"I don't get it," the teenage girl stares over her mother's narrow shoulders, glaring at the collection of pictures taken from what seemed to be every possible angle. Some were simply close-ups of what seemed to be a blank cave wall, others had engravings of an ancient language that somehow stood the test of time.

"What don't you get, Millicent?" Her mother doesn't bother to glance up from where she is working. Her left hand clutches a picture with what looked to be two engraved triangles mirroring one another, almost like an hourglass, and the other spooned instant mi goreng noodles into her mouth. Beside her set a cup of coffee-- which Millicent had already filled twice-- and her laptop, with the same pictures printed opened on the desktop.

"You stare at that Heavener Rune nearly every single day of your life," the teenager pauses to take a sip of her own coffee. In a few minutes, she'll be forced into her Jeep to take the ten minute ride to Hell, alias high school. "Just like your obsession, it has stayed the same for the past thousand years, other than the mushrooms that infested it last summer."

Millicent's mother just bats her paper in the direction of her only daughter-- her three older children are thankfully all out of the house-- and adjusts her glasses. "Have you ever heard of--" she begins before the teenager cuts her off.

"Vikings in Oklahoma?" Millicent nods. "If there ever were anything remotely Norse in Oklahoma, I pray that it knocks on our door so you can finally find some sleep between staring at the same Runes everyday, twenty-four, seven, three-sixty-five."

"You don't have to be so rude, Milli," her mother scolds her. But, the woman goes back to sipping her drink, already unamused by her daughter's words. When one is the child of Maura Murdock, the Heavener Runestone practically becomes the Bible-- that is, if the Bible possessed misinterpreted words and came from the hands of maybe-Vikings a thousand years ago.

"I apologize," Millicent grins, bending down to straighten her mother's pictures before she kisses the woman's cheek to seal the apology.

"I'll only forgive you if you feed that stray," the woman gives her a cold glare just above the thick, tortoiseshell rims of her eyeglasses. That stray happened to be the mutt Millicent rescued last summer at the Heavener Runestone site.

"Alright," she agrees. Millicent turns around, fine with the chore, as she planned to do it either way before she went to school. "Hawthorne always gets hungry at this hour, anyway," the teenager moves her hand to check the time on her smartphone-- hardly seven, she has little over an hour to kill.

*

As soon as the dog food-- bought from the discount store down the road-- hit the plastic cereal bowl-- Millicent never had a dog before, so, compromise she did-- the mutt came running from where she paced by the chainlink fence.

The dog, a mix between a Great Dane given her size and a German Shepherd considering her fiercely intelligent eyes, took apart the food with more grace than any meal Millicent herself had ever taken. She smiled fondly at the giant and crouched beside her.

Hawthorne enjoyed her company, she could tell. For a stray, the mutt made it seem as if she had just been born obedient. Millicent scraped her mind in efforts to find a reason as to why someone could leave her to die behind the garbage cans at the Heavener site, but found nothing, unless too much ultimate trust and undying loyalty to those around Hawthorne was a bad trait to her previous owners.

"Just a big, old sweetheart, huh?" The teenager smiled, placing her hands into the dog's fur as she pushed back into her touch. Somewhere to their left, her mother had started her mini-van, about to make the hour long journey to the Heavener Runestone site where she worked as a historian.

"Eat up, Hawth," she lifted up her hand from her black fur to wave in goodbye when her mother, loaded up with her briefcase-- a gift from last mother's day-- and her trademark thermos of coffee, slid into the driver's seat and backed out of the gravel driveway.

Millicent watched the woman's vehicle disappear between the overgrown greenery that surrounded their home so closely, and sighed. Today, she didn't feel like driving the ten minutes it took to reach town just to attend her last month of high school.

"I can't skip again, though," Millicent rubbed her cheek into Hawthorne's broad shoulders when she faced the facts. Another absence and she'd have to retake senior year again. Which means she would be cursed to stay in the middle of nowhere for another twelve months.

The teenager scrubbed at her face, already tired just thinking about the day ahead of her, when she stared up at the dark sky above her. It smelled like thunderstorm season. Any native to Oklahoma knew the tall-tale signs of one.

Her nose scrunched together in a sniff just to make sure.

The heavy smell of dirt stuck to the air, along with the uncommon stillness that clung to the atmosphere. Oklahoma never stopped spinning with wind, unless it was tornado weather, the lack of it just proved Millicent's thoughts further. Everything had a strange tinge of green, even the morning sky. A bad one, then.

She stared at the storm shelter in her front yard, practically just a dirty hole in the ground wrapped in cement with a cracked wooden door as a means of getting in and out. The teenager doesn't even know if it would actually hold up against anything.

Hawthorne seemed to follow her eyes before continuing to finish the bowl of food.

With the thick scent of ozone clogging her nose, Millicent retreated back into her house as she sent a worrisome glance towards the turning skies.

*

Millicent stuck her forehead to her knee as the hot spray of the shower spilled over her, washing away everything from the past twenty-four hours. If she could be quick about it, the teenager might have time to dry her hair before driving herself to school.

Although she had enough coffee in her body to make her blood half caffeine, she couldn't find it in herself to stand in the tiny shower. Then again, sitting was always better than standing, and she will proudly stick to that until the day she dies.

She reaches up for the fruity scent of her mother's homemade soap-- another strange hobby her mother possessed along with being Norse paganism-- and scrubbed until her freckled skin turned raw. Throughout the modest bathroom, her smartphone played something soothing enough to make her mind feel numb.

