"No! Please Anthony, I am telling you three times. Whatever you do, do not put the Mind Stone into one of your computers. Do nothing that might activate it. Do not use it in any way that could draw attention to its presence on Midgard." Thor looked up at Odin in despair as his human friend continued his snark-laden protestations. The Man of Iron did not seem to grasp the urgency of the situation no matter what Thor said. Odin raised his eyebrows and beckoned him over to the desk. Thor got up, cradling Munin in his hands. He set the dark raven-shaped device next to a stack of books between him and his father. Odin calmly reached forwards and placed his hands over Thor's.
Tony was instantly silenced by Odin's stern glowering.
"Anthony Son of Stark," Odin said in a tone that brooked no arguing. "I am the Allfather of the Nine Realms. The relic in your possession could be a weapon of terrible power in the wrong hands, as you have already in some small way witnessed. Wrong hands are yet again seeking it. If you do not wish to bring death and destruction to your world the likes of you have not seen, you will heed my command and hide the thing until such time as interplanetary security is restored. If you do not swear to this, then I will have no choice but to send Thor back to Midgard to rob you of your treasure himself, rather than the equally crucial tasks I have in mind for him at present." He paused, waiting for Tony to object, which he did not, though he had grown quite red in the face. "Now, can I trust you to neither endanger yourself nor impede the war effort with your scientific inquiries?"
"Yes," the human muttered after a time, with obvious ill will.
"Swear it."
"Fine. I promise I won't put the 'Mind Stone' into the awesome software I designed specifically for it. At least, not until you or Thor gives the green light."
"That is as much as we can expect from him, Father," Thor said quickly. "And I believe him to be a man of honor. He will keep his oath."
"Very well," Odin said. "Thank you, Son of Stark." He released his hold on Munin and bent his gray head back over the ancient text he had been reading.
"Your dad is scary," Tony said as soon as Odin's face vanished from his mind's eye. "He can't hear me can he?"
"That is correct," Thor said, hiding a grin.
"Good. He might be your dad, but his authoritative manner reminds me of Fury, without the foul mouth. He's oppressing my genius!" Tony whined. "And this thing really is genius! I'm on the verge of making an artificial consciousness here! Cutting edge machine learning with quantum computing! That's the secret to this Mind Stone thing, you know... All the first principles are laid out for it, all it needs is that Aristotelian 'first cause' and bam! It will have deduced the existence of rice pudding in the space of four hours and come up with a solution for world peace in ten... Your dad is raining on my parade... or more accurately pissing on it... and I resent being threatened."
"The Allfather is among the wisest beings in the known universe," Thor said mildly, though he didn't particularly blame his friend for his reaction to his father. Norns knew, Thor had grated against Odin's orders most of his life but caved into them just as rapidly.
"Hmm. Well I guess that proves what I always suspected, that wisdom and people skills absolutely do not go hand in hand." Tony grinned, finally. "Don't worry, I'm not that mad. I'll get over it."
"I believe you will."
"Yeah. Alright, go do whatever quest Gandalf has assigned to you, Aragorn. And again, glad your brother woke up finally. It'll all work out."
"Farewell, Anthony." Thor let go of Munin and sighed. He looked up at Odin. "Do we go to the Vault first or check on the Aether?"
"Vault. It is on the way. Come."
The pair of them wended their way down to the Vault. The guard in the anteroom scanned them both with a truth-seeking spell to confirm their identities and screen for hypnosis, then Odin placed his palm on the door. There was a faint hum and answering click as the door opened. Inside the Vault it was always oppressively quiet, and this time was no different. The walls, floors, and ceilings were bare stone, but there was so much magic in them and in the very air, it muffled sound like heavy snow. Thor's boots faintly tapped but did not echo as they walked past each thrice-warded niche and its awesome contents. Halfway along the length of the Vault, they stopped before a huge, utterly gaudy golden war gauntlet. Thor had walked past it many times before and never paid it much mind. How things changed...
He blinked as Odin easily bypassed any wards on this particular niche and picked the gauntlet up off its plinth, then set it down on the floor.
"Er..."
