Chương 60: CHAPTER 59 – A Shard of Courage

"And this should be the last decoration!" Lance wiped away the little sweat remaining on his forehead, fixing his gaze with satisfaction on the streamers of coloured paper. The living room of their quarters was now adorned with shimmering blue ribbons, coloured candles, and a starred tablecloth. He turned his gaze toward the kitchen, dusted with flour and milk and scattered with various utensils. With a smile, he seized the pot of cream in his hands and poured it into the tart shaped in the large circular tin.

Slowly, the vast amount of liquid filled the shortcrust pastry, settling into a coffee-coloured mirror.

"It certainly was quite the undertaking, but I am glad regardless." He took the great cake and placed it in the fridge, specially modified by Lucas for the occasion. The metal slid along the frozen iron bars, and with a muffled click Lance closed the door.

"Now I just need to wait for Jeanne to come back and make her stay in her room until I have finished the rest. I might be a genius!" While he gloated over his own thoughts, a thud shook him deeply. He turned toward the bathroom door, fixing his wide eyes on the dark wood. Every so often, a small cry and another muffled sound escaped from within those walls." It is well past dinnertime. I should be alone. I made sure to check that no one was in the room…"

Lance quickly approached the bathroom, extending and withdrawing his hand from the handle several times.

"Arte… I-is that you?" A meek voice murmured from beyond the wood, startling Lance so badly he fell to the ground. Only now did he notice the warm, humid air, faintly permeated with a floral scent.

"No, Jeanne… It's me." Lance answered, immediately fixing his gaze on all the decorations hung across the room's walls. His jaw dropped the moment he saw the large ' Happy Birthday Jeanne' sign hanging directly above the sofa.

"Ah! Sorry if I startled you… I think I fell asleep in the bath…" Jeanne's voice grew rather sharp, but Lance was too busy tying the banner in place with string. A flash of genius crossed his mind, and he began tying the cord around his chair, as though it were some strange mechanism. Now the cord holding the banner was tied to the wooden chair leg, ready to be released.

"I only hope she does not notice the string…" He thought, hearing footsteps coming from the bathroom. The door handle began to turn, then suddenly stopped.

"Lance… May I come out?" Jeanne asked from behind the door, and immediately the poor boy began gasping even harder, unable to buy any more time.

"NO!" He shouted, trying to clean up the kitchen by every possible means, hiding the utensils even inside the fridge and oven. From the bathroom, a sound halfway between surprise and fright brought him back to lucidity.

"Did something happen?" Her voice reached his ears, worried and startled at once. Lance, meanwhile, tried to make the decorations even less visible, hiding them among cushions and cloths.

"No, no… The truth is that I am naked!" The moment he uttered that sentence, he realised his own brain had just dug his grave for him. Silence invaded their quarters, followed by a sound like a footstep in a puddle.

"I-I see… But I would like to go change. It's starting to get cold…" She answered, tapping her nails against the door. Lance began looking around the room in a daze, as though it were now some distant vision of his own mind. His eye scanned every corner, until it settled on the partially open door of his own room.

"Just wait a minute, please!" He darted inside, smiling once he had thoroughly confirmed there was no longer anything to supervise. He quickly seized the sheet from his bed and a couple of clothespins from the small rack in the dark corner. With impressive speed, he managed to mount it across the entire living room, shielding any possible glance.

"You can come out… I have covered everything." He immediately slipped beneath the sheet, busying himself with cooking. The bathroom door opened slowly, flooding the room with steam and the scent of flowers.

"Sorry for… Disturbing you…" Jeanne murmured, holding the smooth white towel close to herself. Lance moved to turn, but the moment he caught sight of her shadow moving across the thin fabric, he hesitated for a moment. He nodded, hoping to be seen, and tried to ignore the muffled sound of her footsteps completely.

"Focus… You made a promise". He struck his own forehead faintly with the spatula, directing all his faculties toward dinner. Within about ten minutes, Jeanne passed through the sheet, which fell to the ground shortly after. Lance turned to look at her face, but something stopped him for an instant. Her face was drowsy, her dishevelled hair forced to cover her bluish, glistening eyes. Her lips were a vivid red, in contrast with her pale skin.

She held her dark dress close, slightly too large for her frame, making her look like a ghost. No words passed between the two of them, and yet the silence was broken by a strange sound.

"Are you hungry?" Lance asked, seizing the pot with his oven mitts. Jeanne nodded, appearing instantly in her chair.

"She really did not see anything? People truly do stop seeing anything else once they are hungry enough." He thought, setting the food at the centre of the table, on a small pale wooden board"You have not eaten either?" Jeanne asked, taking hold of the thin fork, its handle engraved with a series of N's. Lance nodded, sitting down in his own place.

