The Star, The Demon, and The God - 40. Into Your Mind

Tobias

I frown and stare at the ceiling of my room.

“Tobias!” A voice calls.

“You need to wake up!”

Am I...imagining things? Is this the god who saved me?

“Tobi!”

No...definitely not. The voice is not the same though they do sound rather distant.

Am I hearing it outside?

I push my blankets off and move to my window.

Part of me thought that maybe I would find the god waiting in the shadows of the trees once again but sadly I am let down.

“Please come back to me! Don’t leave me here all alone!”

The edges of my vision turn grey for a moment.

Shaking my head, I concentrate on my surroundings.

A name comes to mind.

Luno.

Why does that sound so familiar? I know I have never met someone called that before.

The corners of my sights turn grey once again. The grey streaks sap up all the colors before they fall back once again.

What is happening? Am I going crazy?

Luno. Luno. Luno? I can somewhat see a face?

No not a face. I can think of a mess of snowy white curls though.

More streaks of grey fill in my left eye. When I close my right eye, I only see black and white.

They disappear once again.

Luno! The Star!

Wait a moment...I was on a quest! I think. Was I?

“Come on! Why won’t you wake up?” The voice says again. It’s Luno’s voice. He sounds like he is crying.

All of a sudden my vision becomes a complete world of black, white and grey. The world begins to fade and then everything begins to make sense again.

I was reliving a memory? That is what the pool did? Why?

“Do you want more answers?” A voice whispers into my ears.

The voice gives me goosebumps.

“Fear not. Let me guide thee through your past life. Is that not what you want? To learn about everything you had done? To learn what kind of person you were? Do you not wish to see how you had died at such a young age?”

That...that sounds exactly like what I want.

“Then stay,” The voice whispers. “Sleep and let me show you what you have craved for so long.”

“I can’t lose you too,” I hear Luno say in a muffled voice. “I’ve lost Mother and Enfi. Please don’t make me lose you so soon!”

Luno. I can’t leave him! He needs me!

“Of course not,” The voice teases into my ear. “He is a Star. He can handle himself. Come! Let me show you the events that led to your death. It is quite an interesting thing to see.”

Oh gods I so badly want to listen to this voice. I want to know everything about my past. I always assumed my family had died from some kind of war accident, but I had met Raiyo! Raiyo chose me to be his champion!

I am his champion!

How could I possibly pass up on this? How crazy of a death did I get simply from knowing the God of Vengeance?

All of that sounds so wonderful and everything that I have dreamed of...but...now I have a new dream.

My new dream that involves Luno and that requires being alive.

Whatever this voice is...I know it is evil. It is trying to tempt me back into that strange world of the past and I will ignore it.

Luno is my future and thinking about the past will only hold me back.

The fate of the world is in our hands and my thirst for the knowledge of my past will not be the reason we fail.

The black abyss that I find myself floating in begins to become brighter and brighter. It fills up with a warming light that drives away the darkness. It relieves my body of this strange heavy sensation that the pool had placed me under.