She followed the beat of the music-- all instrumental, because Millicent wasn't much of a singer anyway-- and allowed the water to wash off the suds when a crack of thunder roared above the noise in the bathroom.

The teenager jumped, only because of the force of it, before resuming her bathing process. When she found herself nodding to the rhythm of the song playing, another roll of thunder echoed off the walls, this one so blaring that her ears rung. A white flash, which enveloped the entire room, followed.

Millicent was paying attention now.

CRACK!

Another split her world of sound apart, and soon, more followed directly after, so forceful that it drowned out any other noise-- even the frantic beating of her own heart-- and shook the entire frame of the house.

The world outside of the shower seemed to be going mad; with scrambling hands, Millicent turned off the warm water and slipped past the glass door, wrapping herself up in a towel as she ran for the bathroom's window.

With fingers trembling from adrenaline, she pushed down a plastic shutter, standing on the tips of her toes in a puddle of water, trying to make sense of the ongoing thunder around her.

Outside, the flat pasture that surrounded her home looked dim, the dark clouds that seemed to have appeared in the last five minutes blocked out the morning sun. Nothing particularly strange, at least for Oklahoma, when another shock of lightning struck, and thunder rolled almost instantaneously as a reply. It didn't stop, every single second seemed to be full of a chaos that only came with a storm.

She watched, studying the pasture between the flashes of lightning which would completely swallow the property with a blazing white, fade, and then come just as quickly back.

The very frame of the house seemed to shake as she was preparing herself to turn back around; abruptly, a strike of lightning found its target in the middle of the field, so close that Millicent swore she could feel the tingles of electricity dance through her fingers. She jumped in her towel, eyes comically wide as she stared, unnerved at the natural phenomenon.

For a moment, she thought her eyes were only trying to adjust, but after blinking away the random spots of light that harassed her sight, she realized in the field, where the ground smoked from the lightning, the silhouette of something pin straight and tall stood-- possibly a fragment from the strike. Until it began to move.

Millicent felt her heart drop to her stomach as she turned herself away from the window, her mind screaming a resounding 'nopenopenope'. She grabbed her sweatshirt from the same morning and yanked it over her shoulders, her pajama pants quickly following, not realizing that the fabric uncomfortably stuck to her still-wet skin as she pocketed her smartphone from her aux radio.

It seemed too deathly silent now. The thunder had stopped; without the teenager's music, the home only echoed with her own steps.

She ran towards her front door, picking up her keys at the dining room table, as the same silhouette she witnessed in the field appeared behind the door's window shutters. She froze, paralyzed as her flight or fight instincts abandoned her body, and instead, her traitorous rush of adrenaline decided to keep her frozen to the worn carpet floors.

The figure lifted up a hand, tapping on the window as if it were curious. The noise managed to wake something up inside of her, the teenager became alive with movement as she turned to look for the closest item that could be used as a weapon. She found it in the umbrella that laid on the coffee table, no doubt set there by her mother out of kindness.

As soon as she grasped the handle of the umbrella, the door swung open, revealing a stranger. He wore an odd golden garment which seemed to resemble a dress from another era, his black curly hair was pinned back and weaved into delicate braids.  His dark skin seemed to be rubbed with something that smelled like basil, the oil catching underneath the dim lamp light of the living room. His wrists, neck, and ears had been decorated with delicate jewelry, all of which that seemed to glint with precious stones as amulets and beads. The man's strange eyes, the same shade as his dress, were framed in what Millicent thought to be smeared eyeliner. He didn't appear to be bothered by the fact he was just hit by lightning.

If he hadn't just appeared by lightning, she might've let her mouth gape at the ethereal beauty that emitted off of him.

"This," the man turned, his plush lips turning into an unpleasant frown. "This does not seem to be Jotunheimr," he declared, but his eyes stayed trained on Millicent. His gaze seemed to look through her, until he smiled, as if he were delighted. "This is most strange."

"Who are you?!" Millicent's umbrella is wielded like a sword, the metal tip hovering just an inch away from his exposed collarbone.

"I am Loki of Jotunheimr, son of Farbauti, blood brother of Odinn, unfortunate babysitter of Thor," he crosses his arms, every piece of jewelry on his slender wrists creating a sound that resembled music. "You are Mjollnir."

"What--" Millicent replied, utterly confused. Her grasp around the umbrella's handle didn't stutter, though, and she pressed it until the tip pushed into his ebony skin, which, on a closer look, had threads of gold sewn in delicate patterns, telling a story that the teenager recognized-- as if she had seen it before, as if it were familiar-- but couldn't decipher. "I'm-- are you one of my mom's weird friends? The Norse Nerds meet tomorrow, at the library--"

"Who be the mother of the lovely Mjollnir?" The man, Loki, doesn't glance at the umbrella that begins to leave an irritated depression in his skin.

"My name is Millicent," she says her name forcefully and through gritted teeth. As her name leaves her lips, she readjusts her grasp on the umbrella's plastic handle until her knuckles turn white from the pressure, in turn, digging even deeper into Loki.

"There is lightning in you yet," he smiles, flicking up his fingers, such a tiny movement that the teenager would not have even noticed it, until the umbrella is flung out of her hands by nothing. It becomes a blur of speed, only stopping when it stuck straight into the red walls of the living room.

For a moment, the teenager does nothing but gape before she speaks again, "Okay, psychopath." Millicent forces her attention from her loss weapon to Loki, who has one slender hand softly rubbing over the spot where she had nervously pressed the umbrella into. His threads of gold are even more apparent there, thick and seeming to move over his collarbone, as if snakes lived in his skin. "Get out."

