Chapter 1 "Another's Story"
I carefully scanned the area, looking for someone who could help me. I saw a violet haired boy who looked about my age, if not a bit older. I ran over and grabbed the back of his shirt, "'Umm, would you be willing to give me a little help?"
"Why should I?" he brushed my hand off of his shirt and continued walking, muttering something about a Loki person.
"Please? I kinda don't want to be kidnapped right now." I glanced over my shoulder and saw the two goons closing in on me.
"Look girl, I'm kind of busy right now. I really can't help you." He turned to look at me and saw the two men following me, "on second thought, if I do help you, what I get in return?"
"Umm… I could tell your future, or something." I hesitated, unsure exactly how I could repay him.
"Fine, follow me. You can stay in my apartment until my roommate gets back. Then we'll walk you back to your house." he took my hand and led the way to a small apartment.
"Thank you… umm I don't think I caught your name?" I didn't think it would be polite to call him by his hair color.
"My name doesn't matter, as we probably won't ever see each other again." He snapped at me, "Now just because I'm helping you doesn't mean we are friends. Stay here and don't touch anything." I looked around and saw one of his boots.
'Perfect, now I can find out a little bit about him' I sat down next to the boot and placed it in my lap. I let my energy surge, and checked the memories hidden in the boot. It seemed his name was Heimdall, or Kazumi Higashiyama.
"What are you doing?" Heimdall stormed out of the room he had entered and glared menacingly at me.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think you would be able to sense that Heimdall-san." I looked up innocently.
"Wha? What are you?" He looked shocked that I knew his name.
"I'm just a girl, who happens to have quite a bit of magic. Onee-chan is magical too." I smiled.
He rolled his one visible eye, "Okay, if you can really tell the future like you said you could then tell me if I will be able to beat Loki." I laid my hand on his arm. The future rushed by me as I used a bit of magic. I saw a scene and gasped, promptly jerking my hand back.
"Umm, Heimdall-san, it probably isn't the best idea to challenge Loki." I said.
"Why?" he looked confused.
"Umm, you will blow up the bridge you are fighting on, and then fall to your death." I said sadly. Despite having only met Heimdall today, he was quickly growing on me.
"Ne Heimdall-san, please don't do anything stupid." I turned around so the words were barely audible; a light blush tainted my face. I heard the patter of rain and sighed.
"Oye, girl, come on, you look like an idiot just standing there." Heimdall motioned for me to join him on the couch. I sat down on the end basically as far as I could from him. He turned on the TV and put some anime on. I smiled as I saw the familiar characters glowing on the screen. The screen flickered and I unconsciously moved closer to the violet haired boy sitting near me. Lightning flashed and the power went out. I curled up into a ball and started whimpering.
"What's wrong scared of the dark?" He asked sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"When you constantly have to worry about getting kidnapped, darkness can be frightening." I whispered. I felt the couch shift, and I was suddenly pulled into a hug.
"Don't worry, if they even try, I'm here." His eye blazed and I smiled.
"Arigato." I snuggled close to Heimdall.
"Don't expect this to happen often girl." He didn't sound too thrilled that I was curled up shaking against him.
"Maya. My name's Maya, not girl." I told him with a yawn.
"Well then Maya, why don't you take a nap until Freyr gets home." His voice would have scared most people, but not me.
"Would you mind if I did take a nap?" onee-chan had always said that you should ask first.
"Go ahead." he sounded reluctant, but didn't seem to mind all that much. I slowly drifted to sleep, the steady sound of his breathing calming me.
I heard someone crash through the door yelling about sales on pumpkins.
"Freyr." Heimdall said under his breath, and in about a second I had managed to not only fall backwards off of the couch, but also pull Heimdall on top of me. He had just managed to catch himself so he wouldn't fall completely. Too bad that a man that looks about the age of onee-chan had just burst in the room, and I'm pretty sure that to him it looked more like Heimdall was pinning me than anything.
"Umm Heimdall, should I leave?" the man looked suspiciously at us, so I took the liberty of pushing Heimdall off of me, and then sitting up myself.
"I'm guessing that you're Freyr-san?" I smiled sweetly, thinking that maybe he and onee-chan would probably like him.
"Why yes, did Heimdall tell you about me?" He seemed suspicious of me.
"Kind of, not really though…" I didn't think Heimdall would take too kindly to me exploding the mind of his roommate.
"Freyr, we need to get her home. She's been here long enough, and I need to get back to my plots to defeat Loki."
"Why did you bring her here then?" Freyr seemed honestly confused.
"I'm a fortune teller, and then it started raining." I hoped he wouldn't pry further.
