spot of wandering around among mortals from time to time, do your And maybe under an assumed name like Walse? In the name of god, Wotan, how could you allow your children to suffer like that?"
"It gets worse," Rossweise put in from the dubious shelter of Rutger's arm. "Sieglinde was going to have a baby."
"You get away from him!" Thor bellowed. "Just because your sister's tying out on the hill for the first comer—" Hillary managed not to laugh in a way that might have distracted him "—doesn't mean you're not stiff a virgin goddess. Does it, missy?" He strode over to the Valkyrie and her chosen hero. The two of them, standing together, were enough to face up to him. Barely.
Adultery, two generations of it. Incest. Murder. This wasn't an afterlife, Hillary decided, it was a Scandinavian soap opera! And it had just gotten Worse: Brunnhilde abandoned on a hill until some rapist in chainmail decided to step through a fire and grab her; Rossweise and all the others forbidden education, autonomy, control even of their own bodies, just because some men decided for them what they should do about them.
"This didn't have to happen," she said with a tone that even to herself sounded nauseatingly self-righteous, "if you had decent birth-control centers for women to go to."
" You !" she flared up at Wotan. "You stuck your eldest daughter on a rock because she disobeyed you to protect her own half-sister. You're keeping these poor girls ignorant, violent, and noisy. You encouraged your son to become an arrogant, bullying brute, and you even feast with a man you know is going to betray you. Call yourself a god, let alone the father of the gods here. You're a poor excuse for it. I've got a good mind to start Ragnarok just to give this place a good cleaning."
Where, oh where, was Newt Gingrich when she needed him? Let him get his teeth into a scandal like this, and he'd never have time for the White House.
"Woman, you go too for!" Thor bellowed.
"I haven't gone far enough!" Hillary shouted back. "Now, you're out of order."
Whereupon she picked up the hammer and brought it down sharply on the table for order. That is, she would have brought it down sharply on the table if the thing hadn't been so heavy it weighed her shoulder down and she dropped it.
Boom ! The earthquakes that accompanied each mention of Ragnarok were nothing to the crashes that followed as the hammer broke the table, broke through the floor, and probably the sound barrier, as it emerged outside the hall. Thunder pealed again, and from the rain and lightning that lashed down outside, you'd have thought Hurricane Andrew had come again. Most likely, a couple branches broke loose from the World-Ash.
Do you suppose Wotan budgeted enough for disaster relief? I'm sorry! But all I want to do is get out of here .
Thor whistled and raised his hand. The hammer flew back to him, and he brandished it at her.
But Hillary was drunk on adrenaline. "Co ahead," she challenged him. "Make my day."
To her astonishment, she heard footsteps, felt the support of the Valkyries at her back Post-feminism be damned, she thought. Sisterhood was powerful.
"I told you before," she said to Wotan, "you have fine daughters, and you don't deserve to have custody of them."
"Enough!" Thor roared. "You get her out of here, Allfather, or so help me, when Naglfar sets sail and Ragnarok begins, you're going to be fighting without your chief of staff."
Unmistakably, Wotan's eye closed at Hillary in a wink. She thought of her own father, of his pride in her. She thought of how she and Bill went rushing to Chelsea's defense in anything from a gang of reporters tormenting Socks to Saturday Night Live making jokes about her. And here was Wotan, facing up to his own mistakes as he faced up to the end of his world It was too late for Brunnhilde, just as it had been too late for Sieglinde and probably a host of other women he had lost. But these girls might yet have their chance.
"Are you going to let
"It gets worse," Rossweise put in from the dubious shelter of Rutger's arm. "Sieglinde was going to have a baby."
"You get away from him!" Thor bellowed. "Just because your sister's tying out on the hill for the first comer—" Hillary managed not to laugh in a way that might have distracted him "—doesn't mean you're not stiff a virgin goddess. Does it, missy?" He strode over to the Valkyrie and her chosen hero. The two of them, standing together, were enough to face up to him. Barely.
Adultery, two generations of it. Incest. Murder. This wasn't an afterlife, Hillary decided, it was a Scandinavian soap opera! And it had just gotten Worse: Brunnhilde abandoned on a hill until some rapist in chainmail decided to step through a fire and grab her; Rossweise and all the others forbidden education, autonomy, control even of their own bodies, just because some men decided for them what they should do about them.
"This didn't have to happen," she said with a tone that even to herself sounded nauseatingly self-righteous, "if you had decent birth-control centers for women to go to."
" You !" she flared up at Wotan. "You stuck your eldest daughter on a rock because she disobeyed you to protect her own half-sister. You're keeping these poor girls ignorant, violent, and noisy. You encouraged your son to become an arrogant, bullying brute, and you even feast with a man you know is going to betray you. Call yourself a god, let alone the father of the gods here. You're a poor excuse for it. I've got a good mind to start Ragnarok just to give this place a good cleaning."
Where, oh where, was Newt Gingrich when she needed him? Let him get his teeth into a scandal like this, and he'd never have time for the White House.
"Woman, you go too for!" Thor bellowed.
"I haven't gone far enough!" Hillary shouted back. "Now, you're out of order."
Whereupon she picked up the hammer and brought it down sharply on the table for order. That is, she would have brought it down sharply on the table if the thing hadn't been so heavy it weighed her shoulder down and she dropped it.
Boom ! The earthquakes that accompanied each mention of Ragnarok were nothing to the crashes that followed as the hammer broke the table, broke through the floor, and probably the sound barrier, as it emerged outside the hall. Thunder pealed again, and from the rain and lightning that lashed down outside, you'd have thought Hurricane Andrew had come again. Most likely, a couple branches broke loose from the World-Ash.
Do you suppose Wotan budgeted enough for disaster relief? I'm sorry! But all I want to do is get out of here .
Thor whistled and raised his hand. The hammer flew back to him, and he brandished it at her.
But Hillary was drunk on adrenaline. "Co ahead," she challenged him. "Make my day."
To her astonishment, she heard footsteps, felt the support of the Valkyries at her back Post-feminism be damned, she thought. Sisterhood was powerful.
"I told you before," she said to Wotan, "you have fine daughters, and you don't deserve to have custody of them."
"Enough!" Thor roared. "You get her out of here, Allfather, or so help me, when Naglfar sets sail and Ragnarok begins, you're going to be fighting without your chief of staff."
Unmistakably, Wotan's eye closed at Hillary in a wink. She thought of her own father, of his pride in her. She thought of how she and Bill went rushing to Chelsea's defense in anything from a gang of reporters tormenting Socks to Saturday Night Live making jokes about her. And here was Wotan, facing up to his own mistakes as he faced up to the end of his world It was too late for Brunnhilde, just as it had been too late for Sieglinde and probably a host of other women he had lost. But these girls might yet have their chance.
"Are you going to let
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