One Soul

Chapter Eight: Hurting

"H-How do you know my real name?" Calypso asked, lowering the hood to reveal her full face. Solomon looked at Norene, whose wound was now wrapped with cloth to try and slow the bleeding.

"To tell you the truth, I recognized you right away as Fallyn...and I heard rumors about what happened to you up there," Solomon gestured up towards the sky. "And Norene called you Calypso, too...so I just put pieces together. You're not very good at lying if I'm honest." His stutter was completely gone, in fact, he looked calmer aboard the back of a magical flying horse than he ever did back down on Pandora.

"Oh...that's my bad, then," Calypso replied sheepishly. "Sorry for lying to you, Sol."

"It's not really a big deal, I understand why you would," He replied amiably.

Calypso took half the flight home to realize that she had indeed unlocked the lightning attribute of the spear...even though she should've been unable to without a soul. When she came to her resolution she nearly toppled off of Nephele if Sol hadn't grabbed her and pulled her back on. "Woah! Are you ok-kay?" he asked. Calypso decided he stuttered only when he was surprised or frightened.

"Yeah...yeah, I think so. I just need to check something when I get home," she tried to brush it off with a laugh, but Sol didn't seem fully convinced. instead, he fiddled with the knife in his grip, as if grasping desperately for something familiar. The last few hours he had handled remarkably well. "So, what's your deal?"

"My deal?" Sol asked, putting the knife away. His fingers grazed the cut on his face subconsciously.

"Yeah. How come you're so desperate to leave when you could do a lot for Pandora? You're the only healer I've ever met who can detect wounds on a person with just soul energy...let alone start to heal it," Calypso glanced back at the boy, his cinnamon hair turning russet in the last of the moonlight. "Though your brother didn't seem..."

She trailed off. What words could she possibly have used? He didn't seem good? Kind? Fair? She had only ever had two families, the Graces, and her true parents, so what did she know of normal relationships?

"Luke? He's stubborn and a little thick-headed, but he's loyal and hardworking to whoever he swears his fidelity to. Unfortunately, now it's the military; he wants to avoid a tedious life of farmwork if he can, but the only thing he's exceptional at his leading, brawling, that sort of thing," Sol said. "And...there's other stuff too. My dad has...problems, to say the least. But Luke is faithful to him no matter what, so it's just hard around the house."

"Oh, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to pry," Calypso replies somewhat awkwardly. "But if it helps anything, I understand what you're going through. I mean, I wasn't let outside when I lived with the Graces."

"Yeah, that explains why I've never seen you until the night you left."

An awkward silence hung over the air the rest of the journey, Calypso keeping a close watch on Norene and Sol questioning whether he should've left at all. How would Luke and his father get by without him, when all they did was get angry nowadays? When they arrived on Ouránia, Sol was taken away at the brilliant sunrise illuminating the clouds, the majestic buildings. Calypso cursed.

The queen was standing, waiting for them at the stables with crossed arms and a taut expression. "Is that-?" Solomon began before biting his tongue. It didn't seem the time to ask questions.

"Dearest, what were you doing running around that cursed island in the middle of the night-oh goodness!" Queen Agnete spotted the wounded Norene on the horse and immediately called for medical aid. "What happened?"

Calypso stood up, not responding as she blearily stumbled towards her friend. She hadn't slept all night, but even then she felt even more drained than ever before. When she spotted the pulsing wound on Norene's side, Calypso could only croak out a small whimper before collapsing beside her.

~-~

Sol was left alone to face the angels and demons, surrounded by things he had only dreamt of. Meeting Avians, winged ethereal beings, was something beyond what he had ever expected to happen in his life. However the queen's opalescent flare was filled with flames. "What happened to my daughter? Who are you?"

"I, I don't know what's wrong with her yet. But I'm Solomon Lamber, of Pandora, and I can try and help you heal your...daughter. Calypso-"

"You will address her as Princess, Solomon," Agnete preened. "Until I've decided to trust you."

"Right. Um, s-sorry...but my s-soul energy, I've been t-t-training to become a medic..." Solomon extended his hands over the fallen girl, and they began to glow a soft buttery yellow light once again. Once his hands passed over her head, they began to hum. "Um, m-majesty? It's right here...th-the problem's here b-but I don't recognize this p-pain."

The queen stared for one, two seconds before brushing his hands aside and ordering the temporary replacement Heralds to take Calypso to her room. Solomon was directed towards a long series of white tents. "If you're willing, we could use someone with your abilities." The queen pursed her lips. "I'm surprised you weren't chosen, when we were still looking for her. You seem to have a strong soul...and a pain in your heart...you're a good a guess as any."

"Um, thank you?" Solomon hoped that was the right thing to say. "But, n-no offense but how d-do you-"

"My soul gift is not too different from yours, a little different but I can sense strength and pain in others. Now, if you would, please follow the medics to the tents."

~-~

The white tents were like nothing Solomon had seen. They were filled with light from small glowing phosphors floating inside. Patients were floating as well, hovering in the air above small cots so medics could access wounds on their backs as well. The medics themselves were dressed in pure white clothing with a mint green cloak, covering their faces with a strange jelly substance. Sol discovered he could hear them perfectly fine, and the gelatin substance formed to their mouths when they spoke. When he put one on, it was slightly cold but not slimy like he expected, and didn't obstruct his breath at all. However, when a patient coughed in his face, he didn't feel the hot geeky breath reach him at all.

Handy, he thought, slipping his hands in the same substance like all the others to keep himself sanitary. All the dirt that he couldn't scrub off before were pulled off into the clear jelly and vanished inside. He mostly just diagnosed the patients, pointing to areas of injury and when he could, which was rarer than he'd have liked, starting to heal.

Only a few of them had common injuries that he had trained for, however, such as abrasions in their wings-wings! Avians never ceases to fascinate him, though Sol knew Now wasn't the time to ask about it-or skin or a single case of food poisoning. The rest he could only see how they hurt, though he could not recognize how to heal it or what exactly the problem was.

Still, a medic in the fabled city was more than he could've asked for. He still wore his old clothing, but he had a small marking on his skin in mint green paste showing he was an apprentice. When Sol tried, he couldn't remove it, it was like a birthmark. Incredible, he thought over and over. This is beyond technology!

Sol tended especially to Norene, since wounds by Pandorian weapons was something he was familiar with, and the white-haired girl was the only one he wasn't stranger to. Once she was healed enough to waken, she bolted upright-wincing but not the same dreadful cries as before-and allied for Calypso.

"You! You're the boy! Where is Callie?" Norene asked.

"I-I don't know," Sol replied, trying to ease her back down. A few others nearby looked on in disdain at the rowdy patient.

"What am I doing in a medic tent-my side," Norene's hand brushed her wound, now a sore red patch on her side. "You-it's-Bibi!"

Norene jumped up, breaking whatever spell was keeping her aloft in the air as she fell to the floor with a thump. Getting up with just a bruised knee, she dashed to another patient. An older lady, also suffering from the ailment Sol couldn't begin to fathom that afflicted so many in the tent. "Grandma, are you okay? Why are you here you're supposed to be home!" Norene cried, placing her hand on the older woman's. "I-you-are you...?"

Sol recognized her pain, the fear of losing a loved one. He had felt the same thing when Lena stumbled home that night with siren's influenza and a nasty bite on her shoulder. He hoped Norene's story wouldn't end the same way as his...

...with a pain and a loss so terrible it scarred your heart.