SOLOMON

            Solomon peered out of the wooden tree palace at Foretree City. The sun was rising and the rays of light cast beautiful patterns of leaves and fruits onto the forest floor. Foretree would always be home to him.

            He turned away from the open window and climbed up a rope ladder and onto the roof of his room. Sceptile was waiting for him, basking in the morning sun. Solomon’s Spirit Pokémon always preferred to sleep outside.

“Wake up, boy,” he said. Sceptile opened one lazy eye, then shut it again. They had arrived late last night, too late to wake his lord father, the King of the Foretree Kingdom, David Forrest. “Come on, father will want to see us.” Sceptile coiled its tail of leaves around Solomon in playful fashion, squeezing him. Finally, the Pokémon woke up and followed Solomon back down the ladder and into the wooden palace.

            The entire city of Foretree, capitol of its Kingdom, had been built in the trees. Most families had a small hut atop a tree that they lived in, but the Forrest family had an expansive home built upon multiple trees. The often many-storied rooms were connected to each other by swaying wooden and rope bridges. Foretree itself was the largest city in all of Hoenn when it came to area covered, but it was not the largest population.

            As Solomon walked across a bridge light on his feet with Sceptile he marveled at the tall towers of the palace. At first glance, they appeared to be massive trees… but they were only made to look that way. As he approached the main wooden keep that was supported by fifty gigantic redwoods, he remembered that Foretree was originally established as a military outpost. The majority of small folk that fell under the direct rule of his family lived in small clearings in the deep forest. It was there that they farmed what they could, namely fruits and berries. Foretree itself was one sprawling, gigantic wooden fortress.

            He entered the wooden great hall, and found his father’s seat empty. The throne of Foretree was a large branch itself, which seemed to grow through the floor of the wooden hall.

            “He must not be up yet,” Solomon said to Sceptile. The city and castle was quiet this morning. He had passed a few servants and guards on his way to the main keep, all with somber looks that seemed to cheer up when they saw their Prince.

            Solomon was climbing up a winding wooden stair carved into a branch of the tallest tree when he met his family’s medicine woman, Bessie.

            “Oh, Solomon, I was just on my way to your chambers. I had heard you returned in the night while the fortress slept.”

            “You heard correct.” Solomon could sense the doubt in her voice. “Is it father? How much worse has he gotten?”

            Bessie looked down at her folded hands. “Follow me,” she said.

            Sceptile let out a low grumble of concern as they followed Bessie up the winding stair and into the solar of his father. The round room had windows open in all directions. To the east, the sun had begun to climb over the clouds. To the west, at the edge of the horizon, the trees of the Kingdom turned into a faint orange line of desert. There was a huge, soft bed in the center of the room, and on a small stand next to it, was a crude painting made of berry juices and dyes. The painting of a woman and an Absol. Next to the picture was a thin crystal crown that sparkled in the morning sunlight.

            David Forrest himself sat in a rocking chair, with a blanket over his legs, and bandages on his arms. The old King was often sickly now. A disease had crept up from his legs, paralyzing him, and his eyes were growing dull. 

            At the sound of Solomon’s footsteps, his father opened his eyes at no one in particular. “Solomon?” he asked in a quiet whisper. “Come close and speak with me. My body may be growing weak but my mind is still strong.”

            Solomon took a seat on a stool and peered under the blanket. His father’s legs had thinned significantly since the last time he saw them, three months previously. The prince sighed and placed his hand on his father’s arm.

            Sceptile, however, took a more active approach, he excitedly laid its head in the sick King’s lap as the old man chuckled and scratched the back of its neck.

            “Where is your Spirit Pokémon, father?” he asked.

            “He’s gone to fetch the fruit,” David Forrest responded. “My special fruit.”

            Bessie spoke up from behind them. “It’s the fruit and the treatment that keeps the sickness at bay,” she said. “But he can no longer climb the stairs to his throne.”

            “I’m not long for this world, there’s no need to remind me, Bessie,” the King said, not unhappily. “Tell me, my son, how was the wedding? I’m sorry I was unable to attend. How is Susan? And where is my little Beautifly?”

            Solomon smiled. “Susan was beautiful, father. She was radiant as the sun.”

            His father slowly turned his head to the nightstand with the painting and the crystal ringlet. “I told her to take her mother’s crown for the wedding.”

            Solomon silently nodded and remembered his mother. She had died after a fever had taken hold of her. There had been complications with his youngest sister, Caitlyn’s birth. The Lady Forrest had lost too much blood. Bessie and the other nurses had tried to nurse her back to health, but after two weeks had passed, all fight of life had gone out from her. “Mother would have been proud,” he said finally.

            David Forrest just smiled as his half-blind eyes looked out the window. “She was there, I know. The ghosts of Pokémon aren’t the only ones to find their way to Mt. Pyre…” The king squinted and looked around. “Where is my little, Beautifly, did you say?”

            “Susan had requested that Caitlyn stay with her and her husband until she’s acquainted to Chief Specter’s home.”

            That made his father sad, it seemed. “Susan always looked like your mother… But it was Caitlyn that had her personality. I should very much like to see my little girl again before I…” his voice trailed off.

            A silence followed, and Bessie walked over and began to undo the bandages. Small horizontal cuts covered the King’s arms, some only recently scabbed. Being rid of the bad blood didn’t cure his father’s illness, but it kept the mortality at bay. It wasn’t much, but it was the most the High Nurse could do. She drew a small razor across the oldest of the scars.

