# Thor & Esther — Part Two
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## VI.
Esther had changed into a short hot pink dress — the hem barely clearing her upper thighs, black stockings beneath it, heels that added two inches she didn't need. Her hair was clipped up at one side, a few loose strands falling against her neck.
Thor looked at her and completely forgot what he'd been about to say.
She noticed. She always noticed.
They walked into the dining hall together, and the room went quiet in that particular way that meant everyone had already been talking about them.
Esther knew the feeling. When she had been queen, the silence that greeted her entrance had been reverent — a room holding its breath for the wrong reasons. This was different. This was a room deciding what it thought. She kept her chin level and let them look.
"*Thor.*"
A voice from across the hall, warm and carrying. A man was rising from one of the long tables — broad-shouldered, dark-haired, wearing Thor's face with more ease than Thor had yet learned to. Beside him, a red-haired woman was wrangling two small children back into their seats.
Esther glanced sideways. "Your genes are remarkably consistent."
Thor stiffened slightly beside her.
She looked at him — at the particular tension in his jaw — and understood. "For what it's worth," she added, quieter, "I think you're considerably more interesting."
He didn't quite manage to suppress the look on his face.
His brother had already crossed the room to meet them. He was the kind of man who filled a space without trying, all easy confidence and broad smiles, and he turned the full force of that smile on Esther immediately.
"Thor, she's stunning." He looked at his brother with something that might have been genuine surprise. "*How?*"
"Her name is Esther," Thor said. His tone was pleasant in the way that meant it wasn't.
"Esther." The brother tried it out, apparently delighted. "I'm Will. Will Grey. Come and sit with us — my wife Reagan is over there terrorizing our children, she'll want to meet you."
Reagan Grey turned out to be rosy-cheeked and flustered in equal measure, her freckles dark against her blush when Esther complimented her. Esther found her immediately charming.
"You have a lovely family," Esther told her, and meant it.
Reagan covered her face with both hands. "*Thank you* — you're so beautiful, I don't know where to look —"
Esther laughed. Genuinely, this time.
They settled at the table. For approximately thirty seconds, things went well.
"So," Will said, leaning forward with the expression of a man who considered himself entertaining. "Thor tells me an orc nearly took him out before you stepped in. A single orc." He shook his head. "Brother. Truly."
"It was a significant orc," Thor said flatly.
"How stupid do you have to be —"
"Will." Reagan's voice was quiet but precise.
Will ignored her. He turned to Esther with a conspiratorial grin. "You took pity on him, didn't you. That's what this is. Pity and — well, look at the man, he's not entirely unfortunate —"
The hall went quiet again.
This time it was because Esther had stopped smiling.
She hadn't raised her voice. She hadn't moved. But something in the quality of her attention had shifted, and Will, to his credit, registered it.
The Chief's voice cut through before she could respond. He was standing at the head of the center table, composed and unhurried, with the particular authority of a man who did not need to raise his voice to fill a room.
"Will. Enough."
Will subsided. The servants appeared with roasted chicken, braised vegetables, bread still warm from the oven.
The Chief raised his cup. "To family. To new faces at the table. To the meal before us."
The hall answered him, and the noise rose again, and Esther picked up her spoon.
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## VII.
The food was good. The company, once Will had been brought to heel, was almost pleasant.
Esther asked Reagan about the other villages — whether they were all like this, communal and close-knit, or whether it varied. Reagan described the settlements across the mountains with the enthusiasm of someone who had never left and found the subject of elsewhere deeply romantic.
"The capital of the Rhodes Empire is about three months by carriage," Will supplied, apparently recovered. "If you ever wanted to visit."
"I'd like that," Esther said. "Eventually."
She was aware of Thor going still beside her.
She rested her hand on his thigh — just to anchor him — and felt him draw a careful breath.
"With Thor, ideally," she added. "When he's done here."
"You could take him now," Will said. "We've already told him he wasn't welcome back, so technically —"
"Will." Thor's voice was even. "I'm sitting here."
