"Oh...Norns, what a long story." He takes a deep breath and his head hangs a little.
"I never knew I was adopted. I had parents and a brother--Thor, if you've met him--of the race of Asgard, the Aesir. And I was restless and jealous of Thor, I admit, but I never wished him ill. I only wanted, as I'm sure most siblings do, a fair share of the affection directed at him. He is difficult to compete with."
His smile is briefly wistful, then fades entirely. "We were raised with our father's stories of glorious battle, against the Jotun. Frost Giants. Beings of cold and darkness, utterly savage, thieves and destroyers and hardly more than beasts. Our father had won a great war with them, but Thor always wanted to be like him. He swore he would finish what Odin started some day, and slay the monsters for good."
"And then we grew up, and Thor was on the cusp of becoming the King of Asgard, and I discovered that was not only adopted, but not even the same species as my family. During the Jotun war, my father had found me as an infant, left out in the open to die, presumably. Brought me home, concealed the truth from me, even hid the shape and color of my body, and I never knew, for over a thousand years. I never even guessed."
"It was a clever political move; he hoped to unite Asgard and Jotunheim some day, but he...no one ever bothered to depict the Jotun as anything other than cruel, cunning beasts. What was I to think when I found out the truth? I still struggle to understand how they failed to consider that."
"I thought Thor would kill me. As he used to say he would, before he knew anything about war or death or Frost Giants. I know now that I did him an injustice. Had we actually ever spoken about it, had everything not all happened at once, it would have been different. But I thought I had to defeat him before he did the same to me, and between that and the shock, I had some sort of break with reality. I thought by destroying Jotunheim, I could somehow make myself not be what I am."
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"I never knew I was adopted. I had parents and a brother--Thor, if you've met him--of the race of Asgard, the Aesir. And I was restless and jealous of Thor, I admit, but I never wished him ill. I only wanted, as I'm sure most siblings do, a fair share of the affection directed at him. He is difficult to compete with."
His smile is briefly wistful, then fades entirely. "We were raised with our father's stories of glorious battle, against the Jotun. Frost Giants. Beings of cold and darkness, utterly savage, thieves and destroyers and hardly more than beasts. Our father had won a great war with them, but Thor always wanted to be like him. He swore he would finish what Odin started some day, and slay the monsters for good."
"And then we grew up, and Thor was on the cusp of becoming the King of Asgard, and I discovered that was not only adopted, but not even the same species as my family. During the Jotun war, my father had found me as an infant, left out in the open to die, presumably. Brought me home, concealed the truth from me, even hid the shape and color of my body, and I never knew, for over a thousand years. I never even guessed."
"It was a clever political move; he hoped to unite Asgard and Jotunheim some day, but he...no one ever bothered to depict the Jotun as anything other than cruel, cunning beasts. What was I to think when I found out the truth? I still struggle to understand how they failed to consider that."
"I thought Thor would kill me. As he used to say he would, before he knew anything about war or death or Frost Giants. I know now that I did him an injustice. Had we actually ever spoken about it, had everything not all happened at once, it would have been different. But I thought I had to defeat him before he did the same to me, and between that and the shock, I had some sort of break with reality. I thought by destroying Jotunheim, I could somehow make myself not be what I am."
"That was unquestionably overkill."