Loki ignores Millicent, instead studying her. "Thor will be most displeased, considering we got all dressed up for nothing," he taps a long finger on his chin; abruptly, her body is levitating into the air.

"Are you serious?" She has no time to adjust, instead, she immediately screams in an accusing tone. Her hands scramble up as she tries to find something to anchor herself to. Loki turns her in the air, unaware or just not caring about her discomfort.

"How did you manifest yourself in this form?" He asked as the teenager turned her head back enough to see him standing inches away, eyes focused on her overall body, not finding anything interesting enough to focus solely on.

"Put me down!" She demanded angrily, managing to fling her hands back enough to grab one of his braids at the odd angle she was forced into. The teenager yanked him forward, their eyes becoming level with one another, although her entire world was literally upside down. "Loki of Jotunheimr, you are about to become Loki of a shallow grave!"

An amused smile appears on his handsome face, and with a wink from his golden eyes, she finds herself placed on the ground, although, not lightly. She hits the carpet with an echoing thud, grunting loudly as she stared up at the man who still studied her as if she were a puzzle to be solved.

"Why do you call me Mjollnir?" She asked when she caught her breath, bringing herself off of the floor as she took a freckled hand to ring out her damp hair, a strangely mundane thing to do in the presence of what seemed to be extraordinary.

"Because," Loki stared as if she were the weirdo who just levitated someone off of the ground and flung an umbrella six inches into the wall. "You are Mjollnir."

"Who is Mjollnir?" When he blinked, obviously still surprised by what she assumed to be her stupidity, Millicent continued. "Who is Mjollnir suppose to be?" She wipes her wet hands on the thighs of her pants, waiting for an answer.

"The hammer of Thor, one of Asgard's most prized relics," Loki turned, offering her a grin that seemed to be overflowing with blatant mischief. "A Jotunn giant known as Prymr stole the weapon, now Thor is throwing a tantrum all nine realms are burdened with."

"And I'm... you think," she pointed to herself, and then to him, one rogue eyebrow hiked high as she tried to make sense of everything happening to her. "You think I'm a hammer...?"

"You are Mjollnir, but I believe you are also Millicent," he taps his chin. "I cannot wait for Thor to witness this, he makes the stupidest faces when he is confused."

"Thor... like, the thunder god Thor?" Her eyes became as wide as saucers as she pointed to him. "And-- you are Loki."

"I believe we have once went over this," Loki's thick eyebrow raises as if he were truly concerned for the health of her mind.

"No, you're Loki-- like, the God of Mischief," she waves her hands frantically around as she turns on her heels, pacing nervously before she faces him again. "And you-- you mess everything up!"

"Is that what the Midgardians are referring me to?" He laughed, a sound that made Millicent's breath leave her chest, as if the music that left his mouth in a throaty push of laughter had manifested only to make her forget how to breathe. "I quite like the name, actually."

She oogled at him for a few moments, confused at what had just happened, before she recovered swiftly enough. "But-- but," she coughs after her brain forgot how to speak for an uncomfortable second. The lack of brainpower gifted her with a revelation. "I know this. I know this one, this--"

"This what?" Loki stares.

"This legend," Millicent turned on her barefeet, moving to her laptop sitting on the dining room table. Loki followed, not minding the sounds of his many bangles and necklaces rapping together as he watched her precariously.

She opened the laptop, the brightness of the welcome screen causing Loki to jump back a foot. His hands suddenly glowed with tendrils the same shade of his golden veins. "What is this? Seidr?"

Millicent ignored him, instead opening a tab with the nearest search engine and typing in 'seidr'.

"A type of norse sorcery," the teenager stared at him, waiting for him to tell her if the definition was correct. "Is that seidr? What I just said?" She went on as he stared with wonder at the screen.

"Yes, Mjolnnir. What be this?" He asked, obviously curious now.

"A computer," she replied swiftly, her fingers tapping on the keyboard at an absurd speed as she typed. "Shut up for a second, okay."

Impressively and surprisingly, considering that Millicent believed him to be a Norse God, he shut up instantly. Although, only for the sake of understanding what she was doing and what a computer was.

She clicked on the Wiki page, sending a quick glance at him before scanning through and huffing. Sounds about right, she thought to herself as she finished.

"So," she closed the laptop knowing that Loki's attention would stay following the illuminating screen. "That's your great plan?"

"I do not understand," for the first time in their acquaintance, finally, the teenager could make him look like the dull one.

"You dressed up like Thor's maid," Millicent smiles knowingly, imagining Loki, who seems to have put much thought in his clothes, picking only the finest materials for his role, which seemed a bit too fine and beautiful for a role of a maid, more fit for a queen, maybe. "And Thor dressed up like the goddess Freyja," she rubbed her temples. "To be given to Prymie, or whatever, to be his bride."

"Yes," Loki replies, shock evident in his handsome face. "How did you know?"

She grinned, mischief in her own smile. "It's called Google."

"Is this Google... a seer?" He wondered earnestly, staring at the computer with suspicion.

"A se-- no, it's-- dude," she waved her hands in the air, as if she were trying to point him to the bigger idea here. "I'm not going to explain the twenty first century to someone who isn't even supposed to exist."

"If I am not meant to exist, than neither are you, Mjollnir," he replied cleverly.

"Whatever," her voice is strictly teenage as she continues."So, this Jotunn guy, he decided to steal Thor's hammer, the only way to get back the hammer would be giving the goddess of bow-chicka-wowow, Freyja, to him as a wife. Y'all decided to go as bride and maid in place of her, but somehow-- or for some reason, you think-- I am Mjollnir."

