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Where the universe is concerned, Olaf doesn't generally question its choices. Bad things happen. Good things happen. Strange things happen, but usually it all fits together in the larger pieces of the puzzle. It's why he doesn't really do so much more than shrug when instead of walking into Mike's bar, he walks into a party in full swing where he doesn't recognize a single guest.

It's not like this is the first time it's happened to Olaf. Generally, him recognizing someone in a crowd full of people is usually a start. Still, he has learned to go with the stranger events in the universe and no one's died as a result of this little left turn, so he grabs the joint he'd tucked away behind his ear and drifts into the throng of people, observing the summer-like nature of the party from the vibrant drinks to the decorations to the clothes everyone's wearing. Really, this could very well still be Auckland for all he knows and whatever he took earlier had been laced stronger than usual, but Olaf's sort of getting the feeling there's more to it than that.

With no shoes and a Hawaiian shirt fit for a king, Olaf feels like he fits right into the breezy, summer theme of the party around him. He might not know how he got here, but Olaf's never turned down a good party. This one holds a great deal of promise.

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Olaf follows along merrily, sitting in the other chair and sprawling out like he's intending to take it over, rather than simply sitting there unassumingly. "So," he says. "Iceland," he encourages, because stories about the homelands are always better, for some reason.

Martha knew someone else who sat in chairs like that. Oh god, she thought to herself, no. I am not getting a type. Wrong, Jones.

She sipped her drink, which she'd seen him take off the server, so if it was spiked, they all were and she was out of luck anyhow. "See, the reason I wanted to sit down is because you have to know the backstory," she said. "Because this was Iceland in the ninth century AD, and that's not usually the Iceland people think of, with Björk and clean energy buses and ice hotels and stuff. I don't really tell this story, much," she admitted, sheepishly.

Olaf raises his brow. "Ninth century Iceland," he echoes, which is a funny thing, because that's actually one of the good times. The god spirit remembers that; all those settlers emigrating to Iceland and bringing their pagan beliefs with them. "Did you meet anyone interesting?" he asks, like it's not a big deal that she's talking about the past. He's ninety-three years old, after all.

"Yeah. Some of the first settlers, a bunch of skalds," said Martha. "See, I...didn't get there randomly, I was travelling with this bloke, time travelling. I'm not from the ninth century, right, and they'd never seen a black person before--and this is where people start to give me looks..."

When she bothered telling the story at all, anymore. Even her family--the ones who'd lived the Year That Was first-hand, remembered it--got a little stunned-looking when she mentioned travels with the Doctor. Funny, the guy here didn't seem to be overly startled. Maybe it was an alternate universe thing, maybe where he was from people just up and went to the past like it was Magaluf.

"Turns out their settling had woken up an alien spirit that had settled in one of the volcanoes, and the energy signature drew some other people, not from around Earth, to try and capture it...oh my god, please don't think I'm one of those people..."

Olaf raises his brow, not bothering to hide his bemusement. "Don't worry," he insists, leaning forward to rest a hand over hers. "I don't think you're one of those people," he promises, easing back when something hits him like the universe is trying to knock him off his seat with everything at once, which makes his head hurt enough to make him drink. "Alien?" he echoes. "Not a god?"

Martha could feel her cheeks heat a little at the touch, but she was good at playing it cool by now, between the Doctor and her job. She took a drink of her own, relieved that he wasn't thinking she belonged on some kind of Channel Five documentary about abductees.

"In the volcano? No, definitely an alien," she said. "Not related to the gods in the area at all, actually. Sort of like a...well, a giant non-corporeal cat? Likes to find warm places to sleep in, gives off some kind of radiation that I don't remember the name of, when it's awake. I say warm places and mean it likes lava for blankets, though, and very much not local."

"You'd definitely need a big kitty litter for that kind of cat," Olaf says knowingly, grinning crookedly as he takes his drink and sips at it, basking in the simple joy of a good apple martini. "So, then, there was an alien in a volcano," he says matter-of-factly. "Where did it go?"

"See, you get it. That was sort of the idea, that the invading forces, the Droussae, would basically capture it and use its, uh, emissions, for a power source. But the Decarian Felis is an endangered species universally, and it's supposed to settle where it likes and not be disturbed. The Icelandic settlers were totally fine with that," Martha noted, making sure he was aware. "So we had to stay up all night waiting for the Droussae to turn up, drinking and telling stories, and it was absolutely freezing."

She paused, grinning, and winked at him. "As far as I know, the Felis is still there."

Edited 2013-07-06 23:50 (UTC)

"I'll have to make sure I go and visit," he says. If his passport is ever returned to him from his frequent trips to Bali. And if he's ever allowed out of the country for more than a week without the family needing the oracle. "So, ninth century Iceland, but you're a modern-seeming lady," he appraises. "How'd you do it? Old soul? Multiple yous?"

"Just don't wake it up. It's hard to get it to go back to sleep again, that's why we needed the skalds. Not that they were boring, but they did know some good lullabies." A soft, faint, but real smile played across Martha's lips at the memory. It was a lot easier to think about it now, she realized.

"And uh, no. Less...metaphysical than that?" she said, looking back at the man across the table. "See, I was in my second foundation year--this is 2008--and some seriously weird stuff happened at the hospital where I was doing my rotation...I met this guy. Another alien. And he was a time traveller, and I couldn't really let that kind of opportunity pass me by. So we travelled for a while, together. Iceland was one stop."

