Queen of Asgard (NaNoWriMo2018, Completed!)

16: Loki Returns

"Wait, wait, wait," Melinda howled, holding her hand up as she pressed half-talked, half laughed. "You mean to tell me that you actually think forty degrees Fahrenheit is warm weather?"

"Depends on the time of year," Elise said with a tiny shrug. Personally I was on Melinda's side with this one. Forty degrees was not warm. Ever since my first day on Asgard, we'd taken to eating breakfast together. Amanda joined us some mornings, but more often than not, she kept to her room. Though today, I noticed that she had decided to come along. She didn't talk much, but I had a pretty warm regard for her after she shut down Melinda's questioning about my being on Asgard.

Melinda shook her head. "Just another reason I'll never move to Minnesota."

"Hey don't knock it til you try it. We have more shoreline than California." She toasted Amanda with her glass of orange juice.

"And you're not on the San Andreas fault line," the blonde said dryly with a small smile. I noticed her phone wasn't out in her lap, like it had been pretty much since the day I'd met her. I nibbled on a bit of toast, wondering if perhaps she was getting more comfortable after a week on Asgard. I had to admit that I was as well. The magic and Sif constantly teleporting me to the sparring gyms was an adjustment I was working on, but the constant and quick establishment of routine helped me feel more at ease with the unfamiliar and unpleasant aspects.

"Last piece of bacon," Elise chimed from her seat, "anyone want it?" Her dark eyes found mine, "Suzume, did you want it? You didn't any before."

I was touched by her noticing but I shook my head. "Bad idea, Sif's picking me up for training right after this. You take it."

Elise winced. She'd been privy to my hurling episodes twice now. "Alright, if you're sure."

"You'd think," Melinda said, taking a swig of her cranberry juice. How she drank that every day was beyond me, I'd always found it too tart. "With all the magic around this place, they'd have a cure for motion sickness."

"Well motion sickness isn't a disease though," Elise pointed out. "It's supposedly a conflict of sensory signals in the brain. There's no real cure for that."

"So Suzume's sick in the head?" Melinda teased and I rolled my eyes and smiled.

"Takes one to know one."

"That's fair, you have to be crazy to put yourself through a dissertation."

"What did you write yours on anyways?" I asked. I knew Melinda was an assistant professor of anthropology but I wasn't sure exactly what that entailed. Pretty sure it was nothing like the Indiana Jones movies.

"How language affects socialization."

She lit up saying that and I forced a smile. I was glad it made her happy, but it sounded deathly boring to me. "How long was it?"

"Eighty-thousand words."

My jaw dropped. "How do you even write that much about one subject?"

Melinda grinned at my expression. "Patience, passion and a whole lot of coffee." 

"That's how I got through nursing school," Elise said. "And a saintly chemistry teacher."

I shook my head. "I have no idea how you girls did that, I tried college for a semester and it just didn't work for me." The only silver lining about my time there had been the small gym that was open to students during business hours.

"How long did you last?"  Amanda asked, curiosity evident in her tone and gleaming eyes.

"One semester, my mom and uncle bribed me to go for that long; agreed to pay for it if I just tried. So I did. I will never do it again unless I have to. Sitting behind a desk and taking notes drove me crazy."