Everybody over 18 who's a citizen can vote, yeah. [ More or less but Cisco's not going to get into any asterisks or complications. ] No, it's just for four years, and then everybody votes again, and no one can do it more than twice, so it's 8 years maximum.

[ It's not a perfect system, but certainly it's less violent than what Ragnar describes. When he says earls usually kill their way into power by being good fighters, Cisco's eyes go round. He doesn't want to judge anybody else's culture, but. ]

That sounds... very different to what I'm used to.

[ He considers just dropping the whole Midgard thing, since this might be getting perilously close to Ragnar's religious beliefs and Cisco doesn't really want to say the wrong thing. But then he considers that possibly he ought to give the guy a warning, that it might be better for him if he has some idea in advance that... ]

There are some people here, from Asgard. Thor. Loki. A couple others.

[ Whether or not they are actually gods or demigods or really strong aliens or whatever is not really a question that Cisco has an answer to. ]

A few days? Damn, so you're brand new. I've been here about eight months, now. Since spring.