It is time to wake up.

~~~

The first thing I see when I open my eyes from the darkness are grey eyes. They are filled with tears and they stare down into mine.

Those same eyes widen in shock then Luno lurches forward and buries his face into my neck. He starts sobbing and holding onto me as if it’s for dear life.

His body heaves and shakes over mine and I barely realize what is going on!

It is freezing out here!

Am I sitting in water?

When I try to move, I groan at the spikes of pain that go throughout all of my body.

Luno gets off of me quickly and looks down at me with concern.

“Where does it hurt?” He asks with a serious tone.

Seeing him fight through his emotions so quickly is surprising to say the least.

I grit my teeth shut when I try to speak a word.

Gods what the hell is happening to me? Everything feels like the coldest of ice is seeping into my skin!

Hissing through my teeth, I close my eyes through the pain and clench my hands into fists.

Luno’s hands come over my chest and stomach. They are steady and determined.

A blossoming warmth spreads from where his hands are placed.

When I look into his eyes, I see that they are no longer grey. They are completely white and glowing!

Now I am not sure if I should be scared or not.

Why are his eyes glowing? That isn’t normal! Has something happened while I was gone?

The warmth spreading inside me completely fills me up from head to toe.

All the pain from before has completely washed away.

I let out a sigh of relief and I lean my head back.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

The glow in his eyes dies down until they are normal once again.

Luno’s body begins to shake again and he stares down at me with a sorrowful expression.

Taking my chances, I sit up and lift myself out of this nasty water.

“What’s wrong?” I ask and reach out for him.

I freeze when I look around us.

There are piles of steaming green bodies all around us. There is a lot of pink flesh as well from horrible burns. I notice that most of them have wings and I realize that these are the messed bodies of angels.

Who did this?

Looking behind me, I see the Sailor is resting against a fallen pale log. He has his sword thrust into the ground and uses it to rest his head.

Did he do all of this?

He is bleeding in several places and is even holding onto his eye.

He looks like he fought through hell and back so did he do all of this? What powers does he hold?

Why do I get the feeling that I’m wrong?

Luno still has not answered me.

When I look at him again, he bows his head, sniffs, then starts crying silently.

Pulling him close to me, I rub his back and let him cry against me.

I’m so confused! Why is he crying?

Did...did he do all of this?

“Luno,” I say gently. “Did you protect us all?”

He shakes his head and only pushes himself closer against me.

“No,” He says so quietly that I barely even hear him. “I killed them.”

Oh gods, he really did do all of this!

I knew he was powerful from the start but I had never seen him use his powers against others. Luno would always heal or block spells; sometimes he wouldn’t do anything at all!

“I remember you said that it would be hard to keep my promise,” He says. “You were right.”

Now I wish I had never said anything. I did not want him to turn this into some kind of ‘told you so’ moment. That was never my intention. I simply wanted to prepare for something like...whatever this was that happened.

“Are you alright?” I ask him. “Are you hurt? They didn’t hurt you did they?”

I have no idea what those weird colored angels would have done to us but I think it is safe to say that it would have been bad. Why else would have Luno broken his promise to never kill a living being?

“I’m okay,” Luno says, swallowing whatever bubble was in his throat. “I just...I can’t believe I did it! I hurt them! On purpose!”

“Luno,” I stop him. “You saved us. I may have been somewhere else but even I can tell you saved us all.”

He leans back and looks up at me. His eyes are pink and puffy right now.

I wonder how long I was out. It felt like days had gone back in that weird memory land.

Luno’s hands reaches up for my head and a small warmth reaches into my head.

“You almost died,” He says, his voice sounding like he is about to cry again. “You fell into that pool and when the Sailor pulled you out, you were so cold! I tried my best to keep you warm and bring more life into you, but then those scary angel corpses came!”

I almost died? Was I about to die in the middle of that strange memory? Angel corpses?

What the hell is going on in this world?

“Corpses,” I say to myself while looking at a pile of bodies close to us. “They were reanimated?”

Luno shrugs and hugs me tight. “I’m just glad you’re alive and well!”

Still a bit out of it, I hug him back and rub his back.

I notice the Sailor is still resting on his log and sword. His gloved hand is completely red with blood.

“Luno,” I say. “You may want to heal that up for him.”

