Bike

Sol watched Sam set down the groceries while Mo wrote down a note reminding himself to take the cost of them off Sam’s rent later that month. Then they ate dinner, and it was about time for Sam to go upstairs and settle in.

Even though Sol had his own key and his own room, he followed Sam upstairs when she announced that she was going to go to bed.

His room felt so... empty, and after the short while sitting alone when Sam left for Mosel, he realized he didn't like rooming alone. He was quite aware of the fact that he didn't have any possessions to his name, apart from the hat and clothes Sam had bought for him. After his trip to the city, he was beginning to understand the hidden rules that seemed to dictate every social interaction.

Everything had a price, and when something was free, there was always a reason why. The bike was free because the old man didn't need it anymore, because he didn’t ride it. His room was free because there were no other patrons that would pay for the vacancies. Even Alice, who had the kindest smile and the gentlest demeanor, had to justify the donuts she gave him, after all, they would go bad if she didn't give them to him. So, it was no loss, right?

Of course, those people were still kind, Sol knew that. But they all felt as if they needed to explain the kindness. It couldn't go unsaid, that’s just not the way the world is.

Well, except for Sam.

All her generosity almost always contained a cost. She offered to pay for a room for him before Mo exempted it. She took him out of that forest, and she paid for his clothes.

That is what Sol was thinking when Sam opened her door and held it open for him, seeming to read his mind, realizing he didn’t want to go back to his room alone.

“Are you sure?” Sol asked.

“Of course.”

~

Sam woke up as brightness slowly started to fill the room through the window. This time she was up before Sol. The walking yesterday must have exhausted him.

He was still fast asleep on the neatly folded blankets Sam had stacked up for him the day before. He seemed to run hot. She had used most of the spare blankets to create a makeshift cushion on the ground for him to sleep on. She saved one for him to use if he got cold that night, but it was still folded neatly right next to him.

Sam had promised that she would help Sol find out who he is, where he came from, and anything else she could, but honestly, if someone had been looking for him, she would have expected to have heard something about it by this point. Someone should have put up signs and Mo certainly should have heard news of it by now. But no one had reported anyone missing.

On top of that, when Sol came with her to Mosel and Applewood, she had asked a few people there if anyone had heard of him, and no one had. At this point she didn’t know where to look next.

Oh well. He’s safe. He’s being looked after. Someone will come look for him soon. In the meantime, Sam had work to do. Rituals needed to be resumed tonight, which meant she would have to spend the morning preparing. She got up and crossed the room as quietly as she could.

She sat down at her desk and pulled out the leather-bound book and opened to the page corresponding to the ritual she would be performing tonight. She got her scale from its spot on her shelf and began to make measurements.

Not everything could be prepped ahead of time, some ingredients were volatile and would degrade if prepared early. Sam had notes in her bag from one of her college courses about what could be prepared ahead of time, and what ingredients couldn’t. For this ritual though, she didn’t need a reference sheet, she had done it many times on her assignment already. So, one by one, she prepared her reagents.

She measured each ingredient carefully with her scale and placed them into small pots that could be traveled with. Whole reagents like stalks of specific plants and flowers could be stored without much trouble loose in a bag, but once they were ground, pulverized and whatever else she often needed to do to them, many of them became more of a hassle to deal with.

Finally, she got out her small pouch of orange core crystals. These came pre-cut into small cubes of exactly one gram. They were processed in a factory with advanced cutting equipment, not because they were particularly difficult to cut, but because of how volatile they were. Sam wouldn't be processing these in her office. They needed to be ground into a fine dust to properly release all their energy, but it needed to be done at the ritual site. Once they began to break down into smaller pieces, their energy needed to be directed into the ritual immediately. Otherwise, they would release their energy on their own, and in the case of the core crystals, often with dramatic effect. Sam counted out five of the small cubes and placed them carefully in a container to be used at the ritual site.

After a while, Sam heard Sol groan and start to move around behind her. “Good morning sunshine.”

Sol let out a huge yawn before uncurling himself and sticking his arms and legs out stiffly like starfish. “Good morning,” he said as he got up, and peered out the window. “Kinda... dim out today.”

“That it is,” Sam agreed and carefully packed all the ingredients she had been measuring back into a case, and then into her bag. “This afternoon I’m going to be doing the ritual that fixes that. Do you want to come?”

“Yeah!” He said and then stretched one more time. “When are we going?”

