Private Places--but not quite like that.

So I did some of that thinking stuff, and I realized that I'm being a prick.

Big surprise.

I mean, in all fairness, I'm still pretty convinced that Harlan was the only one who *could* have made me see what I did in Nieflheim, but even so the visions or hallucinations or whatever didn't cause any real harm, and I shouldn't really be so pissed. It just kind of crossed a line in my head between shit I could deal with and shit I couldn't.

That's, uh, for later. Story time Mr. Journal, and good gods do I hope no one ever reads that I wrote the words "Mr. Journal" in here.

So, for the sake of keeping myself on track here--since I keep getting so F'ing side-tracked otherwise--I should probably recap what's going on. The world is ending. Laurel is pregnant with our twins. We went to Helheim to ask Hel to give us Marie's body (so we can put Marie back together and hopefully get a new way to approach defeating Kane). Hel told us she wanted us first to find out why Loki had frost giants steal the Black Feather Shroud from her. So we had set off to talk to Utgard-Loki, king of frost giants who I was about 99% certain would give us the information we wanted.

Now, I had gotten a letter from my dad saying something about frost giants pulling one over on him and that he was going to be in Norway. So I figured this was a pretty damn good place to start looking for frost giants. One look at a map of Norway and I notice there's a gods-damned "Jotenheim" mountain range. I mean, it's freaking called 'giant town,' how much more obvious can you get? But still we head up to check it out. But on the way there Laurel does something absolutely amazing.

So we're on a ferry, and I'm kicking her ass at poker. Harlan's doing a crossword. I don't blame him really, even with Laurel winning every hand of poker is only so much fun. Then cupid shows up. Apparently Orlando Bloom is cupid. He may have claimed that he just looked like him, but I'm calling b.s. Cupid was in the Pirates movies, and you can quote me on that.

Anyway, that's not what was involved with Laurel reminding me why I love her. So, with the three of us out on a boat, naturally it gets attacked. Apparently by Shinobi and a big-ass shark. Not quite as enormous as the shark from the Guinee trip, but still pretty big. We are trying to fight the shark when some kid, thrown off the boat, gets swallowed whole by the freaking shark. So I know that Laurel has this thing about kids. She does not let kids get hurt around her, and certainly doesn't let them die. So knowing that she's going to do something awesome, I grab the axe out of her hand so that hopefully I can finish murdering this shark once she's done her amazing feat--and she didn't disappoint.

She grabbed the side of the boat, half threw herself and half parkour'ed along the side of the boat until she landed right in the middle of all the stranded people, and then she just... she just made a giant invisible force-field in the water. It kept the ship from sinking down any more, kept the people from getting sucked under, and beached the freaking shark. So I cut it's tail off, and she shoved her bare hands down its throat and pulled the kid out, pouring her heart and soul into making sure he didn't die on the spot.

After a second or two when people managed to figure out what the fuck just happened they sort of started applauding her. Like you would applaud a firefighter who just pulled a kid out of a burning building... except this was a woman who had just pulled a ferry full of cars, and about twenty people out of the dangerous November waters of the North Sea, not to mention extracting a child from a great-white shark's gullet. An idea struck me, but by the time it did Laurel was busy swimming everyone to shore like fucking superman flies the airplane full of passengers to its final destination and sets them down without a bit of turbulence.

When we got to the town on the far side this huge crowd got around her and was trying to get photos and videos with their phones, and get statements from her and all sorts of stuff. Luckily I had an idea (this thinking stuff is starting to pay off.) I stepped forward and started passing out business cards and telling people to call me, leave me a message, and if they were with the press maybe we'd be able to schedule a time for her to meet with you. But more so they were asking who she was and stuff and so I told them "She's The Doctor." Apparently this tickled Laurel more than a bit when I told her what I'd said to them (she doesn't speak Norwegian.)

One of the other things I said to her though was "I have two words for you--endorsement deals." Seriously. All I have to say is that if Calel didn't care so much about being normal, all he had to do was wear Nike brand spandex and he'd never need to work another day in his life.

