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Kali meets Loki on a hill, where he is wearing the glamour of a beggar and she has deigned to travel the world in the guise of a human. He looks upon her and sings a song, a charming ditty about a shepherd who is far too fond of his flock. She does not laugh or smile but he keeps going (she learns that Loki always sees a joke to its end) and that impresses her.

“A coin, my lady?” he asks, extending a hand.

“Beggars do not live in hills,” she says. “They live in cities, where there are people to beg from.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” But he laughs and the glamour slips away; instead of a ragged old man, there is a handsome youth with golden eyes. “I’ve heard of you, Kali,” he says.

“They say you have no sense of humor. I take that as a personal challenge.”

“And you are Loki, to be sure,” she says, crossing her arms. “Is this what the Norse do? Sing dirty songs and pretend to be beggars?”

“Nah,” he chuckles. “Just me.”

***

“And then there’s the time I gave birth to a six-legged horse,” Loki continues. He peers at her, his eyes narrowed. “Nothing? Not even a smirk? I gave birth to a horse and you’re not amused in the slightest?”

She’s in a good mood, full of prayers and a young virgin. “I’ve heard stranger,” Kali says, because it always riles him up.

“Stranger? What the hell is stranger than that?”

Kali smiles like a shark. “I have seen things that would make your blood curdle, little god.”

His expression darkens. “Join the club, sister.”

“Excuse me?”

Loki winces. “Okay, sorry, I’m sure you’ve seen some weird shit, but trust me, we’ve got some crazy stuff up north, too.”

Kali moves closer to him. “What about what lies beyond this plane?” she asks. “The abyss is full of eldritch terrors that would devour the mind of a mortal beast.” She runs a hand along his arm- he is warm, but he does not burn beneath the skin the way she does. “There are horrors beyond your trickster’s imagination, Loki Liesmith.”

His expression is half bitter and half lustful. Strange bedfellows. “I’m a god too, beautiful,” he says eventually. “I know just as well as you do what goes bump in the night.” Loki kisses her hand and rises. “Sorry, afraid I’ve gotta run. But next time, I’ll tell you about my sister-in-law, Sif.”
***

They fuck during the Christian Crusades. He comes to her full of anger and talks of the arrogance of man while he thrusts into her.

“What do these men mean to you?” she asks, her fingers tangled in his hair. “They do not know a fraction of the truth of the world.”

The soldiers kill and thieve and pillage in the name of the God of Abraham, claiming him to be the one true god. Kali would like to set their armies aflame, but the world is changing faster than some of her peers can keep up; gods are dying every day, losing their faithful to other gods or spilled blood.

“They’re blind, untrue songs of pigs,” Loki claims. He kisses her breast, softly, tenderly- lovingly, she’d say, if she didn’t know better. “They kill for a god who doesn’t speak to them.”

“The Norse have killed for you and your family and you never speak to them.”

He pauses, sucks a mark on her throat. “Yeah, but I at least listen.”

He comes and she leaves, and wonders how he knows the God of Abraham is deaf to his people. His flair for the dramatic, or perhaps something more. Her little king of lies is a clever, shadowy one.