“We’ll go this evening. You don't want to do this one too early in the day. I thought maybe we could get you on that bike of yours, get some practice in before we go into town again.”

Sol was very excited at the prospect of that. He rushed into the bathroom and put on his clothes, before him and Sam went downstairs to eat a quick breakfast and then finally went outside.

~

Sam thought about how Sol’s coordination was much better than that first day in the woods as she took out her helmet from the chest in front of the inn und handed it over to Sol. His walk to Mosel apparently helped him find his legs again. Well, that didn’t stop her from being nervous as she watched Sol straddle the bike. He looked awfully wobbly when he tried to take even just one leg off the ground.

“Alright Sol, so first thing I want you to do is just push with your legs.”

“Like this?” he asked while waddling himself forward.

“Yes! Just like that, and while you’re doing it, try to turn the handlebars in one direction or another and get a feel for it. You should notice that turning in the same direction that you’re leaning works, and the other way…”

Well, he found out. Sol turned the handlebars to the left and leaned to the right and found himself in a comically slow fall to the ground, where he now lay splayed on the young grass of the inn’s lawn, looking flustered. Then a smile spread across his face and he said, “Well not that way then, I suppose.” They both laughed, and Sam helped him up and he got right back up on the bike.

Sol kept at it, and the falls became less and less frequent as he was becoming more stable shuffling his was around the grass.

He started pushing himself around on the dirt roads instead, being able to keep his momentum so that he could pick his feet up and go in straight lines and arcing turns. Sam was impressed with his determination.

“You’re going to have this in no time. I’ll be honest, I was expecting it to take a few days, but I think we’ll have you pedaling around by the end of the afternoon.”

Sol beamed. “Well, I was thinking, if I can get the hang of it quick enough, that means I could go down to the market sometime and go with you to Mosel next time you head up there without it being as much of a hassle.”

Sam nodded. “You know, I bet if you asked Mo, he could probably put you to work fetching supplies from Applewood and doing some other things, so you could have some money of your own to use at the market, or whatever else you want to do”

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That was all Sol needed to hear to insist he was ready to start pedaling. “Maybe I could go tomorrow!” he was saying hopefully while feeling out one of the pedals with his foot.

Sam raised an eyebrow. His progress had been fast, but she wasn’t sure about that. Nevertheless, she bent down and showed him the chain and pedal system of the bike, spinning the pedal while she picked up the back wheel of the bike to show him the motion. She also showed him the brake. Several times. “Just remember, if you’re going too fast, you should squeeze this, and it will slow you down.

With a focused look in his eyes, Sol began by shuffling along, and then pushed off and managed to get his feet up on the pedals. His face lit up and he started whooping as he pedaled past Mo's inn and continued down the road.

Sam cheered, “Nice job, Sol!” Mo came outside after hearing the commotion and started clapping for him to also show his support.

He went down the road a few buildings, before sticking his feet out and coming to a stop. “Did you see that?” he called out, obviously proud of himself. He shuffled his bike around to be face back towards Mo and Sam, and then began pedaling again. He raced past them, faster than before, and came to the point where the road started to turn down slightly.

“Remember to use your brakes!” Sam called out to him, but it fell on deaf ears. He tried to stick his feet out to stop himself, which had worked perfectly fine for him when he was going slower, but at this new speed it threw him off balance. The bike tried to jerk to the left and he overcompensated by turning the handlebars to the right.

Sam put out her hands as if to catch him, even though he was a block away. She ran over to where the bike had keeled over and spit Sol off and onto the ground.

Sol didn't stay down for very long, he got up, groaned, and then stared down at his hands while he dazedly shuffled in the direction of Sam. who was almost to him now.

“Are you alright?” she asked as she reached out for his left hand, which had been the one he had fallen on and took the blunt of the force. His hand was badly scraped, with dirty bloody gouges where rocks that had been hiding in the dusty dirt road had dragged across his palms. His wrist also hurt, but luckily other than that, he appeared to be in good shape.

The first thing Sol asked when he was done being stunned was, “Wait, are my clothes alright?” He pulled his hand away from Sam to check his new pants for damage. They were a little bit dirty but didn't have any holes in them to his relief.

Sam laughed to herself, seeing how Sol so casually responded to being injured, but worried about his clothes.

Mo had already gone inside, presumably to get some bandages. “Come on, let’s get you patched up,” Sam said and led him into the inn.

