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The heavy wooden door creaked in protest as Lest eased it open and slipped into the ruined auditorium. It was rude, perhaps, to go wandering about the property when the residents were being so generous in allowing Selphia's little company of soldiers to stay there for a day or two, but he couldn't sleep and the grand old mansion was practically begging for someone to come explore it. They'd been warned away from this wing due to the extensive damage the Sechs Empire's bombs had wrought some months ago, but Lest's curiosity couldn't be overcome; he got the feeling that the owners of the mansion feared this part of it somehow, or perhaps that was just the effect of the sad faces that their little daughter Pico made when it was brought up. He wondered if it had been a favorite spot of hers to play in before the Sechs had turned their weapons to the civilians in the more rural areas of Norad.
Part of the roof had been obliterated, allowing in the cool autumn air and faint light from the moon and stars, which were partially obscured by lazy wisps of cloud. Demolished supports of wood and stone lay strewn about the area, as did overturned tables and chairs, and the remains of other such objects that had been reduced to splinters. At one end was a once-grand stage, half its luxurious velvet curtains hanging in shreds. Surprisingly, a mostly-intact piano sat nestled near the back of it.
Intrigued, Lest climbed the steps to the stage and moved closer to investigate. Aside from several gouges in the wood and the wear from exposure to the elements beginning to show, it looked to be in decent enough shape. Lest pressed a key experimentally, letting a robust note reverberate through the room. He followed suit down a line of keys, rolling his hand to tap out a series of tones.
"Do you play?" A low voice asked from behind him.
Lest didn't consider himself a skittish sort; even so, he jumped and his hand was halfway to the pommel of his sword as he turned. The woman regarded him with cool interest, quite composed for somebody who had very nearly been threatened by a solider. Lest sheepishly let his hand drop.
She was quite pretty, if obviously old-fashioned in her tastes. The ruffled skirt, the laces and buttons, the silk gloves and hat... she looked like a noblewoman from an antique painting.
Actually...
"You live here don't you?" Lest blurted, not thinking of proper greetings. "Your portrait was down the hall."
Something that might have been a coy smile flickered over her face. "You're observant, I see. Sometimes."
Lest flushed. "Ah... sorry about all that. You did sneak up on me though."
She - the older daughter, obviously, though Lest couldn't recall any mention of her name - folded her hands primly in front of her. Her expression was difficult to read, as enigmatic face-to-face as in her portrait, but she seemed amused. "I don't try to sneak. People have poor senses, especially at night."
"I suppose," Lest said, unsure how to follow up. "What was your name again? I'm Lest."
"Dolce," she said. "They're disregarding me again, I see."
"They... oh, your family?" Lest paused. It was true that none of them had made mention of Dolce, aside from little hints from Pico here or there regarding a "Dolly". Lest wondered if she had had some sort of falling out with her parents, or... perhaps there was something wrong with her? Lest had heard of old, rich families like this one shutting away their mentally ill relatives to avoid social embarrassment. He studied Dolce with renewed interest; she didn't look mad, but how was one to tell? Lest had never encountered a madman (or madwoman, as it were) before.
"It's alright," Dolce continued, unaware of Lest's thought process. "I don't mind that they've decided they hate me. I prefer my own company most of the time anyway." She glided past Lest to run her hand over the piano. "You never answered my question, though. Do you play?"
"Oh!" Lest shook himself from his uncharitable thoughts. Who was he to care if she was mad? She couldn't be dangerous, not against a trained soldier. "A little. My fiancee has been teaching me to play, but she's a lot better than I am. I mean, of course she is, it's her profession."
Ah, Margaret. The thought of her warmed him. His hand crept to the little flower pendant that she'd made for him, tucked safely underneath his collar. Its design matched that of the engagement ring he'd so carefully crafted to give her back in the summer of last year, before war cast its shadow over Selphia.
"Ah..." Dolce gave him a knowing look. "Your true love back at home, waiting for her brave soldier to return."
He blushed. "Well, yes. We're going to get married once the war's over."
Dolce brushed past him again, moving back down the steps of the stage and taking a seat at an intact table around the side of the stage. There was a stash of knitting piled on it near an empty teacup, out of sight of the doorway. Dolce had obviously been hiding out here for some time.
"Once you return home victorious, the proud soldiers of Selphia." She said, and something in her tone set Lest on the defensive.
"Do you think we won't be victorious?"
Dolce took up her knitting needles and resumed whatever she had been working on with practiced ease, peering at Lest from beneath the brim of her hat. "I don't think anyone is truly victorious in war. Look at my home," she gestured at the ruined theater. "This was my favorite place before they destroyed it. Now there is no more music. Nobody comes here but me, and my family wishes I were gone."
"Well, what did you do to make them feel that way?" Lest was frowning now, stepping down from the stage to approach her at the table.
Dolce smiled without humor. "I can't help but remind them of unfortunate truths. It's my nature, you see. It always has been."
Lest took a seat across from her. "And what truths are those?"
Dolce's knitting needles worked like bright, sharp little talons at what appeared to be a scarf. "This will all be gone someday. Everyone dies. Even if you spend your life surrounded by people, most will spend eternity alone."
Lest's frown deepened. "Eternity?"
"After you die, of course."
An unpleasant knot settled in Lest's stomach. Yes, this woman was surely mad. "What about an afterlife? The Forest of Beginnings?"
"What proof do you have that it exists?"
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the clicking of the knitting needles.
"Wh-why..."
