"To what do I owe this?" she laid her book aside and rose, beaming, to greet her son.

"I shall not remain long," Thor cautioned her.

"One comes to expect little more after a time."

He gave a weary breath of a laugh.

He had been given little time to recover from his trip to Earth. Already the better part of three months had passed and he looked no better than he had when first he returned home. If anything, he was worse.

"Come," she said, betraying no sign of her thoughts, "I have been sitting over long and would walk a while."

"All right,"

"Unless you would rather sit?" she questioned him, "It is not unheard of for a son to come to his mother for refreshment,"

His laugh had little more life to it, but the glint did touch his eyes, "No," he said, "I would rather…" a frown flashed across his brow, "…move."

Then the look was gone.

Frigga knew better than to press him.

They came out from under the great archways of the palace and into the sun. "Your father has given you little enough rest," she commented.

"It," he faltered, "is as I would have it, Mother."

For a time, they walked in silence. Then, "You are not as you were, not so long ago," she ventured.

"The world is not as I took it to be," he said, "How could I, knowing that, remain the same?"

"Mm," How indeed, she thought. And she remembered her son in the dungeons below. "It will rest better with me," she said, "when this disturbance among the realms is set right."

Thor said nothing. He glanced at the stones on which they walked.

"You do not feel the same?" she asked.

"I…" he raised his eyes, "see not the end of my path so near."

She watched him, and she remembered the bright, happy boy he had been. For all his faults, he had had joy. And she sorely missed its presence in him. He had strength, though. It would return to him.

"All will be well, Thor," she promised softly, "in time."

He gave a thin smile, but did not otherwise answer.

"Have you spoken to your father?"

"No more than in the giving of order or report. There is much that must be done. And even the space of eternity seems little in which to accomplish the whole of it."

"The work might go the more quickly," she said, "should the workers be less fatigued."

He smiled. "I appreciate your worry, Mother. But I have neither the time, nor even yet the desire for rest. I," he faltered again, looking at the ground, "I do not expect you to understand, but," he raised his blue eyes to look out over the city which sprawled just beyond the wall they had come to. "I feel more solace in the rage of battle than in the feasts and resting that follow. I had thought it only grief but," he shook his head, "The feeling does not leave me."

"Much has changed," she said, "in little time. You find solace in work, as ever you have."

"I…did not think that you would understand."

"You forget," she said, looking over the city, "I, too, have been a warrior, in my time."

"Yes," he smiled, lowering to his forearms, leaning over into the light breeze. "I do forget that, sometimes." For a moment, he looked the boy he'd once been, with his eyes bright and the wind blowing back his hair, and, just for one moment, she wondered how it might have all been differently.

But that realm was one best not to know. The world before was the one given. It bred only heartache to pursue what could no longer be.

"However," she said. "Warrior or no, I would not have my son hurt," she touched his arm, "whether it be by his own hand or that of another."

"Nor would I," he answered.

"Then we are in agreeance," she smiled at him.

Somewhere high above them, on the walls of the palace, a bird screeched, and dove down through the clear sky, down and down towards the city below.

"You miss her?"

Thor looked at her quizzically, then nodded, "Jane. Of course," he said. He turned back to look over the wall. "I do. But that is not the whole of it. Asgard is not to me what she once was."

"Yet still you miss your brother."
"I will not speak of Loki." Thor straightened, the darkness that had hid behind his eyes barred on his face. "No more than this. I have given it much thought these past months. Do not think, Mother, that I pronounce my judgement lightly. He has gone beyond reach." Leaning heavily on his hands, he turned his head away from her. "I have lost him the more truly than I had when I had thought him only deceased. Ask me any other thing, Mother, but I lost my brother to the Void. This thing that bears his shape is no more the man whose love I cherished."

She touched the hand he rested on the wall, steadying him.

At length, he asked, "You yet harbor hope for him?"

"Yes."

Thor straightened from the wall. "You have a strength, Mother, unlike any I have ever known. I can only pray," he bent over her hand, pressing it to his lips, "that, one day, I will be for you a worthy son."

"Thor," she took his hand, meeting his eyes directly with her own. "Always."