"Okay, let's go." He promptly put down his armful of pumpkins and marched back to open the door. "Why are there so many people dressed in black standing outside our door?"
"Gomen Freyr-san, that's my fault. They want to kidnap me, like they did with onee-chan earlier today." I darted over to Freyr and placed my hand on his arm, where a sliver of skin was showing. I hoped that I could use him to channel energy, since it was the only chance we had of getting out of the apartment, "Winds, hear my call and surge out!" a wind boar came and pushed the men in black away. A robot pig flew up, and Freyr jumped on pulling Heimdall in front of him, with me in front of Heimdall.
"Gullinbrusti let's go, full speed ahead!" the pig-thing, Gullinbrusti, let out a 'Buhi' and proceeded to fly pretty fast. I probably would have flown off if not for Heimdall holding me down. I put one hand on Gullinbrusti, hoping that a robot pig did in fact qualify as an animal. When he let out another Buhi and turned towards my house, I guessed that he understood the directions.
"Maya how does Gullinbrusti know where you live?" Freyr seemed confused.
"I told him." I shifted Heimdall's arms so I was free to jump through the window I had purposefully left open that morning. I landed with a roll, and easily grabbed my black scarf. I tied it into my hair, giving the illusion of wolf-like ears. I grabbed my quiver and filled it with arrows before pulling it on. I slid my bow, Illume, out from under my bed. I calmly walked over to the window, where Gullinbrusti was hovering.
"What were you thinking?" Heimdall seemed furious, "What was the point of jumping off of Gullinbrusti? What if you fell?" despite his fury helped me back onto Gullinbrusti.
I placed my hand on the pig's forehead, showing him where to go before looking back at the angry violet haired boy who was almost crushing me against him in an attempt to keep me from jumping again. I smiled, "I didn't want you guys in my house, and there are still some of the kidnappers downstairs, so the window was my best bet. Now Heimdall-san, could you please loosen your grip, I won't jump again, and you're kinda squishing me." He slackened his grip, but still didn't seem too happy, "Gomen for scaring you." I leaned back and rested my head on his shoulder. A 'Buhi' from Gullinbrusti alerted me that we had reached the rooftop across from the factory where they were keeping Skyeta. I drew two arrows, sticking one in my shoe, and easily shot both the guards with a tranquilized arrow. I motioned for Gullinbrusti to fly down to the door. I kicked the door down and with a yell, charged into the factory. I saw Heimdall shoot orbs of purple magic at some of the guards as I smashed the others heads with my bow. Gullinbrusti was charging some while Freyr was using some form of martial arts to knock out the rest. When we had cleared the first floor, I hesitantly walked up the creaky old stairs without making a sound thanks to my ninja-like skills. I opened the door, and saw some guards laughing at my sister, who was furiously blasting magic at the walls of the cage she was in. I easily shot the three guards with some tranquilizer arrows. I walked over to the cage and proceeded to smash it with my bow. It smashed and I used a bit of wind magic to protect my sister.
"Took you long enough Maya." She said with a grin.
"Gomen onee-chan, but I needed to get some back up." She looked behind me and saw the two boys I had dragged along with me.
"Really Maya? I'm pretty sure you could take down all of the goons on your own anywise, but if you thought this would be better then so be it, but we aren't keeping them." She knelt down and whispered in my ear, "Who's the tall one? He seems interesting."
"Freyr-san, Heimdall-san, please meet Skyeta onee-chan." I smirked at my sister.
Instantly Freyr was on one knee in front of Sky, holding a rose that he had somehow acquired. I moved from my position from beside my sister to next to Heimdall.
"Hello my classic Japanese beauty" he offered her the rose, "Maybe we could go out somewhere sometime?"
Sky reluctantly took the rose, face turning a shade of red that almost matched the rose, and rolled her eyes, "Please just call me Sky, and maybe we could go out sometime. Now let's get out of this place before more goons show up."
"Too late, they heard me." I easily spun and shot the first guard as he entered the room. A rune glowed in front of Sky, and some of the guards were hurled into the wall by wind.
"Dang it Maya, why do you feel the need to act like a retard? Summon Leaf and let's get out of here." Sky traced another rune, this time calling for fire.
I closed my eyes and brought Illume up in front of me, "Winds, hear my call and surge out!" wind surged from my bow and took the shape of a wolf. "Leaf, I bind thy magic to my own, now go and stall the guards." I left her with orders as my friends and I ran out of the building.
We ran back to my house and I spied the guards. There were too many for me to fight without my familiar, Leaf, and I certainly didn't have enough arrows left to shoot enough of them. I closed my eyes and tried to read the future. It seemed that if we so much as alerted them to our presence, we would be captured.