"If that's what he wanted," Esther said, "I'd leave tonight. But he made a promise to your father, and I think he intends to keep it." She looked at Thor. "Don't you."
Thor met her eyes. "I'm not leaving. I'm going to train for three months and I am going to surpass you, Will. That's what's happening."
Will snorted. But something shifted in his expression — some small recalibration. He looked between his brother and the woman beside him, who was watching Thor with an expression that wasn't pity at all.
"You know," Will said, more slowly, "you might actually be a good match for him."
"I take it we have your blessing, then," Thor said.
"Is that a marriage question?" Will said, eyes lighting up. "Because —"
"Yes," Esther said simply. She looked at Thor. "What do you say?"
Thor looked back at her. The noise of the hall continued around them — children, laughter, the clatter of dishes — and he seemed briefly unaware of all of it.
"I'd like that," he said. "Very much."
Esther tucked a strand of his dark hair back from his face. "Then it's settled. You'll be my first husband."
Will made a sound that was half-laugh, half-surrender. Reagan pressed both hands to her cheeks again and made a small, overwhelmed noise.
"Our mother," Thor said to Esther, quieter, while Will was distracted by one of the children — "she only had father. She passed when I was eight. Will mentioned it earlier — I didn't want you to wonder."
Esther looked at him. "Thank you for telling me."
She didn't say anything else. She didn't need to. She just turned her hand over in his and held it properly for the rest of the meal.
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## VIII.
The hall emptied in waves.
Will clapped Thor once on the shoulder at the door — not gently, but not unkindly either. "Three months," he said. "Don't embarrass yourself."
"I won't," Thor said.
Julie and Jasmine caught them near the entrance. Jasmine looked like she'd spent dinner arguing with herself and had come to a reluctant conclusion.
"We owe you a dress," she said to Esther. Stiff, but genuine.
Esther tilted her head. "Are you sure?"
"Come by tomorrow."
"We'll see you then."
The Chief stopped them last, brief and warm. "You're making an impression," he said. "Keep it up."
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## IX.
Their home was quiet when they returned.
Esther sat on the edge of the bed and then let herself fall back against it, staring up at the ceiling. Her dress fluttered with the movement. She didn't bother to fix it.
Thor sat beside her. He looked at the wall.
"Do you actually want to stay?" she asked. "I'm not asking to test you. I want to know."
"I want to stay," he said. "Not for them. For me. And —" he paused. "I don't want to leave while you still believe in me. I'd like to be worth that first."
Esther turned her head to look at him. Then she patted the space beside her.
"Come here, then."
He lay down, and she shifted against him — head on his chest, her legs draped over his, making herself comfortable with the ease of someone who had decided he was hers and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. He was warm. Solid. She could feel his heart rate settling.
"They don't see it," she said. "What you are. I did, though. From the first moment."
"What do you see?" he asked. His voice was quieter now, the defensiveness he carried in public set aside somewhere near the door.
"Someone who keeps going," she said. "Even when no one is watching and there's no reward for it. That's not nothing, Thor. That's rare."
His hand rested on her thigh — the bare skin above her stocking — and she wasn't sure he'd noticed he'd done it.
"Brave," she said. "Righteous. Stubborn in the right direction." She lifted her head to look at him. "Those are not small things to be."
He looked down at her. The hall, the crowd, his brother's laugh — none of it was in his face anymore. Just her, and the quiet room, and something that was still figuring out what it was.
"Are you sure you're not just trying to seduce me?" he asked.
"I mean every word," she said. "The seduction is a bonus."
She kissed him first this time. He answered immediately, his hand sliding further up her thigh, and the evening wound down the way it had been threatening to for hours — slowly, then all at once.
Afterward, they lay in the narrow bed with her head on his chest and his arm around her, and the village went on outside without them.
"We should sleep," she said. "You have training tomorrow."
"I know," he said.
Neither of them moved.
They were asleep within minutes.
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