"HOW DOES THE SWORD WORK, EXACTLY?" Iðunn asked me, tossing one of her thick honey blond braids over her shoulder and biting into an apple.

I balanced the hilt on the tip of my finger, holding my sword upright. "I do not know," I admitted.

Iðunn shifted a bit, smoothing out her leaf-green dress. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

I shrugged, letting the sword drop into my hand. "Exactly that," I retorted. "It can take me to anywhere in the Nine Worlds, and allow me to summon anyone I wish, and is great for sword practice, but other than that..."

Iðunn threw her half finished apple across the courtyard, letting it land right into a water fountain.

"What was that for?" I asked, turning to her.

She shrugged. "I've got plenty more." She patted the basket full of apples next to her. "I threw that one away because we still have thirty minutes before our training session with Thor, and we could go to Midgard?"

She joined her hands together and made a pleading face. I narrowed my eyes at her pale freckled face, but eventually gave in.

"All right," I conceded. "But we canno.t go like this."

She looked down at her green robes, which shone with golden embroideries of birds and flowers that seemed to move with every swish of the fabric and shimmered in the bright daylight. "What's wrong with that?"

"It looks like you are going to a Renaissance Festival. We have been over this before. It is not like we have not been going to Midgard every day for two hundred years."

She sighed in resignation and snapped her fingers. Her dress became slightly shorter, stopping at the knees, the gold embroidery disappeared and her gold circlet vanished into a straw sunhat.

"My turn!" I exclaimed, my golden armour and blue tunic melting into jeans and a hoodie. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and slid a baseball cap over it to hide the gold strands mixing with the black ones. Tinted sunglasses were also a necessity since white eyes weren't very common on Midgard. The dark markings on my pale brown skin weren't easy to hide, but people took them as tattoos, so that worked out well enough.

"Let us go," I said, redying my sword. "But it is only for a thirty minute trip to get lunch. No figuring out the sword. Last time, it caused an earthquake in Tokyo."

"You're no fun." Iðunn grinned at me, her heterochromatic eyes glittering with mischief.

I shoved her amicably. "Stop it!" I laughed, grabbing hold of her wrist.

I tapped my sword against the white tiles of the courtyard, taking us to New York City. I closed my eyes when Hjøðr glowed too bright for me to look directly at it. When I opened them, we were in our back alley in midtown Manhattan, the one that was close enough to all the street vendors and gift shops, but also barely two blocks away from the Avengers' Tower. This is where we'd taken to eating lunch. We came so often that every street vendor knew us by name and our orders by heart. And the younger kids who were on their lunch break from colleges in the neighborhood always had eyes for Iðunn. Being the goddess of youth, I could understand why everyone had a thing going for her.

Over the years, Iðunn had mastered the dialect of the Midgardians while I still struggled slightly.

"Where shall we go?" I asked.

"A.J's sounds good. Ooh, or maybe Stan's. Yeah. I want some of his pretzels"

"Would you mind, please?" I asked Hjøðr.

Hjøðr immediately transformed into the rune ᛉ attached to a thin chain. I clasped it around my neck and we continued on our way down the busy streets.

During our first visit, Iðunn had taken her basket of fruit with her and had tried handing out her apples of immortality to Midgardians. Thankfully I'd been there to stop her. Who knows what would've happened if someone had taken one. Or even eaten one. But now we both know the rules of Midgard. Basically no magic and no talks about slaying Jotuns or nearly waking Jormungand or accidentally travelling to Muspellheim and having no eyebrows for three weeks after burning them off during a duel against a fire giant.

The sword had freaked a few people out, but Midgardians cannot see the same things we can. At least not to the same level. They didn't see a giant sword spewing energy and light, only a giant musket in downtown New York City. 1812 was a tough year.

"Ah, good afternoon, girls," Stan said kindly. "I see you're having a good day."

Iðunn smiled at him. "Nearly, yeah."

Stan peered at us through his rose tinted sunglasses, his smile never wavering. "The usual?" he asked.

