Returning home after being lost and lonely always does things to the heart. To a fire giant, who was born straight from the womb of the rock and given a soul that was a flicker of flame from the world's heart, it was something more, a reuniting with a mother, a Goddess and a homeland all in one. Muspelheim, always one half of creation, was a place always moving with wild shapes that grew larger as they consumed the shadows, and the rest of the world sometimes felt a little lifeless compared to the realm of fire. Non-natives' inability to survive on the planet, to bear its heat, sometimes reminded me of a zombie's aversion to that which symbolised life and light. All my lost energy, my vitality and the magic in my soul, was instantly replenished as I placed a well-heeled foot down on its scorching magma surface, as the flames that lay just underneath the crust burst up from new vents to welcome their returned King like cats running to wrap their sleek bodies around the legs of their favourite person, purring and licking them with rough tongues. Mittens, by contrast, immediately hid in the darkest shadows, or, I suspected, a pocket of something more solid she had crafted out of them. Ignoring her sniff of disdain at the smell, heat and bright light, I stepped out, stretched my arms out like someone awaking from a long, refreshing sleep and bellowed at the top of my voice a greeting to every Eldjotnar and a pronouncement that their King had returned.

The landscape was as beautiful as I remembered it, always shifting but never really changing. I stood on a plane of congealed magma, a petrified black river, still glowing, rivulets of lava visible through cracks like veins of fiery lifeblood. Tall basalt columns rose up to a sky that was blackened by smoke and ash, through which embers danced like will-o-wisps. Jagged mountains dominated the landscape, with great waterfalls of lava that flowed down into seas of fire, sheer cliff faces dotted with artificial caves that were the entrances to tunnel systems where my people lived. Volcanoes erupted even as I watched like a fanfare to my return, fountains sprayed from the lava lakes, whirlpools raged, great tongues of flame burst from sinkholes, three times my now full height. As I strode across the plateau, great burning sword brandished aloft, the ground cracked and burst into flame behind me. A group of fire giants who had been sitting on a balcony on the second floor of the main cave complex, a construction that had almost become a plaza of its own, with a fossilized garden around a fountain of lava shaped like a cheeky imp holding a vase, turned their heads at my great booming bellow. They straightened, then ran inside, yelling for the others to come outside.

Bernadette was the first to approach me. She was armoured and armed for war. Her red hair hung loose from a black spiked helm and she wore a black spiked breastplate, black iron bracers, gauntlets and greaves. Over one shoulder she hoisted a massive two-handed axe. She greeted me formally with a low bow.

"Was there any trouble while I was away, General?"

"The usual troublemakers came. We drove them away. There wasn't the usual big fight," she shrugged, "Guess they were as disoriented as we were, when everything went to shit."

"Odin's goons got hit by it too?"

"I was focusing on trying to rescue you, of course, nearly fell in the portal myself, but I definitely saw Odin fall in that rift too. They retreated after that. We let them. Morale's been shit here without our glorious leader. We haven't collapsed altogether, of course, we're too professional for that."

"There's still plenty of mead left, you mean."

"Want some? We saved the really good stuff for you. We knew you were going to come back! None of us ever doubted it for a moment!"

"Of course you didn't. Not that it hasn't been an adventure," I said, "Bring out the mead, get everyone in the main clearing and I'll tell you what kind of shit I've had to deal with."

"Of course. I'll have someone deal with it right now," she said, "You know, I've been worrying about you. Just a little."

"You needn't," I said. Then she grabbed me into a hug, a proper, strong embrace that smelled of sulphur and ash and intense heat. That was when I was happiest to be home.

Even though I knew the trouble wasn't about to end any time soon.

Spatula and Mittens had also been made new clothes. Their outfits had also needed to be custom made, as the replicator rarely made formal clothes for cats or people with wings. The Goddess was now dressed in a black velvet gown with ruffles around the collar and a brooch over her heart in the shape of a pair of angelic wings around a broken sword. Her holy symbol was actually a wooden spoon but Xoria had steadfastly refused to have her machines print out designs of common kitchen utensils. Mittens had been given a black leather collar engraved with flame patterns to match my hair ornament. When Bernadette saw Spatula standing alongside me, she took the Defeat Goddess aside so that they can talk animatedly about something private that I didn't dare intrude upon. We reached the clearing at the bottom of the great canyon where a raised podium had been carved out of the black rock above a row of seats that represented different ranks and bodies of interest in Eldjotnar politics. As a rule, we aren't a very political people, preferring a strict hierarchy and simple instructions, but we also don't particularly like being told what to do or that someone else is more worthy of being in charge than us, so there tended to be some topics over which fights always broke out. Everyone agreed that it was important to go and greet their Inferno King, though, and almost everyone looked happy to see my face again. Or, more likely, they were happy to see the special extra-strength mead that had been brought out to commemorate my return and were especially giddy at already having drunk several giant-sized flagons full of it.

