After about twenty minutes, Thor came down the stairs.
Returning to the living room, Thor swept his gaze over the sofas before sitting down in an empty armchair.
The armchair was clearly a little too small for him. He adjusted his posture, then leaned back, and the sofa let out an overloaded groan.
"Your house may not be big, but it's comfortable." Thor's tone carried sincere praise, without a trace of politeness or perfunctory flattery. "Asgard's palaces are large, but they're often empty. They don't have this... feeling of life."
Lin Hai smiled and replied, "Big places have their advantages, and small places have theirs. Smaller places are easier to arrange and keep tidy. With only a simple setup, they can give people the warmth of a home."
Thor nodded in deep agreement. "Exactly. That's what I mean. Perhaps Jane and I can have a home like this on Earth someday, though I have no way of knowing how long 'someday' will be."
As he spoke of this, Thor's voice took on a hint of helplessness.
Now that he understood what responsibility meant, he no longer acted according to his own preferences as he once had. Before, he went wherever he wanted, and there had been no need to take Odin's rules and restrictions too seriously.
Odin's aging was inevitable, which meant his becoming the next Allfather was just as inevitable. When that time came, he would truly no longer be free to do as he pleased.
Even this trip to Earth had only happened because Heimdall had discovered traces of Loki here. Otherwise, he would still be in Asgard's Golden Palace, learning how to become a qualified king.
Learning how to sit on the throne and listen to ministers drone on, learning to distinguish which matters among a mountain