"Dame, we can't make it in there without losing." I told my friends, shaking my head, "not enough arrows to put them to sleep, too many for a frontal assault, and they are in a room where we can't surprise them, really the only way to beat them would be to blow up the entire house, but that isn't exactly the best idea, now is it." I sat down on the edge of the building across from my house and smiled.
"You two could always stay at our apartment until we can get rid of them." Freyr said, not stopping to think about where he could keep us in his apartment.
"No Freyr, we don't have room for them, nor do we have enough money to feed more people." Heimdall yelled at his roommate, red eye blazing.
"Nonsense Heimdall, we have a couch." Freyr smiled like he had already won.
"One couch can't fit both of them. And what about the food?" Heimdall closed his eye in anger.
"Guys, let's go to a café or something, I can pay for you both, and Sky of course." I smiled. This is why l liked my powers; I could work as a fortune teller and earn a lot of money from it, since I was almost always right.
"Don't you have class to go to?" Sky questioned me.
"Hmmm, yeah, I guess but I'm already finished with the Creative Writing assignment, and Psych will be canceled due to the teacher being in labor." I shrugged.
"Math?" Sky looked proud.
"Sky, I sleep through that class, go in for tests, and ace them, my attendance to that absurd class is not required to the point where the teacher just tells me when the tests are and doesn't actually care whether or not I'm actually there."
"What about class work and homework?" Sky seemed set on getting me to go to the class.
"I'm exempt. Forget it Sky, I'm not going to miss spending time making friends so I can get glared at for being smart enough to draw a perfect parabola without doing a page of chicken scratch that passes as mathematical equations. Oh and History doesn't meet today, neither does the band." I finished rambling off my schedule to my sister and proceeded to climb down the fire escape on the opposite side of the building from my house. The guys followed me, the prospect of free food making them happy. In the end we decided to go to a ramen shop. I let Freyr lead the way, Sky walking with him, chatting about anything that came to mind. I glanced to my side at Heimdall, who appeared to be lost in thought about getting revenge on this Loki person.
"Ano, Heimdall-san…" my voice trailed off, waiting for Heimdall to give me permission to continue.
"What?" he snapped out of his thoughts and turned his head slightly so his visible eye blazed at me.
"Who is Loki?" all of their names seemed so familiar, but I just couldn't remember.
"He was a friend at one point, but then, he took something very important to me, and ever since we've been enemies. Right now, my father wants him dead." His voice remained neutral, but his eye showed a slight sadness. I tried to remember again where I had been hearing these names before, and my mind supplied to me the thoughts of the story for creative writing, a story about the Norse gods. The two I had been given to write about were Loki and Heimdall. Heimdall, the watchman, guardian of Bifrost, god of light, son of nine women, the god whose eye was stolen from Loki.
"Who are you really Heimdall-san?" I glanced over to see how he would respond.
"I'm just a normal person, who can use magic, similar to you." He replied shakily, "Heimdall is just a nickname, my real name is Kazumi Higashiyama." He clung to the alibi, as if his life depended on it.
"No, you're Heimdall, the watchman, guardian of Bifrost, aren't you?" I smiled.
"How?" He sounded sad, as if I would leave now that I knew.
"In creative writing, we were given the assignment of writing a short story about two of the Norse gods, and I was given Heimdall and Loki. Maybe I'll let you read it sometime."
"You aren't scared?" he looked quizzical.
"Why should I? Even if you're a god, you are still the same Heimdall that I met. I guess that means Loki is the same Loki from the myths? I guess they really aren't myths though, if you really are a god, that is."
"Yeah, same with Freyr, he's the god of male fertility, peace, the sun, and rain."
"Sugoi… Ne, if we meet any other gods, will you tell me?"
"Sure, but I only know of seven others around, though, another might visit soon."
"Who?" I let curiosity get the better of me.
"Thor, Loki, the Midgard Serpent, Fenrir, Skuld, Urd, and Verdandi." He listed off the names he could remember
"Thanks for telling me the truth Heimdall-san." I said with a grin.
Stop calling me Heimdall-san, its way to formal." He smiled back.
"Alright then, how 'bout Heimu then?" I smiled sweetly, acting innocent, expecting him to yell at me for the choice of a nickname
"It's better than Heimdall-san, I guess." He shrugged, "Hey, are you going to tell Sky about the whole god issue?"
I thought for a moment and looked into the future, "Not right now, or any time soon. Actually, I won't be the one who tells her at all." I smirked.
"Who then?" he looked at me with his one eye.
"It's not my place to tell another's story." I said with a grin