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."
Odin looked like he didn't know whether his head should explode with rage or he should be very worried. "Cul is my older brother," he said tightly. "He is the god of fear, and if you fear your treatment in Asgard, know that he would have worse ahead for you if he could capture you. He is not to be trusted. He would delight in your torment. Humans are not our equals. You are small and weak, for the most part. You have no higher powers other than what your science can wrench from the cosmos for you. And women are weaker than men. Your bodies are meant to be receptacles, to bear young." He shrugged. I bared my teeth.
"And yet, when Asgard's mighty fell, to whom did you come for help? To the weak, disregarded humans. We may be small and physically weaker, but we use our intelligence and our imagination to our advantage. And to yours. You are sadly mistaken if you think that all a woman is good for is sex and breeding. It is certainly convenient for you to think so; you're all very fond of your superiority. You're living in a fairy tale if you think that women live to mounted and squeeze out kids, risking their lives in pregnancy and childbirth. Your realm, your rule is made much weaker because you refuse to acknowledge that women have more than one dimension. I am not stronger than all men, but I am stronger than some men. I fall into the upper one percent of human intelligence. I can do things with my mind that so far, no one else can. Natasha is someone everybody should treat warily and with respect; her skills at killing are better than yours. If Wanda wanted, the damage she could cause in your mind would beggar whatever happened when you were dumped in Seattle. Just like all women, we are far more than a uterus. And you know what? The most interesting thing about my work with Mjolnir is not that I reformed it. It's how I came to be in possession of it." I smiled fiercely. "When I found that pile of shards, it had no power and it had just appeared on my benchtop. Surveillance footage showed a little blip, no light show. The shards weren't there one moment and there the next. Heimdall didn't send them. They had no discernible energy when I found them, they were completely drained. But over time, they regained their natural energy, which is how I was able to reform the hammer. Even in its fractured state, the hammer had energy. I believe, since every time someone sends something through the realms there is a discharge of energy as light, that the scraps of Mjolnir drained their power and sent themselves where they could be assured that they would be...helped. Not many people can send things from one realm to another, and every little bit of uru made the trip. I know this because there were no gaps to be filled. The fragments went preferentially to the spaces they had occupied before it was destroyed. Even if somebody had swept up the bits as carefully as possible, there would be lost mass. But there wasn't. It sent itself. To me.
"Once again, I voted against incarcerating Loki here. But for a different reason this time; he put himself on the line to help us and his brother. I don't feel like he deserves to be jailed. If not for his willingness to help, we'd probably be dead, imprisoned, or still bumbling around out in the wilderness. You would not be back on the throne of Asgard. You might want to reflect on that as you sit there. You might have saved Loki from exposure on Jotenheim, but you might try being honest with yourself. I don't believe it was solely pity that motivated you; you saw a potential tool. Thor has probably always been your favorite son. He almost restarted the war between Jotenheim and Asgard, but all he received was a temporary banishment. Loki tried to invade Earth, not Asgard, and he was facing a life of imprisonment. I personally feel this reflects badly on you as a father as well as a ruler."
"And what is it that you feel for Loki? Do you delude yourself into thinking he has feelings for you, that you could ingratiate yourself to him and he would take you to wife?"
I startled Odin by laughing. "Loki is my friend," I said baldly. "And I think that he considers me his friend. I'm not unaware of his faults, but I also see his good parts. I don't want to marry him." If Odin had Gungnir by his side, I have no doubt he'd have skewered me where I stood, but he'd come unarmed. He satisfied himself with a venomous glare. Nick rolled his eyes at me.
"Emma's views are her own," he said. "We are certainly willing to continue to work with Asgard for our mutual protection and benefit. We're bound now, and more than our realms know about it," Nick continued. "Other realms know we have helped you." I wanted to laugh. Nick had just boxed Odin into remembering that he owes us favors, should we want to collect on them. Odin's pride wouldn't permit an interstellar loss of face. Nick turned away to talk a little further with Odin, and I started to walk away
"Glad somebody pointed out his defects," Natasha muttered as she caught up with me.
"He asked," I stressed. "He told me to tell him what was bothering me."
"The next time they come begging, I won't go back there," Wanda said, coming up on my other side. "The boys can go save them. I don't want to help a criminal regime."
I stopped and reflected. "Guys, I feel better now that all that's off my chest." Wanda guffawed, which set of Natasha, and the three of us made for my workshop before I could piss off anybody else.