Star Dust (A Paladin Adventure)

Confession is good for the soul

Odin started strolling away from the group toward the path into the woods, and asked to see my workshop saying that he'd like to see where Mjolnir was reforged.

"You'll be disappointed, I think," I said lightly. "It's not a typical forge." I've seen an Asgard smithy. Big, dark, cavernous, noisy, hot, dirty. It's like they had an aversion to windows, brooms, cleaning agents of any kind.

Odin was indeed taken aback by my workspace, even when I show him the actual forge. "This is very compact," he noted. "Very... bright."

"If I need to, I can darken the room," and I demonstrate how I can activate a film in the windows to block sunlight. "But I usually don't need to. I don't need to see the color change in the metal to judge how hot it is." He seemed a little disappointed anyway, and this will be one of the reasons that in short order nobody will remember who reforged Mjolnir-- a human, a woman, who didn't use a standard forge. Loki's words notwithstanding, my name is never going to be linked with Wayland the Smith or Regin.

"What troubles you?" Odin said as we paced back to the others. "You have been distant since the battle in the citadel. Tell me your concerns. Is it the first time you have killed?"

"No, I've killed before." The image of Sess, dead in the mud from my weapon flashed past my mind's eye. "The real problem is the punishment you threatened Hela with."

"Do you have children?" he asked. I shook my head. "Then you do not know. You would do anything to save them."

"I may not have children, but I understand the urge," I said coolly. "There were the threats to Hela of the degradation, of centuries of rape and humiliation. It's one thing to know that women are treated unequally on Asgard and another to have your face shoved in it. To realize how little respect or protection they have." Odin's face flushed red. "I severed her spine because I knew it was something the healers could fix easily but would put her down for the remainder of the fight. If I'd have known what you were going to do with it, I wouldn't have done it."

"She usurped my throne," he said angrily.

"And you let her get away with it, so that's not really a reason. Knowing that you think rape is an appropriate punishment--and not just the threat of a single incident, but serial rape, by multiple men, for however long she lasted--has forced me to question the wisdom of continued association with you and Asgard in general," I said baldly. "Rape is a power play. Perpetrated by men, mostly, who want something and don't care if the other person has any objection. It's a way to enforce a perception of superiority by damaging someone else. It's not acceptable behavior."  By this time, Odin's anger was practically strangling him, and we were nearly back with the others.

"You dare question me?"

"I'm not questioning," I corrected. "It isn't as if you'd listen to a human woman's questions about your morality. You asked what my problem is. I'm telling you that I have concerns about the treatment of women in your realm and frankly, I am uneasy about my safety were I to return there." I shook my head. "The first time I went to Asgard, Thor completely forgot about me. I doubt that if I hadn't done a service for Heimdall that anybody would have troubled themselves with me. Loki managed to free Fandral and Volstagg and send them here for help, but they couldn't have been less grateful for the help we provided or any more condescending. We were the ones who went into the Grandmaster's arena. We fought. We were injured, sometimes seriously. We found Thor and enabled his return. I found you wandering around Seattle like a crazy homeless guy. I arranged for your care and treatment and that your ravens were to have access to you. Most of you Asgardians think that we're less than you, and the women are barely tolerated. Yet without us, you wouldn't be here now. And I have to wonder if that would be a bad thing for us here on Earth. Hela isn't without reason, and this Cul...who knows?" I shrugged. "Hela probably has a pretty tight leash on him; she could send him to her halls at any time if he decided he didn't want to be subservient to an uppity woman anymore."