Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed; it especially didn't pay to get out of bed sober.

"Going somewhere, are you?" Loki asked lightly as the Valkyrie lurched past him with her arms full of bottles she'd obtained from the ship's makeshift distillery. She'd had to trade two weeks of hydroponics-cleaning duty, but it was worth it.

"My room," she snapped. "If I am going to be eaten by a space whale, ship and all, I at least intend to be drunk first."

"You don't want to stick around and watch my brother try to lasso it?"

The Valkyrie stopped.

"Thor is doing what now."

Loki snapped his fingers. "Come now, I know there's one of our last bottles of mead in your pocket. Come up to the forward lounge with me, and we can place bets on how thoroughly he'll get his ass handed to him, and in what ways."

"In which you will cheat."

"So will you."

He wasn't wrong. She sighed and shoved her armload at him. "Fine, but you're carrying these. And I'm keeping the mead."