Chapter Fifty-One - Up to Something

Emily was, naturally, worried about what her sisters were up to. She was second-guessing having Trinity split up the way she did. It meant that she didn't have any easy way to communicate with all of her sisters at once. At the same time, if she didn't, it might mean splitting them unevenly, which might also mean a critical mass of trouble would be concentrated in one spot.

Her sisters could, individually, get up to a lot of trouble. As a group, that trouble was magnified tenfold for each additional sister. They were very good at reinforcing each other's bad habits that way.

She had to have some confidence that they wouldn't burn the hospital down while she wasn't watching over their every move, otherwise there was no hope that Emily could ever live an even moderately normal life.

"Miss The Boss?" one of the HRF agents asked. She was by the hospital's entrance, kind of awkwardly standing to one side in the same room as the kiosk the HRF had set up, but far enough from it that she had a plausible excuse not to walk over to Glamazon to greet her.

Besides, Athena and Trinity were keeping the table distracted already. The kiosk was doing a signing event of some sort, selling overpriced, generic merch with signs above claiming that all of the proceeds went right back to the hospital. It was the only way Emily could think of justifying the prices she saw.

"Sorry," Emily said with a shake of her head. "What were you saying?"

"Soothe-Sayer is here," the agent said. "He's waiting outside and preparing. Did you want to meet him?"

"Sure," Emily said before she started to follow the agent. "Um... so, who is Soothe-Sayer? They're... he's a hero?"

The agent nodded. "It's not surprising that you haven't heard of them. Soothe-Sayer has been with the HRF for three years now. They're one of our very best heroes, but they don't take on any combat-related jobs."

"Oh?" Emily asked.

The agent nodded. "They have a power that lets them help people in hospitals. So they're constantly rotating between cities and hospitals. They're a great example of a selfless hero."

"Oh. A healer?" she asked.

"No, not quite," the agent said, but he didn't go into any further detail.

They stepped outside into the bright sun, and Emily squinted. There was a recreational vehicle, one of those mobile homes, parked out front. It was all-black, with a subtle HRF symbol painted on the sides.

The agent led her over to the RV, then left her there, alone, to greet the man stepping out of the vehicle.

Emily looked up, then up some more. "Uh, hi," she squeaked.

Her dad was a big man. He was six and a bit feet tall, and built wide. His work had kept him fit, even if he'd grown a beer belly.

Soothe-Sayer had a few inches on her dad, and was bigger besides. A lot of that size was muscle. He was wearing a pastel sweater over clean slacks, but the sweater looked like it was straining to stay on his muscular frame.

He blinked down at Emily, then smiled. Soothe-Sayer was only wearing a domino mask that covered half of his face, and Emily imagined that his identity wasn't all that well hidden. She didn't imagine that many tall, dark-skinned, goatee'd people were hanging around. Still, he was dressed like the host of a kid's show, and he almost immediately slouched his shoulders a little. "Sorry, didn't see you there," he said.

"It's fine," Emily replied quickly.

Soothe-Sayer had a rich, deep voice, soft and rumbly, and Emily imagined that if he wanted to, he could easily launch a career as a singer. There was something about his voice that just made her listen.

"You must be the Boss? Right, right. Give me just a second, I need to grab my coat and the plushies!" Soothe-Sayer reached back into the RV and pulled out a long patchwork coat. It looked like a blanket Emily had at home, one that her grandmother had quilted a long time ago, but as a coat with dozens of pockets.

It seemed terribly unheroic, as far as a costume went.

He moved over to the side of the RV, then popped open a storage box on its side. "When I visit the kid's wing, I always bring some of these with me," he said in the tone of someone admitting a dark secret. "They get so annoyed with me when I hand too many of these out." He pulled out a small plush version of Quantum Mothman and wiggled it about.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"They? The HRF?" Emily asked. She accepted the plushie as he handed it to her.

"Yup. It's official merch, you know?" Soothe-Sayer grinned as he started loading his pockets full. "But I don't care. The kids remember their favourite heroes. It gives them hope, you know? And I think that's the most important part of what we're doing here."

"Right," Emily agreed. Then she stepped back quickly as Soothe-Sayer stood up and hefted a large bag over his shoulder. It was lumpy and strange, and very clearly filled with more plushies and dolls.

"I was told this was your first time?" Soothe-Sayer said as he started to walk towards the hospital.

"Um, yes?" Emily tried. She had to walk quick to keep up, he had a much longer stride than her own.

Soothe-Sayer glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "It's a nice thing to do. So, in case no one else tells you, thank you."

"Oh, uh, thanks," Emily said. She felt her cheeks warming up, then glanced away while hoping no one would notice. "So, uh, the agent said you weren't a healer?" she tried. It wasn't her best attempt at small talk, but it was far from her worst.

Soothe-Sayer sighed, and the sound immediately made Emily feel like an utter failure for a moment before he glanced at her and chuckled. "No, no, I'm not a healer," he said. "My powers are a blessing though. Or at least, that's how I like to see them."

"Oh, that's nice," Emily said. She frowned. Was his power messing with her emotions?

"I can make people feel things by talking to them," he confirmed right away, before she could even ask. "It's more of an amplification, really, and it doesn't last more than a second or two. But! But there is one big use. I can talk people out of their pain."

"I... don't know if I understand," Emily said.

"People suffer. People hurt. In places like these most of all. I can't heal them, but I can give them a kind word, and maybe for a day or two, the pain goes away, and when it returns, sometimes it's not so bad." He glanced her way and grinned. "So that's what I do. I go around, I chat, I do what I can to listen and help, and maybe at the end of the day, more people are happier than they would have been otherwise."

Emily swallowed. That power sounded more like a curse to her than anything else. Having to talk to people? That was asking for a lot. But... he did make it sound very... not heroic. She wasn't sure what word to use to describe it, exactly. Kind?

"We'll start with the children's wing, if that's alright," Soothe-Sayer said. "I like doing them first and last. Some kids are a little shy, they take some time to gather up the courage to come and talk."

"That's... okay," Emily said.

"Fantastic!"

She expected to just walk on over to the other end of the hospital, but to her horror, that didn't happen so easily. Soothe-Sayer was immediately distracted by an older lady with a walker who needed a little bit of help, then he went to a nurse's station and complained with them at length about the quality of hospital coffee, and then he found an older gentleman in a wheelchair and they talked about the weather for a full two minutes.

Emily felt like she was ten years younger, trailing after her dad again as he met up with old friends and repeated the same joke over and over.

At last, they made it to the children's wing, and Soothe-Sayer took a deep breath as if psyching himself up before he burst through the door. "Melaton! You old stinker, what kind of boring things are you reading to these bright little heroes today?" he asked, his voice booming across the room.

The kids jumped, momentarily scared of the big man, then he softened.

"Now, I know old lady Melaton's a fantastic story-teller," he said, his voice like smooth, comforting silk as he took in all the children. "But I have something even better up my sleeve."

With a big, goofy smile, he reached into his coat's sleeve, then rooted around for a while, biting the tip of his tongue as he did. Then, with a flourish, he revealed an upside-down Melaton plushie. "Taa-daa!"

Emily wasn't sure what to think of that man, but she had the impression that she was meeting a real hero for the first time. Not a crime fighter or a glory-hound, but someone who did what they could to make the lives of others just a little better.

***