An the center of a sandy arena stood a mob of people in armour. In the middle they created a circular space within where stood a girl in red leather armour pteruges and a sheathed kopis. Infront of the girl was boy with a bloodied face and covered in sand, which as you guessed, (drumroll) was Droy. He laid there on the ground unconcious.
After the goodnight knee from Amara or as the warriors of sparta called her, "Amazon", the crowd started dispersing while talking among themselves, criticizing the fight with random comments such as:
"He could have done better...Amara clearly lowered her strength"
"I actually felt like he did well, that liver strike was enough to send him to Morpheus [1]"
"I dont know if its just me or its just that i miss some action but at the near end of the fight i felt my blood boil... I almost pulled out my rapier."
"Yeeeeeah.....Thats probably the Wreck-it Ralph curse the Apollo kids put on you for calling the Oracle a liar at the costume party two weeks ago. Anyway..gotta train for the monster tides and the Warzone Event guys."
" I told you guys, I meant lyre, because she was dressed as a harp." yelled the boy with short messy curly hair trying to defend himself.
"Yeeeeah, you know no one is gonna believe that. Anyway gotta train for the monster tides and the upcoming Warzone event."
"Blockheads are never gonna understand high iq jokes. sigh" he said in a low voice as the crowd dispersed.
***
Back at the center of the arena a group of four blonde-haired teens could be seen running towards Droy. Who was still lying on the sandy ground apparently.
This group of kids were the Apollo kids from Delphi city state. They were healers. Delphi and Delios were the patron cities of Apollo. Children of the gods had their god-parent's specialization thus the children of Apollo had abilities of prophecy, healing, plague and diseases, curses, music, poetry, achery among others.
Although some gods had disputes among themselves, each city-state had an embassy in another city-state allowing the gods to stand together and unite against an outside threat like the Norse invasion two years ago. The Oracle in Sparta, (the lyre/liar girl, i see you remember) is a good example. This was one of Apollo's favourite after Oracle of Delhi as most of the times something interesting would happen in the regions of Ares. Apollo just could help but give them that sweet prophecy. Two years ago she was the one to give the Norse invasion prophecy.
Anyway back to the arena. Leading the team of healers was a daughter of Apollo named Ryuer, she was the eldest in her group around twenty two years with long blonde hair falling like a waterfall upto her mid-back. She wore big pink frame clear-glass goggles and behind them a pair of big beautiful curious eyes. She was 1.6m (5"4')tall with an oval shaped face. She had this kind look and around her was a calm air. She wore a prestine white labcoat on blue hospital uniforms along with unblemished white rubber shoes.
"Hello Amara." She greeted amara as her team of three worked on Droy under her supervision.
"Hello Ryuer." Amara greeted her back.
The girl carrying a red first-aid box took a satchet from it, tore of a corner and squeezed its contents into Droy's still wide open mouth.
"Seems like a new guy. Judging by the fact that he hasn't woken up yet even after admission of Zaffe his body is weak and cant process it easily." Ryuer said to Amara with a smile.
"Sorry...didn't mean to save you from Asa's poetry lessons." Amara replied.
"Yeah I'll have to thank you for that...Gred, Seth... Take him to the arena clinic. Melanie, administer 15ml Zaffe."
The two boys who appeared to be twins put Droy on the stretcher and headed towards the colloseum's hospital through the tunnel in the colloseums wall like where players come from in football games with Melanie tagging along behind them.
"There once was a man in Peru
who dreamed he was eating a shoe
he woke up with a terrible fright
and found that the dream was true...
can you imagine that was todays poem. Gods save us from Asa's toture." Ryuer started a conversation as she watched her team heading for the clinic.
Noticing that Amara didnt reply she looked at her and found Amara with deep in thought staring towards Droy's direction.
"Hey, is anything the matter?" Ryuer asked Amara holding her shoulder to bring her back to reality.
"uhm...no..no..sorry about that, its just that new guy, Droy, I have to check something. I'll tag along to the hospital. Anyway you were saying something?"
"No..Never mind. Lets go then. I have some inquiries for the hospital anyway so I'll give you a list of them."