~~~
~~~

Luno

I glance over my shoulder and gasp at the sight of the poor Sailor.

How is this spirit still alive? He is bleeding everywhere! It almost looks like someone threw a bucket of blood on him!

I make a move to leave but I stop when I realize I would have to leave Tobias here on the floor.

He gently pushes me and nods to the Sailor.

“Go,” He says and gives a reassuring smile. “I won’t be going anywhere this time. I promise.”

Biting my lip, I glance at him once more before squeezing Tobi’s hand and rushing over to the poor Spirit.

The Sailor jumps a bit when touch his arm.

“What do you want?” He grumbles and looks at me with one eye. He keeps the other one covered with his bloody hand.

“I need to heal you,” I say with worry. “You’re bleeding too much!”

The Sailor gives a low chuckle. “Don’t worry about me, little star. I’ll be just fine.”

Frowning at his words, I gently pull on his arm to try and get a better look at his eye. I know he had gotten cut pretty bad there from the Angels.

The Spirit growls slightly but does not fight back much when I move his hand.

I gasp when I see that his eye had been completely cut through.

“Yeah they barely even scratched me,” He says with sarcasm. “I’m serious though. You don’t need to heal me. I’ll be alright.”

I shake my head. “No this is awful and you’re in pain!”

He winces when he tries to move his legs to stand.

“Am not,” He says through gritted teeth.

Tobi laughs behind me. “Damn and I thought I was bad!”

I glare at him over my shoulder.

He isn’t helping!

“Just get the help, man,” Tobias says. “If you can’t walk well then we won’t get out of this shitty place for days.”

The wolf tries to stand again but he almost ends up falling over his log and into the water.

I help catch him in time thankfully but in the process, I ended up falling into the water!

Glaring at the spirit, I stand in front of him with my hands on my hips.

“Stop fighting back,” I narrow my eyes. “It will only take a few moments and then you won’t be bothered by me anymore!”

Tobias scoffs behind me.

“Yeah that’s a lie.”

Unbelievable!

He had literally almost died and he still makes fun of me right after!

Flicking my wrist, a splash goes off behind me followed by Tobias crying out in shock.

The Spirit Sailor sighs before looking up at me with his one eye.

He nods the go ahead for me to finally heal him.

Where do I even start? He is bleeding everywhere! Even on his legs!

“Come on then,” He huffs. “We don’t have all day.”

Let’s start from the bottom then.

I have him sit with his legs on top of the log and out of the water.

Tobias ended up having to help but thankfully he had recovered enough to do so.

There is a particularly bad cut to his knee that I get onto quickly. I press my hands to the wound and my magic pours into his skin. The area around the gash glows slightly. The blood that had been spilling out begins to seep back under his skin.

I have to do this multiple times.

Two on his other leg, four on one arm alone, six on his torso and an especially scary one on his back.

“I don’t think I have seen magic like this before,” The Sailor says after I finished one on his chest.

Tobias chuckles. “You should have seen what he did when I first met him. He brought a whole forest to life after it had burned down. Not only that, but he also brought my arm back!”

The wolf’s eyes widen at that and stares at Tobias’ bare arm in awe.

Yeah I kind of forgot about that…

I have only ever seen Tobias with both arms so I can’t exactly imagine him without either of them.

Now it is time for the part that I know the Sailor hates.

“I have to heal your eye,” I say. “I know you said you don’t want me to touch your head but for that I will need to.”

I can see the conflict in his eyes almost immediately.

What can I do to make him fight with this? The eyes are tricky! Based on how bad it looks, I can tell he is blind through it right now.

Why he hasn’t mentioned anything about it is a bit worrying.

“I will try and be quick,” I say with a smile. “I swear nothing wrong will happen.”

He stares at me without saying a word though I can tell he simply can’t think of any to say.

“I-I’ll be fine,” He stammers. “Let’s just get moving now. I can walk.”

Tobias stays next to me to block the Sailor from moving.

“So you would be stupid enough to keep your eye like that?” Tobias scoffs. “Really? Why are you so scared to let him touch you? He healed you everywhere else already!”

The Sailor said I looked like someone.

Well he didn’t, but I could tell that was what he was getting at.

I rest my hands on his shoulders and stare into his eyes.

