Chapter 14: Succession
"You know, I never understood why they call you the All-Father in this universe." I chuckled as Odin and I looked out over the sea atop cliffs in Norway, "You have like… two? Two, right? You didn't impregnate a Phoenix Force Avatar, have you?"
He shook his head.
"Yeah, you have two biological children." I nodded, "That's Regular-Father status. Me, I've fathered more children on the nubile adepts of Kamar Taj in the few years I've been here. Back home, I have hundreds of thousands of children, millions of grandchildren, tens of millions of great grandchildren, et cetera et cetera etcetera. That is an All-Father. Less than fifty Viltrumites alive lack my blood in their veins."
"With how much time you spent fucking it is a wonder that you managed to do any ruling." the one eyed elder huffed.
"I presided over a thousand years of peace and prosperity… for other people." I chuckled, "My own empire was constantly mired in treason, rebellion, and terrorism. Par for the course when the prime objective of your administration is to stop a culture of brutal interdimensional slavers from further plying their trade."
"An auspicious sovereign." Odin chuckled, "Please tell me you won't be advising my children in the future. Or supplanting them."
"Wouldn't dream of it." I laughed, "I abdicated for a reason. Being in charge is a fucking pain. All that responsibility to chart a brighter course to the future for a bunch of ingrates. I was happy to hand down power to my eldest daughter, a girl I raised on discipline and grit. Educated on history, philosophy, economics. A girl who rose to my demands for a perfect ruler."
"That hits me right in my failing heart." Odin shook his head.
"Why'd you do it?" I asked him, "Why'd you change course?"
Odin pursed his lips and his mouth shifted left and right as he gathered his answer, "... Conquest brought out the worst in me. Arrogance, entitlement, wrath… it demeaned me as much as it demeaned my victims… Turning me into an unworthy king. It poisoned me, my family, and my people. When the scales fell from my eyes I knew I needed a new course. I only wish I realized it sooner, before it cost me so much."
I nodded my head, "I get that. Everything you said is true of my own people as well, only the temptation is so much greater because we are so much stronger than you Asgardians. I know in truth though that the old guard only continued on due to momentum, and a need to ignore the terrible wrongs that our people suffered by continuing to inflict like on others. We wouldn't need to confront our own frailty if we only compared ourselves to others rather than our past selves."
The pair of us remained like that a time as we sat on a simple rock watching the sea below, discussing kingship while Kate and Frigga held their own talks behind us until Thor and Loki came to us via portal from Steven Strange, one of the Masters of the Mystic Arts residing in the New York Sanctum.
"Father! Mother!" Thor shouted and his enthusiasm faded when he recognized Kate and I.
"My sons, come and be known to my new friends, Emperor Markus and Empress Kate of the Neo Viltrumite Empire."
"Father, these are very dangerous people…" Thor warned.
"I know." Odin chuckled, "Far more dangerous than you believe. The four Infinity Stones on his belt were an indication of that."
"Four… I searched the universe for the stones and Four were here on Earth." Thor grimaced.
"They spent much of the last few years on Nidavellir with the Dwarves." I smiled at him as he pulled a hand down his face in shame.
"It won't be long now." I told them, "Have you been practicing without your hammer?"
"Yes." Thor answered while his fist crackled with electricity.
"Good. You'll need it." I nodded and Odin confided in his sons one final time before he disappeared into golden motes of light.
"Here she comes." I smiled as Hela opened a green and black portal to our location and stepped through looking tastefully torn and untamed.
"So I missed it then." she spoke, "Shame. I'd have loved to see him pass."
"Hela." Frigga twitched as she spoke the name.
"Mother." her daughter turned her head.
"I am Thor, son of Odin." Thor announced.
"Really?" Hela scoffed, "You don't look like him."
"Perhaps we can come to an arrangement." Loki offered.
"You sound like him." she smiled then shifted tone, "Kneel." she commanded.
"Beg your pardon?" Loki questioned with a tilted head and gritted teeth.
Hela generated a sword in her hand then repeated, "Kneel… before your Queen."
"I don't think so." Thor growled and chucked Mjolnir at her.
Then Hela revealed that she operates the hammer in Administrative Mode and terminates the program by crushing the 'unbreakable' hammer between her fingers.
And in that moment Thor finally got it.
Or at least I think he did, Loki called for a Bifrost pick up and when Hela jumped aboard the stream I grabbed her around the waist
"You were paying attention to the wrong people." I told her as I squeezed her hard enough to snap her spine, something she recovered from near instantly.
"Forgive my lack of manners." She smiled and tried to stab a Necrosword into my face.
I caught that blade between my teeth and shattered the sword, spitting the fragments out as I found them with my tongue. Then I fixed her with a bloody smile.
"Been a long time since I tasted my own blood." I grinned, "Well done."
"You'll find I am capable of so much more than just that." Hela spat.
"You certainly have potential." I chuckled as we landed on Asgard, "But your dreams will never hold. Don't be naive. No one here knows you, your legacy is buried deep under a new coat of plaster and paint."