Ryuer and Amara headed for the clinic talking about some things. Although they were not best of friends they had many interactions. It had to be known the number of people that Amara brought to her was not small. They ranged from wounded, unconcious and traumatized people, but since the two leaders of Sparta, that is, Leonidas and Kratos had gone for a mission, she and a few other officials had to step up and distribute the leaders' among themselves so it had been a long time since they had (how to put it) interacted.
After a brief talk on the way towards the clinic, they had finally arrived in the room with a dozen bed where Droy lay on one of them. Beside droys bed stood Melanie who was currently lifting his eyelids and shining a torch in his eyes.
"He still isn't waking up but his vitals are stable.", Melanie said as he noticed that Ryuer had entered.
"I saw this coming. The first time is always the hardest. His body is still weak physically compared to the others as he is fresh from the mortal realm, his body is also processing the zaffe at a slow rate but after this it will get used to the zaffe and process it at normal speed and lastly his mind may be in his peaceful place trying to make sense and adapting to the new world of gods before his eyes. So basically he is adapting to changes. It is natural, happens all the time. Now all of you go get some rest, you all did well today." Ryuer said to her trainees Melanie, Gred and Seth.
"Oh I just forgot something important."Ryuer said. The three turned and looked at her. Then she said with a serious face. "Avoid the poet. You may leave."
The three teenage healers were relatively new as they hadn't stayed in Sparta for long. They came from the mortal realm around five weeks prior, got some healing lessons for two weeks in Delphi then dispatched to the Delphian Sparta embassy to complete their healing arts studies with Ryuer as their teacher.
They left with a puzzled look thinking what Ryuer could have meant by that. Today was one of those rare days they would have a lot of free time. Every time they had time they would try to familiarize themselves with Sparta and try something new like the fighting lessons, strategy lessons, carving, among other Spartarish things. They would as well as try to study other specialties of their father from the other ambassadors from their fathers regions like archery and playing the harp which were the only things they had done so far.
_____
Back in the clinic Amara was starting at Droy lying on the bed peacefully with his face all cleaned up with a serious gaze. Suddenly she walked towards him and caught the hem of his white t-shirt that had some blood drops on the chest area and dirt all over. After a bit of hesitation she lifted it under the scrutiny of Ryuer who was confused by her actions.
Pulling it up she revealed a pack of four abs and a broad chest but that did not attract her attention at all. Rather it was the red tatoo on his left chest.
"Ryuer can you remove his shirt." Amara requested of Ryuer. Hearing this the latter looked at Amara suspiciously probably having some misled thoughts but after looking at Droys chest she got an idea of what Amara was aiming for. She picked a pair of scissors which she used to vertically cut Droy's shirt in the middle, removing it.
Droy's torso was now bare on display, bragging four abs and a heavy broad chest. It had no effect for the girls though. Ryuer had seen better as she was used to injured warriors that she had to take their shirt of and Amara, well Amara just didn't care. She was busy looking at the red tatoo which had completely drawn her in.
Ryuer knew some general knowledge about the tatoos of the Spartan warriors which they all had. The more tatoos one had reflected their strength. Some loved displaying them some didn't. It depended on how much Hollywood was in a warrior. The one she was looking at though was a new one but that was to be expected because she didn't have deep knowledge on the subject.
The red tatoo on his chest depicted patterns and swirls that could not be discerned that formed a ring of clear skin on which was a sideview Spartan helmet with a plume running from the front of the head to the back. Looking on his shoulder was a Greek decorative border of the meandros pattern.Inside it, above the shoulder on his deltoid was the head of an angry boar amid flames that didn't seem to burn it.
Ryuer had to admit it was one beautiful tatoo but what she couldn't understand was the look on Amara's face. She looked shocked excited and afraid all at the same time. But then she spoke.
"This...This is the Harbinger Tattoo." She said with a low tone, her eyes still glued to the tattoo.
******
[1] Morpheus- Greek god of dreams.
HAPPY NEW YEAR ..I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD AND BLESSED 2021 AND WILL HAVE AN EVEN BETTER 2022...LOOKING FOWARD TO 2022 WITH ALL MY READERS OLD AND NEW...LOVE YOU ALL GUYS