Dipper stuck close to Fenris, enjoying the output of warmth coming from his glowing friend as they plodded on toward Yggdrasil. Snow still swirled around them, and the wind howled mercilessly, but thanks to Fenris's newfound power of space-heating, as well as the heavy leather armor and thick wool cloak provided by Loki, while Dipper felt cold, he was no longer freezing. Frost was no longer forming on his cheeks, which he counted as a definite plus.

It had been several hours since Fenris had started glowing. He didn't seem keen on talking, but Dipper figured it was so he could maintain concentration on whatever he was doing that made him glow without igniting. Even if Fenris had felt like talking, it wasn't best time to hold a conversation. The roar of the unrelenting wind made it difficult to hear each other without shouting. Finally, Fenris stopped walking, and turned his head toward Dipper.

"We're here," he said loudly. His glow faded somewhat, although his cheeks remained bright pink. He refused to meet Dipper's eyes.

Dipper frowned, and looked ahead, squinting. "Uh, Fen, I don't see a tree. I see a sheer cliff face."

Fenris shook his head and waved for Dipper to follow him as he closed the distance to the foot of the cliff. He touched it, and the ground suddenly trembled. He yanked his hands back quickly, and clasped them behind his back.

Dipper's eyebrows flew up. "Did you do that?"

"I don't think so," Fenris said, craning his neck and looking up the cliff. He rubbed his hands together self-consciously.

Dipper followed his lead, and looked up as well. He couldn't see where the cliff ended. It was obscured in the clouds. "Is the tree at the top of the cliff?" he asked.

Fenris chuckled. "The tree is the cliff, Dipper. Look more closely at the 'stone.'"

Dipper stepped forward, and hesitantly reached out a hand to touch it, but no trembling occurred. "What the what?!" he exclaimed, running his hand over the bumpy texture. "This is-this is bark!" He looked from left to right, but there was no end to the wall of bark in either direction as far as he could see. "Shit, you Norse gods don't mess around, huh? I was expecting something like the giant oak at the Gravnemeta. I-I can't even fathom how big this tree must be."

Fenris shrugged. "It's called the World Tree for a reason. Go big or go home, I guess. Climbing it's going to be a bitch, though."

Dipper blinked. "Climb-climbing it?" He leaned his head back once again to search for any sign of branches, but the thick layer of fimbulwinter clouds obscured everything. The clouds hung low, but they were still fairly high up. Climbing Yggdrasil, at least to the point of cloud-cover, was going to be something like scaling the side of a skyscraper.

Fenris nodded. "Yeah. Asgard is up there," he said casually, pointing skyward.

Dipper paled. "I guess I figured as much, what with a bridge made of rainbows and all… but climbing? Dude, have you seen my feet? I don't have any. I have hooves. And while goats are good at springing around on rock-covered mountainsides, those are usually at least at a slight angle. This is like, completely vertical."

Fenris crossed his arms, and leaned against the wall of bark. "So how did you think we were going to get to the top of the World Tree?"

Dipper held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged. "I don't know. An elevator? A magic staircase? I mean, maybe I can conjure us up a hot air balloon or something? What's the point of having magic if I still have to do the hard stuff manually?"

Fenris shook his head. "We'd be shot out of the air the moment we broke through the clouds. Flying up like that would be even more suicidal than trying to cross Bifrost."

Dipper scowled and opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it closed as the ground began to tremble underfoot. Instead of fading away as the previous tremor had done, however, the shaking increased in intensity. Dipper placed a hand against Yggdrasill to steady himself, then pulled it back with a yelp. The tree was vibrating like someone nearby was taking a jackhammer to it.

"Fenris," Dipper called, straining to yell over the groaning and shivering of the World Tree. "Um, care to explain what the fuck?"

Fenris paled, as the ground began to buck and sway underfoot, chasms opening up all around them. "Nidhogg," he murmured to himself.

"What?" Dipper shouted, holding a hand up to his ear.

"BIG! FUCKING! DRAGON!" Fenris screamed, pointing behind Dipper. "RUN!"

