Thor grunted his appreciation. At least, Ray assumed it was appreciation. Thor was usually pretty easy to read, mostly because he only had a few emotional states that Ray bothered to notice: paranoia, annoyance, and embarrassment. Since the unexpected and brief visit from Mrs. Thor, however, Thor had become increasingly stoic. Ray found it creepy, especially since it was now Wednesday, and Thor was showing no signs of change.

Wednesday meant the mini-Thor would be arriving. If nothing else, Ray hoped the kid’s arrival would snap Thor out of his mood, but it was hard to feel hopeful when the only thing Thor had done in preparation was throw out the boxes that usually littered the apartment floor and turn the couch cushions over.

“You know,” Ray said, running a finger along the rim of a half-full can of cola, “you haven’t actually told me why I’m cheerfully allowing your little brother to crash here without a word of protest or a single question. Because I am, you know. Allowing it without asking any questions. And very little protest.”

Thor pulled his attention from the game long enough to give Ray an evil Viking glare of death from bright, if irritated, blue eyes.

Ouch. “I do pay half the rent on this place. Half that couch is mine.”

“Yeah. You’re also asking a question, even though you just said you wouldn’t do that,” Thor said coldly, turning his attention back to the game.

Ray made a face. “I didn’t think you were paying attention.” He took a swig of cola to cover his disappointment at Thor’s ability to hear properly.

Thor snorted.

“Anyway, it’s not the same kind of question. The question referred to in the sentence was the kind of demanding question that has to be answered. The actual question – that was hardly a question at all, by the way, so seamlessly did it blend into my speech – was a casual question, almost a remark, really, that you can choose to answer or not answer with no penalties whatsoever.”

“You are such a lawyer sometimes, man.”

Ray grinned, tapping on the cola can. “So?”

“So what?” Thor grumbled.

“So, why’s your little brother crashing here?”

Thor moaned.

“This is a boring part anyway,” Ray persisted. “Everything they’re about to reveal has already been foreshadowed for the past two hours, except for the fact that your chaste priestess-healer chick is actually supposed to be a guy or something.”

Thor ground his teeth. Loudly. “I fucking hate you sometimes, man.”

“If you’d just be up front and open about things, you wouldn’t have this problem,” Ray pointed out with flawless logic.

“Great. I’m getting a moral lesson from a guy who tried to hot-wire and steal a funeral home’s fucking hearse,” Thor muttered as he mashed violently at buttons, paying little attention to the scene that was playing out on the television.

“Just once,” Ray said defensively.

“Once was enough.” Thor sighed and fiddled with his controller for a few minutes. “Collin does sports stuff.”

“Non-sequitur ahoy!”

Thor turned in his seat and looked down to fix the full force of his glare on Ray. “You asked. Collin’s in the city for sports training camps. Mom always enrolls him in stuff over the February break, and summer holidays and shit. This costs money. Money is saved by not paying organizers for Collin’s room and board, and instead stashing him somewhere else. Like here. Got it?”

Ray rolled his eyes. “Got it, got it. Just curious, is all.”

With an irritated grunt, Thor turned his attention back to the game, pausing only to turn the sound up a few more notches, filling the room. Ray shook his head. He was almost-praying for the end of the break and a return to classes. If nothing else, it would mean Dust and Ash would be free again, not absorbed in whatever their secret engineering and biochemistry project was. Ash always made things more interesting, and Dust could sometimes be relied on to keep Thor mellowed. He’d run over to their dorm at that very moment, and drag them both back to King Place, if it weren’t for the fact that a short-lived visit on Sunday had ended with Ash pushing him out of the room with every bit of power in the short Canadian’s tiny body and threatening to smash his skull open if he went anywhere near Umber Hall for the rest of the break.

Sometimes, Ash made Ray feel distinctly unwelcome. He rolled his shoulder and winced in remembrance.

“Go back to that room,” Ray ordered, rolling into a sitting position and stretching.

Thor’s eyelid twitched. “I’m trying to play, man.”

Ray was hurt. “I’m just trying to help you, Thor. If you go back now, before leaving the caves, you can talk to the priest of the Goat God, he’ll give you Magnolia’s ultimate weapon.”

Thor’s eyelid twitched again, but he turned the figure on the screen around and backtracked to the previous room just as the phone buzzed.

“That’s probably your mom,” Ray said.

Thor didn’t respond, staring intently at the screen.

“I’ll just go let her in, then,” Ray said, as the phone buzzed a second time. After waiting a minute for Thor to respond, he climbed to his feet and jogged to the phone, stabbing at the relevant button while watching the screen. He released it after the needlessly elaborate animation on the screen was over and hung the phone up.

Within seconds, there was a knock on the door. “That would be them, I bet.”

Thor didn’t move.

Ray snorted and answered the door himself. If Thor acted like this around his family all the time, it was no wonder they were cookie-less.

On the other side of the door was a boy taller than Ray, but not by much. A garish, lumpy scarf was wrapped around his neck and hung over a bulky red winter jacket that screamed hand-me-down. The jacket was open, despite the -30 temperatures, to display a white and blue hockey sweater that was definitely too big for the slim kid. Loose patched blue jeans leading down to partially cover a pair of large boots that were puddling snow on the ugly carpet. White-blonde hair stuck out messily from beneath a red woolen hat with a dirty once-white pompom on the top. The face under the hat was round and pale with a pointed chin and large blue eyes. Not the unworrying normal blue that Thor’s eyes were. This kid’s eyes were a sort of barely coloured blue, like ice with just the slightest reflection of sky or water in it.

