Fandral was six years old when he met a dark-haired little girl about his age. He'd been soaking his feet in the water of the pond at the park trying to cool off after running around all day. The heat felt suffocating that year.

She had dark, wild hair, sun-tanned skin, and was covered in mud the first time he saw her -running and throwing clumps of mud at her friends while trying to dodge theirs.

None of them were very good at dodging but they were all laughing.

Eventually she sat near him by the pond and stuck her feet in the water, shoes and all. Fandral's skin crawled a little at the thought of her wet socks, but he didn't say anything.

The clear water around her feet went muddy as she moved them back and forth. Like she couldn't sit still for more than two seconds.

He was sweaty and hot and tired and a little hungry, but still smiled when she reached over and shoved his arm yelling 'glytten' before she sprinted off, her wet shoes squeaking with every step.

Fandral hadn't even thought about it. He ran after her trying to glytt her back, she was fast, so instead he deviated towards one of the kids he had seen her with earlier. "Glytten!" He yelled as he touched the boy's arm putting as much distance as he was able before he could react.

That's how it started, soon they all bonded over their love for the outdoors, and despite the heat spent the summer outside playing make believe, or glytt, or mud wars, or even fighting each other.

They fought dragons and saved princesses before lunch every day, and sometimes they would play even until sunset before his mom or dad yelled for him to go back home for dinner and he finally realized how hungry he actually was.

She was his first girl-friend, and he thought she was the coolest girl in town.

Her name was Sif.

--

One day, some weeks before his seventh birthday, something interesting happened.

Sif dared him to go and prank the people from the big house on the hill, the one that was so big he wasn't sure where the woods ended and the house started.

He accepted the challenge before he could think about it -Sif looked like she was about to call him a tårefisk, again.

He wasn't afraid… he wasn't.

The thing was that this house was really big, and how come he'd never seen the people living there? The house wasn't spooky, if anything it was the prettiest house in all of Hildskjalf -or what he'd seen of it. The sun always hit it in a way that made it seem like it was made of gold.

Even the front gates were shiny, and on them there was Yggdrasil's logo -which was a very big, very branchy tree. He knew it very well because he had tried to draw it many times, and also because his dad worked for the company. So did his mom. And Sif's mom and dad too.

And so did everyone else in Asgard, his dad had told him that Yggdrasil was Asgard's heart, pumping life into every aspect of their lives. Like the real tree of life the logo was based on. So he had always liked the idea of it. He wanted to work for Yggdrasil someday too, when he was older. Like his parents, and their parents, and their- well, so on and on.

See? It was normal that he was wary of pranking the people in that house.

He still did it though. He wasn't a tårefisk.

He sneaked from the woods, or… well, he wasn't completely sure these were woods anymore. Everything looked… clean. Which was weird because it was dirt and nature, but it looked like someone maintained the place regularly. Fancy woods.

He walked all the way to the door, ducking behind bushes whenever he saw movement from the corner of his eye. Mostly månehopp running around trying to get away from him, their long fluffy ears alert as they scattered around, they were cute, he didn't know there were so many in this area.

As he sneaked towards the door his mind provided him with a thrilling soundtrack for his ultra secret mission. He was very careful not to be seen. By people, it was too late to hide from the månehopp.

Then, with his heart pounding in his throat, he was finally at the door, he stared for a moment, it was huge! And the wood had a big Yggdrasil tree carved on it, just like the one on the gate. Guess they were big fans of the company? Or maybe just the tree itself… maybe both.

Looking around him one last time he gulped -and then gulped again as his mind conjured a villain opening the door before he could escape, like a witch. Or worse, a math teacher…

He shook his head lightly before he finally rang the bell a couple times, tearing back into the woods as fast as his legs could take him.

He skidded behind some bushes, far enough to hide, but close enough to spy on the door.

He frowned when after a couple minutes no one came out, he didn't want to try again, he would be caught for sur-

"Ah!" he yelped when something sharp poked him in the ribs frantically swatted at himself -bug? Twig? Månehopp? He didn't know. He didn't want to find out.

He twisted his body trying to see if there was anything on his back and then gasped when he saw her…

A girl with the darkest hair he had ever seen, for a second he'd thought Sif had followed him to mock him, but no. Not Sif. This girl was so pale he could see the faint spidery blue veins under her skin, and her eyes… her eyes were big and bright and so, so gree- she was holding a stick. Had she…?

"You poked me!" He said, miffed.

She nodded.

Fandral opened his mouth to reply but floundered, he wasn't expecting her to accept it just like that…

"Um… why?" He asked.

The girl gave a little shrug before throwing the stick on the floor and crouching to grab -yes, with her bare hands- a slug that was trying to make its escape. Fandral shuddered, he didn't like bugs.

