Heimdall wouldn't open the BiFrost.

Thor knew it was because of Krish. She was, after all, deemed as vermin and cast out of Asgard as a parasite and a demon. And Thor would have understood the banishment if it was under normal circumstances...

But Krish was bleeding on the desert sand. Her breathing was uneven, her body completely bare. She was dying. Was Odin really so cold?

"HEIMDALL!" Thor bellowed, louder than before. Krish cringed at his voice. "OPEN THE BIFROST." But nothing yielded, and Thor was left with Krish in the centre of Africa's plains. He paced for a few moments, his hands transitioning from his hips to his hair; he muttered nonsense to himself, rambling in the hope that it would somehow calm his head enough to think properly. But when he got close to sense and calmness, he would glance back over at Krish, who would meet his glance with helplessness.

Thor gave a frustrated cry and kicked at the desert sand. He crouched and held his head in his hands, delving into silence.

"Thor..." he didn't hear her at first. She gave a forced swallow and tried again. "Thor...?"

His head rose up and tilted slightly toward her, but he couldn't seem to look her in the face.

"I'm..."

"Don't, Krish... Please." Thor said painfully. "Spare me the speech of a person on their deathbed."

"I'm not... giving a speech, you idiot. I'm bleeding out. Would you," she stopped to take a sharp inhale, "please kindly come over here and give me a hand?"

Thor's face paled with concern. He dropped his long-term worries on the caked dirt and rushed over to her side. "Where?"

"My side."

Thor carefully pulled the cape away from her torso, exposing her ever-infecting flesh. It was turning a yellow color and swelling in the heat. The gash that followed the line of her ribcage had opened and was oozing generous amounts of blood. Thor rested his forearms on the wound and leaned into it. Blood rose up between his arms as Krish's breathing went ragged with the sudden pain.

They sat there for several moments in silence ― Thor as he tried to keep pressure on Krish's near-corpse which already wreaked of the smell of death, and Krish as she tried to cope with the jagged pain. Thor was trying to think of something to say. He wanted to apologize, but he knew Krish would only blow it off like nothing was the matter. She wouldn't take anything seriously for the fear that, if she did, it would mean change. And Thor assumed being in the grips of death to be the same way.

If Krish decided to be serious, it would mean accepting her death. And she couldn't do that. It scared her. So she wouldn't accept any of Thor's "final words."

For the time at hand, Krish only thought about the warmth of the blood drizzling over her stomach and the pressure of Thor's arms ― she wondered if she could count the muscles just by his touch, and so such a thought occupied most of her mind. There was a small part dedicated to something entirely different, however. Just a small piece of her that wondered, just maybe, if she could redeem her own life. But what could she do? She was crippled on the sands of Africa.

Then again... Thor could fly.

She eyed Mjolnir, which sat several meters away, as she counted the muscles in Thor's forearms.

"Damn it…" Krish muttered. "Back to home base…"

Thor's head snapped up at her sudden obscenity (which, surprisingly, was actually rare for Krish). "What's the matter?"

"Seven."

"What do you speak of?"

"You have seven muscles in your forearms." Krish's eyes narrowed in thought. "Thor?"

"Krish...?"

"India."

"Your mind is being lost to the heat of the desert..." Thor mourned aloud.

Krish pretended like she didn't hear the comment about her mental sanity. She didn't have much left anyway. "Thor... India. Take me to India."

"You're in no state to travel."

"I'm in no state to sit still and die, either..." she snapped back. "Take me to India. It doesn't seem like your house is gonna let us in, so we might as well go to mine. There are Hindu temples in India. I want to pray."

Thor didn't respond except for the minor increase in pressure he put on Krish's side. She waited to see if he was going to do anything, but he acted like he didn't hear her at all. Krish's glimmer of hope turned into frustration; the one person who could help her was being uncooperative. Death reared its ugly head again and Krish realized that she was completely in Thor's mercy. Whatever he did was what dictated her fate. How ridiculous. Her life was in the hands of someone she had never quite come to trust, thanks to her initial impressions of him (donated by Loki). It actually angered her more than anything.

Just when she was about to give up with an embarrassed face ― upset that she even presented the idea of India ― Thor finally reacted.

He pulled Krish into his left arm, making sure to keep her wound turned inward so the line of his body could keep the pressure. And he even made sure to pull the cape more snugly over Krish to keep her covered. She looked up at him. His eyes were glued on the sky.