Dipper turned his head to glance behind him, and immediately wished he hadn't. An enormous, dark green and gray mottled beast was wriggling its way out of the ground. It more closely resembled a snake with muscular legs, sharp claws, and wings, than a lizard, as Dipper had always imagined dragons would look. It was easily as tall as a double-decker bus, and at least twice as long. It opened its mouth to let out an ear-splitting screech, revealing razor sharp fangs as tall as a man, from which oozed a pea-green saliva that sizzled when it landed on the snow.

Dipper knew that he had magic at his disposal, but in his panic, he couldn't hold a thought together long enough to be able to conjure anything. So he took Fenris's advice, and ran.

/

A twig snapped at the edge of the Gravnemeta, and Wendy whirled around to see who was there. She let out a sigh of relief and smiled when she saw it was Mabel. Her smile faded somewhat at the look of Machiavellian determination on the younger girl's face. Mabel's mouth was set in a small, grim smile, her eyes slightly narrowed. Her skin was paler than usual, save for the spots of bright red on either cheek. She strode purposefully toward the giant oak, seeming to not even see Wendy.

"Oh, Mabel, you're here!" Beithe said, smiling at the brunette. "We were getting worried about you. What kept you?"

Mabel approached one of the standing stones and leaned her glaive against it, before adjusting the laces on her armor. She shrugged. "I overslept. Sorry. Won't happen again."

Beithe glanced at Wendy over Mabel's head, her brows knit together in confusion and concern. She opened her mouth to speak, but Wendy raised her eyebrows at her mother and shook her head quickly. She didn't want to call Mabel out on the lie just yet. Lying was completely out of character for Mabel, which meant she was probably hiding something. Wendy wanted time to try and find out what.

"I can blip over to the Shack on the mornings we have duty together," Wendy suggested in what she hoped was a cheerful tone. "Make sure you're up and ready, then blip both of us over here."

Mabel's eyes flicked up at Wendy, before quickly shifting so that she was staring over Wendy's shoulder rather than at her face. "Yeah, that'd be helpful," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Thanks." She turned back to the stone to grab her glaive, revealing a wolf's face etched into the black leather on the back of her cuirass.

"Cool wolf," Wendy said. She didn't want Mabel to know that she knew Mabel was lying, so she tried to make conversation as she normally would. "I don't remember seeing that on your armor before."

Her back still toward Wendy, Mabel untied the ribbon on the glaive blade, and pulled off the red felt. "Yeah, that's because it wasn't there before," she said, without turning around. "Beithe, unless you want me sparring with either of you, I'm going to be over there, doing glaive drills." She pointed toward the opposite side of the clearing.

"O-okay, Mabel," Beithe said. Once Mabel had crossed the clearing and was fully focused on her drills, Beithe came to stand next to Wendy, her arms folded over her chest.

"What in the hell is going on with her?" Wendy asked her mother quietly, her hands on her hips. "Not only did she lie about oversleeping, but, is it just me, or does she seem to be acting chilly toward us?"

"Ice cold, more like," Beithe muttered. "I am very concerned. When our shift is over, I'm going to go talk to the Stans. Try and see if she is willing to spend some time with you this evening. Or if you don't think she'll go for that, find some excuse to hang out at the Mystery Shack so you can kind of keep tabs on her."

"Keep tabs?" Wendy asked, one eyebrow arched. "You mean spy?"

Beithe shook her head. "Not exactly. But Wendy, when a mortal does a complete one-eighty in personality, it is usually due to one of two things, and neither is good: Mental illness, or involvement with one of the dark gods or goddesses."

"Dark gods and goddesses?" hissed Wendy. "Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this? I didn't realize the Celtic and Gaulish pantheons included evil gods."

Beithe shook her head. "They aren't evil in the Judeo-Christian sense. But they represent some of the darker aspects of humanity—death, decay, vengeance, war… that kind of thing. They are needed for balance."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." Wendy frowned and glanced over at Mabel, whose back was to them, and whose glaive was a blur as she practiced one of her drills at high speed. She felt guilt gnawing at her stomach. Dipper had wanted her to look out for his sister, and after only two days, she had failed. Mabel was possibly mentally ill, or working with some unknown dark god, and lying on their behalf. Wendy didn't like either of those options.

