The morning split naturally into different orbits.
Elena found Sif within ten minutes.
The fierce warrior was at the far end of the training grounds, running through complex glaive forms with the fluid, deadly precision that had made her Asgard's finest blade fighter. Elena marched straight up to her, planted herself at a respectful distance, and watched.
She didn't interrupt. She didn't shout questions. For the first time all morning, Elena was completely, utterly still.
Sif finished her form. She turned and looked down at the small, bright eyed girl staring up at her.
"You must be Elena."
"You're amazing," Elena said. Not flattery. Just stating a fact. "You're the best fighter here. Better than Thor."
Sif's eyebrow rose. "Many would dispute that."
"Thor is stronger. My Dad says strongest does not mean best. The best fighters don't waste a single move. Everything has a reason." Elena bounced on her toes, her energy returning. "Can I watch you train? Can you show me things? Dad has been teaching me martial arts, but he says I need to learn from different people because everyone moves differently."
"Breathe," Sif said, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Sorry. I am excited. I have wanted to meet you since Dad showed me your battles."
Sif studied the girl. Seven years old. Practically humming with kinetic energy. Looking at a thousand-year-old warrior not with awe, but with hunger. The pure, unadulterated hunger to learn, to move, to become better.
"Come," Sif said, gesturing with the glaive. "I'll run my forms again. You ask questions. But you stay strictly out of the sparring ring."
"Deal!"
Elena followed Sif like a happy, chattering shadow, talking the entire way. Sif answered every question patiently.
She was enjoying this. Elena's enthusiasm was deeply infectious, and Sif, who lived in a rigid world of stoic warriors and measured protocol, was responding to it like a plant turning toward the sun.
Within thirty minutes, Sif was demonstrating basic footwork patterns, and Elena was trying desperately to copy them, failing spectacularly, laughing off the dirt, and trying again. Sif corrected her stance. Elena fell over. Got up. Tried again. Fell over. Got up.
"She does not give up," Sif said to Arthur during a break, watching Elena attempt a balance stance for the fifteenth time.
"She does not know how," Arthur replied fondly. "It is not in her vocabulary."
"Good. I was the exact same way."
—
Tristan, meanwhile, had found his own brand of entertainment.
Thor installed him safely on the high gallery bench overlooking the main sparring ring, where a group of younger Einherjar were running through heavy training drills. Swords clashed against shields, the sharp, rhythmic ringing of metal echoing in the open air.
Tristan watched with total, silent absorption, sitting proudly on Volstagg's massive knee like it was a throne built just for him.
Volstagg provided running commentary with the enthusiasm of a man narrating the greatest sporting event in history. "See there! Young Brandr leads with his right again! Classic error! His instructor has told him a hundred times—"
"He's going to fall," Tristan said, pointing.
Volstagg looked. Brandr didn't look off-balance. His stance was wide, his guard was—
Brandr's opponent feinted left, struck right, and Brandr went down hard.
"Ha!" Volstagg laughed. "Good eye, little one! Lucky guess."
They watched more. Two new pairs entered the ring. Tristan was quiet for a while, chin on his fists, legs swinging off Volstagg's knee.
Then he pointed again. "That one."
Volstagg looked. The recruit seemed fine. Solid stance. Good footwork.
Three seconds later, she overcommitted on a lunge and ate a training blade to the ribs.
Tristan pointed at the next ring. "Him too."
The recruit stumbled on a parry and went sprawling.
Volstagg had stopped laughing. He was looking at the small boy with serious, intense interest now.
"How are you doing that?" Volstagg asked.
Tristan shrugged. "They look wobbly before they fall."
"Wobbly?"
"Like when you stack blocks too high and you know it's going to tip but it hasn't yet."
Volstagg stared at the boy. Then at the ring. Then at Arthur, who was passing on his way to check on Elena.
"Hayes. Your son has predicted five falls in a row."
"He's observant," Arthur said.
"This is not observant. This is... I don't know what this is." Volstagg looked down at Tristan, who was happily watching the next brutal bout and swinging his legs. "Can I keep him? I want him on my command staff immediately."
"He's three, Volstagg."
"The best tactical minds start young!"
Tristan tugged on Volstagg's beard. "Can I have another honeycake?"
"You can have all of them," Volstagg said, with feeling.
—
Pietro lasted exactly forty-five minutes before he found trouble.
Arthur had specifically told him not to spar with the Asgardians. Pietro had technically obeyed. He hadn't sparred.
He'd challenged Fandral to a race.
"Fastest in my university!" Pietro was saying when Arthur noticed the commotion. "Track team captain! Three school records!"
Fandral, who had never declined a challenge from anyone, was already stretching. "A footrace? Against a mortal?"
"On your marks!" Pietro had already crouched into a sprinter's stance.
"I didn't agree to—"
"GO!"
Pietro took off. He was fast, genuinely pushing the absolute edge of human capability. The Asgardian warriors watched with polite interest.
Fandral sighed, jogged after him, and overtook him in about four strides.
Pietro stared. "What the—"
"I was not even trying," Fandral said, examining his fingernails.
