[He cannot help but scoff at that -- he has his own reasons, of course, for wanting to go back, but his words speak of other things.]

I am simply surprised, is all. When one grows up having the ideal of duty stuffed into one's skull, I do not expect it to leave so on a whim. What of Midgard? You were always so fond of it, for whatever unfathomable reason. You would trust that realm in the eyes of an ambivalent Allfather?