"Hold." I ordered the members of the Warriors Three Volstagg and Fandral, "Gentlemen, I am Emperor Markus Sebastian Grayson, confidant to the late Odin Borson. This is my paramour, Empress Kate Cha. We are here on behalf of my late friend to settle a succession crisis between Prince Thor, whom you all know intimately, and Odin's eldest child, Hela Odinsdottir. At my behest, Odin created a written will and testament before his passing so that you all would not be left completely in the lurch of the grand mysteries of his life and death. This was all done in witness by Dowager Queen Frigga."
The dropped jaws are why I normally use my fists for politics, but in return for a lovely morning discussing kingship, I did in fact promise to spend my afternoon keeping Odin's children from destroying his legacy.
"My father did not hand over the matter of session to an outsider." Thor denounced causing the three guards in Heimdall's chamber to tense.
"He did." Frigga countered, "This is the only way your father saw for Asgard to survive."
Thor looked at his mother with betrayal in his eyes, but submitted to her word nonetheless.
We took a brief trip through Asgard, and I mean brief as the city is tiny.
"I almost forgot how few of you people there are." I chuckled as we passed the adoring people of the realm, "Fifty thousand, right? I have over three hundred thousand children, with at most twins cropping up in that mix only a handful of times."
'Three hundred thousand' I saw Thor mouth.
We entered Odin's throne room and I requested as large an audience as the venue could hold, which turned out to be damn near the entire population. During this time I pissed everyone off by planting my ass in the throne, damn near causing hysteria among the citizenry.
Roughly ninety minutes to sundown I rose from my forcibly occupied seat and addressed the assembly.
"People of Asgard. I am Emperor Markus Sebastian Grayson, confidant to the late Odin Borson. This is my paramour, Empress Kate Cha. We are here on behalf of my late friend to settle a succession crisis between Prince Thor, whom you all know intimately, and Odin's eldest child, Hela Odinsdottir. At my behest, Odin created a written will and testament before his passing so that you all would not be left completely in the lurch of the grand mysteries of his life and death. This was all done in witness by Dowager Queen Frigga."
I unrolled a scroll, very formal and read off Odin's explanation of the situation and his various bequeathments, finishing with his request that I oversee the matter of his succession to ensure the peaceful transition of the throne.
"As you can all no doubt understand, this is no simple matter. The natural laws of succession are in place to limit avenues of treachery. The eldest inherits, and any attempts to change that are usurpation.
And yet Odin quietly allowed the people of Asgard, and even his own family to believe that his second son was his first, he sought to scrub Asgard clean of all evidence of his daughter. I say this shall not stand."
With a wave of my hand and precise control of my power, I blasted the mural on the ceiling to power and showed the truth so shallowly hidden beneath.
"This is the truth of Asgard. The truth of this land, and this nation."
The assembly broke out into frantic discussion over the matter, and Thor could not tear his eyes off the mural, and more importantly the image of Hela raising Mjolnir a lot.
"Odin willed his son, Thor, to inherit despite knowing of his daughter. The strength of her claim and of her hand. For Hela is superior to Thor in both claim and might. The very land we all stand on fills her with strength as the rightful heir to the throne. This cannot be denied.
Due to the nature of this land and its connection to its rightful ruler, I declare Hela Odinsdottir the Queen of these lands. Thor, you have no true claim to these lands. You must now choose whether to submit to the ruler of 'these lands' or to gather your possessions and leave 'these lands'. Should you choose to take this option, to leave 'these lands' I shall guarantee you a fortnight to do so. I will remain here and assume responsibility for your safety. And that goes for all of you… either submit to Queen Hela, ruler of Asgard, or take up your possessions and leave."
Thor looked like he wanted to fight, but remembrance of my heavy fist and the loss of his hammer shook his confidence. He hung his head and left the throne room.
"All this pageantry for something that would have been mine anyways." Hela announced as she ascended her father's throne.
"Oh," I grinned, "I believe we will now get to see something far more profound."
"What's that?" Hela inquired.
"Whether Asgard is a place, or a people." I answered.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
JManM
JManM And I double strike again! Thor: Ragnarok was one of my favorite films in the franchise, so you may have noticed my eagerness to get here.
I've seen a few fics deal with this issue, most taking umbrage to Odin's treatment of his daughter, AKA Hela simping. Usually Odin is treated like a dumb senile rotten old man. No fucking respect, so I put forth a better narrative for why Odin did what he did, which is what I always try to do when adapting content like this. I never try to strike low and demean the intelligence and morals of the characters.
I am of the opinion that there was nothing Odin could do to generate a better outcome than what happened, Asgard the people would have been saved if not for an unforseen appearance by Thanos and his bois.
I don't think I have also seen anyone deal with the succession crisis as a matter of kingship and stability. Mostly its just moralizing by authors with no understanding of governance, sustainablity, and history.
Fortunately the film provides a perfect answer in the form of Hela having the land and Thor having the people, they just needed an all powerful arbiter to keep things civil.
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