“....Luckily this adviser was no fool. He knew not to argue with a person who could change appearances with the same ladle bop that could also remove and reattach troll and princess heads.” Bragi said to his audience of one. He smiled at the raven haired beauty laying beside him on the bed. She looked back at him with wide brown eyes. Bragi still had her undivided attention. He was quite pleased about that. This story might finally be the one. He continued.
“So the adviser made Mop Top queen instead of Fair Hair. Fair Hair loved her sister and was just glad to have her head back, so she didn't mind. Their mother, The Queen, ended up with two remarkable daughters. One a mischievous magic head bopping queen and the other a ravishing sweetheart. So she was never sorry after all.” Bragi thought he detected a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. He grew more hopeful. This could be it.
“Which just goes to show that sometimes gardener's wives don't know as much about gardening as gardeners and it is best to get a second opinion. The gardener could well have married her for her looks,” Bragi finished. The raven haired beauty sat up from the pillow. She wrinkled her lips and nose together and shook her head with such force that her hair forgot about gravity for a moment.
Bragi frowned a little. Nope. This one wouldn't do either. She'd vetoed three other stories so far. Five year olds made the worse critics. Bragi bit his lip and began trying to think about what the next one to try would be. The little girl refused to go to sleep without hearing a particular story her father used to tell. She also refused to tell Bragi which story she was looking for. Her father wasn't coming home. Bragi imagined the story was probably Greek, since he'd somehow wound up in Greece, but Bragi didn't know very many of those. So they'd made a deal. If Bragi could tell her a story that she liked better than the one her father told, she'd go to bed. And if not, Bragi would keep telling her stories. So far the little girl was winning.
Bragi took a breath and was about to begin another one when he felt the familiar tingle of other deity. His eyes scanned the room and fell on a single spider climbing up the wall.