Frodi yawned idly.  Being an Einherjar was not all it was cracked up to be.  “Drink, fight, die, repeat” sounded a lot more glorious before he had died the first time.  Now, he was stuck on guard duty over Asgard’s kennel while most of the other Einherjar were off dying it up in Valhalla.  It was supposed to be a position of honor, serving the gods directly, but mostly it was just boring. Now he mostly just stood here waiting for his shift to end.

It wasn’t even a proper kennel.  It housed one lousy dog. Sure, it was a BIG dog, and mean, too, but that was still pretty useless.

A growl erupted from behind the gate.  The growl grew into a bark, and Frodi caught a flash of teeth through the gaps in the steel gate.

“Oh, shut up in there,” he muttered, banging on the gate with the haft of his axe.  Something seemed to have the beast riled up. Must be getting hungry again. Maybe another god was willing to offer up a hand?  Frodi chuckled at that thought. It wasn’t his responsibility to feed the beast. It was just his job to make sure the kennel was secure.

Out of the darkness, Frodi could just make out a silhouette.  A man, it looked to his eyes.

“Who goes there?” Frodi called out.

“It’s just me, Frod,” called back a familiar voice.  As he stepped into the light, Frodi recognized his old friend.

“Elberg?  You’re here a decade early for your shift.”

Elberg chuckled.  “You’ve already forgotten that I lost our bet, haven’t you?  Our axe throwing contest was only 90 years ago. When your axes killed me first, I was sworn to take over for you ahead of schedule.”

“Ah, yeah, I remember,” Frodi lied.  “That’s actually really good. I was getting really bored here.”

“I’ll bet you were,” Elberg smiled.  “Well, I’ll take over from here. You’ll have to drink mead for both of us for a while.”

Frodi could barely contain himself.  “Yeah, I’ll do that!” he exclaimed, as he packed up his axe and bounded off towards the mead hall.  He had no memory of any such bet, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in its admittedly suspicious mouth.

As soon as Frodi was out of earshot, Elberg turned to the gate.  “Ah, my son. How long you’ve been chained up in this prison.” He began going through the process of undoing the numerous locks.  “Do not fear. I have come at last to free you. And I have prey for you to hunt.”

And with that, Loki unleashed the beast once again.