Loki gapes, a strange sight for a god to be taken back. "By the norns, that is correct."

"Don't be impressed, it was just Wikipedia-- never mind," she continues, her words going a million miles a minute. "The pressing matter here is that you look insanely good in that dress and I have felt the need to compliment you since the moment you broke into my house, and that, y'know, I am a hammer."

Loki nods at the compliment, as if he expected it. "Prymr told us he sent Mjollnir eight--"

"Leagues beneath the Earth, only in this case, that means in the body of a teenager," she pauses. "Same difference."

"And, another thing, man," the teenager doesn't allow him to go on. "You could've just stolen one of his dogs, obviously he loved those things-- what kind of sane person makes gold collars for their animals?"

"He is not a person, but a fierce Jotunn giant," Loki's fist tighten, as if that will help the impact of his words.

"Loki, work with me," she replies, unimpressed.  "What is Thor going to do when he realizes his prized weapon is the shape of a girl?"

"I imagine he'll take you back to Asgard, the elves will figure something out," Loki replies after many seconds of silence.

Millicent gaped at him as if he had gone mad. "This figure out thing, what does that mean?"

Loki pauses, curling his lips tightly before nodding to himself. "I see your hesitance, which is just. Thor is a rash god. You are under my protection, young Millicent."

"And," the teenager waves her hand around, fighting to keep herself from laughing hysterically. "You think I'm going to just believe you? You're the God of Mischief for a reason, literally everything that goes wrong in Norse mythology can be traced back to you."

"This is only half truth-"

Abruptly, the calmness that had finally settled over the two of them erupted as a fierce howl echoed throughout the home. Loki and Millicent turned their heads so quickly that it was pure luck they didn't receive whiplash.

"Hawthorne," Millicent shouted with worry as the god's golden eyes widened from surprise.

"Fenrir," he whispered so low it seemed as if the name was his own private word.

The two of them ran outside of the front door, following the howls and whines of pain, both desperate to assist. When Millicent found herself in front of what was supposed to be Hawthorne, the dog had been replaced by a girl only a few years younger than her, scantily clad in fur as dark as her black-blue hair.

Above her, a red-headed, prolifically-sized man who wore the same style dress as Loki, save that the blue silk had been reduced to shreds against his strong chest and arms, roared loud enough that it seemed to shake the ground.

"Thor!" Loki's tormented shout caused the man to glance up, before continuing on. "Get off of Fenrir! You're killing her!"

"He-- who is that? Who is she? Who are they?!" Millicent watched as the girl produced the same sounds as Hawthorne's low cries.

"Your dog, your dog! Your dog is Fenrir," Loki screamed; his hands began to glow with his trademark gold before he turned away with shiny eyes. "I can not-- I-- Fenrir may be hurt, and-- Thor, will-- he will not stop."

The teenager stared as the two of them twisted together, both of them vicious, but the man, Thor, seemed out of control, as if he couldn't bring himself to stop even if he wanted to.

"Thor, please!" Loki pleaded hopelessly as he waved his hands up, like he was trying to distract him from murdering the young girl. "Thor, I beg!" It's useless, Thor saw nothing but the fight in front of him, and maybe then, when he was standing over Fenrir's dead body, would he turn his attention towards Millicent and Loki only to kill them, too.

Somewhere between processing that her Hawthorne--her helpless, kind stray-- had manifested herself into the form of a wild young girl, and realizing that Hawthorne-- that Fenrir-- was well on her way to sure-death, did Millicent's hands go flying forward, and with it, a shock of blinding light emitting out of the very tips of her fingernails.

She screamed as it found its target in Thor's shoulder, as if she had been part of the strange stream of white-blue.  It sent the man spiraling backwards with a shout.

Fenrir choked out a thick whine from where she fell back, gasping with blood trapped between the cracks of her teeth. She grinned though, as if she loved the thrill of chaos.

"Fenrir," Loki ran towards the girl, wrapping her up with his arms and smoothing his hands over her bloody face. "Fenrir, did you provoke him?"

Fenrir shakes her head cautiously, before she darted closer to him, her delicate hand cupping her secrets as she whispered into his ear.

Seemingly unharmed, Thor stands up from where he had landed, which had been through the bricks of where Millicent's dining room wall used to be.

"Mjollnir?" Thor didn't look at anything but the teenage girl, interest obvious.

"I've been called that, yeah," she tells him, unsurely. Millicent keeps herself close to Loki; although his word may be worthless, she would take any kind of protection she could against this machine soldier.

Loki noticed, straightening himself out after he laid a chaste kiss to Fenrir's bleeding forehead, and with it, the wound sealed instantaneously. The girl kept her dark, intelligent eyes on Millicent as Loki took control of the situation.

"Let us go in private," he soothed both Thor and Millicent at his words. "I think it ill to speak of adult matters in front of the child."

*

The two gods looked horribly out of place in Millicent's room. Although they seemed to be use to the finer things in life, they were fascinated with everything inside the house, this included the trinkets that sat on Millicent's dresser to the plastic, pink crystals that hung off of her bedside lamp shade.

"I am taking you back to Asgard, for you are my Mjollnir," Thor decided from where he stood at her wooden vanity; his hands were wrapped around her straightener as he clapped it together loudly, uncaring as he tested.

"Oh, Odinn's son," Loki grinned, somehow finding the remote to her television. He raised it up, confused at the use for it. "Do not tempt the little lady. And she is quite short, is she not?"