"Again!"
They raced again. Fandral won by a wider margin, this time running backwards for the last ten yards.
"AGAIN!"
"He has spirit," Hogun observed from the sidelines.
"He is going to hurt himself," Arthur said.
"That is how one learns!" Hogun said cheerfully.
On the fifth race, Pietro threw himself across the finish line in a full body dive and still lost by three yards. He lay on the ground, panting heavily, staring up at the golden sky.
Wanda walked over, looked down at her brother, and spoke softly. "Are you done?"
"He is not even winded, Wanda. He ran backwards and he is not even breathing hard."
"Yes. They are Asgardians. Arthur told you this."
Pietro lay there for a while. Then he muttered, "I need to get faster."
"Or you need to stop racing aliens."
"Both. Both is good."
—
Soon, Wanda also found her own quiet corner of Asgard.
While Pietro raced and Elena trained and Tristan watched warriors get beaten into the dirt, Wanda had drifted naturally toward the serene practice arenas where the Asgardian mages worked. They stood in quiet, focused circles, their hands moving in precise geometric patterns, weaving intricate enchantments that shimmered gold and green in the air.
One of the younger enchanters noticed her watching and waved her over.
"You have power," the enchanter said. "I can feel it. Chaotic."
"I'm still learning to control it," Wanda said carefully.
"Control is overrated. Understanding is better." The enchanter smiled. "Would you like to see how we weave?"
Wanda spent the next hour sitting on the grass, watching Asgardian enchantment theory in practice, asking quiet, incredibly precise questions that made the experienced enchanters look at each other with raised eyebrows.
Arthur checked on her once from a distance. She was sitting cross-legged, tiny red wisps dancing effortlessly between her fingers in patterns that mimicked exactly what the Asgardians were doing.
He smiled and left her to it.
—
Eileen had vanished.
Arthur noticed about two hours in. One moment she'd been on the gallery benches. The next — gone. Winky was nowhere to be seen either, off on her own exploration of the golden city.
Arthur didn't worry. On Asgard, with him nearby, there was nothing that could threaten his family.
And Eileen did this. She always did this. At parties, at conferences, at gatherings of any size — his wife would drift into a crowd of strangers and emerge an hour later with three new friends, two dinner invitations, and someone's life story. It was her gift. In the years since Extremis consumed her schedule, she'd had less time for it. The social butterfly had been buried under regulatory filings and clinical data.
But here, with no meetings and no phone buzzing every thirty seconds, the old Eileen was back.
Arthur should have expected what happened next.
—
She returned three hours later. With an entourage.
Four Asgardian women walked beside them. A healer Arthur recognised from the palace staff, two women from the lower city who appeared to be weavers based on their clothing, and an elderly enchantress who was laughing brightly at something Eileen had just said.
They were all talking at once. Eileen was in the centre, holding a bundle of crystalline flowers and a woven bracelet one of the women had made for her.
And walking at the centre of the group, in simple robes rather than formal dress, was Frigga.
Queen of Asgard. The All-Mother.
Walking arm-in-arm with Arthur's wife like they were old college friends returning from an afternoon out shopping.
Arthur stared.
Eileen waved brightly. "Arthur! Look who I met!"
"I can see who you met," Arthur said, his voice flat.
"Frigga was in the Eternal Gardens. Freya introduced us. We've been walking the lower city for the last hour. Did you know there's a weaver near the western gate who makes fabric that changes color with your mood? I bought three scarves."
"You've been walking the lower city. With the Queen of Asgard."
"She knows all the best spots."
Arthur looked at Frigga. They had met before. During the Laufey invasion, when Arthur had fought to defend the palace. She'd thanked him formally afterward. In the weeks since, they'd crossed paths occasionally in the grand corridors. Polite nods, brief, respectful words, nothing more. Arthur was close with Thor and the warriors. The royal family was a different sphere entirely.
And yet here was the Queen of Asgard, looking at Eileen with warm, genuine fondness. In three hours, his wife had crossed a social distance that maybe no mortal had done in centuries.
"Your wife," Frigga said, a serene smile playing at her lips, "is remarkable. I have not laughed this much in a very long time."
"She does that," Arthur said, shaking his head. "She is special like that. Shocks me every time."
"She is special indeed," Frigga said mysteriously, her eyes glinting, but Arthur did not put too much attention to that. "Eileen told me about her work and about the particular challenge of raising a family while one's husband is off being a hero."
"Me? Playing hero? When?" Arthur said.
Eileen and Frigga both gave him the same look. It was unsettling how similar the expressions were.
"He came home once with his eyebrows completely singed off," Eileen said to Frigga with an exasperated sigh. "Told me it was a 'controlled experiment.' Both eyebrows, Frigga. Gone."
"Odin once returned from Muspelheim missing his entire beard," Frigga replied, her eyes sparkling with ancient amusement. "He told me it was a 'tactical decision.'"
They both laughed. The kind of laugh that came from deep recognition, from knowing you weren't alone in the absolute absurdity of your life.