Loki

"So," said Odin the all-father, "we are decided. We say no."
There was a dry cough from a corner of the hall. It was the kind of cough intended to attract attention, and the gods turned to see who had coughed. They found themselves looking at Loki, who stared back at them, and who smiled and held up a finger as if he had something important to divulge.
"It is worth my pointing out," he said, "that you are ignoring something huge."
"I do not think we have overlooked a single thing, troublemaker of the gods," said Freya tartly.
"You are all overlooking," he said, "that what the stranger is proposing to do is, to make no bones about it, quite impossible. There is no one alive who could build a wall so high and so thick as the one he described and have it finished in eighteen months. Not a giant or a god could do this, let alone a mortal man. I would stake my skin on it."
At this the gods all nodded and grunted and looked impressed. All of them except Freya, and she looked angry. "You are fools," she said. "Especially you, Loki, because you think yourself clever."
"What he says he can do," said Loki, "is an impossible task. So I suggest this: we agree to his demands and as his price, but we set him stiff conditions—he may have no help building his wall, and instead of three seasons to build his wall, he has but one. If on teh first day of summer any of the wall is unfinished—and it will be—then we pay him nothing at all.
"Why would he agree to that?" asked Heimdall.
"And what advantage would that give us over not having a wall at all?" asked Frey, Freya's brother.
Loki tried to suppress his impatience. Were all the gods fools? He began to explain, as if he were explaining to a small child. "The smith will begin to build his wall. He will not finish it. He will work for six months, unpaid, on a fool's errand. At the end of the six months we will drive him away—we might even beat him for his presumption—and then we can use whatever he has done so far as the foundations of the wall that we will complete in the years to come. There is no risk to use of losing Freya, let alone the sun or moon."
"Why would he say yes to building it in a season?" asked Tyr, god of war.
"He may not say yes," said Loki. "But he seems arrogant and sure of himself, and not the kind ro refuse a challenge."
All the gods grunted, and clapped Loki on the back, and told him that he was a very craft fellow and it was a good thing that he was crafty and on their side, and now they would get their foundations built for nothing, and they congratulated each other on their intelligence and their bargaining ability.
Freya said nothing. She fingered her necklace of light, the gift of the Brisings. This was the same necklace that had been stolen from her by Loki in the form of a seal, when she was bathing, and that Heimdall had fought in seal form with Loki to return to her. Sje did not trust Loki. She did not care for the way this conversation had gone.