Millicent's eyes shot wide as she ran towards Loki, swiping the remote away from him before he scared himself half to death when he finally found the power button. At the moment, she was beginning to finally realize the scale of this entire thing. "What-- wha-- first, I walk in on you trying to kill my dog, who isn't-- but, she is-- and then--"

"That was no dog," Thor smiles brightly behind her opened eyeshadow palette. "But Fenrir, one of Loki's evil spawn."

"One of?" She turns, hesitant at Loki, whose eyes have gone wide and his brows hiked high. "There's more?"

Loki scratches the back of his neck, the first human gesture she has seen him do. "As you have witnessed, I use seidr--"

The other god cut him off, a smile that seemed harmless enough crossing his sharp features. "He's an Ergi--" He never managed to finish.

"What did I tell you about that word, Thor?" Loki's voice stayed the same, steady and hinting at playful, while a rush of golden light simultaneously emitted out of his hands. Unlike previous uses, it's aggressive, its only purpose was to manifest itself long enough to pin the other god to Millicent's bedroom wall and keep him there.

Thor roared, as if he were an animal and not a god. His teeth bared, twisting his mouth into a snarl while his hands were the only part of his body allowed movement, pardoned to simply curl and tighten with frustration.

Millicent stared, feeling the opposite of frightened. She was utterly fascinated with the way Loki seemed to possess so much power, enough to leave Thor defenseless.

"What does it mean?" She asked as she took a step forward to stare up at Thor, who heaved like a caged animal from where he was pinned. The anger he possessed echoed above the house from a roll of thunder that hovered ominously. "An Ergi?" She continued gingerly, when Loki didn't answer.

"A derogatory term, meant to burn me, for men are looked down upon if they use seidr," he steps beside her, his golden eyes blank as he reached an elegant hand up and allowed his fingers to ghost over Thor's sharp cheekbone. It looked as if he were petting an animal. "Funny, though, for Thor's prized Mjollnir is forged from and relies on seidr. But, we have another name for the God of Thunder, don't we?"

As his words leave his mouth, Thor manages to bring his hand up from the cracked wall, mere inches from Loki's head, before Loki pins it back down with his own.

"Do not fret, Thunderer, I will not seep to your level," he drops Thor's hand, which goes limp by choice, as if he were ashamed of ever uttering the word to Loki. The thunder above them silences, Millicent only realizing the sound exists when it stops, but the rain drones on. If it meant anything, Loki doesn't acknowledge it.

The clever god takes a step back, his hand finds Millicent's shoulder to bring her away from Thor. As they finally stop on the other side of the teenager's bedroom, Loki flicks his fingers and the other god drops to his feet on the wooden floor, regaining his own limbs back as he stares towards Loki.

If Millicent expected anger, she is mistaken. Thor clenches his jaw before bowing his head towards the other man. "Forgive me, Loki," the words, on paper, sound impersonal. But hearing the deep voice of the god crack with something that resembles regret rather than thunder makes it sound as if this was a long and wary fight which constantly pulled at the two.

Loki stays silent for a moment until he turns to Millicent. "Aside from all of this, I use seidr; at times, when a spell goes wrong, maybe a raven feather too many or not enough, a living form will manifest itself."

"And-- you get, you got Fenrir out of it?" The teenager wonders aloud.

"Aye," he replies. "But my Fenrir is just misunderstood."

"Fenrir bit off the hand of Tyr, Loki," Thor's voice fills the room, his eyebrows raised as if he were begging the other god to explain that one. "We are gods, but are we are not invincible. Tyr is forever without a hand."

"That oaf tried to imprison her, Tyr is lucky that I did not kill him," Loki snaps back, although his words were calm.

"And what of the others? Hel and Jormungandr? You are not even three thousand, and yet you have more broods than most," Thor allows a huff of a breathy laugh escape at the last of his words, giving the other god a face of raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

Loki huffs indignantly as his graceful hand presses to his pronounced collarbone.  "What does my age have to do with it?" He sneers.

Millicent's jaw has gone slack, and for a moment, she believes it may never recover from the shock. "I think... if you're like reaching the thousands, man-- you're ready, like have as many children as you want, Loki," she trails off.

"Nay, maiden, Loki is but a boy to Asgard," Thor turns to her, smiling. He is in a rather good mood, considering he nearly murdered Loki's child and had his own life barely pardoned.

"Oh, my gods, I am nearing my twenty-seventh hundred," Loki complains, giving the other god a glare that had the potential to kill.

"An adult in Elven years, possibly," the other bartered.

Millicent sucked in breath through her teeth as she listened."Or, an adult in like every kind of year..." she mumbled.

"You are not even three thousand, and yet here you stand," Loki threw his hands wildly up. This time, no golden light shone through his palms, just a wild gesture to show his annoyance.  "Ready to be sent as bride to a giant!"

At the end of his words, Millicent heard a most terrifying noise. It forced her blood to run cold.

"Guys," she began, trying to catch the attention of the two.

Thor grinned widely as he narrowed his eyes. "But age is not in this correlation, now is it, young Loki?"

"Do not turn my own words against me, god of fertility," Loki roared, bitterness stuck on his tongue.

"Guys," Millicent repeated, moving from where she stood beside her bed to her window, trying to find the source of the sound. Outside, it is calm, the rain has stopped. It sends a shiver down her spine.

"So only Loki is allowed to be clever," Thor shouts with feigning anger.

"Guys!" the teenager finally screams, her hand tight on her mesh curtains as she stares through the glass pane with horror. She has found the source of the dreadful noise.

"Good gods, Millicent," Loki replies with irritation at the interruption. "What?"

