Chapter Thirteen
Thor sat on the shattered edge of what remained of the Bifrost and stared out at the remaining floating shards of Asgard.
The bridge beneath him lay a ruin of fractured prismatic crystal, each broken slab still humming with residual energy that vibrated up through his thighs.
Where the Bifrost had once stretched in an unbroken arc of rainbow-hued brilliance, now only jagged stumps jutted into the void, their edges dulled to a milky iridescence like old bruises on glass.
Beyond them, the remnants of Asgard drifted in silence- towers snapped at their midsections, golden domes caved inward, whole sections of palace wall tumbling in slow, weightless rotation through a sky that wasn’t sky.
Just an endless expanse of deep indigo streaked with veins of silver dust where stars used to anchor themselves.
Thor pressed his palms flat against the crystalline surface, feeling the cold bite through his calloused fingers- hands roughened by centuries of gripping Mjolnir's handle and, more recently, by wrenches and engine grease.
His boots dangled over the edge where the bridge ended, into nothingness.
A colorless void of metal and stone, but tasted like death and grief.
The absolute silence pressed against his eardrums and made the blood in his own veins sound deafening.
The only motion came from the continued drifting fragments of his former home: a carved lintel spinning a hundred yards out, still bearing the rune for protection in flaking gold leaf.
A chunk of courtyard flagstone, trailing soil, and the withered roots of what had once been his mother's garden.
The cold wasn't like Midgard cold, wasn't weather.
It was the absence of temperature, as if the place had lost its reason to generate heat.
It settled into his shoulders, crept beneath the jacket collar against the column of his neck.
It burrowed in his knees, and in the old ache along his left side where Surt's blade had found a gap in his armor during Ragnarok itself.
Thor’s hands curled against the Bifrost's broken edge until the crystal bit into his skin.
It'd been a century since he'd been there.
At first, he'd not been able to bring himself to see it after it'd happened.
But while in Valhalla, he'd found himself there often.
Staring off, trying to figure out what he'd done wrong.
How he could have fixed what happened. After centuries, he'd finally stopped.
But strangely, when he'd left the family dinner, the Bifrost was where Mjolnir had taken him.
He blew out a deep sigh. Surtr's daughter. Elle was Surtr's daughter. Were they all planning on keeping it from him? If it hadn't been for Hodr...
Thor threw his hands over his face and lay back on the Bifrost. A fire giant. His mortal enemy. The one being he was unable to beat. And the one woman who'd opened his heart after being closed for so long, ends up being the daughter of his enemy.
"I thought you'd be here," said a voice.
Thor looked up into a pair of bright golden eyes. "Of course you did. You see everything."
Heimdall chuckled and sat next to Thor. "True. At least I still do when it comes to you."
Thor stared out at a crumbling piece of mural for a moment before it collided with another piece and exploded into dust. "Did you see her? Elle?"
Heimdall shrugged.
"And did you see that she was my 'one'?"
Heimdall stared at him for a moment. "Is she your 'one'?"
Thor blew out a harsh breath. The answer jumped into his mind without a second of hesitation. His chest squeezed. In all the fates, why? Why her? Why was she the one?
"I will take that as a yes," Heimdall said.
Thor groaned.
"This news makes you unhappy? Interesting. I didn't think it possible for you to be more miserable than you already were. To be honest, most men find it a happy occasion to find the one they were meant to be with. Especially immortals who have waited thousands of years."
"It was, until I found out she was Surtr's daughter."
Heimdall shrugged. "So what? She isn't Surtr."
"But-"
"But what? Does it change who she is? Why you fell for her? How you feel about her?"
"I... don't know," Thor admitted.
Heimdall stayed silent for a long while, both of them staring off at the swirling void before them where their home world used to be.
"I can tell you this, Odinson,” Heimdall finally said. “For as much as you have suffered over Ragnarok, that girl has suffered a thousand times over at the hands of her father."
Thor remembered the few things she’d told him. And then remembered the way she’d frozen when the human had grabbed her. How she’d flinched at every turn, afraid of being hit. The thought made Thor's gut clench and sent a spike of rage coursing through him. Lightning cracked across the sky.
"Have you stopped to think why she ran from her home?"
"She told me of some of her abuse."
"And I can attest to as much as she told you, there are a thousand things she didn’t.
When the girl started a month ago, she was more scared than a rabbit in a snare.
She jumped at the slightest sound. There wasn’t one time that the door didn't open that she didn't duck behind the bar and hide.
If someone moved too fast, she cowered. She's been getting better day by day, yet I've still seen her fear.
But these last few days with you, she changed.
She isn't as scared anymore. She holds herself differently, and her smile meets her eyes.
You did that for her, as she's done for you.
Are you going to let that go because of this?
" He gestured around. "When are you going to stop letting something you couldn't control then and can’t change now ruin your life? "
"It's my fault-"
"No. It's not, Thor. Why can't you understand? Why do you torture yourself? No one else does. No one blames you. And if you are being honest with yourself, aren't you at least a small amount relieved? Ragnarok set you free. It set us all free. Stop being a gigantic baby and move on."
Thor snorted. "You think I'm being a baby?"
"About this, yes. Odin loves you most. He expects the most from you, but even he knew Ragnarok was inevitable.
And if you think about it. Really, truly, look deep, past the pain, past the guilt, isn't there a part of you that is glad it happened?
Glad you got to move on. Glad you no longer have to be Thor, the savior of Asgard and humanity alike.
You can just be Thor, motorcycle mechanic, and lover of Elle. "
Thor hated it, but when he searched deep, Heimdall was right. If it hadn't been for Ragnarok, he would still be fighting. Working to earn the love of people he didn't know. Constantly at his father's beck and call. Never who he wanted to be.
"I'll leave you with your thoughts," said Heimdall. "But if you want one last piece of advice, I'll give it to you."
"Does it matter whether I want it or not?"
Heimdall snorted. "No."
"Thought not."
"Thor, this is your one true shot at finding the person who makes you happy. Someone meant for you. To make you whole. To give you the life you both deserve. Together. Are you willing to give that up for both of you? You aren’t the only one hurting.
A relationship goes two ways. Meaning, you are her fated mate as much as she is yours.
What will it do to her if you don’t get over it? "
Thor tossed a sliver of the Bifrost into the void. "Even Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr love her."
Heimdall chuckled. "Well, if you don't want to listen to me, listen to them. Those goats haven't been wrong about anyone."
"They only tolerate me," he said.
Heimdall stood. "Like I said, never wrong."
Thor laughed.
Heimdall smiled and walked several feet along the Bifrost before disappearing.
Thor stared out at the blackness. Maybe it was time he forgot about Surtr, Ragnarok, and everything else and moved forward. It'd been over a thousand years. Didn’t he deserve happiness? Better yet, didn’t Elle?