"Which way would I need to go?"

Krish pointed weakly. Mjolnir rocketed into Thor's open hand and the horizon hummed softly with distant thunder.

"I'm sorry for almost giving up on your life, KrishnaLan." he muttered, starting to spin Mjolnir by it's tail. She blinked slowly. Thor looked down at her. He didn't even hesitate to lock eyes with her, which almost surprised her. "Please forgive me."

Something about those three words triggered something in her mind. "No!" she wanted to scream, "Why are you asking me to forgive you?! You never needed any forgiveness! Thor, forgive ME! Do you know what I've done in my life?! I don't deserve you asking for my forgiveness! Don't ask me to forgive you! You haven't done anything wrong! All you've done is taken care of me! Don't ask me to forgive you, Thor! Don't you dare burden me with that!"

But she didn't have the energy. She couldn't find a voice. So she only nodded with wide eyes. "Of course."

x X x -

Evening was waxing low on the small Indian village. Children were still running on the dirt roads of the compact town, pushing hoops with sticks in the glimmering, warm light – light that filtered from the carefully constructed homes with wide open windows. They laughed, screamed, and pushed the others out of the way as they ran from one side of their home village to the other and back again.

Every once in a while, a mother cloaked in her evening Sari would lean out of her door and shout for her children to come in. They would, eventually, bid farewell to their friends and drag their bare feet into their homes for dinner. The place was a mixture of warm curry smells that drifted on the air… outdoor ovens were carefully attended, the contents within slathered in neighborhood spices that had been traded between friends. Colors and laughter and the jingle of the women's bangles. It was peaceful.

No one would have ever expected something to come flying out of the sky and crashing into the ground.

Especially not a person.

But in a sudden whirl of thunderous air, Thor slammed into the earth with a noise that surpassed his body mass.

"Sorry for the rough landing," he muttered casually to the girl in his arms once the dirt drifted back to the ground.

Krish shook her head like it was nothing; but a woman at the nearby well was frozen in shock. She looked at Thor, then at Krish, and then she accidentally dropped her pail down the well and didn't seem to bat an eye at her loss of dishware. To make the shock worse, Thor approached her (since she was the closest). She tensed slightly as he walked over, pulling her violet colored scarf more tightly around her neck.

"Krish," Thor grumbled, "If you could do the honor…"

She adjusted herself in Thor's arm, since he wouldn't let her go for anything, and looked the woman kindly in her eyes. "Mandira yahāṁ sthita hai?"

"K-kadama pēṛōṁ kē pīchē haiṁ." The woman responded nervously (although she seemed to relax slightly when she heard her mother tongue).

Krish thanked her briefly and turned back to Thor. "The steps to the temple are behind those buildings and shrubs over there… it looks like it goes up slightly into those hills."

"Then let us hurry on – "

But the woman reached out and grabbed Thor's arm as he was turning away. She murmured something to Krish, almost in reverence, and Krish's eyes softened.

"What is it? Krish?" Thor hated being so profoundly out of the loop.

"We can't go into the temple the way we are…" She said softly. "You'll have to change… She said she'll get someone for you, if you need them."

"I wonder why they're so calm about a God falling from the sky?"

"The people here don't question things like this that happen… they just respect it and move on." Krish asked the woman something else… and she nodded fervently, holding out her arms.

"Does she want to take you from me?" Thor asked defensively, his arm instinctively tightening on KrishnaLan's waist.

"She'll help me get into some clothing… since… I'm not wearing any…"

Thor's hold loosened. "Ah… are you sure you can walk?" He gently released her, and the woman's arms wrapped their way around KrishnaLan's back. She didn't ask any questions about her horns, or her tail, or her nakedness, or the henna carved into her arms. She gently guided the injured demon toward her home.

Thor's heart panged at the humanity. Strangers, who had every right to hide, were flocking over to KrishnaLan to help bring her into the warmed house. Some were already bandaging her wounds with the scarves that had been wrapped around their necks, others were applying healing balms to her skin. He stepped back, feeling suddenly weak, comforted by the fact that these people were taking care of Krish and he was no longer alone.

But Thor didn't have long to contemplate his emotions. Several other people came around him and gestured him kindly into a separate home. And this place – a place that was so small and quaint and obscenely ignored - was warm. A place that Thor had never been to, a place that he had never come close to encountering and (in fact) was completely alien to him had taken him in.

And suddenly, in such a foreign land, Thor felt completely at home.