"That was the decoy," Odin explained before Thor could ask. "If any but me and my blood touched it, and yes the spell is strict and does exclude both your mother and Loki, they would be warded to stillness, the door to the Vault would seal shut, the wards on all the other relics would temporarily double and deny access to any, including you and me, and both Heimdall and the guards outside would be instantly alerted to an intruder." He passed a hand over the circumference of the plinth. Dust spilled out of a circle of etched runes in the wake of his hand and glowed faintly before dissipating into the air. Odin studied the revealed markings for a moment, then touched each of them, hand moving back and forth around the circle without clear pattern. Each one he touched brightened briefly then slowly filled back in, until all the runes were gone and the surface was completely smooth again. There was a grating sound, and the middle of the plinth slowly turned and spiraled upwards, revealing a secret compartment containing a completely different sort of gauntlet. This one was left-handed, formed of thin, silvery chainmail, with reinforced knuckles boasting large empty settings for five stones and a last empty setting in a metal disc on the back of the gauntlet. A ring of metal around the wrist was inscribed in the language of magic with marks for protection, durability, flexibility, and most prominently and repeatedly, wisdom. Additional unseen sygaldry was woven throughout the device, Thor sensed. Odin reached out and picked it up. "This is the real thing," he murmured. He offered it to Thor.
"You want me to take it?" Thor asked in some confusion. "I thought we were just moving it to a more secret and secure location..."
"We are. I can think of no more secure location than on your hand, my son. The same for both our stones. Asgard can no longer rely on secrecy to keep these treasures secure - that strategy nearly lost us the Tesseract and severely endangered Midgard. The realms are already fractious following the collapse of the Bifrost. Even if the repairs are completed on time as Heimdall has promised, things will be getting worse, not better, once our enemy makes his move. Do not worry about any targeting the gauntlet, though. I will construct a concealment so no one may see it on you, not even Heimdall."
"Oh. Shouldn't you be the one to wear it?"
Odin smiled. "If we have to use it, I would prefer to rely on your strength and wisdom. You are my best hope and most formidable weapon. I will need you fully armed and ready to move when the time comes."
"Thank you, Father," Thor said in surprise, accepting the gauntlet and slipping it on. The magic in it caused the chainmail to flex and mold itself to his hand, until he could barely tell he was wearing it except for the slight coolness against his skin. Simultaneously, he felt sharp jabs of fire as the gauntlet executed the telepathic link encoded in its sygaldry, strands of power traveling the nerves of his hand and up to his brain. He closed his eyes for a moment as the device assaulted him with instructions on how to use it correctly, safely, wisely... It lasted only seconds though. Odin took his hand and closed his eyes, forehead furrowed in concentration. The metallic shine of the gauntlet faded first, then the empty stone-settings seemed to shrink, the details of the metalwork melting together until it seemed to become one with his own skin. Thor flexed his fingers in awe as soon as Odin let go. "I never knew you were so skillful with illusions. You're as good as Loki," he said.
Odin grinned as he set the false gauntlet back on the plinth and pinched a sprinkling of dust out of the air to hide the fact the thing had been recently moved. "I'd like to tell you he learned it all from me, but it was rather the other way around. I learned a lot from him, reinforcing his disguise when he was very young, and then working out his secrets once he grew old enough to lie but not yet old enough to maintain his straight face. I never had many other reasons to use them, though."
"Not having a reason never stopped Loki," Thor commented as they walked further into the Vault.
Odin hesitated. "Hmm. Perhaps. Loki never learned that from me. 'The Allfather has a reason for everything he does.' ...I never thought him impulsive, though. He could always explain himself, far better than you could. His love of magic, his joy in plotting harmless trickery was reason enough if no greater purpose presented itself."
Thor frowned but said nothing. They stopped in the alcove containing the Tesseract. Odin muttered the spell that released the wards. Thor touched his gauntlet to the cube, the blue light seeping eagerly out of one corner to shiver his hand with its power. The crystal container melted into nothingness as the light left it: its structure was a product of it contents, not the other way around. Odin's illusion held true, remarkably. The light vanished within seconds once it occupied his knuckle. Though he could still see it shining brightly in his mind's eye, the magical incandescence would be invisible to anyone else. Odin spun another spell around the empty alcove, forming a simulacrum of the Tesseract and restoring the wards at full strength.
Neither of the guards so much as looked at Thor's hand as the two of them exited the Vault. Odin led the way through empty, disused corridors and down the stairs into the storage cellars beneath the guards' barracks. Only once their wending way brought them so deep into the foundations that the hall lamps dimmed to nothing and they both conjured lights to illuminate the roughly shaped walls did Thor speak again. "You make Loki sound as selfishly driven as I was, Father. Do you really think him so?"
"That is not what I said, Thor. Loki was dutiful as a prince and son. But duty does not always have to eclipse personal motives, you know. Loki has always been possessed a great inner life, currently blown out of all proportion, but an asset to him before his injury. Like a star making its own light in the void, he made his own purpose. He could always entertain himself and shrug off the mutterings of the court about his obvious differences, at least until confrontation with his adoptive status forced him to reassess his entire world view and self image... But enough of your brother. You sell yourself too short, my son."
