Interlude - Ghost I

“Shh. Shh. It’s all right.” Willow said to his ear, trying to calm the boy down with a small degree of success. The satyr girl didn’t expect her imprisoned days to be spent comforting a ghost pulled straight from her father’s bedtime stories as if he was her responsibility.

She couldn’t deny that life was ever filled with surprises.

Willow tried to get closer to Lucien, her curled horns on each side of her head entering the side of the boy’s head without him realizing. Oh, the first time she tried to touch him and her hand went straight through was horrifying and the bleated scream Willow gave made the poor boy fall into tears. Well, more tears than usual at least.

Ever since she got here yesterday, Lucien had not stopped crying for a moment.

Still, Willow was trying to find ways to comfort him. At almost sixteen years old, she had been taking care of the younger children in the orphanage for years now 一 a job that fell on her shoulders after the oldest of them was enlisted in the army, leaving the kids with only Old Lady Margareth to help them. As such, she had promised to take the duty of an elder sister to heart until she was either called to the Front or the Grip.

She had even begun to train the next one in line! Lincoln was older than Willow was when the time came for her to put on the adult boots, but he had her to teach all the small lessons she had to learn through trial and error: How to check if one of the young had a fever, what was the tea you used for diarrhea, how much soap should be used when washing their clothes.

So capable had he been at learning the skills needed to take care of the other children, Willow was going to begin teaching him how to cook and sew in the next week. But… that was before.

Before she went to sleep and woke up in a room full of darkness, the shadows growing at the corner of her eyes, incomprehensible whispers sending shivers down her furry legs. That night, Willow stared at the unseen for hours, Dreaming with her eyes open as her Truth firmed itself in reality.

Mystery. In all its awful glory.

By the time the Dream had ended, the voice of the younger children sleeping in the same room as her had been hoarse with the constant screaming. More than one had wet their pants at the sight of Willow staring blankly at the walls as the world twisted and hid, reality being covered by what lay beneath: the secrets, the history, the enigmas.

That night, Willow joined the ranks of the powerful; of the greatest of heroes and villains. And everything got derailed from there.

Old Lady Margareth caught her Gifted Dream and didn’t even hesitate to take her to the servants of The Tearful Lady that morning. After Willow had made breakfast for her, of course.

Thinking about it 一 now that she was separate from the matron of the orphanage 一 not even once in the eight years she had spent living there, had Willow seen the woman help the children in any way that could be considered more than ‘assure they don’t starve and collect the money to keep the orphans alive from the Ministry of Finance.’

Nevertheless, Willow’s realization about the woman only began to creep in when she was handed to one of the Hounds and saw Old Lady Margareth leaving the small building that was their church with a satchel filled with golden coins.

From there on out it had been a hurricane of questioning and threats that made her head spin and her mouth turn sour for the rest of the morning and entire afternoon. After that, Willow was manacled and sent to the cell she now occupied.

With Lucien. The ghost boy that made her almost faint when she first saw him crying in the corner of the room, head between his knees as he shook his body in an attempt for comfort. Willow was proud of herself for not crumpling to the floor while despairing about “rogue necromancers” like the gossips that used to hang around the well where she hauled water from.

The first night had been beyond difficult. Lucien didn’t stop crying, but also didn’t move from his place on the floor, so Willow just sat on her bed 一 a thin mattress on top of a wooden frame 一 and joined his pity party as well. Being sold by the only, even if distant, maternal figure she had ever had was a blow Willow wasn’t ready to deal with.

But oh, life and its jabs from the dark.

Half an hour after bawling her eyes out, Willow raised her own lowered head to the feeling of cold fingers patting her head. Lucien, noticing a partner to his crying was trying to help her calm down, although his tears and sniffing never stopped. Apparently, ghosts still dealt with runny noses even after death 一 you would think there were larger improvements to being dead than just going through walls.

Still, the sight of a tearful ghost trying to hold her head in his manacled arms prompted the most instinctual of responses from Willow. She punched him.

And fell right through his body as her fist met nothing but air and whatever constituted a specter.

Hitting her horns on the stone floor had been bad enough, but the cold Willow felt as she went through Lucien’s body would remain forever in her memory. Her black fur puffed as it reacted to the lower temperatures, the flash of cold ending only when Lucien scampered back to his corner, crying even more now that his attempt to comfort Willow was met with bodily harm.

