Thor stood on a table in his golden thunder hall and swore he would kill the world serpent before it killed him. The gods laughed, thinking it a boast. Thor did not. Jörmungandr was fated to poison him at Ragnarök, and Thor meant to strike first. He raised his short-handled hammer, and lightning cracked from the rafters. The blast lit every face below. Ale sloshed. The goats bleated in their stall. Only his wife did not smile. Sif watched the door instead. Her long gold hair hung to the floor, the same hair Loki once cut for a joke. She had not forgiven him. She leaned close to Thor's ear. "He is coming. I can feel it." The doors swung open, and Loki walked in. He was thin and quick, with strawberry hair and a grin that never quite reached honesty. The hall went quiet. Cups lowered. Baldr, who glowed even at rest, set down his drink and watched. Thor loved this trickster he called uncle. He also remembered Sif's shorn head. "Thor!" Loki spread his arms. "You start the feast without me?" Thor did not answer with words. He pointed the hammer. Lightning leapt across the hall and struck the floor a hand's width from Loki's boot. Stone cracked. Smoke curled up between them. Loki did not flinch, but his grin thinned. "That was close, thunderer," Loki said. "It was meant to be," Thor said. He climbed down from the table. "You are family, Loki. So I missed on purpose." He walked until they stood face to face. "The next time I will not aim wide. Not for you. Not for what you did to her." Sif said nothing, but her hands stayed near her belt. Loki glanced at her, then back at Thor, and read the truth in both. The message landed. He gave a small nod, the first honest thing he had done all night. "Understood," Loki said. "Now pour me a drink before you sober up and start swinging." Thor laughed, loud and sudden, and the tension broke. He clapped Loki's shoulder hard enough to stagger him and shoved a horn of ale into his hand. They drank together, uncle and nephew, warning given and taken. But the boast still burned in Thor. He drained his horn and slammed it down. "I will hunt the serpent," he told the hall. "I will crack its skull with this hammer." Loki wiped his mouth and smiled again, sly now. "My son is the sea itself, Thor. Mjölnir never misses. But the serpent is bigger than any storm. It will pull you under and drown you before your hammer ever falls twice." The hall fell silent. Thor stared at the cracked stone at his feet. Loki was right. Strength alone would not win. He needed a way to fight the beast where the ocean could not swallow a god. That problem, not the serpent, was the first thing he had to defeat.