"Between training and other tasks for Monica and Lucas, I forgot to go to dinner…" He smiled, scratching the back of his neck restlessly. Jeanne laughed as well, reaching her hand toward the pot. The moment she lifted the lid, a warm, spiced steam filled the room.

"But this is…" Jeanne murmured, spooning the white purée and the meat onto her plate. She fixed Lance, who smiled and nodded slowly.

"I tried to remember the dish you made for me during our first mission, though I think I may have revisited it a little too much…" He joked, cutting off a bite and putting it in his mouth. Jeanne did the same, immediately smiling and taking another bite from her plate.

"I still think yours was better." Lance smiled, wiping his lips with a napkin. Jeanne stopped eating, letting the spoon fall into her empty plate.

"L-Lance, did something happen?" Jeanne asked, fixing him with concern. The boy took his plate and set it on the kitchen island, returning to sit down.

"I promised you I would tell you everything, and now I am ready." He pressed his hands against his stomach, twisting his fingers around one another. Jeanne slowly drew closer to the table, perhaps to close the distance, or perhaps to reassure him.

"I imagine you know I suffer from amnesia, but that is not entirely the truth. Sometimes I have visions, nightmares…" His shoulders began to tremble, and his throat began to tighten.

"While you were in the coma… You spoke, you apologised, you sobbed a name. Jude... Was she your sibling or?" Lance's eyes went wide, and he lowered his gaze. With difficulty he nodded, though he had no idea what he had said, moved by an instinct unique to him.

"Perhaps you heard it, or perhaps you guessed it. In truth I had two sisters, and both of them have vanished. Of Eve, the elder, I remember almost nothing but her appearance, while of my younger sister, Jude, I had a photograph, but I lost it when I arrived here." A smile appeared on his face, and yet Jeanne realised how sad and cursed that face truly was.

"But of her, I vividly remember one thing. A recurring nightmare, where I hear her screams, and I am pinned to the ground, unable to do anything at all. The only thing I can do is watch two people kill each other before me, and then vanish into a gleam of light." Jeanne stared at him, biting her upper lip slightly. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"But that is not the only problem. When I close my eyes, I find myself elsewhere… Pursued by figures, and I feel fear, shame, sadness. I feel hatred and regret, and it makes me want to vomit." He raised his face, settling his gaze on Jeanne. For a single instant, a shadow appeared before him, and he closed his eyes. Blood flushed away from his face, leaving it pallid like a worn cloth. His fingers trembled for an instant.

"LANCE!" Jeanne sprang upright, extending a hand toward the boy, clutching his arms tightly. She offered him a glass of water, which Lance greedily swallowed within a few seconds. The girl tried to meet his gaze, but he fixed her with terror etched into his eyes.

"I am sorry…" He answered with a sigh, showing his pale skin. Jeanne knelt before him, seizing his hand, cold and trembling.

"Do not force yourself to speak, please." Lance raised his head, blinking his glistening eyes. For a second it seemed to him that Jeanne was on the verge of tears. Gripping his wrist firmly, she made him stop trembling, and with a smile he shook his head.

"If I keep holding every doubt inside me, I would only end up becoming a burden. I already know little of who I was. I do not want to know little of who I am, too…" He let go of Jeanne's hand and slowly decided to roll up his sleeve. Long, deep scars began to appear along his skin. In silence, the girl watched those small, sinuous furrows multiply with every fold of his sleeve.

"These… I do not know why they are here. I only know they appear from time to time." He fixed Jeanne and the scars with the same expression, moving his arm before himself to get a better look at his own flesh.

"I had already seen them…" Jeanne murmured, slowly turning her head away. Lance let out a curt "eh" and immediately covered his arm.

"O-on your arm… Your bandages had fallen, and I saw them… IT WAS NOT INTENTIONAL!" She turned her gaze back immediately toward Lance, who was busy drawing a deep breath.

"Thank goodness! I thought I had unsettled you." He rose slowly from the chair, taking care not to let it slide. After carefully tucking it back beneath the table, he sat on the sofa. With a wave of his hand, he pointed to the corner full of cushions. Jeanne immediately went to sit where indicated, glancing intermittently at Lance and then at the room. Between one sigh and the next, the boy cleared his throat.

"Since we are already in the mood, I suppose I might as well try to tell you my own story too, even if I do not remember very much." He smiled, pulling a cushion taken directly from the floor close to himself.

"I only have a few vague memories of my sisters and those strange dreams, but I remember exactly what I went through after that void. I walked for a long time, worked, tried to get to know the world, but I did not have the means to do so. I joined a courier company and set off searching for my sister, without success." He fixed his gaze on the sky outside the window, feeling a shiver with every new star his eye picked out in that dark expanse.