She, on the other hand, just covered her eyes with her palms and grunted as she felt the pain settling in due to her knees hitting the floor. Then laughed. Then cried. Then laughed again. Willow, by the end of the first hour she had been in her new cell, had already gone through most of the natural emotions, so the girl gave up against the exhaustion and hurt in her heart.

On the floor of her new room, homeless, imprisoned, orphan and rankless, Willow Sparklehoof slept to the sound of tears. If her own or Lucien’s, it didn’t matter in the end.

She did not dream that night.

***

All of that was yesterday. Today, Willow had returned to the world of the awake with the constant sound of someone banging on the steel door that locked their cell from the outside. It took no less than a moment for her to get up from the floor 一 moaning at the pain in her neck due to the poor bedding she had chosen to sleep on 一 and watch as a tray filled with food for two slipped through the, before undetectable, hatch on the door.

Taking the food before it got cold, Willow brought it to the center of the room and began to eat a quite good breakfast. Eggs, bacon and a loaf of bread made for the majority of the tray, but there was also a small platter with mango and papaya slices beside the cup with orange juice.

The effort behind the meal left her questioning why they would question her, isolate her, and force her to act, just to give her nice food at the end. She expected to be fed the sludge she heard some of the former prisoners in the Outer City talk about.

By the time she had noticed Lucien had remained on his corner, eating nothing and unmoving, she sighed and stopped devouring the loaf and fruits. The eggs and bacon had ended in the flash of an eye, before Willow realized there was someone else supposed to eat as well.

She was feeling quite ravenous after the emotional tourbillion that was yesterday and there was no one here who could blame her for eating more than necessary. A novel sensation to one who took care of feeding dozens of constantly hungry children

Sighing, she put down the mango slice and walked to the shape of the boy, who only responded by curling inwards, putting his head between his knees as if Willow would disappear if he didn't look.

“H.. hi there. Aren’t you hungry? There’s some nice food here.” Willow tried to bargain, almost touching his arm before remembering the cold she had felt and retracting her hand. If Lucien noticed, he didn’t react.

Still, Willow had been doing this for years. And experience had taught her more than one way to cajole a youngling. So she put on her best smile and persevered.

“There're mangoes and papaya and bread! Humm, such a yummy breakfast to begin a great day, am I right or not?”

The silly voice was followed by a sniff from the boy.

Willow considered that a better reaction than crying, so she continued. Children were easy to talk to when you had enough experience.

“If you eat you’ll get big and strong like me!” She flexed her arms, kissing the biceps. The lean muscles made him scoff and she deflated with the loudest sigh she could make. “All right, maybe not me… but The Starlight Bringer did eat a whole lot of food for breakfast.”

Waiting for a little, she kept the large smile on her face, hoping he would react. When she heard the mumbled voice, high-pitched like every child before their teen years, she almost jumped.

“Who?” Lucien whispered, raising his head just a bit to spy on her with a side-eyed glimpse.

Willow congratulated herself in her mind for the success of the impromptu mission: talk to the ghost boy. She wondered if that made her better at communing with the dead than the charlatans living near the orphanage. Despite the creepy atmosphere, they always had little to show when it came to mediumship.

“Brennan, The Starlight Bringer! The greatest hero of all time! Wait…” She gasped exaggeratedly, acting as if she had been pierced in the heart. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who he is?”

Lucien shook his head, denying 一 but now he had raised his head to look at her, and Willow almost lost her smile. The ghost was human, young, only a little more than a decade old, and had the weirdest blue transparency she had ever seen. His neck was torn apart in four different cuts, clean and precise.

On the outside, the smile didn’t waver at all, although Willow did feel a little self-conscious of the stare she gave to the wound. But in hindsight, what was she expecting, really? Ghosts needed to die of something.

Shaking away the thoughts, Willow kept on the interaction.

“He is the greatest adventurer ever! He faced the Matriarchs of The Web in Belphegor! Helped the Sandmen of Asseris in their battle against the Sphinxes!” Willow proclaimed, standing in a battle stance as she faked fighting imaginary enemies with an air sword. Lucien looked in awe now. “He is the one that stole one of the mirrors from the Frozen Court and traded with the Elven nomads of Melindrael! That’s The Starlight Bringer!”