            When his father winced in slight pain, Solomon told him of the news he had heard from one of his Tropius messengers. “Susan is with child already, father.”

            “So I’ve heard,” the king turned away from Bessie and her bloodletting and turned towards his son. “I have received a message from mine own servants. I’ve sent a reply of what to name the babe if it’s a girl.”

            Solomon smiled at that. “Lyanna,” he said. “Mother’s name.”

            The Prince took a look at his father’s conditions. Bessie held his arm over a wooden bowl to collect the bright red blood as it dripped into it. It had taken Solomon’s party a month to get back from Mt. Pyre. The detour to return Apollo Love’s men to him had cost him time. He’s not so close to death as he thinks, Solomon thought of his beloved father. If he can last a few more months…

            “Father,” Solomon said, “when Susan gives birth, I will have her and the child sent for, so that you can see your grandchild before…”

            “Before I die, yes, that would make me very happy,” David Forrest spoke softly as he smiled. “But there are other things that make me not as happy. Tell me, son, do you intend to involve yourself in matters outside the kingdom when my throne passes to you?”

            “Father, I-”

            “I will know if you disobey my last will, and you will pay for it for eternity in the afterlife if you endanger our people. Stay out of things. Don’t meddle. It’s why I have lived as long as I have. Some Kings are hasty, and rush off to war for conquest, for glory, and for their alliances and friendships. Some even say they do it for love. And some of those Kings never return, and with each king that is lost in battle, a hundred thousand dead husbands, fathers, and brothers follow.” King David Forrest was always wise. Solomon remembered when Sceptile had first evolved, five years ago. Marcus Spark had sought out his family’s help to strategically siege Lilycove City to put down the rebellion of Sootopolis. King David had not joined his forces for it. A short time later, Carlos Brightflame invaded Spark’s kingdom.

            If only you had sent me to command our forces and help, Lilycove would have fallen, and the Glamours of Sootopolis would not have won their independence… And the coming storm the Steel Giant had warned Solomon about would not be an issue.

            “Promise me, Solomon,” his father’s voice was stern, yet soft.

            “I-”

            Solomon was interrupted by a squawking sound. A wrinkled dark green Sceptile climbed through the window, with a Wingull perched on its tail. His father’s Sceptile was old as well, yet there was a strength in its body that Solomon’s father had lost at the onset of the illness.

            Solomon’s own Sceptile walked across to help the old Pokémon with the bundle of fruit in its arms.

            “It’s a special fruit,” Bessie said. The bowl of blood was almost full. It was almost time for a new one. “Only the Pokémon know where to find it. I’ve treated the creeping sickness many times, but the fruit works wonders, far more than I could ever hope to learn.”

            The two Sceptile took to slicing the fruit as the Wingull squawked again. “It seems you’ve made a friend, you old fart,” Solomon’s father said to his Sceptile.

            “Gull! Wingull!” it cried.

            Solomon approached the little bird. It was not afraid of him. “You’re a long way from the sea, little one.” When he reached down to pet it, the bird made a strange hacking noise, and regurgitated a slimy roll of parchment.

            “GULL!” It cawed, looking up at Solomon and then back down again. The Prince took the paper gingerly in his fingers and unraveled it.

            It can’t be… His eyes grew wide as he read the message. It was as if the Steel Giant itself had sent this bird. He quickly crumbled the paper and put it in a pouch on his dark green tunic.

            “What is it?” his father asked in between bites of the sweet, juicy fruit.

            “It’s nothing,” Solomon said. He walked over to his father and kissed his forehead. The second bowl of blood was half full and the bleeding had begun to slow. “Come, boy, we have people to see, and a court to attend.” he said to Sceptile. Solomon’s Spirit Pokémon took a bandage from Bessie, wiped the last of the wet blood away from the old King’s arm with its green hand, and wrapped the linen around the sick man’s wrist. “We’ll see you again, tonight, father.”

            He had not gone straight to the throne room. When he descended the winding staircase again, he crossed a bridge to the Army General’s tower. The man stood up from the table. “My Prince,” he bowed low.

            “Muster the armies,” Solomon told him quickly. “And send a message to Randall Sand of the Mirage Desert. The time is coming to remove Starfall from the Mt. Chimney Kingdom. I need the Brightflames back on that throne before the end of the year.”

            “It shall be done, my Prince,” the General said.

            I had not promised my father, yet. Solomon walked halfway across the bridge back to the throne room. He stopped and looked out over his family’s Kingdom of trees. “It was the younger one,” he told Sceptile. “Carson Brightflame is one of the other heroes that we’ve been looking for.” Sceptile nodded. They had been together in the dreams of the Steel Giant.

“To the green light in the east,” the letter had said. The only way the captive Prince in Lavaridge could have known of the green aura Solomon emitted in his dreams was if Carson had had those same dreams.

“There’s still one hero missing,” Solomon said. “Chris and Lily Marsh are both dead, though. It may be that this time around there are only the Two Heroes. It doesn’t matter. We have the element of surprise on our side.” He smiled, raised his hand, and put it on Sceptile’s shoulder and the Pokémon did the same to him. The blood that the Pokémon had wiped off his father’s arm had added to the already bright red spot on the palm of the giant grass-lizard’s hand.