That night, very far away from the Conical Structures office building, something else was happening in the world or the Aesir.

A harsh wind whipped through the snowy hills. A woman trudged through, her coat wrapped tightly around her, but not tight enough to protect her face. Gold dripped from her eyes onto the snow, leaving a shining trail behind her.

She was almost there.

Tucked away in the valley was a blacksmith. The clangs of hammers on metal constantly rang throughout the valley. She could hear them from here. A warm glow came from inside the workshop. Welcoming, almost. A good thing for her, since it was very cold, and she was just a poor lost maiden looking for shelter and nothing other than that.

She walked through the entrance and looked around the workshop. The clanging stopped immediately.

Four dwarves looked at her.

She did not look back. She had looked at something far more interesting.

The necklace in front of her. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was wonderful. She wanted it.

“The necklace,” she said. “How much?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” said one of the dwarves. “How much are you willing to give for it?”

They bargained throughout the night. Every time she named a price, they shut it down. They were not happy with gold, or silver, or bronze in any amount. Even when she offered all of the above, they would not take it.

“If you don’t want gold or silver or bronze what could you possibly want?” It was getting frustrating, now. There wasn't much else she could give. Nothing much anyone could give.

“What else do you have, young maiden?” one dwarf asked. He stepped closer to her. The others followed. She could see the soot on their beards now. Their stupid little moustaches. Short little garbage men. They smelled like coal and smoke and sweat and they were looking up at her with their beady eyes. So that was what they were doing.

“Well...maybe...I do have this,” she said, shyly. The dwarves stared as she unfastened her cloak. It slipped past her shoulders, revealing her bare neck and long gold hair. The dwarves moved closer in. She was perfect, and she knew it. She held her cloak at her chest and gave a little twirl. If this was the only way to get the necklace, then so be it. Sometimes you had to do things the hard way, and this was one of those times. The cloak fell further, slowly, past her chest and to her waist. She was the image of beauty, with gold necklaces and belts and a pristine white dress. It wasn't enough for her. She needed the necklace.

The woman dropped the cloak slightly, inch by inch, closer to the floor but never revealing her whole body. The dwarves waited with hungry eyes.

She resented what she had to do. It was a difficult choice. She might be killed or even worse, cast out of Asgard. But it was what she had to do. They really should have just given her the necklace.

The cloak fell to the floor before the first dwarf took an uppercut to the chin.

“I’m sure it was around here somewhere,” whined Thor. “I definitely felt it.”

“Thor,” muttered Loki. “We don’t have time for this. The bake sale is almost on. We don’t have time to look for Mjolnir, which apparently is somewhere around here despite there being no evidence that Mjolnir is, or ever was, here.”

Thor folded his arms. “But Loki.”

It was three days after Thor had first 'felt' Mjolnir, and they still hadn’t found it. Loki was getting impatient with this. He’d spent all night making cupcakes for this bake sale and now they were going to be late because of Thor. He had always wanted to do a Bake Sale, and Loki wasn’t going to let anybody ruin this for him. 

“No,” Loki said. No one. Not even Thor. Or Mjolnir. Or Ragnarok itself.

“I’m the older brother," Thor replied, as if the argument had any weight any more. 

It didn't.

“Bake sale, Thor.” 

Thor groaned, dropped his arms, and followed Loki away from the field.

“That will be five human dollars, sir,” said Thor as he handed over a plate of cupcakes. Doing the bake sale was so much easier than the Office Job. Thor had learnt fairly quickly that humans didn’t like telephones, and often hung up as soon as he called. It was a strange thing for them to have everywhere if they were so afraid of it, but who was Thor to judge the activities of the humans? In any case, this Bake Sale thing was much more fun. Humans were actually talking to him for once, and he was blending in with them quite expertly.

“And if you could just go to my brother Soap there for some different human money, my good customer.”

The humans were so easily fooled.

“Hello,” said a woman. “I want to purchase one human food.”

Thor looked up and reflexively jumped back. It was her. Unmistakably. Her voice, her golden hair and necklaces, her extremely aggressive demeanour. His instincts were trained to avoid her after several close calls in Asgard with... well. Many things. Thor recalled a particular time in which she had threatened to sever his arteries with a fork. 

She climbed over the table and grabbed his shirt collar.

He squealed.

“Give me my human food, baby man,” she said.

“Loki,” croaked Thor. “Help me.” There was no escaping this.

Loki looked up from his box of money. “Oh. Freya. Lovely to see you.”

“It is not lovely to see you, trickster.” Freya let go of Thor but continued to glare at him. “Give me human food.”