Lucien looked with a gaping mouth, blue eyes shining as he heard the fantastical descriptions, despite not understanding anything. Willow, unknowing that, chose that moment to act, winking at the boy as if she had secrets beyond secrets. Her Truth hummed at the action.

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“I’ll tell you all of his stories if you eat your breakfast.” She persuaded, pointing with her thumb at the tray behind her, smile growing all the while. Bless her older siblings for buying those books about adventurers 一 Willow had used this trick with the younger kids more than once, always meeting an unwavering success.

As such, her expression couldn’t help but crumble when instead of diving into his food at the promise of stories, the ghost boy only brought his knees closer to his chest, not looking at her anymore.

“I can’t eat…”

Willow blinked a few times. “…What?”

“I c-can’t eat…” Lucien said, choking on the words as his throat closed with tears.

Noticing it would start again, Willow quickly sat at his side, hugging his body with one arm. Cold be damned.

And everything went full circle.

“Shh. Shh. It’s alright.” She said, trying to best comfort him. “Many things don’t eat. Like plants. Or… or ghosts! I guess?”

The boy sniffed once. Then again. “I’m sorry… I-I w-wanted to eat as well but… the f-food just falls through.” Lucien explained, trying to tell the nice girl he wasn’t being rude.

“Hey, it’s fine…” Willow calmed him with a soft tone, trying hard to lean on him without falling through his body. If she had ever thought she had lived through something weird, this took the crown now. “Are you hungry, though?”

“N-no.” He said, shaking his head in a negative. Willow stared in fascination as his hair swayed from left to right, the bangs covering his forehead. A part of her expected it to be frozen in place for some reason.

“That’s good!” She said, giving him the best smile possible. “No one should feel hungry, right?”

“Y-yeah.” He nodded through the ceasing tears.

“Still, let’s get off the floor shall we?” Willow asked, softly. “There’s a bed just for you, you know?”

“A-aren’t you s-scared?”

“Of a young boy?” Willow widened her eyes and gave him a large grin. “Not. At. All. Silly! Why? Just because you’re a little blue?”

“Y-yeah. P-people kept on s-screaming when I t-t-talked to them” He revealed, biting his lips.

Willow stared at the pitiful boy and couldn’t help but try to clean one of his tears with her thumb 一 The cold, though, burned her skin. “Hey, now! There’s no need to take it to heart. People can be silly like that sometimes.”

“R-Really?”

“Of course! Now, let’s get off the floor, all right? Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

Lucien nodded, but couldn’t raise his head to look at her. His back had begun to hurt for a while now, and the floor wasn’t kind on his legs. As such, when the girl extended a hand trying to help him get up, he couldn’t help but take it, even if slowly.

Willow felt the grip of the boy’s hand with wide eyes, noticing how his palm and fingers turned more corporeal now that he was touching her. In fact, by the time he had stood up, his body was a lot more solid, even turning the blue glow to the color of normal skin.

For a child, he had amazingly large green eyes and black hair that looked similar to Willow’s own raven locks. His skin was pale and unblemished, except for the wounds on his neck 一 four clean cuts that oozed no blood and were even more disturbing because of that.

The young satyr wished silently that at least his death wounds had remained spectral, but no one seemed to be hearing her prayers recently.

Guiding him by the hand, Willow sat him on the bed that was supposedly his and put the tray of food on her lap. If she was going to chat and tell stories, the least she deserved was having a full stomach while at it.

“So…” She said, giving the final bite on a mango slice. “I’m Willow! Willow Sparklehoof. You are?”

“Lucien…” The boy said, wide eyes staring through the bangs as he saw Willow inhale the fruits and the remaining half of the bread. “A-Are you all right?”

“Hum? Yeah. Pfft. Perfect.” Willow waved him off with a hand, cleaning her mouth with the back of the other. “It’s hard to have a nice meal like this in the mornings.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.” Lucien said, trying to take his hand from her grip, but Willow just tightened it.

“Hey, no need to apologize! You’re very kind for asking if I’m all right.”

“T-thanks…” Lucien stuttered, blushing under his hair.

“So, Lucien, will you tell me how you got here?” Willow asked, crossing her legs on top of the bed to better look at the profile of the boy. The brooch she wore on her shirt now facing him.