"My mother is pulling into the driveway," she steps away, moving almost mechanically as she walked out of her bedroom to stare at the very obviously ruined state of her house.  

Her mother wasn't even suppose to be home until five, it wasn't even ten in the morning.

She turns back to the two gods who have trailed behind her like lost puppies. "You're either going to stop fighting to clean up my entire house in thirty seconds, or you're going to stop fighting to clean up my entire house in thirty seconds."

"Maiden," Thor tells her in a worried tone, that somehow sounded sweet, as if he did not mean to offend her, a blaring contrast when compared to the other god. "I believe you gave us only one choice."

Loki rolls his tawny-gold eyes from where he stands, using the door frame of her bedroom as a crutch. "That was the point, Thor."

*

Millicent holds her breath as she stares at her cellphone; the small device vibrates furiously on her bedside table as her mother's face and name flashes across the screen. Her throat tightens, knowing she'll request for an explanation Millicent doesn't possess.

"What is that heinous sound?" Thor's mouth sets in a grimace as he glares around, tightening his fist as if he were readying himself for battle.

"My mother," she whispered as she grabbed her cell, staring in middle horror at the text message she should've seen.

Work n school cancelled, bad storms over there today. B home by 10.

She beat her hand against the wall, luckily not creating more damage to her apparently-fragile house when faced with literal gods. She moves to the closest window, pulling down the plastic shutters to look for her mother.

Maura's vehicle is on, stopped halfway through the driveway.

She slides her fingers over the screen in effort to answer the phone.

"Mo-"

"Why, in God's name, is there a half-naked, collared teenage girl on my porch," Maura's voice paused before she began again. "Why?" Her words are exasperated.

"Mom," Millicent turns towards Thor and Loki, the thunderer is glancing around with a frustrated cluelessness as the other god taps on any debris the two of them created. At his touch, whatever had been damaged returned to its previous, pristine form. "Mom, don't freak out," she ends.

"Don't tell me to freak out when there is a-- when there is a collared--" her mother is grappling for words.

"Mom, just, hold on," she cuts her off, running out of the room to cross the house to the front door, where Fenrir sat with obvious interest, as if she were waiting obediently for Millicent's return.

"Fenrir," she spoke; the girl stared at her with the same eyes of Hawthorne, utterly trusting. "Come here," Millicent beaconed her.

Fenrir followed the command at once, standing in front of her in a strong body wrapped scantily in furs. With her phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, Millicent brought her hands up to undo the metal clutch of the fabric collar.

"Sorry," the teenager tells Fenrir. "If I had known, you know, that you weren't a dog, I wouldn't've ever put a collar on--"

"Who is she?" Her mother's voice asked through the phone. "Who is the girl?"

"Mom," she smoothed out Fenrir's hair after the collar tangled itself in the thick locks. "Just come inside alright, I'll explain everything."

The line goes silent for a moment before her mother dare asks another question. "Dear Lord, what did you do?"

Millicent hardly registers it, instead she ends the call and wraps a warm hand around Fenrir's shoulders. "Come on," the teenager assures. "I've got a sweater that'll go perfectly with your pelts."

*

"Millicent," her tone becomes stern. "Why?"

The three myths are sitting calmly on the couch, Loki between them, as attempt to sooth the tension between Thor and Fenrir. The thunder god is folding into himself, trying to find room for the bulk of his muscle. Fenrir sits with half of her legs in Loki's lap, happy to be near her father and warm in a blue sweater.

"Mom, I know what this must look like--" Millicent begins.

"No," Maura turns to her daughter. "Tell me what this looks like."

"Well," the teenager pauses. "Well, we-- what you are looking at... is, um, Thor and Loki and Fenrir," she keeps her eyes trained on the three of them, who are sitting like children in timeout; Millicent's throat feels tight. "Like, the-- the um, Norse mythology."

"Excuse me?" Maura asks, one dark brow raising high, disappearing into her fringe. "Like the Norse legends?"

Maura swallows audibly before she continues again. "Exactly like the Norse legends."

She turns, ready for her mother's wrath, but instead she finds Maura curiously staring, as if they were simply another relic to study.

"The thunder god Thor," Maura observes. She doesn't wait for confirmation of the name, instead she goes on to the next figure. "The god of mischief Loki, and... his child, Fenrir-- although most legends depict her as a him."

Fenrir blushes at the attention, turning into Loki and nosing at his shoulder. Thor grins brilliantly; Loki seems rather unaffected.

"Why are they here?" Her mother asks, not looking away from them.

"Well--" Millicent began before Thor abruptly interrupted her.

"She be Mjollnir," the massive god proclaimed in a deep voice, smiling even deeper.

"She be Millicent, actually," the teenager told Thor, glancing towards her mother to see her reaction.

Maura made the connection instantly, turning towards her daughter with an expression of clear disbelief. "My human child somehow an inanimate object? Go on, please," she pursed her lips, waiting for an explanation.

"Actually, Mjollnir is not simply inanimate, mother of Millicent," Loki's words fill the living room, quick to correct her. "Mjollnir is alive with seidr, a type of--"

"Magic believed to be used in Norse paganism, I know. I majored in Norse mythology in college," Maura cuts Loki's thoughts in half.

"Then you must know of our most unfortunate endeavor," the god of mischief went on, folding his hands together. At the movement, the thick and thin bands wrapped around his fingers clicked and clacked with the sudden contact.

"Pray, tell," Maura replied, crossing her arms.

"The Jotunn giant known as Prymr stole and sent Thor's most prized weapon eight leagues beneath Earth, supposedly," Loki licked his full, bottom lip before he continued with a raised eyebrow. "Somehow, Millicent is now... Mjollnir."

