Loki and Thor drank the swill mortals called ale in a dank bar in Norway. It had been ages since they'd been back and the world quite literally went to Hel.

"You look disappointed brother. Berefed they no longer worship us as they once did?"

"It is touch disheartening I'll admit."

"Enjoy the escape Loki. For upon the morn we shall return to the gilded cages of our titles and be forced once more to lead lives of exemplarity."

Loki could hardly suppress his amusement, "Since when is drinking your self daft and bedding anything of the female sex considered exemplarity?"

"Brother anything worth doing is worth doing veraciously."

The brothers laughed. "Verily, it suprises me greatly that you accepted my invitation in the first place. You nearly never desire a drunken repast at my side."

"That would be due to the usual company you keep."

"The warriors mean well. They are just jealous of you abilities."

"You sound like mother."

"Then I shall drink more to reach a far less disturbing state of being." Thor chugged his ale and crashed the glass to the ground demanding another. The bar patrons hooted and hollered as his display while Loki rolled his eyes.

"And I have returned victorious!" Thor shouted, "Now since your beloved elder brother has shirked that unnerving mental state I would like to challenge you."

Loki was game for anything Thor had planned for this night. He'd always been amused my Midgardian society. Tiny beings mulling about pretending they will be the last generation to do great things when in the long run nothing they've done today could compare with the strength they once had back when they worshiped the gods of old. The creatures before him were pathetic. But he wanted to enjoy this rare night with his brother. "Alright, lets hear it."

"I challenge thee is incapable of bedding a maiden of my choosing before first light."

"Who do you choose?"

Thor grinned devilishly, "She who sits afore the window scrutinizing so piquantly into the book she possesses."

Loki took in the sight of the maiden Thor chose. Her hair was dark and straight. She was thin in shabby clothing but her face was a vision: full lips, which were pursed as she read, skin so soft and white she looked made of porcelain and hands with long elegant fingers. One hand wrote furiously while the other turned pages from a book that appeared to be a collection of ancient writings. She suddenly looked up and ordered a black coffee from a passing waitress. When her head arose Loki was able to see the hue of her eyes, they were a marvelous shade of blue that reminded him of an iceberg. Loki was captivated for if Thor had not thought up this challenge Loki would have made an excuse of his own to meet, speak with and eventually bed her himself. This led Loki to briefly wonder if Thor had chosen the girl for that very reason.

"Challenge accepted brother. See you at dawn." Loki brushed his hair back with his hands and made his approach.

Astrid Marie Stevenson sat glued to her book in the café across the street from her dormitory in Oslo Norway. She would soon finish her 24 month long Masters program at Oslo University in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies which meant it was time to cram… hard. At the age of 19 she'd already completed her Bachelors Degree in History from Magdalen College in an astounding 3 years having started her post secondary studies at age 16. Her dream was to become the worlds leading authority on Medieval History specializing on the Vikings and their Mythology. But first she had to pass her final exams. She was aware that she was an attractive woman by the amount of attention she received from the opposite sex on a regular basis but never paid mind to anyone. She was far more interested in her studies to bother with silly boys.

"Pardon me for saying but, you look as if you head my literally split in two." A silky male voice uttered from above her chair. His brogue sounded British but there was something off about it. Having lived in Liverpool England all her life she would know. The timbre could not be mistaken as anything but seductive which caused a flush to arise on Astrid's cheeks but she stubbornly continued her reading.

"There's a gaggle of bed hoppers drinking it up in the pub down the way, you'd have better luck there." Astrid responded not bothering to look up.

"I believe you're right, however the drunken bed hoppers are not to my taste. That's more my brother's area of expertise. May I sit?"

"No you may… ok then…" Astrid stopped mid sentence as the man attached to that voice sat before she could finish telling him to bugger off. He snatched the book from her hand and began examining. Astrid was outraged "Excuse me!" She reached for it across the table but it was grossly out of her reach.

