Whoa! Adorable? Since when had he ever called anyone adorable? More than that, since when had he ever liked anything because it was adorable?
"It... It's not hard to find out about a Norse god. The legends are, well, legendary. I mean, how many books, stories, and movies have they made with you in them? A million?"
"So, you learned about me through watching actors pretend to be me for entertainment?"
"I prefer to read. Back... where I’m from, I had a huge library. I read all kinds of things. Like how you would eat your goats when you got hungry."
Thor gritted his teeth. "I ate them one time. One. And the whole thing got blown way out of proportion. They made it sound like I did it all the time. And I will have you know, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr begged me to eat them. They said if I starved to death, they didn't want to belong to anyone else. They begged me to eat them and not die."
"Did they beg you to cause one of them a limp, too?" she chided.
"That was all Loki. Idiot. He convinced a boy to mess with Tanngnjóstr's bones after dinner. I didn't find out until it was too late."
A mischievous smile spread across her face.
"You're messing with me." Man, how did she rile him up? And in more ways than one.
"I'm not sure what that means, but I am jesting with you. But you haven't answered my question. Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you turn Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr into motorcycles?"
Again, her pronunciation correct. He shook his head and walked to the back of the shop floor, opened a door, and motioned her forward. He stepped into his fight room. As soon as he did, a series of loud bleats sounded from the corner.
"Yeah, I hear you, you noisy beasts."
Elle squealed in delight. "You didn't turn them into machines." She ran to the pen where Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr stood on their hind legs begging for food.
Before he warned her, they didn't like people; she was at their pen, grabbing them by the face and kissing them. Thor stopped mid-step, processing the scene. Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr didn't like anyone. After thousands of years, they tolerated him at best. But there they were, hamming it up and licking Elle all over her face like she was the best bale of hay he'd ever given them.
He stared in disbelief for several minutes, listening to her coo and laugh at the goats while they nipped at her shirt and fought each other for her attention.
What in the Helheim is it about that girl?
Thor scooped some pellets from the ancient barrel and dropped them into their trough.
"All right, guys, back up. Give the woman some air." He pushed the goats down, and Tanngrisnir nipped his arm.
"Hey!" Thor pointed at the goat. "I'll eat you again. I will."
The goats backed up and snorted several times, stamping their feet like they might try to ram the gate.
"You wouldn't really eat them, would you?" Elle asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Thor snorted and tossed the scoop back in the barrel. "Probably not. They didn't taste good the first time. They’re a thousand years older now. They’d probably mold instantly upon death."
The goats bleated again and began munching on their pellets.
"Is this why you brought me here? To show me your goats?"
"Nope. I brought you here to teach you some self-defense."
"Self-defense?"
"Yeah. You need to be able to defend yourself against assholes like the guy who grabbed you."
Her eyebrows scrunched together.