We eventually got to the national park with the mountain ranges and after sort of tricking this park ranger into thinking we were a bunch of horny twenty-somethings off to have a romp in the forest we set out looking for giants. It took a little while to find them, but Jack Frost helped out. He seemed like a cool dude (no pun intended.) Except the way he was dressed just seemed... ...cheesy. He was wearing an un-buttoned hawaian shirt over a wife beater with surf shorts and flip-flops, and he was sun-bathing on top of a mountain inside the arctic circle in the middle of winter. But he was pretty smooth. He pointed the way to the giants. Seems like a nice guy.

So we make our way over there and find out word travels fast out of Nifelheim, so we were expected. We go down a hole, find some guard dogs, I give Laurel a look when she nearly strands herself in Jutenheim while five months pregnant, and Harlan and I set off to talk to Utgard.

While on the way though I had the realization I mentioned earlier, and so I told Harlan. I basically told him that he seemed like a good guy, and I really ought to trust him more, and that he said it wasn't him, and so I was going to decide to take his word on that--but that if it was, just sort of for future reference, it crossed a line. But I made it clear that I didn't want to make an enemy of him. Not entirely sure what sort of impression I really made. He can be hard to read sometimes.

We met Utgard. He is a jerk. By that I mean he's incredibly manipulative. He told us what we wanted to know pretty easily. That wasn't so bad. It was afterwards, when he asked us a favor that things got messed up. He said he had one of Loki's hairs--something with some serious magical power if used properly--and would be willing to give it to us if we saw to it that Cook Inc. fell back into his hands instead of into Kane Taoka's. Well, I'd been planning to kill Kane for a while, so I had little qualms with this.

But when that forsty footed two-faced son of a fucking--...

But when Utgard-Loki wheeled my father out, practically pin-cushioned in place by icicles, and said that this was the *other* possible trade, and offered Harlan a half-share in the fate of a god, I swear I wanted to do a great many rather unpleasant and ill-advised things. But I didn't. I just glared at him, and as I was leaving I told my dad I was sorry.

The second we got back out I prayed to Odin. He should know where my dad is, whether or not he was ready to do anything about it. Then we started driving. And then I got a call from Brendan.

"Gunnar, hi, it's Brendan."
"Hey, what's up?"
"Well, uh, we just dug up Loki in Mag'Mel. Like the real Loki. And we need to contact Odin. And we figured you might know how t--" and about there I hung up, full-stopped the mustang on an icy country road, and started praying to Odin.

"Dear Odin. Loki is in Mag'Mel"
BOOM
Lightning bolt = Odin appearance (or Zeus, but we won't go into that.)

"Mag'Mel is in Ireland!" I said in exhasporation.
"I know that! This is the second time in such a short period that you and your freinds have claimed to have found him. If he isn't there, you're paying the price. You're coming with me." So he grabbed me by the collar, and then I was in Ireland.

My first thought when I found myself in Ireland? "I have got to learn how to do that."

A Mustang's Saddle Bags

Also known as a trunk.

We've been on the road a while, now. I've been thinking. At least I've been thinking while I've been here in the trunk. When it's my turn to sit up front (taking turns with Harlan so that neither of us has to ride the whole thing back here and Laurel gets a seat the whole time) I spend the time thinking too, just a little differently.

What I've been thinking about is life. Life is important. I mean, saving lives is kind of what I do. Ending them too. But I'm really not very good at either one of those things. Most of my attempts at ending lives are dangerous to the lives I'm trying to save, and most of my attempts at saving lives have been full of attempts to end different lives. Seems to me there's a problem here.

I figure it's in the approach. I mean, maybe it's just the last waning ounces of adolescent boorishness, but until recently (read: the past several months) I hadn't encountered a real problem I couldn't meet head-on and conquer. I mean, even my mom's health problems I could do something about--take her to the hospital, get her good doctors, do my best to make her comfortable and calm. But that sort of straight-forward approach doesn't really seem to work on this Titanic, world-saving shit. At least, it hasn't been working all that well.

Sarah's dead, and I'm pretty sure her ghost is lost to titans.
She died because we had no idea what to do when the fucking ninjas popped out of everywhere and started sticking swords in us.
Her ghost was lost because we had no idea what sort of dangers we were facing in Guinee, much less how to deal with them once they made themselves known.