Couldn't let him pass her by, in truth. For fuck's sake.

"I know a song or two," Olaf says, though he hasn't really ever used them in the way that the lullabies were used ages ago and songs aren't as much a part of his every day life as they were back in Asgard. "Aliens," he says, nodding his head, wondering what they smell like. "Weird," he says, in the way one might say 'interesting'. "Little green men?"

"You never know when you might need it," said Martha, with dry humour and more than a little honesty. "And no, actually..." She felt her cheeks heat a little, and took a sip of her drink (more like a gulp). "This one just looks like a skinny tall bloke with messy hair, like a human. Except he has two hearts. I mean, we met aliens that didn't look human at all, but not the Doctor. He'd blend in if he didn't make himself stand out so much," she said, fondly, if with a bit of remaining exasperation.

"Tall, skinny bloke with messy hair sounds like a very generic description for an alien. My cousin Axl has messy hair and is tall and skinny," Olaf offers. "Though, last we checked, not an alien. The jury's out when it comes to his friend, Zeb, though. He's weird." And for Olaf to say someone is weird, he truly and honestly feels that way.

"The Doctor?" he echoes, and feels very blue suddenly, very, very blue. "Doctor who?"

"Believe me, if you met him, he wouldn't be generic," said Martha, with a faint grin, almost to herself. She frowned a little, though, at the man (ask his name, Martha, jesus christ) and his sudden change of expression at the Doctor's name. Maybe he was from somewhere that the Doctor was known. Like the Daleks, calling him all kinds of epithets, Oncoming Storm and all that rubbish.

Not that this guy was a Dalek at ALL.

"Just the Doctor," she said. "I promise, if you're a decent person, he's a good guy." Or shit, maybe the man had issues with doctors full stop, in which case she was in trouble.

"Occasionally, I'm not a decent person," Olaf admits, which is pretty candid given the fact that he knows he's not a saint -- just a god. "I'm pretty quick to drink, I love fucking, and my family's got a history of some violence," he admits. "It's all very complicated with the Johnsons."

Martha appraised the man carefully, ten said, "Most of us aren't." It wasn't something she said casually, either, something that was deliberate, her truth. She'd done some nasty things, some things that she didn't like, in that year, for starters.

"There's nothing wrong with fucking or drinking," she admitted, grinning a little. "And violence...has its places, I'm not gonna deny it. So, Mr Johnson--"

It was a guess, but hell. She extended her hand for a shake. "I'm Martha."

Olaf leans over and shakes her hand firmly. "Olaf Johnson," he introduces himself. "Martha, that's a very sturdy name," he says of her. "You don't look like you were born in an era it was popular in, though or you've aged really, really well."

Martha laughed, though she knew appearances were sometimes deceiving. "I'm hardly a grandmother," she said, "but I was named after mine--well, my great-grandmother, that is. My dad said when I was born that I gave him a look just like hers when he was in trouble, so it was a good fit."

She lifted an eyebrow a little as she shook his hand, noting with curiosity, "Likewise the name Olaf, you know--not exactly everyday."

"Well, I'm not exactly an everyday sort of guy," he says pleasantly, seeing as you don't exactly get to be a grandfather of four boys without carrying around a grandfather's name. "I wasn't named for anyone, though," he says. "Our family just has a flair for the old names. My cousins, for instance; Mikkel, Anders, Tyrone, and Axl."

"Apparently not," agreed Martha, laughing, then swallowing a bit of her drink--fortunately not both at the same time. "Though Tyrone seems a bit out of context, actually, among the rest, unless I'm just rubbish at name etymology."

She leaned one elbow on the table and put her chin in her hand. "You seem to be adjusting to this better than me, so you must not be everyday."

"Why bother about the universe surprising you? It's only going to keep doing it," he advises with a blissed-out and peaceful opinion of all the information he's heard. "Never heard of aliens before today, but you know what? I had never heard of a Pimm's cup until about three years ago and now I have them all the time," he says, not touching on how Tyrone is out of place in both names, but also in looks and sides in parent disputes.

Martha doesn't need to know the whole gory story. "Plus, you can never discount what good herb can do to chill you out."

"You into cocktails, then?" Martha asked with a slightly furrowed brow as she went after a memory that wouldn't quite pin down. "It's a handy skill to have, one of my mates from uni put herself through school that way..."

The mention of weed made her laugh, though. "I don't really do that kind of chilled out, though, I'm sorry. Drugs testing, at work. I'm not keen on the idea of getting suspended."

"I'm into all drinks," he promises, seeing as he would never be so indiscriminate as to rule out a type of alcohol solely because it wasn't a cocktail. "My cousin owns a bar, another works for a vodka company. I'm very close to my family and all their joys, obviously, but sometimes, I'm also close for their stores."

"Ah, now, see, I don't work," Olaf says, shaking his head. "No worries about a drug test for me."

"Understandable, though I wish my family had that much booze. It'd ease family gatherings immensely..." Martha trailed off, realising that her family really had been better since the Year That Was.

"Wait, you don't work?" He didn't strike her as the type.

"Mostly, I surf," Olaf says, which isn't a job. It's a way of life and also what he genuinely loves. "Not for money or anything, mostly because I really love doing it. Occasionally, I'll pick some money up doing odd jobs, here and there, but the nice thing about family is that they take you in when they need you and they need me an awful lot."

At least, when his oracle senses are actually working properly.