We nodded. "The usual."

He open the plastic container where the pretzels were reheating and pulled two out. "Say, Ida, how's your family?"

She nodded. "My father's still busy in his forge, as always. But he's doing great."

Stan nodded, squirting mustard on the second pretzel. "And you, Maea, how's life treating you?"

"Splendid!" I exclaimed "I have been training very hard and I have learned a great many things over my journey. We travelled around a lot this past year."

Stan accidentally squirted mustard on his thin mint green sweater. "I knew I should've worn that apron Joan always tells me to wear." He handed up our pretzels. "Well here you go, girls. That'll be three dollars and eighty-seven cents."

"Thank you, Stan," I said as we paid him and left the stand.

"Take care, girls."

After we got our pretzels, we ordered some beers-- well Iðunn had changed her appearance to look older and had gone in and gotten us two beers-- and we made our way past tourists and businessmen towards Avengers' Tower. We always ate lunch on the steps, talking together and sometimes exchanging words and lunches with some college students who hung out on the steps during their lunch breaks.

We took our seats on the stairs, being mindful to sit on the far side so as to avoid getting in the way of agents coming in and out of the building.

"So how's Thor doing?" Iðunn asked. "I mean, with Loki dead and all. I don't get to see him that much at all. I'm always stuck in basket weaving class when you get to spar with him." She crossed her arms over her chest.

I laughed and took a sip of my beer. "Well he is trying to get better. There was a thing with the Avengers a few moons ago. I think it got him out of his strange mood. But you should not dare complain to me. You were the one who dropped sparring with me for basket weaving lessons. And at least you are not stuck trying to learn how to control your 'gift of prophecy' with those old hags." I shivered slightly in the warm, spring air.

"Yeah. the Norns are pretty terrifying. I don't know what I'm even complaining about. You're stuck with them for three hours a day."

A chill settled over us as a strong gust of wind blew. "I told told you not to mention their names!" I hissed.

She cringed. "Right. Sorry."

I rolled my eyes playfully. "How much time do we have left?"

Iðunn narrowed her green and blue eyes at the sky. "About roughly ten minutes. Definitely less."

"What should we do?"

Iðunn looked up at me where I'd stood up and grinned.

I understood what that smile meant. "Oh, no. oh, no no no no. No way," I said, shaking my head. "No. I told you this would only be a lunch break. We are not testing out the sword."

Iðunn groaned and dropped her head on the stone steps. "You're so not fun!" she cried, turning a few heads.

"Tokyo! Does that ring a bell?"

"That was one time!"

"No! There was also that tsunami in Indonesia last year, that typhoon in the Caribbean, that volcanic eruption in South America, that one flood in--"

"Look, you've had that sword for, what? Six hundred, five hundred--"

"Eight hundred years," I supplied.

"Right. And all you know is that it can teleport and summon. I mean, look at that sword! It's huge. There is no way it's as boring as you say it is."

"I have never called Hjøðr boring," I felt my pendant grow warm against my collarbone at the mention of his name, "and second of all--"

Iðunn looked at me and raised her eyebrows, already smirking in victory. "Yes?"

I tried to think of something. "Mimir's head, you might be right."

Iðunn stood up. "Then what are we doing wasting around?" she asked, grabbing my wrist and running down the stairs and behind the tower. "Let's see what you can do!"

Behind the Tower there was an alleyway. It was the perfect place to practice with my sword since it was flanked by two tall buildings and there were no windows and we were virtually out of sight and sound of the street.

I pulled off my pendant and it morphed immediately into my sword. My Midgardian clothes melted into my armour, as did Iðunn's.

I took a deep breath, thinking about how much trouble I'd be in if Heimdall were to ever find out. I got in my fighting stance, brandishing Hjøðr, Iðunn watching next to me, trying to keep her distance.

"Time to see what you can do," I said.

♤

I have nothing to apologize for. I made a Stan Lee cameo simply because I could.