“Whoever you think I look like, I can promise you I am nothing like them. I won’t hurt you! I can promise you that!”

He shakes his head. “It isn’t that.”

He pauses and looks like he is thinking about sharing whatever is bugging him so much, but in the end he bows his head in defeat.

“Do it,” He says.

Not wanting to let this chance go to waste and we end up at square one all over again, I quickly sit next to him and place hands over his eye and his cheek.

For his eye, I will have to figure out exactly what damage has been done inside.

I will also be checking his inner auras and other energies to see if anything has been damaged.

It is always best to double check after a traumatic event.

Now it should be known that I have only ever tried these things with animals.

I have healed plenty of their blind eyes and broken emotions, but I have never done it with other beings…

This will be a new experience for both of us!

The Spirit Sailor stares at me through his other eye. I can feel the pain and sadness blossoming as he watches me.

Why? Why does this hurt him mentally so badly?

I...I am going to figure it out through his memories; after I finish the eye of course.

As it turns out, it is almost exactly the same! Where I would normally see the damaging cloud in the eye, I can see the tears of whatever weapon had slashed through the Sailor’s eye.

I focus on closing those tears and reverse any damage that was done.

Blood seeps back into his eye socket and sure enough, his eye is healed.

Since his eye is covered right now, he does not know this yet.

I now take this moment to figure out what is going on with this spirit.

Closing my eyes, I slip into the flowing waters of his mind. It looks like his colors are gold and orange.

Well those would be nice if they all weren’t filled with so many depressing emotions.

I swear this is almost as bad as Raiyo’s! The main difference would be that there isn’t a single drop of rage. Also, Raiyo’s mind was like a cloud of smoke that had sprouted from a fire. But like the Sailor’s, beneath his fire was a cold sadness.

Frowning, I begin to see pictures. They are moving memories that the Sailor has held close to him.

A snowy night clears up from the waters. Snow gently drifts down into a white forest.

I can’t quite tell what is going on, but I believe the Sailor is strapped to a tree?

Wait...are those bodies on the ground?

Someone steps out of the shadows of the forest and slowly walks closer. They wear a hooded cloak and they hold a black bow with gold patterns in their hands.

Oh my gods!

It’s Lleros!

He walks up to the Sailor and peers up at him. He looks so short based on what the point of view is showing.

The memory fades and then another takes its place.

A beautiful forest of many colors and plants comes into view.

I swear it looks somewhat familiar!

The Sailor’s hand can be seen being pulled by Lleros. He constantly glances back and smiles up at the Sailor.

Was...was Lleros the Spirit Sailor’s friend?

Colors seem to splash onto Lleros’ hair from different colored wisps.

Reds, blues, greens. They make the place look so beautiful!

Something stops all thoughts when a new feeling comes into play.

A sweet burning sensation spreads across my chest as the Sailor’s eyes remain on Lleros; even when he is staring at the back of his head.

No...not friends. More than that.

The memory fades and then I find myself fighting a blush as I find Lleros completely in my vision.

He is on the Sailor’s lap and his hands hover over the Sailor’s face. He also holds a shy smile.

“May I?” He asks in that strange accent I have never heard of before.

“Of course,” Another voice answers.

It takes me a moment to realize it was the Sailor.

He sounds so different now!

All of sudden Lleros begins to run his fingers along the Sailor’s face. They wander over every detail as if they are trying to trace it out.

Well that’s...strange.

Wait a moment.

Oh. I...I see now.

I see why the Sailor did not want me to touch his face.

Because Lleros and I look so much alike, it is bringing him pain when I touch him. He does not want it to be me. He wants Lleros.

The question now is where is Lleros? What happened to him?

A voice calls my name and it ends up pulling me out of the Sailor’s head.

Blinking away tears I didn’t realize I had, my vision clears enough to see that I have been moved!

Tobias has me behind his back and he holds his weapon out.

Frowning in confusion, I follow his gaze and I gasp when I see what has him so riled up.

“Luno,” Tobias grits out. “What the fuck did you do now?”