Beithe elbowed her daughter gently in the side. "Come on, let's get back to training. We don't want Mabel to think we're over here gossiping about her."

/

Nidhogg was closing in quickly, and Fenris had stopped glowing and putting off heat, which complicated his and Dipper's exodus, because the snow around them no longer melted. They ran (or rather, waded) through heavy, wet snow that came up to their knees, trying to outrun the dragon at the base of the World Tree.

Dipper turned his head to see how far the dragon was behind them, and immediately regretted the decision. All he saw was an open maw full of jagged, razor-sharp teeth. He shrieked and turned his head forward again, attempting to skip and hop over the snow like a mountain goat. He had the equipment for it, after all. Nearby, Fenris was still bipedally struggling to plow through the heavy snow.

"Fen, hop on!" Dipper called, hoping Fenris could hear him over the howl of the wind and the roaring of Nidhogg. Fenris threw Dipper a look of confusion, so Dipper stopped running, wasting precious seconds to crouch down, reach behind him, and pat his back so Fenris would understand what he meant. Luckily, Fenris understood immediately, and leapt onto Dipper's back, hugging him around the neck and wrapping his legs around his friend's waist.

"Go, go, GO!" he screamed in Dipper's ear, and not a moment too soon. As Dipper began moving, both boys felt hot breath at their backs, and heard the distinct clack of teeth as Nidhogg's jaws slammed shut on the empty air that had, only seconds before, been occupied by them.

Dipper's goat-hopping was definitely faster than running, but the dragon kept pace, and after an hour of goat-hopping with a god on his back, Dipper was beginning to tire. There was no end in sight to this game of cat and mouse (or rather, satyr and dragon). Except, suddenly, there was.

What appeared to be a gigantic, red-brown pipe cleaner with the circumference of a large pine tree, slammed down into the snow from above, directly in front of them. Dipper began to dodge the obstruction, but he felt Fenris shift and suddenly his weight was gone. Fenris had launched himself toward the fuzzy tree-thing, and was hanging from it.

"Grab on, Dipper!" he yelled, accompanied by a loud, high-pitched chittering noise. Dipper didn't have to be told twice. He launched himself at the fuzzy obstacle just as the dragon once again opened its mouth directly behind him. He gripped the—was it hair? He gripped what appeared to be reddish-brown hair in his fists, and felt his stomach lurch down to the bottom of his hooves as the hairy tree-pipe-cleaner-thing was jerked upwards at an incredible and terrifying high speed. He mustered the courage to look down, and as the ground quickly fell away, he saw Nidhogg roar and tear at the base of Yggdrasil, gouging it with his claws.

The great and increasing height from which Dipper was looking down made him begin to feel a bit queasy, so he closed his eyes. After what seemed like forever, they stopped moving, and Dipper felt something solid under him. It occurred to him that he was no longer dangling vertically, but rather, laying, horizontally. He sat up, and peered around, disoriented. It wasn't snowing, but it was still quite windy. Dipper heard a high pitched chittering, accompanied by Fen's voice, which sounded calm and cheerful.

"Fenris?" he called weakly. "Care to explain what, exactly, the fuck?"

"Over here, Dipper!"

Dipper struggled to his hooves and looked in the direction Fen's voice had come from. "Oh," he said quietly, when he spotted Fenris, and identified the hulking form next to him. "Squirrel. Giant squirrel." He looked at the fluffy pipe-cleaner he'd latched onto, which had rescued them from Nidhogg. "Tail," he mumbled. He made his way toward Fenris, eyeing the elephant-sized-squirrel cautiously.

"So," he said when he finally reached Fenris and his large, furry companion. "Sciurus ex machina?"

Fenris blinked in confusion. "I'm not sure what exactly you just said, but this is Ratatoskr. He lives in the world tree."

"He spoke the language of the Roman pantheon," chirped the squirrel, in a bright voice that sounded like a child who had inhaled helium. "He said 'squirrel in the machine.'"