This was the least ideal situation to be in.

“I can’t give you a human cupcake until you pay us,” said Thor. “Otherwise we won’t make any money and we’ll die of no food.”

“Give me human cake cup," she growled, pointing to the sign that said 'cupcakes - 50 cents'.

Freya had been Thor’s mortal enemy ever since she found out about The Prophecies, which were supposed to dictate their entire future but didn't seem to be working out very well. Freya was in love with a goddess named Sif, but as The Prophecies stated, it was Thor's destiny to marry Sif. Understandably, Freya wasn't very happy about it because no one is happy when their girlfriend is destined to marry Thor. Thor didn’t really care either way but Freya was very passionate about the whole thing and made sure to assert her dominance any time they interacted.

Shaking, Thor picked up a cupcake and handed it to Freya. She looked at it suspiciously before biting into it. Thor slowly backed away.

After some thought, she nodded.

“This is delicious. We should make these cake cups in Asgard.” Freya opened her mouth and dropped the rest of the cupcake in, as well as the paper on the outside, then wiped her hands on Thor’s shirt. “Anyway. I am not here to talk about human cake cups. I am here to talk about a hammer. Which may have previously been known as Thor’s hammer? But is right now known as my hammer.”

“You found Mjolnir?” he asked hopefully. This was wonderful. He’d finally have his hammer, they could stop Ragnarok, everything would be perfectly normal - wait a moment. “Your hammer?”

“Yes, my hammer,” she said. “Finders keepers. I need it to bless my marriage with Sif.”

“But it’s my hammer.” Thor could fight her for it, but Freya had beat him up every other time they'd interacted. He wasn’t going to win here.

“Not anymore.” She folded her arms. "As I said. Finders keepers."

"Where did you even find it?" asked Loki.

"Just in that field over there," said Freya, pointing to the field they had been searching every day previously. "Three days ago. Right after I was banished for beating up dwarves and stealing their shit. Whatever that means. Apparently you can get banished for that now."

So Thor had been right about Mjolnir all along, and Freya had been banished from Asgard too. On one hand this was a positive because it meant that Freya didn’t only beat up Thor, she also beat up other people as well. On the other hand this meant that Thor was probably going to have to live in the same place as Freya until they could get back to Asgard.

“Anyway I am keeping Mjolnir until I can bless my marriage with Sif. After that, you can have it back. I don’t need a hammer to be an epic warrior.” She shrugged. “I am way cooler than any of you. You both s-”

“Hey!” shouted someone from the bake stall. “Is anyone here selling cakes?”

"Hey! I am telling them they suck!" Freya sighed. “I guess I should let you get back to selling your human cake cups. But I will return. I have been sleeping in a tree for three days. So I am going to steal your beds. And sleep in a bed.” Freya grabbed another cupcake from the table and walked away.

Loki and Thor breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the bake sale table with slightly less excitement than before.

“Interesting accent she had there,” said the man at the front of the queue. “She from Sweden?”

“Where is that?” said Thor. “She’s from Asgard like a normal person.”

Loki placed a pile of blankets on the floor. Fenrir crawled into the blanket pile and wagged his tail. “Here’s where you’ll be staying, Freya.” Loki was giving up his room in his apartment so Freya could be a freeloader and not sleep in the same bed as Thor. Which was what Loki was about to do. Regretfully. “We both have to leave at 8:30 in the morning. If you wake up before us, don’t scare Paul. Please.”

“Paul? Who is Paul?” She picked up a blanket and sat on the bed. “So not only have you brought in Fenrir, bringer of Ragnarok, you’ve also adopted a human?”

“No,” said Loki. “Paul is our roommate. And Fenrir is not the bringer of Ragnarok. He’s a very good boy.” Loki was fairly sure that whatever Fenrir could do, he’d done it already and now he was just a very cute puppy.

“Just don’t blame me when we wake up and your 'cute puppy' has killed everybody.”

Fenrir jumped up on her lap.

“Go away, murder beast.” She pushed him off. “How long do we have to live like this before we can go back to Asgard?”

“Until we stop Ragnarok," Loki sighed.

“And how are we meant to do that?”

“By getting an office job, apparently.” Loki shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. But the more you help us, the faster we can get back to Asgard, the sooner you can get back to Sif, and the sooner Thor can stop whining about his hammer.” Loki waved for Fenrir to follow him. “Good night, Freya.”

“Good night, weakling,” said Freya. Loki closed the door as he walked out. That was the easy bit over.

Now it was time for the real challenge.

Loki rolled up his sleeves as he went to tuck Thor into bed.