Crystal Epiphany
"Did you know? Of course you did..."
Vali sat on the broken Bifrost, his legs dangling over the edge and boots soaked from the constant spray of water. Behind him, ever watching, stood Heimdall, a distracted Nari sitting at his feet.
"You never thought to tell my father? To tell me?"
"It is not my place to do so."
"No, I suppose not. Your vast powers are for the safety of Asgard and the realms," Vali mused. He drew up his legs and rested his chin on his knees. "I can appreciate that."
"Do you ever eat?" Nari interrupted, gazing up at Heimdall. Their discussion went over his head and he hardly cared; adults never talked about anything interesting and Vali was close enough to one these days.
Heimdall glanced down at the boy, draping himself over the Guardian's feet. "I require no sustenance to maintain my vigil."
"Oh. Well, do you want me to bring you something anyway?"
"Nari," Vali called, "Stop harassing Heimdall and come here, I have something to tell you." He'd been putting it off for too long. All day he'd found excuses, things that needed to be done, answers that needed to be had and thoughts to organize. But he owed it to his brother to stop procrastinating and just say it.
After Odin had unveiled the truth, as Vali stood there before the All-Father stripped of everything Aesir and Jotnar both to become something new, Vali had reigned in every stray emotion that tried to emerge, balled it up, and swallowed it. He told his grandfather he understood, and, strangely, he did. He went home, back rigid and fist trembling, and wait for his mother, and when she returned he let loose a bit of the ball of bile and confusion and told her everything.
She sat, quiet, long after he'd finished, her face unreadable. Voices nibbled at the back of Vali's mind, taunting him and laughing that she could no longer love him, that he would be thrust from her like the monster he was. He should have known better.
Sigyn stood and sat beside him, her hand trailing through his hair as she pulled him to her and kissed the top of his head.
"Do you want me to tell your brother?"
And only then did Vali release the tension he did not realize he'd been holding. He returned his mother's embrace and sighed.
"No, in this we two are the same. I should tell him."
Afterward he went to the library. The ball of writhing emotions he'd swallowed was coughed back up and crushed in his hands, fused into raw energy that fueled him as he tore through books and scrolls for answers to questions that eluded him. Surely Giant and Aesir hybrids had occurred in the past and if so someone would have written of it! What was he? For Nari, he needed an answer. A half-Jotun raised strictly Aesir made him more Asgardian than Frost Giant, right? Or was there more he simply didn't realize due to his own ignorance? Was this form he wore merely like a cloak, hiding what he was, or a facet of the whole?
In the end, the librarian took one look at the mess he'd made and chased him out, cursing. But it was for the best, for it was not in the written word he found the answer, but in the dark solitude of his own room. It was no great revelation, merely a fact he accepted with a shrug.
"I am both. I am neither. I am Vali."
That night, he successfully shape-shifted for the first time, and come morning he woke with a strange sense of calm. He was different in a way he could not describe even to himself.
He wished his father were here.
Nari plopped down beside his elder brother, mimicking his position and letting his feet dangle off the edge of the bridge. His hands fidgeted, tapping and pulling at one of the crystals on the jagged, broken edge.
"Brother, what I am to tell you may be hard to hear. I didn't know...No one knew, and it is...interesting..."
Nari gave him a look that said 'get on with it.' While Vali was his father's son, Nari was a child of both his parents, taking the best of each and combining it to something greater. Already he had mastered their ability to glare and made it truly stabbing in its effect.
Odin's beard, Vali thought with a bit of terror, he's going to be absolutely fearsome when he's grown!
Vali cleared his throat and continued. "Father, and we two...we are not Aesir, not as they are generally known. Father was a Jotun, brought back by the All-Father after the war on Jotunheim had ended..." He braved on, telling the tale as Odin had told it, making sure to add, for his brother's benefit, that regardless of their lack of blood relation that they were still loved by their family, that they belonged here, despite the hissing doubt that began to form questions once again in his mind.
Nari sat quietly for many moments after Vali had finished, feet kicking and hand pulling at a crystal. It came free in his hand and he tossed it away, and both brothers watched it fall, glittering, much as their father had done.
"What does it mean?" Nari asked, leaning forward to watch the receding crystal.
"Nothing, really. We have always been what we are, the only difference is that now we're aware of it."
"Of why we've never fit in?"
Vali flinched. He'd always hoped to protect Nari from that harsh fact. "Yes, brother."
Nari pulled free another crystal and flicked it away. "So be it."
Vali stared at his little brother for a long time, then pulled him into an awkward but tight embrace. "Oh my brother," he sighed, "my clever, understanding brother..."
"Stop it," Nari whined, pushing against him. He was in no mood for cuddling at that moment.
Vali chuckled and released him and the two sat in companionable silence. Another crystal was pulled loose under Nari's hand and Vali could feel Heimdall twitch.
"Does this mean I'm gonna grow up really big?" Another crystal was tossed away.
"Oh yes, you'll -stop that- grow as big as Uncle Thor, maybe bigger. They'll sing songs of you, of Nari the Giant."
Nari beamed and wiggled in place in pleasure, fantasies of himself, tall as a tree and having adventures, dancing through his mind. In each one, brave Thor fought beside him, beaming upwards in pride at his nephew. Vali didn't have the heart to tell his brother that he was just as fine-boned as their father, and neither of them were really of warrior caliber.
So he let Nari dream and continued to watch the crystals fall. Bright as they were, he could still see them for a very long time, glistening with power found nowhere else, for there was nothing like Bifrost in all of Yggdrasil…
Nothing like it...only found in one place...
"Nari, you're a genius," Vali hissed, jumping into a crouch and pulling crystals from Bifrost's broken edge. He purposely went for the larger crystals, long and easily gripped in his hand, though they came loose with greater difficulty.
Heimdall cleared his throat behind him, loudly.
"I'm sorry, Heimdall," Vali said as he pulled at a particularly stubborn crystal. It came out with a crackling pop! and Vali dropped back on his rear. He set it aside and glanced at the Gatekeeper over his shoulder, adding, apologetically, "They're going to repair it anyway."
One after another, Vali liberated a crystal, one for each realm. The last, heavy in his hand and glowing, was for Helheim. Pulling off his heavy cote, Vali lay the crystals upon it and hefted the bundle in his arms.
"Come on, Nari. We've intruded upon good Heimdall's hospitality enough for one day."
"Yes brother." Nari scrambled to his feet and hurried after Vali, whose longer legs were already moving with quick strides.
Vali paused beside the Guardian, letting his brother get ahead, and gazed up into Heimdall's magnificent eyes.
"I have to try," is all he said, and Heimdall nodded in understanding.
It was after Vali began jogging after his brother that Heimdall finally spoke, his deep voice carrying without being raised. "It would be fortuitous to bring a horse next time you intend to pay a visit."
He could both hear and see Vali laugh as he took the long way back to the citadel.