Chapter 1
“Oh, come, Loki, it will be an adventure! Nobody needs to know. You are clever and resourceful. I believe you can do it very well. You can boast about it later with some adjustments. Imagine how impressed Thor will be! You can even get one for yourself, while you are taking one for me. I shall pay for both!”
Loki gives the excited Fandral a weary, incredulous look and grumbles, “What payment will it be?” Just to shut the chatter up, as Fandral has been rhapsodising about his latest beau and the Jötunheimi pearl he wants for her and wheedling Loki to acquire the latter for almost a candlemark by now.
“Three favours?” the man bargains. “For each pearl?”
Loki snorts derisively, giving the womaniser a scornful look to boot. “You want me to go to Jötunheim, to steal one of their most precious things, while there is a stringent ban for all travels and communications with that barbaric realm, and you give me three favours for it?”
Fandral huffs, looking put upon, but grudgingly offers, “Five?”
“No, tehn for each pearl, or go find another person to bother,” Loki counters curtly, going as far as returning to his briefly interrupted reading.
Fandral curses, grumbles, mutters, growls, but capitulates anyway in the end, as Loki has expected, with the caveats of, “You do it as soon as you can, and do not tell anybody about this, not in any way, including who asked you, even if you fail or got captured, even if the fact is no longer relevant, and I shall claim the success for the retrieval should you be able to acquire me the pearl.”
Loki regards the man contemplatively for a long moment over the top of his book, then bows his head. “Deal.”
They seal the agreement with blood on their clasped palms, as per Asgard’s custom, then, with a sigh, Loki packs up his reading materials and vacates the library, to prepare for the heist that he is beginning to regret already.