"Ratatoskr is not in a machine, he is in a tree," Fenris said, frowning slightly.

Dipper held a hand to his forehead. "Okay, so we're ignoring the fact that the giant squirrel speaks Latin. Right." He sighed. "Sometimes I forget that you and I don't have the same education. I was making kind of a highbrow stupid joke. Explaining it makes it less funny."

Fenris crossed his arms. "I don't care. Explain."

Dipper shrugged. "Suit yourself. So, there is a literary device known as 'Deus ex machina,' where something ridiculously convenient happens in a story—God in the machine. Basically the author is playing god and instead of allowing the story to unfold and the heroes to get themselves out of trouble, the author provides a convenient 'out' for the characters. In our case, it was awfully convenient for Ratatatsker to show up and rescue us when he did. Sciurus is Latin for squirrel. So: sciurus ex machina. Squirrel in the machine. Not that I mind the convenient timing of the save," he added quickly, smiling up at the squirrel. "Thanks for that."

Ratatoskr chittered and nodded at Dipper, while Fenris stared at his companion blankly.

Dipper chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Told you explaining it made it less funny." Then he cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, where are we? Not Asgard yet, right?"

"Right," Ratatoskr chirped. "This is just a branch."

Fenris's lips twitched upward at the corners. "It sure is. Now, Ratatoskr, I know I introduced myself to you as Fen just now, but you should probably know I'm-"

"Fenrir, the great wolf?" the squirrel finished for him. "I'm aware."

Fenris opened his mouth, but nothing came out, so he coughed and tried again. "How?" he croaked out. "I thought it possible that Heimdall might recognize me because he has the Sight, but you're not even a god! How can you tell?"

"Yeah," added Dipper. "We might have to rethink our sneaking into Asgard plans if everyone will be able to tell who you are, even in human form."

Ratatoskr made a shrill noise that resembled laughter. "Do not worry, Fenrir. Your disguise is a good one. The only reason I know it is you is because Loki dropped by to visit me and told me to be on the lookout for a satyr and a black-haired boy. Said you may need help getting to Asgard. Told me the black-haired boy was really his son, Fenrir. Sounded kinda proud. Anyway, that's why I know."

"Oh," murmured Fenris. "My father always was an insufferable gossip."

"So," Dipper said, crossing his arms. "Since Loki told you we're trying to get into Asgard, do you have any ideas?" He paused, then added, "Ideas that won't result in our immediate deaths, that is?"

Ratatoskr wiggled his nose and nodded his head. "Of course I do! What kind of sciurus ex machina would I be if I didn't?"

/

Mabel wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, and blew her breath out slowly. Morrigan had told her not to exhaust herself, but she didn't want to take breaks from her training during which Wendy might try to act all buddy-buddy with her. The only reason she had stopped at the moment was because her concentration had been broken by a loud caw from the direction of the giant oak. She glanced over to see Vale sitting in the lower branches, staring at her intently, his head tilted to the side.

"What?" Mabel mouthed at the bird, trying to angle herself so her face could not be seen by Wendy or Beithe.

Vale cawed again, and held his left wing straight out to his side, then tipped his head toward the end of the wing. Then he looked back at her, lifted his right wing to the same height as his left, and aimed two slow, deliberate wing-flaps at Mabel.

Mabel frowned, her forehead creased in confusion. "Great," she mumbled to herself. "The bird is trying to play charades." Her stomach rumbled, and she realized it must be nearly lunchtime. She glanced down at her watch to confirm, and was startled by another loud caw from Vale.

"Oh, I'm an idiot," Mabel muttered under her breath. Vale had been trying to get her to look at the time. Presumably, he thought she should be leaving. It was almost time for her shift at the Gravnemeta to be over. Mabel wondered if she could sneak away without Wendy or Beithe noticing. She shot a glance in their direction, and had to hide a frown. Wendy was walking over to her.

"You're looking pretty fierce with that thing, dude," Wendy said with a grin, pointing at the glaive. "Looks like Arden's training stuck."

