"What's past is prolouge"
Heimdallr, Heimdallr, where do I start when I talk about Heimdallr?
I suppose the best place to start would be the beginning, because starting at the end wouldn’t make much sense—especially since I don’t know the ending yet (Damnit, Jim, I’m a telepath, not a psychic!).
Anyway, moving on, the beginning would have to be my parents, Antón and Yasu Suero. It sounded cold to say it this way, but the only reason they were important was because they had me. I never met them; they died in a car crash on the way to the hospital for a routine checkup about six weeks before I was due. Apparently, it was some miracle I survived.
Still not the important part. There was a Japanese-American nurse in the hospital who named me while they were searching for next of kin—she called me Rin, which translated into ‘severe, cold, and dignified”, things she thought a child without parents would likely become, but I’m still not quite at the important part. Next of kin they found was my mother’s father, pushing eighty years old, yet still hale and healthy enough to take on the responsibility of raising his granddaughter—former Howling Commando Private James ‘Jim’ Morita. And thus we arrived at the important part, Grandpa Jim (if you couldn’t tell).
***
Grandpa Jim was the best; it was difficult to remember that I was supposed to miss having actual parents when he was around. Grandpa Jim never wanted me to miss out on things, so we were always going on adventures; fairs, movie theaters, bookstores—the list went on. People think I don’t remember that well, but I did, and I do.
But the best things about Grandpa Jim went hand in hand; he had the best stories and he knew how to listen, I mean really listen, like every word you said was poetry, the kind of listening that made you want to say only things worth that kind of attention.
My favorite stories though were the true ones, the ones from the war, about the Howling Commandos. Peggy first, he’d always start off with Peggy, so I’d have a role model who never gave up, then he’d talk about Dum Dum’s bowler hat, how Dernier and Jones were sleeptalkers, Falsworth who made blowing things up look easy, and lastly he’d talk of the two who fell, Barnes first and then Rogers just a short while later. Sometimes they made him sad, but he’d never shirk from telling me the truth. He used to talk about all his old journals and gear from back in the day in his storage unit, things that would be mine when he was gone. I was kid, I didn’t think much about it at the time, but he was over eighty years old, it was the kind of thing he had to at least start to think about, but we didn’t realize how soon. Grandpa Jim had a stroke just a few months shy of my eighth birthday.
The law was sometimes very unforgiving, so I stood by a grave in Arlington and was handed an American flag, and then whisked off into the system.
The foster system wasn’t the kindest of places even for the best kids. I’d spend as much time as I could away from the homes as I could. Libraries became my refuge, my safe place.
One of the worst parts about being in the system was the fact that there wasn’t anyone to listen, to really act like they understood you and wanted to hear what you had to say. Less than two months after Grandpa Jim’s passing, I was really missing that about him. Something was wrong with me—things were too noisy, just walking into a room with other people was noisy, even if they weren’t saying anything. I couldn’t talk to my foster parents about this, and the social worker was so obviously overworked that I didn’t think I could say anything to her either. Hence libraries, in the old sections with the dry history books and crumbling mythological texts—nobody went there, and for a little while things would be quiet again.
That was when in the old texts from Norse mythology about a god called Heimdallr and what struck me was that "he was attested as possessing foreknowledge, keen eyesight and hearing”, and hearing was close enough to listening, wasn’t it? And he was supposed to live in "his dwelling Himinbjörg, located where the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst meets heaven." I thought that maybe this Heimdallr guy could talk to Grandpa Jim for me, and even if he couldn’t, the idea that someone would listen to me was such a relief that I began that very night.
For years, no matter where I was or what the weather, I’d climb trees or rooftops to find a place to look up at the sky and talk to Heimdallr. Sometimes it wasn’t even anything important, just my day or how i missed Grandpa Jim, my favorite book, or a movie I’d seen part of. But as I got older, the noise began to get worse and then suddenly I’d hear things that nobody had said, things they never would have said aloud. I was terrified that this foster family would find out and have me sent away.
I was out there on the roof, almost crying because I was so terrified about being sent away again and telling all this to a specific patch of sky that I’d deemed was Heimdallr’s, when for the first time, he spoke back. I was so freaked out I almost fell five stories.
***
From that night on, Heimdallr and I spoke most every night, just in my head. Heimdallr was the one who taught me that I could read minds, lift things with my brain too. It wasn’t something he could personally do, but in Asgard the talent/ability/power wasn’t entirely unheard of, it was just extremely rare. The reason it was getting worse, the noise was because I was finally coming into my abilities fully. (I blamed the early onset of puberty—he didn’t, perhaps couldn't dispute the possibility of that.)
The brain was a muscle he said; with practice it could do all kinds of things. It could also be ‘tamed’ in manner of speaking. I’d never be able to shut out all the voices, you can’t wear earmuffs on your brain after all, but I could learn to let the words roll off me, I didn’t have retain the information, just let it pass by.
I asked him once, why he’d chosen to answer me of all people when he was so far away and he confided in me that he’d developed a soft spot for me—it got lonely those long nights on watch and my act of talking to him, especially my loyalty, every night, earned me loyalty in return. When the X-gene and anti-mutant thing became a thing I asked Heimdallr if he could see what would become of me. He promised me his aid, should I ever fear discovery in a way I couldn’t prevent myself.
Hence why now, with the news stations running constant coverage of our ‘courageous act, I was once again calling on Heimdallr, the first person who ever knew what I was and acceptted me for it. But by that same token, I had long ago accepted that Heimdallr had much bigger concerns than just one mere mortal, and that sometimes he saw things that could happen, not what was necessarily to come to pass, and as such gave very cryptic advice, so when his deep voice resounded in my head and told me that no, I would not be discovered yet, but I would need to let myself be seen soon—but no harm would come to me and mine in the doing so—what the fuck was a girl to do?
I looked up at Luna who was staring at me in concern. “I need to get drunk. Very drunk. Make it happen.”
And Luna, bless her, all she does is smile brightly and pull two large bottles of something into existence. “I can do zhat!” she said, in her best Chekov impression. I felt better already.