"And what does this mean?" Maura's nostrils flare, a direct sign that she is slipping into her ultimate mama-bear state. "For my daughter, for Thor?"

"I believe whatever your daughter is going to be doing will be her own decision," Loki recognizes the signs, his voice becoming a soothing tone although his words create ripples. "It appears she has inherited the same impressive traits of Mjollnir."

"Traits?" Maura asks, giving Millicent a look that told her she was definitely grounded.

Loki didn't pause, but instead continued with a pleased smile. "She's expressed the ability of successfully channeling lightning."

"You expressed what?" Millicent nearly falls over from the tone of her mother's voice.

"Mom-- Thor was trying to kill Fenrir, and y'know, she's-- she was my dog, and I reacted naturally--" the teenager hung onto any word, any explanation that might ease her out of this.

Her mother took a deep breath, too calm for Millicent's liking, before replying. "What is natural about lightning bending at your will?!" Her stagnant words struck fear even in Thor.

"Actually, it felt kinda nice," Millicent changed her tune as her mother's face turned into a horrified expression. "But, but that-- it was just lightning, and I'm fine, obviously, and--"

"What about Fenrir?" Maura's eyes leveled with reasonable disbelief. "Why was Thor trying to kill-- okay, I take that back, for obvious reasons," she attempts to backtrack.

Loki perks up, wrapping an arm around Fenrir's tiny shoulders and giving her one of the motherest-of-all-hens looks Millicent had ever had the privilege to witness. "Obvious reasons to kill my Fenrir?"

"She-- uh," Maura continues to be unintimidated, instead giving a tight-lipped reply. "This is a spoiler alert."

"Spoil all of the alerts, mother of Mjollnir!" Thor argues happily, his inhumanely blue eyes shining with merriment.

"No, nope," Maura stays resolute.

"Then we will use Pedi of the Wiki!" Loki warns, standing up straight and glancing towards Millicent's laptop, which set on the coffee table inches away from him.

Millicent's fist tightened as she prepared herself to defend her one true love. "You touch my computer and I will zap you out of existence."

"Lady Lightning is threatening," The red-headed god is obviously entertained. "Do provoke her, I wonder if she wields against you better alone than with I, Loki!"

"No one will be wielding anything in the general direction of my daughter," Maura promised, her words ending just as a crack of thunder suddenly sounded above them.

"Was that you?" Loki turns to Millicent, confusion evident in his face, as he had not believed he had aggravated her so much. "I will refrain from using your Pedi of the Wiki if you are truly so riled."

Millicent didn't feel the thrum of electricity through her veins as before, but she felt her skin begin to crawl with goosebumps. Anxiousness seemed to settle over the Norse descents, while her mother remained unaffected.

"There were storms forecasted tonight," Maura spoke with brows stitched close together in misunderstanding.

"No," Thor stood up abruptly, his full height seeming to make the room that much smaller. "I know the sound of Mjollnir," he paused as another eruption interrupted them; at the sound, Millicent felt a rush of cold wrap around her.

"Prymr," the name came from Fenrir, who wrapped herself around Loki's arm, tugging on his silk sleeve.

"The giant from Jotunheimr Prymr?" Millicent's mother asks as another thunderous ripple travels through the air, deeper than any strike of lightning. It causes the entire house to shake, the frames on the wall clap and the knick-knacks on their living room mantle dance.

"He's coming closer," Loki joined Thor's side as Fenrir remained on the couch, dark eyes wide with a fear Millicent couldn't begin to understand.

The two gods ran out of the house, both of them becoming nothing more than shiny blurs in their fine dresses, as Millicent and Maura followed closely behind. The ground shook with every passing second, forcing all of them to be thoughtful in their pace.

Millicent kept herself near her mother as they passed through the yard and towards the back gate, where the pasture had once been split apart by the arrival of Loki. Now, in his place, stood a giant man that doubled the height of any oak tree that framed the field.

"Dear God," Maura whispered, before Loki turned around and gave her a strange look.

"He is no deer god, but a Jotnar, one of the giants," he explained as he drew his hand back, the vicious movement set his palm alight with the delicate threads of his golden seidr.

"It's an expression," Millicent craned her entire neck as she realized the likelihood of them getting out of this mess with all of their heads was extraordinarily slim. "I suppose that's our old friend Prymr," she thought aloud. He seemed identical to Thor with the ridiculously muscled frame of his. All of this seems to be even more overwhelming by the sheer height of the giant.

"It be Prymr," Thor laughed aloud, as if this were all a game.

The giant turned at his name, his long hair a shocking black and his face a strange and enchanting thing. He possessed the same air that Loki did, an ethereal presence that demanded eyes and any other remaining attention.

"Loki," Millicent spoke.

The god turned his head towards her voice, "Yes, fair Millicent?"

"What's our plan exactly? I don't know how I feel about being a hammer, but I'm dead sure that murder ain't for me... Jotunn giant or not," she stares at him with eyes searching for another route, although all potential routes seem to be pointing towards Thor killing the giant, much like her quick search on the internet had told her. And really, from down here, Prymr didn't seem like a bad guy. He was just big, and a thief at most, who misplaced Thor's hammer in the body of a teenage girl.

"You will soon find that Prymr loves his dog only as much as he loves spilling of blood," Loki told her, clicking his fingers. At the movement, her body as well as her mother's became covered in some kind of strange and compact armor in the shade of gold. Maura cried out from the sudden change of clothing, Millicent only glanced down for a moment before she waited for Loki to continue. "And Prymr loves his dogs very much, plaited gold collars, remember?"