"The Poetic Edda by Lee M Hollander. Curse me that's no bit of light reading at all." The man dropped the book on the table and Astrid snatched it back clutching it to her chest. "Wouldn't a beautiful girl like you be happier reading some romance novel or other such drivel?" He asked in a mocking tone.

"If you don't mind I would like to go back to studying now. My final exams are in 3 weeks and I have much to cover."

"That sounds dreadful. How about this alternative? Have a drink with me and I will help you study." His voice was in earnest this time.

Astrid looked up at the man critically. She took in his slick blue-black hair alabaster skin and piercing green eyes all situated in a tall lean body that was dressed very well in charcoal grey slacks and an emerald green cashmere sweater. He was a looker; she'd give him that. His smile was the definition of devil may care but the look he gave her was perplexing, like she fascinated him in some way.

To say this man made Astrid self-conscious was an understatement. Remembering how she looked when she left the dorms she cringed a bit. Her long dark hair was being held up in a messy bun by a yellow pencil that left many strands in her face. The olive green sweater she'd thrown on before walking out was so old and worn it slipped sloppily off her right shoulder revealing the straps of her black tank top, but she mother had made it for her and she loved it regardless of how awful it looked. To top off her ensemble she wore faded black jeans that had holes in the knees and utterly scuffed black leather combat boots that went to mid-calf. What on earth did he find so appealing?

"You're not in the masters program at Oslo are you?"

He laughed, "No dear girl, my school days are long behind me but I do know my way around the topic you are so keenly perusing. If you would have a drink with me I'd be more than glad to aid you."

"Are you a visiting lecturer?"

"More like a visiting expert."

"Prove it." Astrid was not going to waste hours of study time on some sweet talker who for all she knew was playing on her passions to get her into bed and win a bet with his brother, where ever and whom ever he was.

He stared seriously into her eyes and quoted the book he's taken from her verbatim.

"Do I not seem soft and gentle,

My skin, smooth, my hair undone

But in my softness, my blood burns

Rage I will on the battle-field

You will know and remember my cry,

A woman can be fierce

A woman is like a sleeping dragon,

Caution is required when you approach,

For if it wakes, it will fly, free

Streaming fire across the field,

Burning all in wrathful flames

I pick up my sword and hold it high

I have no fear,

To Valhalla

I ride"

Astrid stared at the man dumbfounded. "How about that drink?" he asked a bit smugly.

"I'm Astrid," She held out her right hand.

He took her hand but rather than shake it, he brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "My Lady Astrid,"

She was at a total loss for words. Something truly rare in a woman such as Astrid who was gifted with wit beyond her years and always had a snappy comeback for every occasion. But somehow words failed her this evening.

He turned from her eyes and ordered 2 meads from the waitress then turned back to Astrid looking pleased with himself.

"Mead?" She asked amused at his choice.

"Well considering the agreed upon topic of our exchange, it seemed a fitting libation."

The way he spoke was spellbinding. Like he was from another time or another world where the old ways never died out in this modern era."

Their drinks arrived. Astrid took a sip of her mead and was the first to speak. "May I have you name My Lord?" She asked teasingly.

He smiled taking a sip of his own drink "Call me… Lukas."

"Should I call you that because that's not your real name?"

"It's close enough, my full name doesn't usually translate well."

Figuring he probably had some long Germanic appellation she took his word for it and moved on. "So, you offered to help be study?"

A few rounds of mead later and the study session had turned to full on intoxicant fueled though light hearted theoretical debate.

"…You're wrong! There is far too much evidence that proves the Viking were the first to discover North America not Columbus." Astrid stood her ground as they both laughed.

"Hogwash! The bloody map is a forgery!" Lukas responded, his right arm resting on Astrid's left shoulder.

"I admit the Vinland Map could be a forgery but that does not explain the appearance of a blasted Viking colony in Newfoundland Canada dating nearly 500 years before Columbus ever even sat in a boat!"

"More forgeries!" he shouted breaking into full on hysterics.

"You Sir are impossible," Astrid said as the energy of their debate mellowed down. She leaned into the crook of his arm and took another sip of her drink.

"You are a passionate one," He mused.