I pointed out the most prominent merchants to Xoria, saying that I gave her permission to trade anything except slaves or fire extinguishers and that she should iron out the finer details with someone who actually knew anything about commerce. I expected her to have swindled Muspelheim out of its entire economy and natural resources by the time she left but, as it turned out, she was forced to leave after only a couple of hours when she received a communication from her ship saying that the sensors had picked up some very odd and potentially dangerous readings that required the Captain's urgent attention. I wished her luck and told her I hoped it wasn't solar flares or dragons. Then I took my place at the podium and gave a long rousing speech to my audience, describing my ordeal and reassuring everyone that I was now home safe and comparatively sound. Shamelessly overdramatising my experiences with liberal sprinklings of hyperbole, my speech eventually gave way to joining in the drunken bellowing so loved by fire giants. Considering the rather odd situation of it probably not all being Odin's fault, I wasn't sure who to promise bloody revenge on, or where to promise everyone they could set fire to. General Bernadette suggested Fenrir.

Apparently, there had been several attacks on Muspelheim by the great wolf, leading a pack, not of wolves, but of strange ghostly beings who glowed the same corpse-pale blue as the light that swallowed up Odin and I. A quick visit from an envoy of Hel confirmed that these were not actually spirits of the damned and that the Dead Queen was having just as many problems with them as we were. They certainly weren't destined to be roaming around the place with Fenrir, who was dangerous enough on his own. The wolf wasn't acting anything like how he normally did, attacking worlds he normally had no quarrel with and that didn't contain anything edible by him. He had made no attempt to chase down Odin, although he attacked random Aesir. He had picked up some kind of magic, a combination of the forces of ice and fate, that made him even harder to kill. Fortunately, whatever had tainted his soul - and Hel had been adamant that his spirit was thoroughly tarnished - had made his weakness to fire even worse, so Bernadette's forces had managed to repel him using large quantities of pyromancy. They wouldn't hold out forever, though, so it was time to attack. I agreed, telling her that I was fairly confident whatever had diverted the course of the Ragnarok and made an attempt on my life was related to Fenrir, if not caused by him, and that a giant, ferocious, terrifying wolf indiscriminately attacking people was something that needed to stop in general, at least until the Ragnarok started.

No sooner had I returned for a moment's peace, I was already preparing for battle. I carefully stored away my business suit that I had been given virtually no time to wear after having to wait so long for it to be made, then put on my own armour, a suit of burnished, ruddy plate mail. We couldn't make helmets to fit me either but the leader of my battle wizard regiment enchanted my hairpiece to summon guardian fireballs around my head at will. Our blacksmiths, with an enormous black iron forge whose furnace was built into a volcano, made a breastplate and bracers for Spatula. She carefully imbued them with her defeat-magic. Mittens finally received his claw weapons in time for what would probably be a conflict to rival the final battle of the Ragnarok.

Meanwhile, other momentous events were happening, stories that I am probably not the most qualified person to tell you about, but Bunfire is glaring at me with those creepy mechanical rabbit eyes of his and reminding me that I promised the others a story, and a whole story. Right now is the sort of time in a story where it would reach a natural branching point into something more like another tale in itself but there are a few remaining fragments of narrative that belong on this side of the border rather than the next, rather like the last remnants of day and night floating around the sky at sunset or sunrise.

For one, when Xoria returned to the ship, a few freshly inked trading contracts in hand, wishing profoundly that she had been given time to collect a lot more, she didn't just leave immediately. Instead, when she looked at the scanners that were suddenly going berserk with signals, a look of horror, of dawning comprehension of what a stupid, gullible and inattentive space merchant she had been, crossed her face. Where once there had been relatively empty, calm space, there were now several hundred assorted pirate ships, their cloaking fields disappearing in a shimmer like a mirage in the merciless heat waves of Muspelheim. Arranged in a very organised-looking fleet, their thermic shields very definitely holding, they ranged from frigates to battleships, and all their guns were pointed at the Princess Skiffleboard and its entourage of mining barges, ore haulers and a suddenly very inadequate-looking mercenary escort.