"I remember," Millicent replied as Prymr took another step forward, straight towards them. They must look like tiny specks to him.

"Why are we dressed in armor?" Maura asked from behind them, her fingers melting to the contours of the gold as if she was testing if it were real.

"Mortals, as I have found, seem to be quite fragile, like their houses," Loki told them. "I thought you wouldn't mind the--"

"PRYMR!" Thor's voice echoed throughout the many acres of the pasture. He screamed the giant's name as if it were a war cry. It might as well be.

"Oh," Loki frowned, turning to glance at Thor before focusing back on the women. "I fear this will not be as covert an attack as I had once believed."

"What does he mean?" Maura asked, but the thunder god's next actions were enough answer.

The man, with or without Mjollnir, remained a sight of impossible talent in combat. He leaped up nearly ten fight, high enough to clutch at the beginning of Prymr's knee, and drove his dagger into the skin. Maura screamed; Millicent did the same, covering her eyes with her hands out of horror.

The giant cried as he swiped a hand down at his leg, swatting Thor away like a fly.

Loki huffed, rolled his eyes, and waved his hand with very little enthusiasm. Suddenly, Prymr the giant shrunk to a much less intimidating height of the taller end of six foot.

"You could've done that in the beginning," Millicent commented, feeling a thrum of adrenaline beginning to thread through her blood veins. She felt off-balance.

"I could've snapped my fingers and returned you back to a hammer," Loki quipped before he smiled. "But I enjoy Millicent more than Mjollnir."

Before Millicent possessed time to react, Thor's scream echoed throughout the pasture. Prymr, now only a head taller than the thunder god, remained with the upper hand.

"Should we help?" Millicent asked, looking towards Thor with worry.

"No," Loki watched the scenes unfold as if it were the season finale of his favorite show. With each passing punch, kick, bite that would land on either of them, the ground shook from the force of two divine beings attempting to kill one another.

As the fight bore on, Thor ravaged without relent. His eyes became beady, zeroed in on his target. His mouth no longer allowed anything but grunts and roars of fury to escape. His fist came back bloodier with each landed punch. But still, Thor's defeat appeared to be secured.

"He's a berserkr, isn't he?" Maura spoke from behind them, the word sounded harmless enough, but Loki turned around, eyes vicious, until he studied her placid face.

"He is not fond of the word," Loki replied. "But, yes. He loses control when he fights, it's nearly irreversible."

"Seems like a warrior's dream come true," Millicent added.

"Not when he can't tell friend from foe," Loki's golden eyes move towards her. "Only when his hand was sturdy around Mjollnir's handle was he ever aware when he fights. That is why we were dire to find you. You must understand that these urges are not his own, it is a curse placed upon him--"

"So, when he fights," Millicent watches as Thor continues raging on without any other thought than to destroy. "It's like... he's unbalanced."

"Exactly," Loki nodded in agreement as he gave a wary glance towards Thor. "Without the weight of Mjollnir's handles, Thor cannot stop."

"What are you doing, young woman?" Maura's voice screeched as Millicent began her trek through the pasture, zeroing in on Thor.

She stopped only for a second. "Do you want to watch a man be murdered in our field?"

"He's not a man, he's Jot--" Loki began.

"Loki," Millicent gave him a glare.  "That's not the point."

Millicent continues down the pasture. The less space between the god and the teenager made Millicent feel a thrill of something strangely warm begin to replace the blood in her veins. She couldn't watch as Thor fell to Prymr.

She burst into a run when she saw the giant pull a dagger, the reflection of the clear blade hits what little light the sun had to offer, and blinded her for all but one minute.

Millicent doesn't remember how she does it, much like when she had assaulted Thor with her new ability, but the lightning that coursed through her felt like an appendage, as if another limb, one which she had never known she possessed, cradled the electricity and sent it forward with a gentle push.

Prymr flies off of Thor and into the opposite direction of Loki and Maura. Millicent hardly registers this, instead she keeps her focus zeroed in on Thor, who still had wrath present in his bones. For a moment she did nothing, simply staring at the heaving man, before she encircled his fisted hands around her waist with a surprising strength.

He breathed heavily, his nostrils flaring as his eyes shone with remnants of lightning he no longer guided by his own hand.

"I am Mjllonir," she smiled because it felt right, to be here in this very moment, tired but alive from the feeling of lightning in her veins, with Thor, her  old friend, slowly becoming himself again from the tiny shocks which would prickle off of her body without warrant. "And I am Millicent."

*

"I don't get it," Loki spoke from where he sat on the dining room table, his hand fondly curled into Fenrir's wild hair as he stared at the cup on the table as if it had personally offended him. "Midgardians find this drink palatable enough to consume?"

"It's coffee, Loki," Millicent glanced up, her eyes just above the top of her computer. "Thor hardly complains about it."

"Thor would eat lightning so long as it had sugar," he muttered to himself, although fondness was clear in his voice. "Now, really, we must be getting back to Asgard--"

A knock on the door interrupted them, a sudden sound that caught all three myths off guard. Millicent, although somewhat adjusted to her few weeks with the knowledge that Mjollnir had chosen the teenager to manifest within her body, still knew where Loki went, inevitable mischief followed. She stood up, mentally preparing herself along the way to the door for whatever was behind it.

Millicent pulled back the curtain of the front door, surprised as she found the most unlikely house guest on the other side.

"Loki," she paused before she continued. "There is a horse at the door."

Loki drops his coffee mug.

END