"Oh? My selfish actions put Loki on the road to destruction."
"Yes, your actions most certainly contributed to his fate, but my mistakes more so. And yes, your actions were self-interested and misguided, but your ultimate motivation less so. Your desire since you first realized your birthright as heir to the throne has been to become the best Asgardian prince and future king you could possibly be. Your goal was to do your duty. Your error was in misunderstanding what that meant. You are so gifted, Thor, and earned the love and respect of the people at such a young age, you assumed you had succeeded in your goal. And then everything changed."
"I was a fool."
"Not really. When you attacked Jotunheim, you acted out the role you had made for yourself perfectly. And then we lost Loki, and you immediately realized your error. To be a prince is to guide and protect others, not to be loved and admired. And you learned that both you and I could fail miserably at the job. No, you were never a fool, only naïve." Odin glanced back at him. "I believe your deepest desire is still the same, to be the best prince of Asgard you can. Am I wrong?"
They came to a dead end, the way obscured by a huge pile of rocks. A cave-in. Odin raised his light higher, looking around at the tumbled rocks. Thor scuffed his boots in the dust and kicked the largest boulder blocking their way. "You might be wrong," he said softly. Odin turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. "I do want to do my best for you and for Asgard," Thor said quickly. "But is that the 'deepest desire' of my soul anymore? I'm not sure. Having Loki back here, watching him recover... my nightmares are about losing him, or you, or Mother, or anyone else I love again. Not about any threat to the Aesir."
Odin grinned crookedly. "My nightmare is having to sentence Loki for his crimes, to death or to prison it makes no difference, for he is lost to me either way."
Thor shook his head. "I couldn't do that to him. Ever. Not even if all the lords of the Nine Realms demanded it. I'm sorry."
Odin rested a hand on his shoulder. "That is a test I hope neither of us must face. I am not disappointed in you, Thor. Not in the slightest. No one, no king or prince or common patriot, can know how they would make a choice between the good of a loved one and the good of society, not until the decision is there before them."
Thor smiled slightly and placed his own hand over Odin's, drawing strength from the touch. "Thankyou." He straightened up. "So, how long do you think this tunnel has been blocked, and how do we get past it?"
Odin grinned. "These stones have not shifted even the slightest since I was here last. They are only a barrier to those who do not know what lies beyond."
"The Aether?"
"Well, yes. But you need to know the specifics." He moved his hand from Thor's shoulder to his temple and closed his eyes. Thor did as well, and a dizzying sense of motion overtook them, as Thor saw Odin's memory. Their mind's eye shot straight through the cave-in, through a maze of narrow tunnels beyond it, past layers of protective wards, and finally into a square chamber permeated by an eerie red glow. Then Odin let go, and Thor snapped back to himself. A brief sensation of vertigo caused him to rock in place, but soon subsided. Odin touched his palm to the nearest boulder, which sparked but otherwise did nothing to seem anything but ordinary stone. "Shall we?"
"Er, yes." Thor followed Odin straight through the rocks as if they were water, although his nor Odin's light penetrated them not at all and weirdly, Thor could still feel the roughness of the stone against his exposed skin. They emerged into a tunnel quite different from the one they left, with smoother, brighter stone, closer walls studded with milky white crystal formations, and ceiling vanishing in shadow. The air was warmer. Thor looked around to see a pane of inky darkness rather than a cave-in behind them. He surmised they were no longer anywhere near the Fortress of Bor. He followed Odin through monotonous passages, marking each intersection and turn in his mind so he could find his way through the labyrinth should he ever need to return alone. The stone walls blushed pink, and the air grew hot as they finally neared their target. Then the color changed again, suddenly, which was the only reason Thor realized there was actually light ahead. A red light refracting along the pale walls. A light that had just gone out. Odin held a finger to his lips then pointed at his and Thor's feet before sprinting silently forwards, Thor close on his heels, their steps muffled in Odin's magic.
They rounded one last corner into the square stone chamber Odin had shown him minutes before. There was a column in the center of the chamber, but the red light that had shone from it was gone, and a familiar form lay crumpled in the shadow of the column. Thor leapt to her side, heart thumping in his chest and throat closing in anxiety. Impossibly, it was Jane Foster, the beautiful mortal woman he had left on Earth almost two years ago. The woman he still dreamed of, though less often than he used to. He touched a finger to her wrist, and breathed again. She was alive.
"You know her?" Odin said archedly.
"Yes. She is Dr. Jane Foster of Midgard, the woman who took me in when I was banished. She is one of their scientists and was studying the gravitational signature of the Bifrost at the time."
