had been. But he had been unwilling to leave the regency in Frigga's hands again. Though she said little to him of it, he knew that the rule of realms had never been a thing she sought, and, in his heart, he regretted tearing her from her home and her people, all those years ago.

And what was more, their sons were nearly of age.

Just nearly. And what a few more years when they were so close?

Even though they were the both of them hot-headed fools, constantly at one another's throats.

The weariness of the Odinsleep hung heavy on him. The winter's wind whispered in his father's voice. The darkness of night, seethed with the voices he'd sought in the dark places all those years before. The voices he no longer needed in the Eternal Realm. The bright home he had crafted for his sons, his wife, his people. He'd carved it for them, and kept it. And when he woke the voices flitted away like pointless dreaming and he fixed his eyes on his city.

Asgard.

His mind began to wander.

"Soon," he told Frigga. "Soon I will need him to take my throne."

"They are ready," she answered.

"No," he said, "They have much yet to learn."

Tracing the back of his hand with her fingertips, Frigga smiled at him. "Didn't we?"

Finally, the weight grew to be too much.

Thor, arrogant fool that he was, with his four greatest friends, his brother, and Frigga his mother as witness, would be crowned King.

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And here…we…go