“I d-don’t remember…” He said, beginning to hug his knees before Willow put a hand on his leg and smiled, encouraging. Lucien took a deep breath. “I just woke up inside this… b-box made of wood and it was so cramped and d-dark and I wanted to leave, b-but I didn’t know how…”

“I started c-calling for anyone to help me, but n-n-no one came…” His tears flowed now, fat and wet, marking trails that went down to the wounds on his neck. “So I just… p-pushed the lid and my arms went through.”

“Just like that?” Willow asked, engaging carefully. She had learned early it was important not to cut too much of a child’s flow of thought if you wanted a coherent explanation.

Lucien nodded. “Yeah. J-just like that. It t-took a while to learn how to do it again, but after that, I just… got up and floated.”

“Really?”

“Y-yes. I spent a few days around, but I was too scared to leave the walls.” Lucien explained, and Willow assumed he was talking about the cemetery he woke up at. “So I… stayed. The armored men c-came later.”

Lucien's eyes flashed in pain at the memory. The weight of the man kneeling on his back, doing something that stopped him from vanishing… It all was too recent.

“Hey, hey. It’s all right.” Willow smiled, noticing the topic was at an end, patting his head. “Thanks for telling me.”

“W-what about you? D-did they get you too?” He asked, trying to engage with that awkwardness of someone that had never done it before.

“Me? Nah… I was sold here.”

“S-sold?”

“Yeah… someone didn’t want me anymore, so they traded me for gold.” Willow’s voice waned at the end, bitting the inner side of her cheeks. It was the truth, even if it was hard for her to admit it. “But, that’s fine, right? Just gotta keep working hard and maybe I’ll leave soon.”

“Uhm… Y-yeah. I hope we leave soon.” Lucien admitted. He hadn’t dared to leave the graveyard, but he did see the people walking around from his place around the gates. Women and men clad in white and light blue as they left presents and food at the graves; many whimpering, others reminiscing.

He had enjoyed collecting the flowers from the graves, learning covertly how to make a bouquet from one of the florists that worked outside the cemetery.

Still, there were bad things as well. Something about watching people parade through the gates, carrying coffins with swords at their waist that made him cry all the same. Lucien wasn’t sure at the beginning why he was weeping, but the sight of the multiple races gathered around a grave, mourning their dead, evoked something that felt almost primal to him.

There was beauty in it. A kind of melancholic attraction to their suffering. The rituals, the prayers, the thrown flowers… all of it made for an almost eerie tradition. Otherworldly in its events.

That sensation and the desire to see what was outside was what made him start to gather his courage. Even if he still cried from now and then, lost and afraid, there was always a moment after when Lucien stared at the starry sky or the moons and promised tomorrow would be the day he left to explore.

The Hounds came before that happened, however.

“Can you…” Lucien began, wishing to know more about the world but not wanting to impose. “C-can you tell me about the… Starnight Bringer?” He blurted out, head lowered as he didn’t want to see Willow’s face if she denied.

“Starlight.” Willow said with a small laugh.

“W-what?”

“The Starlight Bringer. Not Starnight.” She corrected before his wide eyes, and he colored in embarrassment. Her hand felt warm on top of his head as she messed up his hair. “And of course! I can tell you about it! What do you want to know?”

Lucien looked up sharply, wide eyes shining with excitement as he turned to fully face Willow for the first time. He knew exactly what to ask for. “The beginning! S-start from the beginning, p-please!”

Willow grinned from ear to ear and began the story. The tale of a man who grew up in Melindrael, in the countryside of Astarossa, who at the tender age of fourteen claimed his Gift to fight a pack of wolves preying on the sheep of his family after they wounded his father.

She had to take a moment to explain what she knew about Gifts to Lucien, but the boy was quick on the uptake 一 absorbing information with the same wide-eyed stare as if she was teaching him the mysteries of the world, instead of information every child was taught by their parents to some degree or another.

Still, Willow returned to the tales with more descriptions of Brennan’s myth, continuing with the rumor that so strong was his Truth, that when he Dreamed, distant towns saw their night sky shine with falling stars. A multi-colored array of lights that rained for hours.

After that, the Emperor himself began to search for such a powerful Gifted, and under the aegis of Astarossa he trained for three years in the art of combat. His success was so splendorous that he left the palace to start a life as an adventurer, pleading to his ruler that it was the best way to help the largest amount of people.

Mollified, the Emperor accepted his proposal, but not before giving him a mission: finding the nomad Elves and making them agree to meet the Emperor in his palace. And that was the first thing he did.