Sam wouldn't admit it, but she was excited to apply one of the first-aid remedies she had been reading up on. She made Sol go into the bathroom and wash his hands while she gathered up some supplies. “Mo, do you have any red meat? Fresh, preferably.”

“Uh yeah I do,” he said skeptically.

“Oh, and a potato.”

“A potato?” He hesitated for another moment, and then shrugged and made his way back into the kitchen to get what she had asked for. Sam ran upstairs to grab a couple things from her bag. She ran back downstairs with her scale and her reagent bag. She saw both things she had asked for on the table and asked, “Were the potatoes washed?” Mo confirmed, and Sam got to work.

She carefully cut off pieces of the potato and the steak Mo had brought her, then used a couple different tools on the ingredients until she was left with a little bowl of slightly pinkish mush.

She also collected a very small piece of clear quartz from her reagent bag and used a small chisel with her scale to ensure she had precisely the amount she needed.

After a minute of Sam working, Sol shifted awkwardly in his stool, holding his palm up from the table. “So, why can't we just use the first aid kits, those Peter’s protections ones, like the ones you used out is in the woods when I scraped my knee?”

“Well,” Sam said while carefully positioning the ingredients onto a cast iron disc in front of her. “We could, but those kits are expensive because they refine the ingredients so the shelf life can be longer. From what I read, apparently, making the remedy from scratch can yield better healing results as well.”

“Have you done this before? Not a lot of confidence behind that apparently,” Mo said jokingly, with doubt in his voice.

“Well, I haven’t done it myself... But after finding Tim... I studied up a bit more on medical spells. Both Mo and Sol stayed quiet after the comment. The silence didn't last long though, because Sam was finishing up. “Alright, last thing I need is some water.”

As Mo got up and went to the kitchen to fill a cup, Sam looked back over to Sol. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine, sorry to be such a big fuss, it really isn't that bad.”

Sam smiled. “It’s really no problem. You could have probably guessed it, but I wanted someone to practice this on in a situation that wasn’t too serious.”

“Ahh so I’m the test subject then? That makes sense,” Sol said and grinned back at her.

Mo returned with the cup of water. Sam focused, not wanting to redo all her preparations. She took the clear quartz she had measured and began pulverizing it into dust. It let off a feint heat as she continued, and started to glow, if just slightly. She then quickly dumped it onto the pinkish paste and started mixing. At first nothing appeared to happen, but as she kept mixing the quartz into the blend, the paste began to change color. The pale pinkish color from began to become more and more vibrant. First to a lively pink you might find on a carnation, until finally it settled as a vibrant unnatural fuchsia.

While she was mixing, she directed Sol to put his hand next to the plate where she could easily access it. “Alright, here we go... She scooped the fuchsia mixture with the ceramic stirring spoon and placed it onto Sol’s slightly bloody palm.

“Oh, that’s very warm” Sol remarked.

“That’s good... That's why we need the water” Sam wrapped a clean bandage around his palm and then gestured to Mo for the cup of water. Tell me if it gets too hot alright?” She said while slowly starting to pour the water over his hand.

All three of them stared at Sol’s hand over the course of the next couple minutes. The bright pink slowly began to fade. Sam had Mo get two more cups of water because the reaction was a bit hotter than she had expected. The wet bandage got more and more pale until finally it settled to be chalky white.

“Are you feeling any more heat?”

“No, I think it’s just cool now.”

“Well, that means we're done. are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah… Super. I can’t feel pretty much any pain at all at this point.”

Sam started taking the bandage off his hand, revealing a goopy white paste. “Now you should just need to wash it off. Be gentle, the skin will be raw.” Mo and Sam resisted the urge to follow nim over to the sink, instead just curiously staring in his direction, waiting for him to come back.

When he came back, he had his hand stuck out in front of him and he was staring at it. The gouges in his hand had completely disappeared. The only sign anything had been wrong was that it was slightly red, as if it were slightly irritated.

“Well, I'll be.” Mo said staring down at it. “That's darn impressive Sam, this town is lucky to have you around.”

“Thank you,” Sol said to Sam. They all stared at his hand for a bit longer, and as they watched, even the redness began to fade. Sam looked at Sol and joked, “Maybe don't take the bike all the way over to Applewood tomorrow, a couple more day’s practice might do you some good.”