Faust stood in front of the wooden house. He'd built it himself—hurried, sure, but he'd put care into it too. Now, though, there wasn't a trace of how it used to look.
He scanned the area around the house deep in the forest, checking everything thoroughly. He trusted his barrier; he was certain nothing could get through. Still, for some reason, worry always crept in.
He came back to the front and knocked.
Knock knock!
"You in there, Maria?"
Even though I know she's always inside, I can't stop myself from asking every single time. Weird.
No answer came—of course it didn't. Faust never got an answer. Maria only spoke once he was inside. But judging people wasn't his place… at least not her.
Creeeak…
He pushed the door open gently with his right hand. It was never locked; there was no need. If someone could already breach the barrier, a lock wouldn't do shit.
As soon as he stepped in, Maria's voice came from the far right corner of the room.
"Ah… Faust, welcome. How are you?"
Instant response, but her voice was flat, no life in it—calm and quiet as always.
Maria. Always calm, always quiet. Nobody's forcing her to be cheerful. She can talk or act however she wants, like most of us… even if not all. She helps me enough…
"So? Tell me, I'm curious—how are you today?"
Like old relatives on their deathbed. She doesn't have anything to say about herself; there's only one person who cares, and she doesn't seem bothered by it.
She listens to troubles. Shares them. Gives advice. Listens. Never argues. Tells me exactly what I want to hear…
Faust kept talking as he sat down on the chair right by Maria's bed.
The chair had no arms—you couldn't rest your hands on anything. Dead simple but Faust didn't give a damn. He was just there to talk as always.
"I'm… I'm okay, I guess. It's been a weird day, but I figured your help might do me some good."
"Hmm… I'm curious what's bothering you, but how about starting with telling me about your day?"
"Uh… I mean… why not."
"…"
"So last night, in the middle of the goddamn night, Klint shows up at my door. Says I've gotta go to Winter City.
He woke me up just for that, and honestly, it pissed me the hell off.
The anger must've messed with my sleep too, because… I had a bad nightmare. But I'll get to that later."
"Aah? A bad nightmare, you say. I don't remember you ever being scared of nightmares before. So my guess is… it wasn't scary-bad. More like a dream you just didn't want to see?"
"Heh. Yeah, probably. But like I said, I'll come back to that. Right now I wanna talk about something else."
"Faust~ You know I always agree with you, right? So much that you pretty much only hear what you want to hear?"
"Yeah… I mean, yeah, that's true."
"So I think you need a tiny little change of perspective. Because you're here—you want to tell me something, ask something… and if you ask me? Whatever you're about to say is tied to that cute little nightmare of yours. So I think we both know where you should start."