"Gross," he muttered. He hadn't meant to say it outloud, Mikal had made fun of him that one time he jumped -super high, he'd said. But it wasn't true, no one should pay attention to Mikal- because of a spider, he didn't want this girl laughing at him too.

She didn't. She just looked at him like he was the odd one here, "It's just a slug," she said, head tilted to the side like she couldn't understand why he didn't like the slimy critter. "No weirder than a dog, or a bat," she shrugged.

Fandral shook his head, "Totally different!" He argued.

This time she shook her head, but didn't argue back. Instead she took a small glass bottle from her pocket and started collecting the slime left on her arm by the slug. It was pretty gross, no matter what she said, he thought.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Collecting slime samples," she said.

No, duh. He thought. "Uh..yeah, but what for?" He rolled his eyes.

She didn't answer, still busy with her slug and her jar. He huffed and crossed his arms. After a moment he tried again.

"Do you live here?" He asked her, hoping she wouldn't ignore him again.

She startled like she had forgotten he was even there. Rude!

She looked at him and blinked "I want to check this out under a microscope, did you know slug slime can actually heal them? Do you think slime could heal a human too? Would it work on other animals, like a dog? Or would it only work on other molluscs? Or not at all?" Her rapid fire questions had his head reeling, he didn't know how to answer a single one and he suspected she wasn't actually asking him anyways.

She was the weirdest girl in the whole world.

"What is a mollusc?" he asked her.

She handed him a satchel as she walked past him. "Help me carry this back inside and I'll let you look into the microscope too." She said.

Like he would just follow. He did.

Well, he was left with no option but to do as she asked. So he followed her -through the giant tree-carved door!!- inside. He wasn't sure how interested he was in looking at slug slime just for fun, but the moment they stepped into the house he gaped.

He had only seen the interior of Council Hall on tv before, but this… -house? was even fancier than that.

She really did have a microscope. Turned out. He thought she'd been making that up.

He followed her up the stairs and then into a room, he assumed it was her bedroom only because there was a bed, but other than that there were more books that he had ever seen in a single place before. There were a couple tables full with jars and fish tanks with different creatures in them. He wasn't so sure about having followed her anymore, but… at least he didn't see a six-year-old-sized glass case anywhere, he was probably alright then.

He let her satchel on a chair and then looked around as she focused on her… game? What was she even doing? He wondered.

After a while he sighed and sat down on the chair with the satchel, and just when he thought she had forgotten about him again she started speaking. To him. At him?

She gave him a long explanation about what a mollusc was -he had almost forgotten he'd asked. And told him about slugs, and the difference between them and snails.

Fandral wasn't very interested, but she looked… different when she was talking about it so he let her go on and on.

He noticed how she would sometimes look up and smile when she saw he was actually paying attention, even though he didn't understand everything she said.

He wasn't sure how long he had been there with her until a blond boy came into the room without knocking.

"Sister!" the boy said, his voice was the loudest thing he'd heard since he'd been here. Fandral was startled, but she seemed used to it. "We went to the Rootwild Preserve! You should've come with us." he boomed excitedly.

Woah, he thought.

She didn't answer but her eyes were extra shiny. Fandral coughed. That seemed to grab the blond boy's attention.

He frowned, Fandral hadn't meant to make him mad, "who are you?" the boy asked.

"Fandral," he said. He gulped when the boy frowned at him some more.

Then the boy smiled, big and bright, "I'm Thor!" boomed again. "What are you doing here?" he asked, and this time he looked a lot less menacing. Good, he was obviously older and taller than Fandral. He didn't want any trouble.

He shrugged "I'm, uh… well, she wanted to-" what was he doing here?

The boy- Thor startled and smiled again, "you're Loki's friend?"

Was he? He turned to see her- Loki's reaction. She was just staring between them.

He nodded.

Thor cheered and patted his back, Fandral saw a smile forming on Loki's lips. Yeah, he could be her friend. He thought.

He spent the rest of the day in Loki and Thor's house, completely forgetting he'd been here on a dare to begin with, and that Sif and Mikal were probably waiting for him back at the park near his house.

Thor stayed with them the rest of the time, and Fandral was okay with that. Loki seemed even more animated now because Thor didn't just listen, he asked her things, and even though she got frustrated because she'd just explained it to them, she would explain it again.

He liked that about her.

And… she had the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Greener than the lush grass in her garden, and greener than the leaves on the Yggdrasil tree that was hanging over the big fireplace downstairs -it was the first thing he saw when he entered the house, like her eyes had been the first thing he noticed about her.

She was the weird girl that lived in the big house on the hill, and she had an older brother, and she liked slugs, and bugs, and she kept looking at him like she expected him to leave, but smiled when he didn't. So he kept coming back.

She wasn't like Sif, she couldn't be more different than Sif.

She was his second girl-friend and she was also the coolest -and oddest- girl in the world.

He wondered if Loki and Thor would come to his birthday party in a few weeks if he asked them.

He hoped so.