The brave tales Willow told 一 taking from the memory of books read through the years 一 made Lucien become hypnotized by the prose. The battles and deals Brennan made sounded like magic for the hours he spent listening to story after story of one of the greatest recent heroes.

For a few hours, both children forgot their place in the world, leaning on the comfort of stories old and new to better tolerate the oppressive white stone walls and the bleached atmosphere of the room. Willow’s smile never wavered.

The time for stories, however, came to an end when they began to notice the end of the day from the small barred window on the opposite wall to the door; too tall for any of them to see more than the changing sky.

Naturally, the stories ended little by little, almost as if they were unconsciously waiting for something to happen as night fell. And it did.

A rasp on the door made the two of them jerk from the bed, Willow staying in front while Lucien hid behind her back, united in their apprehension as the steel door opened little by little to reveal one of the Crying Hounds.

Their silver armor along with light blue details and white cape would already mark them as servants to the Tearful Lady 一 the colors of mourning known to everyone that had ever lost someone 一 but the helmet, shaped like a snarling snout, acted as the last indication of what the paladin was.

Besides him, a priest stood looking through the door frame, the four tears tattooed on his face stretched by a smile.

“It’s time.” The priest announced, pointing to Lucien. Without a word, the gauntlets of the Hound glowed with the bleached mana of the Faithful to the Tearful Lady. A color so white it hurt Willows's eyes to look.

The armored man walked to Lucien with quick steps, prompting Willow to react by almost walking forward herself, but the pointed glare from the priest froze her in place. As such, when the man picked Lucien by the scruff of his neck and put him under her arm 一 the poor boy stuttering her name as he asked for help 一 she did nothing.

Willow not even had the energy to remember to drop the [Minor Illusion] that was her smile until the priest got into the room, closing the door behind him.

“You did good, Willow.” The older man said, touching the enchanted brooch. A metal piece in the shape of an eye, enchanted with a divination array capable of transmitting sound and image.

“Can I leave now?” Willow asked, biting her inner cheek as her throat soured at what she had done 一 a betrayal she agreed to when they said it would be the only thing she had to do if she wanted to protect the other kids from the orphanage. The young girl only didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did.

“Not yet, daughter. There’s still work to do.” The priest informed, talking about treachery as if it was the weather. It took all Willow had not to spit on him for putting her in this situation. Him and this cursed Goddess of his.

“You said…” She choked on the words, the memory of Lucien’s green eyes staring so deeply into her own as he left the tears behind and engaged in the stories she told making her throat close. Hells, she felt more like a ghost of herself now than Lucien probably was. “You said I only had to figure out what he remembered.”

“And you did. Quite splendidly in fact. But now we need to know more.” The man said, adjusting the brooch on her shirt and patting her shoulder. His eyes shone with unshed tears, thousands of them as faith coalesced in his sight. Willow could swear he saw her agony at the situation. “Now we need to know if he has a Gift.”

“That… was not the deal.” She snarled, heart shriveling at the possibility of lying even more to Lucien.

“Deal?” The priest laughed at her sour face. “Daughter… We’re not Elves. Deals are only worthy to us until we break them.”

Willow couldn’t take it. She spat at the man.

He cleaned it with not a single waver to his expression. “Are you sad, daughter? Is that it?”

Her Gift ringed in high alert, her Truth humming at the priest’s sentence. There was Mystery to it. “No. Not at all.” Willow denied, another lie to her history.

“Ah. Pity.” The old man said, pouting as if a child whose candy was denied. “Keep up the good work, all right?”

And like that, he left her behind, leaving the room with a hum.

Willow cursed and screamed as the door closed, kicking the walls with her hooves. She was powerless in this situation. A rankless Gifted with little to show.

But still, she thought. Willow was a young girl, but she had a Truth of her own. So she delved into it, wishing for a solution with the remnants of Truth she still had 一 [Minor Illusion] took only a fourth of it to be created.

Lucien had put her trust in her, told her his story of isolation and hurt, and all of that was met with betrayal on her part. Willow refused to become more a traitor than she already was, especially now that she knew the Priest would keep her here for as long as he needed. So, Willow made that which is the birth of every Mystery while her Gift tailored a new Ability for her.

Willow schemed.

***

In the meantime, the Faithful of The Mourning Damsel put the entire weight of grief and sadness on Lucien’s shoulders, who guided by stories of stars and glory, finally claimed what lays beyond.