Fenrir had grown up. He was not a puppy anymore. He was about six feet tall, eight feet long, and sitting in my classroom. The students had evidently rearranged the desks to make space for him, but they were otherwise acting as if everything was normal.
"Hi, Miss Edda," Odin greeted me right before I walked in the door.
My eyes were immediately drawn to Fenrir. Some students giggled nervously. I took a deep breath, took my things to my desk, and sat down. "So," I said, "is somebody going to tell me what's going on?"
"Well, you see," Tyr began, "it was like this..."
*****ONE WEEK AGO*****
"The puppies are here!" Sigyn exclaimed to Loki in their bedroom.
"Oh?" Loki asked.
"Angroboda just posted it on Ratatoskr," said Sigyn, still mindlessly scrolling through the school's isolated social media app on her phone. "Can we go see them? Please?"
"It's late," said Loki. "Don't you want to...you know..."
Sigyn blushed. "I do, but I feel like visiting Angroboda and the puppies is more important."
"Fine," Loki said. He put on some clothes and followed Sigyn down to Jotunheim. Angroboda's dorm was in the remotest portion of the hall. Sigyn knocked on the door.
"GO AWAY!" Angroboda shouted from within.
Sigyn knocked again. "It's us," she said meekly.
This is how it always was with her. Angroboda opened the door and smiled, as much as she ever could. If you blinked, you'd miss it. Her pregnant belly protruded out from her Slayer tank. "Hey, guys," she said. "What's happening?"
Sigyn stepped into her dorm excitedly. "Where's Fenrir?" She asked. "Where are the puppies?"
"Uhhh...not here?" Angroboda said lazily. "Fenrir was huge. He doesn't stay here anymore."
"Where is he?" Sigyn asked.
"Probably out hunting for his family," Angroboda said.
"Oh, poop," said Sigyn. "I wanted to see the puppies."
"Our little boy is all grown up," Loki said.
Sigyn sighed. "Well, Okay. Sorry we bothered you. I guess we should have known." She looked at Loki.
"Oh, well, now that you've gone on about it, I want to see them too. I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to find them. How hard is it to find a giant wolf?" Loki asked. "Come, my love, and we will see some puppies!"
Sigyn squealed. The pair left Jotunheim and climbed down Yggdrasil to the human world outside. Heimdall watched them closely as they went. Huginn swooped down over him and back up to Asgard at the top of Yggdrasil. He flew through Odin's window and crowed. Odin was lying awake in bed. "I know," he said gravely. "It is time to act." Odin woke up Thor, Balder, Hoder, Tyr, and Vidar. They gathered at the high school entrance with Heimdall. "Friends," Odin said, "we must act to delay the big R. The first beast is here. Fenrir, the canine spawn of Angroboda, is growing at an alarming rate. Even worse, she has let him lose in the world, and he has mated with a she-wolf of Earth. They had puppies today."
"Awww," said Thor.
"Yes, they're very cute, but that's not the point!" Odin said. "We can't allow Fenrir to wander the Earth unchecked. He must remain in Asgard."
"But you just said he's already out," said Thor.
Odin brought his face to his palm. "I know," said Odin. "I brought you all together so we can hunt him down and bring him back."
"Ohhhhhh," said Thor. "Then what are we waiting for?"
"Well, we should probably have a plan," said Tyr.
"I have one," said Vidar.
"Don't say it," said Hoder.
"UBERSHOE!" Vidar exclaimed with glee.
The brothers groaned.
"Wait," I interrupted, "what's Ubershoe?"
The class groaned.
"Imagine," said Vidar, "all the little scraps of shoes that fall off other shoes, you collect them, and make a GIANT LIVING SHOE. It would be the ultimate weapon! Ubershoe!"
"A shoe would?" I asked.
"Not just any shoe. An UBERshoe," Vidar corrected me.
"Okayyyyy then," I said.
So Odin and company set out to hunt Fenrir, and he was not hard to find because he's a giant wolf, for one, and for two, Odin knows everything. Soon they arrived at the wolf den as Loki and Sigyn were leaving.
"Oh, my," said Sigyn. "Did you come to see the puppies too?"
"That's right," said Odin. "We are here to return Fenrir to the school. It is not good that he is on the loose breeding."
Loki laughed. "Go ahead and try. He has turned completely wild. If not for me, we wouldn't have been able to get near the den."
"Angroboda could not control him," Sigyn said.
"Couldn't, or wouldn't?" snarled Heimdall. "Come then, Loki, and help us retrieve the beast."
"Nahhh," said Loki. "Why shouldn't he be free? He is a wild animal with a loving family."
"You know very well why," said Odin.
"We will kill the beast!" Thor declared, and the boys cheered and advanced forward. Odin remained behind.
"Sigyn," said Odin, "who is this lover of Angroboda?"
"We don't know," said Sigyn.
"I do," said Odin, "and you would not like to hear the answer."
"We respect Angroboda's secrets," said Loki.
"I think you ought to think long and hard about who you respect," said Odin. "My son."
The tension was cut by screams from the den. The gods all ran out of the den in terror. "HOLY SHITTTTT," Thor yelled.
"Odin," said Balder, "the beast's power is too great."
"Five Aesir gods cannot defeat him?" Loki asked. "It's almost as if he's not meant to be defeated."