Dolce glanced back up at Lest, eyebrows raised ever so slightly.
He swallowed. "Why do you think it doesn't?"
"Have you ever seen a ghost?"
The room was cold.
"No, I haven't."
That look that might have been a smile again. "But you've heard of them."
"Well, of course."
"It's odd, isn't it, that people come up with so many ghost stories if everyone returns to the Forest of Beginnings. Where do they come from, do you think?"
"The ghosts?"
"Yes."
"I... I suppose they're stuck here. If they exist."
Dolce looked up at him again. He couldn't tell what color her eyes were.
"You think they exist," he said, unsure if he was asking or telling her.
"I've seen them all my life," she said, as casually as though she were telling him what her favorite food was.
She was mad. That much was clear. He ought to leave now, leave her alone to her knitting and apologize to the family for bothering their disturbed daughter.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from her.
"What are they like? The ghosts."
Dolce tilted her head to the side, regarding him with what he thought might be renewed interest. "It depends. Many of them continue on as they were in life, doing the same things over and over. Some are aware that they're stuck."
"Can't they be helped?"
Dolce sighed, soft and airy. "I don't believe so. I've never been able to help them."
Lest became aware that he was leaning forward intently, hands fisted on his knees. "Then- why are they stuck here?"
"Stubbornness. Loneliness. Who knows."
"I think-" Lest stopped, but Dolce's eyes urged him to continue. "I think it sounds much lonelier to be a ghost than to move on. Don't you? In the Forest of Beginnings, everything becomes one again. You're never alone then."
"The Forest of Beginnings doesn't exist."
"You say that, but you can't prove it anymore than I can prove that it does."
Dolce laughed. It seemed to startle her as much as it did him. "Oh, you..." She set her knitting aside and locked her gaze on Lest's. He swallowed thickly.
Dolce's gloved fingers brushed his jaw. "You're smarter than you let on. Too smart to fight in a pointless war for glory. Why die out there or return home changed?"
"I..."
She quieted him. "She won't understand, you know. The things you'll have seen. The horrors you endured so she could keep playing her songs."
She was mad. She was mad.
He couldn't help but be drawn in.
"You're so lonely already, with no one to comfort you. Lost little soldier boy, pretending you have something to believe in. You'll only be lonelier still out there."
"Dolce..." He breathed out as her touch seemed to sap his warmth away, laying bare everything he had never even admitted to himself.
Dolce smiled, truly. Her eyes were deep and endless. "I can comfort you, if you like."
He let her.
The clouds drifted over the moon, cloaking them in darkness. There was only the rustle of clothing and Dolce's cool skin against his, the brush of her lips against his ear. "I'd keep you here, with me."
"You're mad," he whispered back.
"Everyone is mad, in their own way."
Afterwards, she brushed his hair from his damp brow, letting him pillow his head on her lap. "You can sleep. I won't think myself boring."
Lest wanted to keep staring into her eyes, unfathomable and colorless as the hidden moon, but his heavy eyelids agreed with her words.
"Do you do this to everyone who visits you?" He mumbled.
"Do what?"
"Talk to them like this. 'Comfort' them."
Dolce's fingers traced his cheekbone down to his chin and further down his neck where his pulse beat strong and steady. "I don't want to spend forever alone anymore than you do, soldier boy."
Lest mumbled a response, but sleep descended before he could fully voice it.
Dolce cradled his head in her hands, studying his sleeping face. He would regret this in the morning. He would feel guilty over how he betrayed his love, even though she'd likely never know. He'd spend a few weeks out in the field, before he lost a limb and had to be shipped home, or the sights of his friends falling drove him mad, or he was simply blown to bits by shrapnel.
But it didn't have to be that way.
Dolce's knitting needles worked like bright, sharp little talons.
---
"Lest? Lest!" Voices echoed through the opening of the heavy wooden door and into the auditorium.
Doug sighed and put his shoulder into the door, shoving it further open. "You could help me out here, horse face."
"I could," Dylas agreed, making no move to help at all.
Doug huffed and pushed through. "Lest- hey Lest, it's breakfast time and then we've gotta get a move on!"
Dylas rolled his eyes, muttering to himself as he followed Doug in. "Idiots always running around, poking your noses in-" He stopped himself abruptly.
Doug looked at him in confusion. "What?" He followed Dylas's gaze to the splintered table around the far side of the ruined stage, to the figure sprawled near the wreckage.
"Shit! Lest!" Doug practically vaulted over the other furniture to get to him.
Dylas followed at a slower pace; it didn't take a practiced eye to see that Lest was long cold. He tried looking anywhere else, at the stage, at what remained of the table. He could make out shattered pieces of porcelain, and what looked like scraps of fabric. A single tarnished knitting needle lay not far from Lest's hand. A dark stain marred the floor underneath the splintered wood.
This was where the family's oldest daughter had been sitting in solitude when the bombs came down, he remembered their servant Vishnal murmuring to him and Doug when they inquired the night before. With nobody able to bear rifling through the wreckage and her remains, the wing had been left untouched for months.
Until last night.
Lest's eyes were half open, jaw slack. The punctures in his throat were neat and precise, a congealed dark red line connecting them like an oversized stitch.
Dylas turned away from the sight and tried to block out Doug's yelling for Lest to stop fooling and get up. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a little face peering at them from the doorway. Pico looked half-frightened, half-apologetic. He wanted to say something to her, but he was sure that if he opened his mouth, he would vomit.
He'd thought that the portrait in the hall was smiling a little wider this morning than it had before.