Mabel shrugged and turned to kneel down and pick up the red felt and ribbon. She knew Wendy was still standing there, so she busied herself with polishing the blade of her glaive with the felt, before wrapping it, and tying the ribbon around it. She turned her head to see Wendy still standing there watching her. And she had been joined by Beithe. Mabel sighed, then fixed her face into what she hoped was a convincing smile before standing up and facing them.

"Arden was a good teacher," she said, acknowledging Wendy's comment. "I'm trying to maintain the discipline she taught me so I can do her proud."

Beithe nodded. "And that's commendable, Mabel. But try not to wear yourself out."

"Yeah, dude," Wendy agreed. "Make sure you take some time to relax."

Mabel's lips curled upward even as her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at Wendy. "Oh, I will. After all, I'm only mortal."

Beithe smiled and patted Mabel on the shoulder. "Speaking of relaxation, how about you two have a girls' afternoon? Once Sirona and Cecil arrive for their shift, you can go into town and have lunch at Greasy's, then maybe do some shopping? Or go to the day spa and get massages? My treat! I'll let Wendy pay for it with my credit card."

Crap. "Actually, I need to be getting back to the Mystery Shack for my lessons," Mabel said. "I have a lot of catching up to do." It wasn't a lie. With everything that had happened lately, she had fallen way behind on her homeschooling with Ford. She didn't particularly care about that fact, because protecting the world from monsters and demons took precedence in her mind—but it was a convenient excuse. At least, she thought it was.

"Mabel, it's Saturday," Wendy said with a small giggle. "I know Ford doesn't make you do school work on the weekends."

"Oh," said Mabel. She had completely lost track of the days of the week. She pulled out her cellphone and opened the calendar app, and her eyebrows shot up. It was already March. When had it become March?

"No excuses, Mabel," Beithe said, elbowing her playfully. "You need the R&R."

Mabel's eyes flicked behind Beithe and Wendy to Vale, still watching her from the giant oak. Today was supposed to be her first training session with Morrigan. She had to think of a way out of this. She shifted uncomfortably, and slid a finger under one of her bracers to scratch an itch. Her skin under the armor was so sweaty that it felt slimy. She really could use a shower.

"I know as goddesses you don't sweat—or at least, it doesn't seem like you do," Mabel said. Then she made a show of sniffing her armpits. "But I'm not fit for polite company right now. I really need to get cleaned up."

Wendy chuckled. "Not sure I'd consider Greasy's to be 'polite company,' but I see what you're getting at. Mom, if you've got things covered until Sirona gets here, how about I blip Mabel home so she can get cleaned up before she and I go to lunch?"

"Of course, that's no problem at all," Beithe said cheerfully. "You girls have fun!"

Mabel forced a smile. This was going to be harder than she thought.

/

Just as he said, Ratatoskr had a way to get Fenris and Dipper into Asgard without them being noticed and killed immediately. He carried them on his back, up the trunk of Yggdrasil, until they came to a crack in the bark. The crack led to a wooden tunnel that wound its way upward through the core of the tree.

"I don't have a reason to go any further," the squirrel said, as the boys slid off his back and climbed into the tunnel entrance. "You'll be safe enough in the tunnel. After you leave the tunnel, your safety relies on your cleverness and cunning. A trickster and a child of Loki should have cleverness and cunning in spades."

"I hope," muttered Fenris. "Goodbye, Ratatoskr. Thank you for your assistance."

The giant squirrel chittered at them and twitched its tail before scampering up the trunk of the tree and away.

"Okay," said Dipper, turning to face the blackness of the tunnel. "Flashlights, or no?"

Fenris shrugged. "Ratatoskr made it sound like the tunnel doesn't deviate—it leads straight to Asgard. I don't guess we'll need them?" he said uncertainly.

"Okay," said Dipper cheerfully. "Absolute darkness it is, then!"