"Perhaps I am not pathetic, only deeply selfish." He smiled, fixing Jeanne calmly, the light reflected in his dark glasses.

"Part of me perhaps searches for my sister only to have some answers. After all, what right would I have to call myself her brother if I forgot her so quickly?" He lowered his head, keeping silent after pronouncing that verdict.

"I do not believe it…" His eye moved slowly toward the girl, who had leaned toward him. Her hands were pressed hard against the sofa, almost as though she wanted to dig her nails into it.

"I do not believe a single word of what you are saying!" Suddenly he felt her hands on his leg and her warmth close by. His attempts to look away from the blue of her eyes proved useless.

"The person who helped me so many times, the person who fought so hard in this new world at my side and who never asked for anything in return, cannot be a coward!" For the first time, Jeanne's voice rang clear through the room.

"How can you sit there and do nothing but spew cruelty about yourself? You did not think twice about spending everything they had given you on a little girl, and you sacrificed all of yourself to help every single person you spoke to. What you have is anything but selfishness, and that's why you are so hard to deal with!" The girl kept hurling those words, gripping Lance's leg with even more force.

"Jeanne... I'm... Sorry, can you calm-" The girl silenced him with her index finger.

"You are a foolish altruist, a foolish and sad altruist… But I am certain your sister knows that better than I do, so stop being an idiot!" She began to gasp, releasing her grip on his leg. She raised her face and saw the tears running down his, and immediately a wave of sadness passed through her.

"N-no, I am sorry, I did not mean to insult you. P-please, stop c-crying..." Her eyes began to grow glassy, but before a single drop could fall, Lance seized her hands. They were a little cold, but incredibly delicate.

"You are quite right. I am a fool for thinking such things." He shook his head, in that moment of emotion, to let the tears slide away.

"I should not doubt myself in this way… Jude would not like it at all, knowing that I'm her only big brother!"

"I am grateful to have you here… Thank you, Jeanne." His gaze slid down his own face, falling to the ground. His smile and the dark gleam in his eyes wove together into a feeling of genuine happiness. Before Jeanne could even respond, Lance sprang up from the sofa, seized his glasses, and moved toward the kitchen.

"I too would like to know more of you, but this is not the moment to double our sorrow." He joked, fixing the clock on the wall. Jeanne, confused, looked at it along with him, noticing the hour hand drawing ever closer to completing its circuit.

"It was difficult to organise everything, and perhaps I may have ruined it by rushing, but I want you to enjoy it." He took a step toward the fridge, opening it slowly.

"Sit here… Please." He turned for a moment, pointing Jeanne toward the chair where he had sat earlier. His eyes were still glassy, but washed clean of that sadness. Curious, she pulled the chair toward herself, feeling a slight resistance. She applied a little force, and suddenly a banner unrolled before her eyes from the wall, along with other slightly crumpled decorations. She quickly read the phrase and turned toward Lance, a great cake in his hands.

"Happy birthday, Jeanne." He smiled, seizing a blue and red candle. The girl stared at the cake before her eyes, her lips trembling. With a small flick of his wrist, he slid the match along the rough strip of the box, bringing the flame on the candle to life.

"Come on, go ahead… Blow, and make a wish." He smiled, watching her in silence. Her eyes slowly began to tear up, moving from the candle to Lance.

"Why all of this? I do not deserve it..." She murmured, rubbing her eyes and sobbing.

"I do not want our roles reversed tonight… Everyone deserves to celebrate their own birth, especially someone like you, who has every right to it." He sat before her, pointing to the candle. Jeanne nodded, blowing faintly on the reddish flame.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" Suddenly the door opened, pouring in blinding light. A swarm of people burst into the room, taking up positions around them. In the hands of several of them were large bags and colourful packages.

"Sorry for the delay… It took me a while to find everyone at this hour." Lucas, dressed in a simple greyish outfit, sat down on the sofa.

"If you had told us sooner, perhaps we would not have had to rush the gifts!" Monica burst out, emerging from behind Lautre and Maliard, a large dark bag in her hand.

"You certainly must have put in quite the effort…" Edvard joked, gripping his shoulders and whistling a little tune between smiles.

"I agree… The food looks excellent." Arte murmured, giving Jeanne a wide smile. Her joyful face suddenly shifted into an expression of disgust at the sight of Lautre, busy devouring the contents of the pot on the kitchen island.

"What do you want? The boy cooks better than everyone else here, and besides, I do not enjoy drinking on an empty stomach!" He answered, swallowing and chewing his snack.

"In any case, let us pull ourselves together and celebrate." Maliard smiled, leaving those present pale with shock. Monica slowly approached, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. Shortly after her sigh, his body flew directly onto the sofa, landing in Lucas's arms, amid general laughter and shouting.