"Hmm." Thor looked up at Odin's displeased tone. The Allfather was studying the stone column, which Thor only then noticed was not a column at all, as the middle of it was empty space. Odin shook his head and knelt down next to Thor, passing a hand over Jane's body. Her skin momentarily glowed red where he touched.
"What is it?"
"The Aether is within her now. I wonder why and how she came here and if she knew what she was meddling with."
"Jane would never... ah... do what ever it is you are implying," Thor objected.
Odin rolled his eyes. "My son, you knew her for all of two days, yes? Perhaps she is a lovely person, and I can see you find her beautiful, but whether she came here for curiosity's sake or avarice or accident, we cannot afford her any special consideration with everything else going on."
Thor opened his mouth to argue the point, but Odin was no longer paying him any mind. The Allfather stood up and removed his eye patch, revealing the hollow socket that flickered faintly with dull fire. He closed the other eye in order to see the faint warp of space and weft of magic about them. After only a few seconds, he clapped his eyepatch back on, swooped down to grab both Jane's and Thor's arms, and yanked them backwards.
"Father!" Thor yelled.
"It's the Convergence," Odin said shortly. "It has begun. I can see a small, mobile anomaly, which must be an unlucky connection between this chamber and Midgard. I suspect she either stumbled through unintentionally or detected it incidentally on the other side, since you tell me she studied such things. Come, we must move her, or there is no telling where she and the Aether might end up."
Thor quickly gathered Jane into his arms. She still did not stir. "Will she be alright?" Thor asked worriedly.
"I do not know," Odin admitted. "The Aether will be highly corrosive to her mortal body and is probably the reason she is currently unconscious, but it may well be equally dangerous to remove it."
"Lady Eir will be able to help," Thor asserted.
"Perhaps, but we may not have time to experiment."
Thor stumbled and clutched Jane tighter. "Will she fade so fast?"
Odin shrugged. "I know not, but there is every possibility our enemy intends to attack during the Convergence. You should realize that as well as I."
Thor's heart sank. Odin was right about that. The Convergence was an extremely rare celestial event, and previously a cause for celebration. This year, it was a cause for chaos. Asgardian astronomers had mapped the anticipated axis of intersection decades ago, and plans had consequently been developed to evacuate certain locations on various worlds. The problem was the defunct Bifrost. Repairs had stalled early in the year, shortly after Thor returned from Midgard, as multiple materials and equipment orders from off-world had been mysteriously waylaid or even lost in the Veins of Yggdrasil. Even though much of the work was now caught up after shifting the commissions for the key mechanisms to Asgardian crafters rather than Nidavellan, Asgard still would not be deploying security forces as previously planned. The Convergence would be the perfect time to catch the Nine Worlds off-guard. It was then Thor suffered the nasty realization that his nightmare was before him: within days, within hours, he might be asked to make the choice to sacrifice Jane for the good of the realms.
He wasn't ready.
Author's note: How do people change? What motivates people to change? Joy? Egoism? Duty? Love? Philosophically speaking, there is division between normative reasons, motivating reasons, and explanatory reasons. Normative reasons are the facts that may contribute to an agent doing something, for instance Thor attacked Jotunheim back in the day because they attacked his coronation (fact). The motivating reason is that he was angry at them ruining his coronation (conscious feeling). The explanatory reason in this version of the story is that their incursion threatened his self-image as prince of Asgard and how others saw him (unconscious feeling, putative fact of his perception). Current Thor is worried that his motivations continue to be egocentric and trivial, whereas Odin has identified that Thor's motivation is now truly selfless, but insecure because of competing interests and fear of making more mistakes. Thor experienced an emotional epiphany when Loki fell that fundamentally changed his core beliefs about himself. He is still in the process of reconciling his conscious, logical behavior with that epiphany. This falls under learning theory and beliefs revision, which Loki has also been struggling with this whole story but on an even more fundamental level (eg, "there are sounds, there is language...some of those sounds earlier were probably language"). This can be contrasted to Odin, who is much more experienced, has a much more mature understanding of his own beliefs and behavior, and was wounded but not intrinsically changed by the events at the start of the story. Thus, when he realizes Asgardian secrecy has been compromised, he can easily revise Asgard's whole strategy with respect to the Infinity Stones, first allowing two on one planet, and then actively uniting them in Thor's loyal hand. None of these immortals are ageless and changeless. They would be stupid if they were.
Learning theory is a branch of epistemology becoming increasingly popular due to heavy ties to AI, and I don't know that much about it, honestly. I also don't know much about quantum computing beyond that it is super exciting for quantum superposition allowing computation beyond the capabilities of standard binary processors, which is more akin to the way organic brains work. You can have fun reading up on both. :)