"Odin," said Vidar, "let me use my shoe."
"No," said Odin. "We shall bind him in chains. Let us visit the dwarves."
The door to Nidavellir was locked. Odin knocked, and a handsome-for-a-dwarf man stuck his head out.
"Oh, Helheim," he said. "Go away, Asgardians. It's the weekend."
"Alviss," Odin started, but Alviss had already slammed the door shut. The sounds of metal music could be heard within. Odin cursed and pounded on the door again to no avail. "ALVISS! THIS IS IMPORTANT!"
The metal music seemed to get significantly louder. Thor started to sing along, and Odin smacked him. Odin whipped out his cell phone and sent a Ratatoskr message to Alviss: "FENRIR WOLF LOOSE CAN'T HOLD HIM NEED HELP FATE OF WORLD LITERALLY DEPENDS ON YOU PLEASE LET US IN."
"Now what," said Balder.
"The little pricks are going to want something, as per usual," said Odin. "Let's go back to Asgard and see if we can sweeten the deal, although one would think OUR MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION would be enough motivation." He stared at the door expectantly, but the metal music got louder.
On their way up, they passed the Alfheim class rep Skirnir coming down from Vanheim. Skirnir froze as the Asgardians approached him. Odin held up his hand in friendly greeting. "Hello, Skirnir," said Odin. "What brings you down this way?"
"Frey needs more magic bottles from the dwarves," said Skirnir.
"You're going to the dwarves?" Balder asked. "They let you in?"
"Yeah," said Skirnir. "They exchange goods for wine."
"I see," said Odin. "Could you do us a favor, then?" Skirnir made a face. "The fate of the world depends on it."
"Well, when you put it like that," said Skirnir.
"Good man!" Odin said, clapping him on the back. "Tell the dwarves that you need a chain strong enough to hold a beast of the Apocalypse."
Skirnir sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll send you a Ratatoskr to let you know what they say."
"Thank you!" Odin said, shaking his hand. "Come, boys! Our work is done for tonight!"
"YAY!" They cried. The Aesir returned triumphantly to Asgard, leaving Skirnir grumbling about how Asgard was doing literally none of the work.
Odin received the Ratatoskr almost as soon as they returned to Asgard. It read, "To complete this task, the dwarves require the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird. Good luck!"
"Ugh, a fetch quest," Odin said.
Then another message: "Scratch that. They have the beard. But you need to get everything else. Losers."
"But that was the easiest one!" Odin cried.
Frigga massaged his shoulders. "What's wrong, Odin?"
"We have a fetch quest from the dwarves," said Odin, showing her his phone. She scanned the recipe.
"I can get us the first one," said Frigga.
"Great!" Odin exclaimed. "I know this won't be easy, but—"
Frigg punched something into her phone, turned up the volume, and put it to her ear. "Yep, this'll do," she said. The phone meowed. "Who do I send this video to?" Frigga asked. "Alviss?"
Odin peered at the video of kittens going up and down stairs. "Right," said Odin. "That was easy. Ok. Now for the rest..."
Thor, Tyr, and Vidar were sent to retrieve both the roots of the mountain and the sinews of the bear. They retrieved the sinews easily by simply finding and killing a bear. That left only the mountain roots.
"I did not know that mountains grew like trees," said Thor.
"They don't," said Tyr. "and while our combined strength is much, I doubt we can literally move a mountain."
"Challenge accepted, Tyr!" Thor boomed.
"No, no," said Tyr. "As much as I enjoy the sport, this is no time for fighting. We must find a mountain."
"Mount Olympus?" Vidar suggested, and then spat.
"No, Vidar, not that foul place," said Tyr.
Thor started to chuckle, and Tyr rolled his eyes. "What now?"
"I just thought how funny it would be to take the roots of Olympus—" Thor said, hocking a massive loogie, "—and bring that mountain down."
Tyr and Vidar exchanged sly looks.
"WAIT," I interjected. "Wait, wait, wait...Olympus—" spit "—just accused us of taking cornerstones from their foundation. Are you telling me...?" The class gave a rousing victory cry. I sighed. "You guys... I have to report this..."
"Worth," Thor declared.
"Okay, so you got the cat's footfall, the bear sinews, and the mountain roots. What next?" I asked, hoping there was nothing else in this story I'd need to report to Snorri.
"We got our fish breath from Njord in the Vanir class," Odin said, "and I got the bird spittle from my ravens here. This completed the recipe."
"And so this is the chain," I clarified, gesturing to the leash around Fenrir.
Tyr nodded. "Gleipnir," he said, "made of impossible things, and therefore against which it is impossible to struggle." Fenrir growled, and Tyr fed him a steak. It was at this moment, for the first time, I noticed one of Tyr's arms was bound in a cast.
"Oh," I gasped. "What happened there?"
Tyr hung his head. "Fenrir only consented to be bound if one of us put his hand inside his mouth." Tyr raised his cast. There was no hand. "We told him it was merely a test of his strength. When he couldn't escape, he bit off my hand." The class grew somber. Tyr was a star on our football team, I knew. I did not want to ask about it now. "It's okay, Miss Edda. This is the price I had to pay to keep us safe," said Tyr.
Odin stood up. "A toast," he said, "to Tyr the noble."
"To Tyr the noble," the class echoed, and they all drank, except for Loki.
