Regina stormed across town, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end she added more and more force to every step. Like a cat arching its back she wanted to appear stronger than she was, just in case whatever was waiting in the alleyway was going to pose some sort of threat.
This didn't appear to be the case. Along with the pointy stick and the pillar of lightning, Two legs were protruding from the dumpster. Two skinny legs, wrapped in some silly leather pants.
As she approached, Regina noticed how they began to shift, struggling to bend up to the full ninety degrees, instead flailing oddly at the feet and hips. When they had entirely disappeared from view. A voice rose up from beneath the trash. A voice low and dripping with malice.
Whoever owned it definitely thought they had a position of power. And they probably did. But they would have been much scarier if it hadn't been coming from a massive bin.
"Help me mortal" it said "or I swear I will make you pay"
"Oh yeah how exactly?" Regina sassed back, hands on hips as per her usual style "with cans and empty soda bottles? Ooh I'm really scared"
"Just help me!" came another grunt "I won't stand another jot of humiliation."
Not likely, Regina thought how do I know he's not just a poor guy down on his luck doing some dumpster diving? Although how such a situation would occur she couldn't at that time conceive. "Why should I?" she said, voicing her doubt.
What came next was nothing like she would have expected "Because I'm a god-"
While it could have sounded sarcastic, he seemed one hundred percent convinced, and ergo one hundred percent crazy.
"Excuse me?"
"A God" The man said simply. Merely repeating himself so that he could be heard, as if miss hearing was the issue.
It wasn't of course.
"Pssh of what? Trash? Public Utilities? Recycling?"
"Mischief," he said again. Equally as seriously "I am the god of mischief. Now help!"
"Nuh uh. Not without the magic word, Oscar" Regina slipped the last word in like a knife between the ribs. Although if he really was some kind of deity he wouldn't get the reference anyway. Not even to an the famous 1980s TV Show character.
Luckily for her he didn't "My name is Loki!"
"I don't care." Regina responded, and she didn't "I'm waiting"
"I've answered all your questions, what more do you want?"
"Just a little word, just one-"
"PLEASE! PLEASE HELP MORTAL! AND STOP VEXING ME!"
"That was all you needed to say."
"Well... " he said as he clambered out of the metal box, brushing off crumbs and smearing some strange yellow goop down his pants, which had a less than savoury smell "at least my arrogant big brother isn't here."
Something hit Regina like a lightning bolt "Does your brother happen to be a blonde guy? With sparkly hands?"
"Yes." Loki said, looking noticeably calmer than he had been. "Although he doesn't particularly enjoy being called 'sparkly.'"
"Then I know exactly where he is."
"Where?" Loki asked biting back too much concern "Hospital? A prison? Dead?"
"No… Over there"
She pointed now to a human shaped lump, who'd gone back to sit on the road. Not knowing where else to go.
"Ah Brother!" Loki shouted across, just as soon as he caught sight of his sibling "For the god of thunder you seem woefully incapable of withstanding electricity," Loki sneered, now standing over him, watching the last few pulses rush through. the last couple of twitches sending his body into an uncoordinated dance of flapping arms and legs.
"Okay" Thor retorted, only once the fizzle had stopped "Next time I'll ask them to shoot a taser at you. See how you like it. You weren't so great yourself back on Sakaar. In fact I seem to remember it was only the assistance of a pile of sentient rock that stopped your brain from frying."
"Boys." Regina said, sounding more like a mother than they would have liked to admit "Can we have this conversation somewhere else?"
**
Regina's somewhere else turned out to be a large house, pearly white as her teeth. She lead the two brothers through the doors and instantly they were engulfed in its majesty. Thor thought, with a few
"bathrooms that way," Regina said, pointing to a door off in the corner.
The brothers obviously didn't need it because they continued to follow along, trotting behind her like lost puppies. When they got to the kitchen however they flung themselves down on the stools around the island reclaiming their place on earth as gods.
"Tea!" Regina roared. The brothers jumped as she placed two steaming hot mugs on the table with some force.
"I don't drink tea..." Thor objected, looking at the quaint porcelain cups with eyes full of hate.
"And apple turnovers" Regina put two plates next to the drinks with a clink.
"Thank you Regina" Loki said with all the slime he could muster as he got up. GODS he was sickening sometimes.
As his brother schmoozed with the Host, Thor cast an eye over the food. Pushing the china across the table he looked at his pastry suspiciously. Finally he lifted it up from the corner and sniffed it as if a noxious odour would give away any toxic ingredients contained within it. He'd been tricked one too many times to accept anything without at least testing it first.
Meanwhile in return his brother eyed him, waiting for him to find it edible... Or poisonous before he would take a bite himself.
"It's fine" came a voice from the doorway before Thor could wrap his mouth around the desert "she's only put poison in them once and that was for my other Mom.
It's a long story. Wait a sec, who are you?"
"Henry" Regina butted in before the guests could go on with one of their monologues "This is Thor, and Loki. Gods of... wherever"
"So... You guys are real? You actually exist? Like, you, the Valkyries. The rest of the Avengers? Iron man? Captain America? Hawk-eye?"
"Why wouldn't we?" Thor said, around a mouth full of desert. Sending cream oozing around his mouth and flying over the table.