As they trudged upward through the darkness in companionable silence, Fenris's thoughts strayed once again to Mabel. He wondered how she was doing, and if she missed him. Of course, he didn't want her to be sad, but he hoped she was at least thinking of him. He'd been unable to keep his mind off of her. He missed the warmth of her skin against his, her warm brown eyes, the curve of her lower lip when she smiled. Most of all, though, Fenris missed the sense of absolute peace and belonging he felt in her presence. No matter what they were doing, be it cuddling in bed, or fighting demons, Mabel made Fenris feel whole. Here, now, worlds apart from her, he felt a painful, jagged emptiness in his chest.

Fenris sniffed and wiped absently at the tears streaming down his cheeks. "How do you do it?" he asked. It was barely a whisper, but in the silence of the tunnel, it felt like he had shouted.

"Beg pardon?" Dipper asked the darkness. "Wait, are you crying? What's wrong buddy?"

Fenris laughed wetly at this. "We're participating in an apocalypse during which I'm prophesied to die, and you're asking what's wrong?"

Dipper chuckled. He reached forward in the general direction he'd heard his friend's voice coming from, found Fenris's head, and ruffled his hair.

"Don't try and deflect, Fen. You asked 'how do you do it,' and you're crying. This isn't just about the apocalypse, is it?"

Fenris sighed. "No. It's just—how do you stand being away from Wendy? This far apart? How do you not feel like your chest is caving in?"

Dipper let out a single laugh. "Ha! Did I say I don't feel like my chest is caving in?"

"Oh," Fenris said quietly. "You've just been so upbeat… I guess I assumed..."

"Dude, I miss Wendy like whoa," Dipper assured him. "Not knowing how she's doing, or how my sister is doing—internally, I'm a wreck. Sometimes I get lightheaded, and that's when I realize that my thoughts of Wendy have been so all-consuming that even my medulla oblongata has forgotten what it's supposed to be doing and I haven't been breathing."

Fenris frowned. "Medulla…?"

"Medulla oblongata. It's part of the brain stem, and controls involuntary functions like swallowing, heartbeat, and breathing," Dipper explained.

"Oh. So you just know that off the top of your head?"

"When I was younger I thought I might want to be a doctor when I grew up, so my parents got me several books on human anatomy." He chuckled. "Didn't know that I wasn't even going to have human anatomy when I grew up. Life is funny like that, I guess."

Fenris felt his lips twitch upward. Dipper always had a way of making him smile, even in the grimmest of situations. It wasn't as good as having Mabel around, but he was feeling a bit better, at least.

"So how do you seem so chipper all the time, if you're missing Wendy as much as I'm missing Mabel?" he asked.

"Easy," said Dipper. "I just think about what Wendy would want for me—what she would say to me. She wouldn't want me to be sad, or mope around. She'd tell me to buck up, and remind me that the sooner we finish our little bro-trip, the sooner I can get back to her. And," Dipper hesitated. "And I remind myself that she's working on that birth control spell, and then I start thinking about what might happen if she surprises me by having mastered it by the time we get home..." He trailed off, then coughed to clear his throat. "Anyway. That kind of thing. Mabel wouldn't want you to be sad. So I say we just try and make the best of things, try to find humor in our situation, and just—just not take everything so seriously. Well, in situations like this, where we're not in eminent danger, at least. Knock on wood." He rapped three times on the wall of the tunnel, and the sound reverberated loudly.

Fenris grinned. "So you're saying to just think happy thoughts?"

"Essentially," said Dipper. Fenris could hear the smile in his voice. Three rapping noises from the wall of the tunnel echoed back to them. "That's… a really delayed echo," Dipper said slowly.

Fenris felt his heart rate increase. Before he could open his mouth to tell Dipper that he was pretty sure that wasn't an echo, a pleasant baritone voice called out in the darkness.

"Hello? Is someone down here?"

Flickering golden torchlight slowly illuminated the tunnel ahead, until Fenris and Dipper could see the torch-bearer. Fenris swallowed hard, and began to back up, trying to stick to the shadows. He found Dipper's hand and tugged, until the satyr began to walk backward with him as well.

"Who is that?" Dipper whispered.

"Baldur," Fenris whispered back. He swallowed hard again. "He's supposed to be dead."