Somewhere else, a distance impossible to measure but probably too far away to scan down the system, never mind see the action happening, a stranger had arrived in a place that was supposed to be deserted an unreachable, the fourth visitor in a row for the shipwrecked inhabitant who normally never saw a single other soul. Bunfire had been asleep on a chair in the research bay of his crashed ship, awaiting a long and laborious process that was too automated for him to bother overseeing, when his narratoscope started blaring with alarms. Something had arrived, something large and portentous and just a little misplaced.

"Come in," he said in response to the loud, hollow knock on the ship's main airlock door. He tried to sound professional and not terrified or half-asleep. Picking up his rifle, he thumped the door controls, both to open the main door and lock down Diggory's booth. He ordered the security drones to monitor the intruder closely but not to engage until he gave the word. He suspected they would do no good against the sort of forces that were about to come through the door in any case. Heavy, slow footsteps thudded inexorably towards the lone Plotbunny and his unconscious patient.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he called out, his voice echoing down the suddenly very quiet ship. Nothing had been turned off that was usually on, the silence was more of an extra presence. The intruder came closer.

"Stop the pitiful attempts at deception. I have no interest in you whatsoever," boomed a voice, "And don't offer me a cup of tea either. I won't be here long."

"I would strongly advise against taking him."

"I would like to see you stop me."

"This is no threat of violence. It is a warning to consider the possible consequences of the actions you are about to take."

"Surely, of all people, you should be able to trust me to know what I'm doing."

"You know a few things about fate you shouldn't really know. This doesn't mean you can handle a malfunction in destiny. I would certainly advise against trying to weaponise it or use it to your advantage instead of letting me fix it."

"You seem to think you have an authority I don't, that your cause is somehow purer than mine just because you asked permission first. Added to which, you conversed with and aided my enemies, to the direct detriment of the entire Universe. You are very lucky I have better things to do with my time than take offence."

"What you're doing with your time really isn't the optimal use of it right now."

"Says the person languishing on a deserted world with a broken tool for company," sighed the stranger, walking past the Plotbunny. He stared at Diggory, "Say, a little bird told me that you're worried about your fate, maybe even about the destination of your eternal soul. The rules about such matters aren't as clear-cut as they're made out to be, you know. If anyone has the authority to bend them a little, it's myself. So, what do you say? A favour for a favour? Come with me. I can take you to Valhalla's halls and nobody will dare ask any questions."

"Trust me, you don't want to go to Valhalla with the state it's probably in right now," interjected the Plotbunny.

"Silence," hissed the stranger.

"He hasn't even given us the not-Loki-in-disguise password."

"Say one more word and you'll find out just how much more powerful than Loki I am."

"Nigh on all-powerful and all-knowing and you can't even tell that the man you're talking to can't wake up or be touched by you."

"We'll see about that," the stranger whispered with deadly calm. Then he held out a hand towards the sealed glass booth, fingers lightly curled as though he were gently holding something. As he uncurled his fingers, a bright blue light flared up from the palm of his hand, quickly growing too expansive and blinding for Bunfire to tell what was going on. There was a strained snapping noise like ice beginning to crack apart as it melted, then a sudden sound of glass shattering. The light flashed rapidly on and off for a few seconds like an almost dead light bulb, then the ship was plunged into pitch darkness. Fumbling around blindly, calling out a few names, Bunfire soon discovered that both Odin and Diggory were gone.

(("And that's pretty much what happened. Or, at least, what I heard back from you," Surt glanced at Bunfire, "Did I get it right?"

"Apart from a few minor, irrelevant details, yes. And I agree with you that this is a good natural break in the story."

"Good, I'm cold, I need the bathroom and my pen ran out ten minutes ago. Can we go back now?" asked Scribe.

"Sure. It is a bit cold. Compared to usual, I mean. I know I'm always griping about the cold," Surt stretched and stood up, "Do you fancy telling the next part of the tale?"

"Me? But it still mostly happened to you two," said Scribe.

"You haven't even been in it yet. Mittens never even told me you existed until recently, never mind how heavily involved you've been in things behind the scenes."

"Well, if there's a bit involving me, I'll tell it, but you've got to keep telling the exciting bits like the bit with Fenrir and Odin and Diggory, okay?"

"It's a deal. Those parts of the story are the good bits," Surt grinned, "Like when I rammed the Infernas right up that mangy wolf's..."

"My batteries are running out," declared Bunfire, jumping up and walking towards the portal gate that would lead back to Muse Central Headquarters. His colleagues followed him, yawning and complaining of hunger, cold and wanting to hear the next part of the story.

The portal flared behind them with a violet light that shrank to a dot before winking out, leaving behind nothingness.))