Page 7 of Thor

"Actually, I did my honours on an eight-thousand-year-old site near the Burrup Peninsula back home. One of the first underwater Aboriginal sites ever investigated and..."

"You call this documentation? Karl's two-year-old granddaughter has better handwriting than this!"

Sibyl peered at the page. "Actually, that's one of yours. You borrowed my blue pen when you forgot to bring anything of your own to write with, Nik. And you didn't give it back, either."

"That's Doctor Fridolfsen, girl!"

Sibyl hadn't wanted to punch anyone so much in her life. Or knee him in the groin. She wished there had never been any pandemic, and Saint Nik had gone to Egypt like he'd planned, so he'd be someone else's problem.

"You'll never get your PhD with substandard work like this! It's a wonder you even got your degree at all. Of course, pretty girls have an advantage. You must have slept with your professors. No other explanation."

Tears of anger burned Sibyl's eyes. Callie, her cousin, had been one of her teachers, and she'd said she'd never had a student who'd learned Norse runes faster than Sibyl. Sibyl had been invited up to the Burrup because they'd needed an extra person to process all the artefacts, and she'd been recommended for the job by no less than two of her unit coordinators.

But Saint Nik wouldn't listen to a word of it. He'd probably accuse her of sleeping with them, too.

She wished Callie were here to cast a curse on Nik. Something really horrible and creative, like having him catch some ancient disease that had melted out of the ice, which made his dick shrivel up and fall off. Or make him smell like a female reindeer in heat, so all the boy reindeer chased him around, trying to molest him...

"If you don't push him off a glacier before the season ends, I swear I will."

Sibyl glanced up, to find Jorunn watching her with a sympathetic smile on her face.

"Maybe he's right, and I don't belong here. It's not like we've found anything even remotely connected to Utgard. Whereas you've found two hunting arrows already..." Sibyl began.

"Three. Found a third one this morning," Jorunn said smugly. "Three arrows in two weeks is a new record, Karl said."

Sibyl sighed. "If the borders weren't closed, I'd give up and go home to Australia. I'm not cut out for this."

Jorunn's smile died. "Don't talk like that." She slung an arm around Sibyl's shoulder. "We're the first ever dual Harald Medal winners. The only two in a decade. Hundreds of candidates entered, and they picked us. We're the best there is. Saint Nik never won a medal. He's just jealous, not to mention bitter that it's our prize money that's funding this entire expedition. He wouldn't even be here if it weren't for us. We've only been out here two weeks. I bet your Buggerup dig didn't find anything in the first two weeks, either. We've got three arrows, and a bunch of other stuff."

Sibyl managed a smile. "Burrup, not Buggerup. And yeah, it took them three years of underwater survey work to find a site as rich as the one they finally did locate."

"Maybe we should push Saint Nik in the lake, and see if he finds anything interesting there."

That didn't sound like a bad idea. Better than pushing him off a glacier, anyway. Then again, if he couldn't swim...

"He'd probably make us do his laundry while he sulks in his tent until his gear is dry. Or insist on borrowing our gear instead," Sibyl said.

Jorunn looked glum. "And he wouldn't wash it before he gave it back, either. Imagine having to wear your gear after he'd sweated in it for days, unwashed. Just kill me now."

"Only if you'd do the same for me," Sibyl quipped. God, it must be a bad day if she was making a death pact with her roommate before noon.

"Or...I could help you wish the dishes tonight, after dinner, and when everyone's gone to bed, you could help me liberate a bottle of Lara's aquavit and we could share it in the tent later. What do you say?" Jorunn asked.

Sibyl wanted to say yes, but... "You found an arrow today. That means you've won a night off doing the dishes. Plus...aren't those bottles all we have for the whole trip? What if Lara notices one missing?"

Jorunn shrugged. "They're for medicinal purposes. If she asks, I'll tell her Saint Nik was sapping our will to live, and nothing would restore it except some water of life. She'll understand. Besides, with the expedition budget higher than usual, we have a regular supply run. Jakop and his horses will be back in no time, and she can always order more for the next trip."

It sounded like a plan, and a good one. With all of her family so far away, Sibyl would be lost without Jorunn. "All right, then," she said.

"Ah, the day's not even half over. Who knows? This afternoon, we might find one of Hemsworth's ancestors, complete with a hammer as big as he is, and he'll take one look at Saint Nik and pound him so deep into a glacier, no one will find him for a hundred years."

Sibyl had to smile at that one. "I think you're thinking of Captain America. He's the one who vanished beneath the Arctic ice and woke up much later."

"But he was a hot blonde dude, right?"

Sibyl laughed. "Yeah, he was that, too."

Jorunn didn't seem fazed. "Well, that's what they do with superhero movies, isn't it? They mash up all the stories into one movie-length one? So who says we won't find Thor holding his hammer, ready to jump to defend your reputation as an archaeologist? Maybe if we drink enough aquavit, he will!"

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