"That I am, and you are quite cheeky."

"That I am. So tell me, what does a beautiful young creature like you find so appealing about spending all her years dissecting relics from a people who ceased to exist a millennia ago."

"It's what I love." She answered matter of factly.

"But what is it that drives you to the Vikings?"

Astrid thought about Lukas' question. "I guess because it was a more fascinating time than the here and now I mean, what is the future except more of the same? More gadgets, faster modes of transportation, apps, video game consoles, blab bla bla. No one alive today could survive one day in 1000 AD. Man lived by the sword, and worked and fought for survival. Yet created these amazing legends and religion. I love the stories of the Norse Gods. I feel people like that deserve to be remembered and studied."

"Well then, I had better make a confession," Astrid awaited Lukas' next words questioningly. "I agree with you about the North American colony." A moment of silence passed before Lukas began to chuckle. Astrid realized their whole debate had been Lukas arguing against her for fun!

"You trickster!" Astrid also chuckled.

"You have no idea," He said darkly. A moment of confortable silence passed when Lukas took hold of Astrid's chin and pulled her in for a kiss. His lips were soft and warm and tasted of mead. Astrid was very tempted to loose herself in the kiss but her better judgment got the better of her. She put her hand on his chest and pulled her lips away.

"Um, that was very nice but it's not going to happen." She said more to herself than to him.

"Are you done convincing yourself?" he called her out.

"Look, you are unbearably attractive and clearly brilliant though somewhat misguided but I'm no good at this."

"What is the this you refer too?"

"This kismet two medieval era enthusiast in the same place at the same time so lets get smashed and fall into bed and whisper sweet iambic pentameter nothings in each others ears and share a night of caution to the wind and…" He had started luring her back into the gravitational pull of his lips. "…and.. and…" Astrid's final "and" was swallowed by Lukas's lips. The kiss deepened. Lukas' fingers nimbly undid the pencil, which held up Astrid's waist length black hair. Upon releasing her locks he reached into the thickness grabbing fist-fulls of it, pulling her closer.

"We are exceeding the limitations of public decency." He said into her mouth.

"Is that your was of saying we should take this elsewhere?"

"Precisely."

She smiled "You planned to seduce me all along didn't you?"

"Stunningly beautiful young woman in a café reading about history? How could a man who values substance and appreciates beauty resist?"

"You Sir are Loki incarnate."

"My dear girl, if you only knew." He said in a seductive tone that sent heat directly to Astrid's core.

Astrid was thoughtful for a moment. If she told him to stop, left the café and returned to studying, she would likely never see him again. On the other hand if she brought him to her room, they would undoubtedly share a night she would not soon forget and if she never saw him again then it would be no different than her first thought. Though this way, she would have a night of passion to look back on and enjoy in retrospect. "I stay in the dorms across the street."

"Any study mates to interrupt us?"

"No I have a single."

Lukas kissed her hard and deep once more "Shall we then?"

"Let's shall."

6 years later, Manhattan New York

Lounging in one of the lawn chairs on the balcony of her Midtown Manhattan apartment, Astrid went over her thesis notes for the 100th time. Fully set in her favorite spot in her home with her long black hair held in a messy bun by a pencil, her favorite black yoga pants and utterly worn Oxford University t-shirt she was prepared to go to battle with the dark ages. It was Dissertation time at last. Absolutely every waking moment of her life for the past 12 years had been dedicated towards getting her PhD in Viking History and Mythology.

The only time she took a break from her research was to have her beautiful 5 and a half-year-old son Lukas. He was an unexpected pregnancy to say the least when she was 19. But to this day, Astrid wouldn't change a thing. He was her world. His father wasn't in his life because his father didn't know he existed. They'd enjoyed a truly beguiling night of passion and gone their separate ways.

Astrid had no last name to go on and figured her mystery man had just earned his place as the memory as the one on which she would base all future lovers. Fate had other plans for Astrid however as 8 weeks later she threw up all over her academic advisor's office during a talk about her plans to move to Connecticut to attend Yale for her PhD. Realizing the only possible father for her child was a stranger in a Norwegian café, Astrid gave up all hope of finding him approximately 30 seconds after the strip on pregnancy test flashed two blue lines.

