They come downstairs, Thor and Bryn. Light streams in through the dungeon door. It occurs to me that this place needs some more men in it. Two of them to search the whole place every time they lose something is just inefficient, even with the two staff.
The two of them come charging up to my cell. Thor’s so large he makes Bryn look like his son. That’s an amusing thought that ensures I am smirking and composed by the time they arrive at my bars.
“Where is it?” Thor growls the question at me.
“I literally just woke up. I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.”
“The hammer. My hammer.”
“I don’t know! I've been locked in this cage alone all night!”
“She's right,” Thor says to Bryn. “There's no way…”
“Then what is that?” Bryn points to a lump beneath the blanket, right where I am curled up. I don’t know what it is. I haven’t exactly had a lot of looking around time.
“My dick?” I offer the explanation. Nobody finds it amusing besides me, but that's not a unique experience. I tell jokes others don't find amusing all the time.
Thor opens the door. It’s funny, because it takes him longer than it should. He keeps fumbling with the keys out of annoyance. Finally, he gets the door open and grabs the blanket off me.
I do have his hammer. Again.
“My hammer!” Thor growls at me. He takes it from me, fisting it in one hand. For me, it’s a two-hand kind of deal. For him, it almost looks like a toy. It’s strange how such a small and generally unassuming thing can be so powerful.
Before he can start throwing accusations at me, I start defending myself. “I didn’t steal it! How could I have stolen it? I’ve been locked up! It must have creeped in here overnight.”
“That’s not possible.”
“The other possibility is that I can escape this cage and I’m still here. Which makes less sense than your magic god hammer magicking itself here. I am feeling even less responsible for that murder thing now. It’s like a weight has been lifted.”
He hesitates, for just a second. That makes me smile. He’s slightly worried about the hammer too, I think. It has come to me of its own free will, and he knows it. I’m starting to really wonder who the hell this guy is. If he is a god, then he has little to fear. If he is a man with an artifact he doesn't understand, then he risks death by thwarting its will, because I am more certain than ever that this prize is none other than Mjollnir, hammer of Actual Thor. AT, for short.
“Thor’s hammer likes me better than it likes him,” I smirk. “Me and Mjoll are friends.”
“What?” Thor laughs. “You think this is that hammer?”
“Sure. Why not. Looks like Thor's hammer. The real Thor, I mean. Not you, Thor Larsen. Man who keeps losing it.”
That makes him snarl all the more. “You don’t know what you’re getting involved with, you little shit. You’ve killed a man through your involvement with this cursed thing. Did it ever occur to you that there might be more than one sentient tool in the world?”
“Most of the men I’ve dated have been sentient tools, so, yes.”
“Very funny,” he deadpans.
I thought it actually was very funny, but you don’t get half the credit for humor when you’re a woman who has just killed someone.
“You don't know what you have, and you don’t know why it is choosing you,” Thor says. “You understand nothing, because you have just read a few sanitized histories and neutered myths. There is real evil in the world. True darkness of the kind that can and will swallow you whole. And you have come tangential to something more powerful than you can contain. It will not lift you up. It will ultimately destroy you.”
"And you had this shit out on a fete!”
“Bad idea, in retrospect,” he agrees.
“Bad idea in any kind of spect.”
He sighs. “You need to be separated from it. You need to be sent somewhere.”
Why do I feel slightly disappointed about that? Oh, right, because here I was all warm and my room was secure, and there was the best food ever in the kitchen. The cell that scared me now feels quite cozy.
“What if I don’t want to go?”
“You can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“Well, this is an abbey and you’re not one of the Brotherhood. Also you’re an arsonist, a thief, and at least an accessory to murder.”
“Seems dangerous to let me roam around Direford, doesn’t it? And what if I told someone about the dungeon up here? And all the…”
“Alright. Shut up,” he growls
I have the feeling the hammer is going to come back to me one way or another anyway. But I play along for now. He’s not happy with me. His expression is thunderous. Suddenly, I don’t know that coming out of the cage is the best idea.