Page 28 of Odin

Younger Olaf with Two Eyes clapped his hands. "That is exactly what I said as we were flying here! With so much snow, we should tame a couple of reindeer, but Sibyl would not allow it. As her superior, with your permission, I could do it, and show Sibyl exactly what she's missing."

Sibyl...that did sound familiar. Not that she was supposed to be here. "Sibyl? Aren't you one of the expeditioners? One of the Harald Medal winners? Shouldn't you still be up in the mountains with Karl and the rest of his team?" But he'd said they'd flown, hadn't he? God, she'd slept through a helicopter landing. Never, ever having champagne again.

The girl grinned. "Yep, that's me. Jorunn's around here, too, but I think she's still in bed. Pretty sure she's awake, though. When we head back to site, we should probably take an extra tent. I mean, I don't mind sharing with her when it's just the two of us, but with you two as well...it could get a bit crowded."

Freyja blinked. So she hadn't imagined the noises she'd heard coming from that other guest room. Now she understood why Karl insisted on buying industrial sized boxes of condoms for the supply room. These expedition teams bonked like rabbits.

Of course, she and Olaf had used their fair share, but...

Sibyl waved her hand at the bathroom behind her, stirring up the steam into swirling eddies. "Anyway, the bathroom's all yours if you want it. I'm volunteering for breakfast duty, because if we let Jorunn do it, we'll end up with porridge or fish, and I for one am definitely sick of both of those." She marched off down the corridor like she knew exactly where she was going, with the nearly naked Thor trailing behind her.

THIRTY-FOUR

The scent wafting out of the cafeteria lured Freyja as surely as any mythical siren song. God, the place hadn't smelled this good since the end of expedition feast Lara had made at the end of last season. Had Lara come back, too?

But she found Sibyl in the kitchen, with a now fully clothed Thor leaning against the wall, just watching her work.

"These are savoury muffins. They don't need anything on them except maybe butter, egg or cheese," Sibyl said, setting the tray of muffins on the bench.

Thor held out the jar. "That's only because you haven't tried them with lingonberry jam. It's perfect on bread or roast meat. You put smoked pork in those, yes? So the jam will go perfectly. Butter and jam, my sister would insist."

Sibyl rolled her eyes. "Look, these muffins are made to my cousin's recipe. She runs the most amazing café back home, and no one beats her breakfasts, or her muffins. And if she says they are good enough the way they are, no way am I taking advice from some backward Viking who hasn't even tasted them." She turned to Freyja. "Please tell this dude from the dark ages that we don't do weird shit like eat cheese and bacon muffins with jam."

Thor folded his arms across his chest, just as stubborn as his wife. "You only say that because you have not tasted it before. If you had, you would agree with me. My sister is undoubtedly eating fare just like this in Valhalla as we speak."

"I can't believe you'd bring your sister into this. Fine. I'll sacrifice one muffin to this stupidity. I'll cut it up into small pieces, so no one has to endure your jam-contaminated abomination for more than a single bite. We'll each take one bite with jam, and one without." She lifted imploring eyes to meet Freyja's. "You'll help me with this experiment, won't you? Additional data points and all that?"

Anything to get her hands on one of those muffins. "All right, but I give you fair warning: I don't like lingonberry jam on anything."

Sibyl butchered and buttered the muffin, before Thor added a small dollop of jam to two pieces. "I'll leave the jar here in case you want more," he said, looking smug.

Sibyl rolled her eyes again. "Remind me again why I married you? Or handfasted, or whatever."

Thor's smile grew even more smug, if that were possible. "Because you love me."

Sibyl hooked her foot around a rubbish bin and dragged it over to the bench. "If this tastes as horrible as I think it will, no judgement if you spit it out." She grabbed one of the jam morsels, and motioned for Freyja to do the same.

"Why aren't you having any?" Freyja asked, jerking her chin toward Thor. He might intimidate Sibyl with his size, but Freyja almost matched him for height. She wasn't scared of him.

"He's not hungry," Sibyl taunted, as though this was an old argument between them.

Thor bobbed his head. "As my wife says."

That was...weird. But Freyja didn't have time to think about it, because Sibyl had started counting down from three, and she had agreed to do this.

"Three, two, one...go!"

Freyja popped the piece into her mouth. Tartness hit her tongue, then salt and...actually, that wasn't bad. It almost reminded her of pineapple pizza, except without the tomato because you didn't need it with all those berry flavours bursting out everywhere.

Freyja swallowed. "That's not bad." She reached for a buttered piece. It was good, but a bit bland after the one with jam.

"Ugh, no thank you. You can keep the jam away from my muffins," Sibyl said, reaching for another one. "You can have as many as you like, though. The recipe's for the café, so I may have made a bigger batch than we need for three of us."

Thor just shook his head. "You, Doctor Freyja, are an honorary Viking, with taste to rival that of the greatest warriors in Valhalla. Whereas you, my wife..."

"I'm just married to one. Yeah, I know. Remind me to introduce you to Vegemite sometime. I think Hemsworth did an instructional video, too. You'll like that." Sibyl flicked her tea towel at him, before hanging it over the rail and turning her attention to the coffee maker.

"You must be Freyja!"

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