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When Aidan landed back on Asgard, he clutched his bag in his arms to muffle the rattling of the trinkets he’d gathered from Earth’s thrift stores and pawn shops. He’d found some outdated music CDs, more computer parts, even some scrap bottles and cans to melt down. It made him sound like one of those poor homeless people trudging along with their carts to the recycling center. In fact, he’d had to trade some of his food rations to one of the men who looked ready to fight him for the cans he’d taken.
The hulking guard glanced up from his hoard of glittering junk and weapons he’d been sorting, and approached with a lopsided grin. “Whatcha got there? Not smuggling in anything that don’t belong, are ya?”
Aidan sighed dramatically. He’d been hoping to sneak past this time, as he needed most of the supplies for a project he was working on.
“You caught me, Skurge.”
He hefted his bag down off his shoulder and rummaged around until he’d found a CD labeled Deep Purple: Machine Head. Aidan held it out, along with a package of batteries
“Brought you something. Try track five. Think you’ll like these guys.”
Skurge dug for his walkman and changed out the batteries, then carefully put in the CD. He’d learned the hard way last time to be careful with the shiny plastic discs, no matter how tempting it was to touch the silvery side with his rough, grimy hands. He’d broken the Metallica CD in a matter of days and wouldn’t let Aidan leave unless he swore to bring back another one. “Just in time, too. It ran out of power few days back, and no one liked my singing. Would you believe that?”
Aidan shook his head disapprovingly and then grinned. “Savages. How dare they not appreciate your manly voice?”
“Indeed,” Skurge then plugged in one of the earbuds and skipped to the fifth song, nodding his head along with the guitar and drum beats of Smoke on the Water. He gave Aidan a thumbs up and then waved him through.
Aidan gave a small bow of his head and continued along the Bifrost bridge, rolling his eyes in amusement.