Well, there was really only one large eye. The other could have been bright red and glowing for all Ray could see, since it was squinted shut and surrounded by swollen purple-green flesh with a black smudge near the eyebrow. That, and the cloth bandage over the boy’s nose and another high on his right cheekbone, impressed Ray.

This was Mini-Thor.

“Hey,” said Mini-Thor, in a voice that was caught somewhere in the middle of puberty. He hefted a heavy duffle bag that clunked loudly a bit higher on his shoulder and peered past Ray into the apartment.

Ray grinned at Mini-Thor in welcome. “Hi. I’m Ray Fujimoto, your brother’s roommate. You must be the mini-Thor.” He held out a hand to the boy.

Mini-Thor stared at the offered hand. He tugged a puffy red and grey mitten off one hand with his teeth before shoving it in his pocket. “Collin Thorbiornsen,” he corrected Ray calmly, saying the name with the same slow accent Thor had when he didn’t sound five seconds away from a nervous breakdown. He didn’t take Ray’s hand.

Ray considered the kid for a minute, standing in the doorway with perfect composure, pale eyebrows tilted at a critical angle. The kid had a presence that was very close to being cocky and arrogant, but Ray quickly decided he liked him anyway. “Collin,” he agreed cheerfully.

Beneath the sound of Ultimate Legend VI was that of Thor making an irritated but senseless noise as Mini-Thor finally accepted Ray’s hand and shook it loosely.

“Come on in, kid,” Ray said, moving aside so Mini-Thor could haul his cumbersome duffle in. He dropped it heavily on the floor by the kitchen and began pulling his boots off. When Ray realized there was no one else with him, he shut the door.

Mini-Thor quickly shed his winter clothing, leaving it piled in a heap by his bag. “Place is kinda small,” he observed, wandering to the couch where Thor was. “Hey, Siggy.”

Ray couldn’t help grinning as Thor twitched. “Sigurd,” he said coldly. “Where’s Mom?”

“Yeah, about that.” Mini-Thor rubbed the back of his head, further mussing his already messy hair. “Mom says she’s sorry, but she ran into someone she knew at Queen’s, who invited her out for supper so . . . she’s kinda not going to be able to stop by like she said.”

“Ah.”

Mini-Thor scratched absently at the bandage on his cheek. “She grabbed some stuff at the grocery store before she dropped me off,” he continued. “Told me to help you and the other guy out with meals and stuff, since I’m crashing here. And Dad put some frozen stuff in the bag for you before I left the Lake.”

“Great.”

Ray’s eyebrows rose as he watched the exchange and knelt by Mini-Thor’s duffle bag. He unzipped it quietly and rummage around inside, finding a collection of white plastic grocery bags and cold tupperware containers, as well as a sealable plastic bag.

Cookies! Ray offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Mr. Thor.

“He took out my hockey sticks to make room, but it wasn’t a big deal, ‘cause there were some at the centre. Not as good as mine, though.”

“Mm.”

“Can I use the shower? Mom kinda dragged me from the rink before I had a chance to shower, so we’d have time to go to the grocery store.”

“Whatever.”

“Thanks, Sigurd,” Mini-Thor said dryly, moving back to the duffle.

Ray looked up from his rummaging and met the kid’s surprised stare, clinging hopefully to the bag of cookies. He flashed the kid a winning smile, which seemed to work, because Mini-Thor simply shrugged. “Help yourself,” he said, and grabbed a T-shirt before walking to the bathroom and slamming the door.

High tension, Ray thought as he chewed on a cookie. Chocolate chip, he decided, as he began hauling groceries and containers out of the bag to store in the rarely used freezer and cupboards. Definitely no love lost between Thor and Mini-Thor, he thought as he lined the freezer with white-and-blue tupperware, which seemed cold because the kid was okay. It was Thor who was acting like an asshole, for no reason that Ray could see.

None of this, one of the more boring voices in Ray’s head, which sounded a lot like his Grandfather Fujimoto on the rare occasions he wasn’t yelling, pointed out, was any of his concern.

Except, of course, for the fact that he, Ray Fujimoto, heir to the greatest of law-ninja traditions, was going to have to put up with them both for the next few days.

A quick search of the grocery bags revealed them to be full almost exclusively of things that were more cast iron than they were edible. Ray dug out a squishy, drippy dead fish in a bag and put it in the freezer, while two bags of what Ray assumed were vegetables found themselves sharing fridge space with a lot of beer, the remains of a pizza, and some bad Japanese food. Leaving the rest of the stuff on the floor, he carried the bag of cookies to the couch and sat down next to Thor.

“Cookie?” Ray offered his roommate hopefully.

“No thanks.”

Ray shrugged and ate another. “You kind of froze the kid out there, Thor.”

“And that’s really none of your damn business, Ray,” said Thor with brittle cheerfulness.

Ray’s shoulders slumped. Monday could not come soon enough.