You should’ve known something was up the moment Thor grinned like a mischievous thunder god — which, to be fair, he was.

“My sibling returns from the Tenth Realm,” he said, voice booming through the feast hall. “Glorious! Proud! Absolutely terrifying! You two will get along splendidly!”

You raised an eyebrow, cautiously sipping your goblet of mead. “You’re setting me up with your sister?”

He clapped a massive hand on your back, nearly launching your soul into the afterlife. “Not just my sister — Angela! Slayer of demons! Breaker of tyrants! The one who punched me into a glacier once. It was glorious.”

“Thor,” you started, “I don’t think she—”

But it was too late. The crowd had parted. The air had shifted. And there she was.

Angela.

Radiant, lethal, and impossibly calm. Red hair braided like war banners, armor shimmering with light from realms you’d never even seen. Her sword rested lazily over one shoulder like it weighed nothing — though you knew it had probably carved through gods.

She stopped in front of you, eyes scanning you like she was measuring your worth. Not judging — assessing. Calculating.

“You’re the mortal,” she said, her voice low and clipped, as if every word had to earn its place.

You swallowed. “And you’re the goddess Thor tricked into a date.”

She didn’t smile, but something softened around her jaw. “He is a fool. But occasionally useful.”

“High praise,” you muttered, and to your shock, she gave a short, dry chuckle. It was barely audible, but you felt it in your chest like thunder behind the hills.

Thor was already back at the feast, distracted by drink and song. Angela, however, tilted her head toward the high gates.

“Come,” she said.

You didn’t dare say no.

She didn’t take you to a tavern or a star-lit balcony like some old romantic poem. No, Angela led you through the darkened forests beyond the palace — places the others feared to tread. You asked why.

“To see how you walk when no one is watching,” she replied.

So you walked. Through silver mist and whispering trees. You spoke — hesitantly at first — about your life, your fears, your flaws. She said little. But she listened with the focus of someone who’d survived too much and trusted too few.

Eventually, you reached a clearing where fireflies danced in the air and time felt like it had stopped breathing.

Angela turned to you then, eyes burning not with violence, but something sharper: sincerity.

“You’re not strong,” she said, without cruelty. “Not in the way warriors are. But you endure. That matters more.”

You blinked. “Thanks… I think?”

She stepped closer. “Would you lie with me?”

You almost choked. “Excuse me?”

“In the grass. Beneath the stars,” she clarified, deadpan. “You’re amusing, mortal.”

You lay there together, side by side, under constellations she named in tongues you didn’t know. Her fingers brushed yours once. Just once. But it felt like lightning had chosen you instead of the sky.

Later, when you returned to the palace, Thor looked up with a knowing grin.

“So?” he asked.

Angela glanced at you. Her voice was quiet but unyielding.

“He lives.”

You grinned. “That’s as romantic as she gets, right?”

And for the briefest second, the warrior of Heaven looked away — the faintest blush rising on her cheeks.