Loki has the device--whatever the fuck it really does.
He managed to get a hold of it because we didn't really know what to do or to expect after we got out of Wolfsheim with it.

I nearly blew up my pregnant wife--even if she would have lived.
When we left for the underworld I took a bunch of explosives. I figured they would come in handy. They would have, if I had a fucking brain. Instead I used a tenth of them rather ineffectively, and then took twice that much and nearly detonated it with basically all of my allies in the area in the blast radius. I mean, Laurel would have lived--because she's just amazing like that--Ciara would have been fine because she could get hit by an exploding Nemian tank traveling at twice the speed of sound and probably laugh about it. Brendan wasn't too close, but Nate isn't the hardest guy in the world to hurt, and Harlan is squishier than a fucking sponge.

Luckily everyone managed to get out of the way and only I got hurt, but when everyone had to hurl themselves back--and pull someone else with them if possible--to get out of the way I realized how absolutely insane I had been. I mean, I detonated two pounds of semtex less than three feet from my pregnant wife. That's like six pounds of dynamite. You know those sticks of dynamite they show in films? That's twelve of those. You know when someone uses twelve sticks of dynamite, they're trying to take out an entire building and everything in it.

And fuck if everyone else would have lived--I'm pretty sure that Caleb would probably have hurt more cutting one of us than the explosives really would have--but explosions don't have to aim, they can hit everything. They don't have to try to hit Laurel in the gut, it would just happen. What the fuck would I have done with myself if I had let that happen... if I had made that happen?

Hell if I know.

But I realized that immediately. I mean, probably between pushing the detonator button and the actual explosion it clicked, and I felt like a giant asshole. Then I saw Laurel, screaming in pain, the fire burning all over her. I tried to put out the flames, but a moment later the illusion ended.

Now, I'm not dumb. I know proclivities when I see them, and that Harlan may be a good guy--or seem like one--but he's got some of his dad in him; I can fucking smell it. And when he tried to convince me that it wasn't him who put me under that illusion, I swear I wanted to break his neck. The second I saw that it was an illusion I wanted to break someone's neck. I mean, what fucking hubris to think it's their fucking job to teach me a lesson? Do they think I'm a fucking child who needs to see an acting out of the consequences of an action in order to understand that it's wrong? That gods-damned, self-righteous, arrogant prick, I swear if he ever makes me think that I've harmed my loved ones again, or if I even think he has--he won't wake up one morning, and they'll be picking pieces of his pretty face up off the street at least thirteen blocks away.

-----------

I suck at thinking. Whenever I really set out to think about something I end up thinking an awful lot more about something that either really fucking depresses me or really fucking makes me wish I could bury a septet of fifty-caliber rounds in someone.

I need to fix that.

Maybe I should practice thinking.

{Wolf; Nibel; Hel} -heim.

Apparently it's November.

Eighteen days ago, it was August.

Figure that one out.

Got to Germany, got cool car from dad, went to meet everyone in some town near some other town.

Met Loki-spawn, met Bastet's kid, both seem alright.

Went to Wolfsheim, met more Loki-spawn, Fenrir's kids actually, and was told to leave. I disobeyed. Screw those guys.

Met Brunhilda, went to Nibelheim, spent 9 days nearly freezing to death--killed giants, nearly killed giant snake, nearly killed everything in the world I hold dear trying to kill dragon. Not a fun trip.

Got to watch Ciara kick ass and take names.

Got the Helheim. Hel looks like two-face. Also, she's kind of a bitch. Needs more batman.

Have to find out why Loki used frost giants to steal shrowd from her before she'll give us Marie.

Going to Norway to look for the king of frost giants and ask him nicely to reveal Loki's sinister plot. Hoping not to die.

Also, apparently it's November now. -- Fuck underworlds.

--------------------

Personal Note: World is collapsing from the inside out. Probably Nicola Tesla and Loki's faults. Kinda makes me sad. Nicola Tesla always seemed like a cool guy. Who doesn't like David Bowie?