Her family had been disappointed of course. Her mother and father both being academics with great hopes for their only child saw this pregnancy as an unfortunate inconvenience. They offered to help her terminate it both having acquaintances in the medical field who would carry out the procedure discreetly. Astrid would have none of it. She believed the child she carried was a gift, not a punishment for capricious youth. Things would be difficult but she would make it work, even without the support of her parents.

"Darling, we have always prided our relationship as a family on our honesty so please answer me truthfully, is this need for a child a result of your having been adopted?" her mother Winifred asked.

"Mother, I have always appreciated the fact that I wasn't kept in the dark about our lack of biology and yes I admit there is a draw to this baby because he or she will share my blood. But my wanting to keep it has nothing to do with my being adopted. I want this child because I cannot bear to think of killing it, even though it is nothing more than a few cells at the moment. And the option for giving him or her up for adoption truly breaks my heart. What if this baby is born with the same afflictions I was? What are the odds that they will find a family like ours that will accept their differences and embrace and encourage them? In all likelihood they will be treated as a freak of nature or even abused by doctors that wish to use these abnormalities to gain recognition for finding some new species. I cannot live with that! As my parents by blood or bond you should not be able to live with this either. This is your grandchild." Astrid spoke of her strange disorder that caused her to have no known blood type and a body temperature ranging in the low 80's.

"And what of the father?" Astrid's father Orin was a cool and collected scholar through and through. But when it came to his daughter he was all fluff.

Orin had found Astrid abandoned on a cold winter night while on a walk through a public square in Stockholm Sweden. She had been wrapped in a blanket lying on the open book of the Astrid Lindgren statue and was crying desperately. On her chest was a note written in ancient rune. It was a plea for whoever found her to take care of her as the birth mother was forced to discard her. Orin held her tightly trying to warm her skin, which had already turned blue from the cold. Almost immediately her color returned to normal and she stopped crying.

Orin and his wife adopted her and raised her with all the love any family would bestow upon a child of blood relation in their home of Liverpool England. They named her Astrid after the statue on which she'd been found. They also celebrated her birthday on the day she'd been discovered in the snow. Astrid was their pride and joy, the light of their lives.

"I have no way of finding the father. It's almost certain I never will."

Her parents knew better than to fight Astrid when she set her mind to something and so they agreed to help in any way they could.

It had been a rough pregnancy from the start. Morning sickness was a bitch and so was her bodily temperature. She found any thermostat that read over 60 degrees to be positively stifling. Her doctors warned her that it was normal for pregnant woman to feel over heated but not to let that trick her into keeping her home too cold or she could get sick. She tried to listen to the advice from the medical professionals but she couldn't help keeping her a windows wide open all through the Fall and Winter and even that was pushing her body's need for cold. She figured if she were comfortable then the baby would be comfortable but when he was born blue and unresponsive, Astrid absolutely panicked. For the first fragile moments of his life little Lukas looked like a baby who'd been frozen to death.

She blamed herself for not taking the doctors advice and feared she killed her baby. But then the hospital room was filled with a sharp cry as Lukas Orin Stevenson took his first breath. The doctors were concerned when as Astrid predicted, her son was born with the same abnormalities.

"Your son has no known blood type and despite all our attempts his body temperature is far too low." The doctor who delivered Lukas informed Astrid.

"It's fine doctor really. I have the same genetic aberration. My parents took me to every specialist and they all concluded that as long as I was eating and developing at a normal rate then I was fine. Besides we live in a world where new classes of human are becoming more and more prevalent and I never knew my biological parents. It's quite possible my son and I are simply part of this new world order I hear spoken about on the news every day."

"Yes Miss Stevenson but I would like to…"

"I would like to take my son home now doctor. I have no interest in having him live any part of his life as a test subject."

Now at the age of 26 she could not be more proud of the life she and her son had built together. Lukas was mischievous boy who adored playing his little tricks on people and playing hide and go seek at the most inconvenient times but it was all part of his charming personality.

"Mummy! You've got to see this!" Lukas shouted from the sitting room.

"Coming darling!" Astrid entered the sitting room to find Lukas pointing at the television. He'd been watching Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark on channel 11 but the program was interrupted by a world news brief. The announcer spoke of a terrorist attack in Germany. A man had taken hostage a large group of people and forced them to kneel to him. When the news announcer showed a video clip of said terrorist Astrid's ice coffee slipped from her hand and fell unceremoniously to the floor.

"Mummy , you made a mess." Lukas pointed out the obvious.

"What? Oh dear, um, darling, go to your room and read your new book we bought yesterday. Mummy will take care of the mess."

"But Mum, look. That man looks like the drawing you made of my Father." Astrid knew the drawing well. It had been Lukas' 5th birthday present. He's begun asking questions about his father and so Astrid decided to put all those art classes to good use and sketch a picture from her memory of what her son's father looked like. He took the picture everywhere he went.

That's because the man on the screen is your father, she wanted to say but dared not. "I see that love, now go on, I'll come check on you when I'm done with the mess." She was glued to the screen.

Once Lukas was in bed that evening Astrid went to her computer and looked up every bit of information she could on the Germany attack and with every sentence she fell deeper and deeper into disbelief.

"You're not Lukas at all…" she said to the computer screen "…You're Loki."

Memories of their conversation in the café the night little Lukas had been conceived

"Call me… Lukas."

"Should I call you that because that's not your real name?"

"It's close enough, my full name doesn't usually translate well."

Of course it didn't translate well, because his name was that of the God of Chaos. She had called him Loki at one point.

"You Sir are Loki incarnate."

"My dear girl, if you only knew."

Now here she was, 6 years later raising a child from said deity. One thing was for sure Astrid needed answers. Clearly Luk… Loki was gaining more than his fair share of enemies over his actions. What if someone figured out her son was his son? She hadn't told many people about the mystery man who fathered her son but if Loki was capable of the events in Germany, who knows what others of his ilk were capable of. Maybe they could sense him somehow. He could be in grave danger. Well aware of the time difference she retrieved her phone and called her parents.

"Hello sweetheart, it's quite late is everything alright?"

"Hey Mum. Everything is fine. I'm just stressing out over the dissertation." Astrid responded trying to sound calm. There would be no use in alarming them just yet.

Winifred's voice became soothing. "You will do a fantastic job love, you always do. How's my grandson?"

"Loki, Luki, ah, Lu-kas is doing well, he's asleep but I was wondering. If it isn't too much to ask would you and daddy mind if I send him to you for a few days so I can complete this blasted thing?"

"Of course darling! We would love to have our little Lukie all to our selves! When will he be flying out?"

"First thing in the morning." Astrid answered a bit too roughly.

"Astrid darling there's something you're not telling me."

"Mum.."

"And don't you dare say it's nothing. I know you better than you know yourself. It's a man isn't it?"

Astrid swallowed "It's… something like that…"

"Excellent! You've been on your own for far too long and Lukas needs a father figure in his life. Just make sure he isn't forcing you to send your son away."

"It's nothing like that mum."

"Good (yawn) well if that all dear I'll go back to sleep. Text me the flight details and I'll make sure one of us will be there to collect him from Heathrow."

"You got it, and sorry to have woken you."

"It's alright my love. You get some rest as well."

"Not likely" Astrid said staring into the eyes on the man on the computer screen. They were the same eyes she's gazed lovingly into for the last 5 and half years.

"Well try at least. I love you darling."

"Love you too mum." The call disconnected and Astrid couldn't help walking into her sons room and laying in bed with him. His little body was so warm. She breathed in the scent of his freshly washed blue-black hair and kissed his head. How long would she need to be apart from him to find out what she needed to know? She closed her eyes and a single tear slipped from her right eye and she said a silent prayer to whatever god was listening to protect she child and help her to acquire the necessary information quickly so she could bring him home safely.