Another chapter finally made it out, yes! It's a lot longer that I expected to be and it took a lot longer than expected as well...

A bit of surprise (or not really) at the end, so please enjoy!

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories

Chapter 18 – Neglected

A few days had passed since the incident with the corrupted runes. Frey was still staying in Selphia as she helped Arthur and Kiel to look into the past corruption cases. The capital hadn't been much help to their case, with the exception of the royal archives Arthur managed to access. The female Earthmate was quite aware of the things they might be against and had already been trained for actual combat, but her brother hadn't. It wasn't part of her mission from the capital, but training Lest for actual combat had become a mission she assigned herself.

The two Earthmates were in the empty field behind the castle, which had purposely been left unplanted to let the soil rest. Each of them was holding dummy weapons, with Lest using a pair of leeks as dual blades and Frey using a toy hammer. Despite the fact that Lest had faster weapons, he was losing the friendly spar against his twin who was using the much slower hammer.

Lest was backed into the wall of his barn with both leeks blocking Frey's hammer, but the pressure he put into pushing the hammer backfired when Frey skillfully pulled her hammer. She let the force from Lest's pushing make the hammer swing clockwise as she lowered the weapon. Lest had his chest wide open for Frey to hit him with the hammer.

The soft surface of the hammer managed to hit Lest square in his chest, but the only harm it could do was pin him to the wall, "Score!" Frey exclaimed as she proudly looked at Lest, "It seems like you lost again, for the third time."

Lest let out a disappointed sigh as Frey removed her hammer, "Fine, you win again…"

"Come on, now," Frey gave him a pat on the back, "We can spar again after we're done with our work for the day. I haven't finished training you back then, so I'll make it up to you with these sparring matches."

"Well," Lest tightened his grip on the leeks once more, "should we try again now? A short spar?"

"Aren't you a confident one?" Frey got her hammer ready once more, "Big sister will teach you all about an actual sparring match!"

As they yelled out their fighting spirits, a certain pink-haired woman was watching from inside the castle through the door. Dolce let out a sigh before she went back into the room and straight to the kitchen, where her ghost best friend was waiting. For a short moment, Pico noticed a hint of either jealousy or disappointment before she turned to continue her cooking.

"Are you upset, milady?" Pico asked bluntly, momentarily stopping her from adding some seasoning to the dish.

"No, I'm not," The female Guardian continued preparing the dish, completely ignoring the worried Pico.

"I know you well, Dolly," Pico tried hovering above the stove, trying to get Dolce's attention, "You don't look fine. You don't smile as much as when you first got married."

Dolce let out an annoyed sigh. She wanted to deny Pico's claim so that she would stop bothering her, but she had to admit that she was right. Her husband hadn't been spending a lot of time with her as he spent more time with another woman who claimed to be his sister. She wanted to be a good wife and let him catch up with his forgotten past with his so-called sister, but the neglect she experienced might be a little too much.

"So?" Dolce responded flatly while putting her cooked dish on the plate.

Pico groaned as she hovered right in front of Dolce's face, much to her face, "Dolly, shouldn't you be honest with yourself? Don't you want Lest to give you the attention you deserve?"

The female Guardian's lips curled into a frown as she set the plate of newly-cooked risotto quietly on the dining table, "You know how much I think about our own family, don't you?" Dolce turned to face Pico, "Sweetie knows and understands that. Back then, he helped me when I was in that kind of conflict with Jones and Nancy even when he never knew his own family."

"I get it now," Pico responded, "You want to do things just like he did… But don't you think that the situations now and before are different?"

Once again, Pico was right. Of course Lest would mind her spending more time with Jones and Nancy, knowing that both of them were like parents to her. Dolce wouldn't mind if Frey really were Lest's sister, but the fact that Lest couldn't remember anything about his past and his family and the one-sided claim that Frey was Lest's sister made her uneasy. Not to mention that Frey was acting too affectionate towards Lest to be his sister.

"Pico, let's go to the clinic. It's time for work," Dolce suddenly said as she left the kitchen.

"Huh?" Pico looked at the pink-haired Guardian in confusion as she followed her out of the room, "Isn't your shift supposed to be this afternoon?"

"We have… a lot of patients," Dolce gave out an excuse as she went through the main room, only to be stopped by Pico as she quickly hovered in front of her.

"You're not solving anything, Dolly!" Pico kept on blocking Dolce's way as she tried making her way out, "Please, Dolly…"

The Guardian noticed the worried look on her friend's face, "Pico?"

"I can feel that you're stressed out over this, but should you talk to him about it?" Pico let out a sigh, "When you're bottling things up like this, you tend to push yourself too hard. I mean, you look so tired and pale…"

"Dolly, are you okay?" Dolce turned around in surprise, meeting eye-to-eye with Lest as he and Frey had come in from the field, "You don't look too good these days. Shouldn't you ask Jones or Nancy to reduce your shift?"

"No, I'm fine," Dolce turned her back against Lest, "Your breakfast is on the dining table. I'm going to work now."

"Um… see you later?" Lest watched in confusion as his wife left the castle in silence along with Pico, who turned to him as she was about to leave.

"Lest… please don't leave her like this…" Pico stared at him with a pleading look for a moment before she finally left.

Seeing his wife looking more and more tired as days went by made Lest more concerned about her. What Pico had said just then also made it clear that Dolce's condition and behavior might have to do with what he did. He just couldn't point out what exactly he did to be treated coldly by his own wife. He turned to Frey to ask for some advice, but Frey's attention was at anything but the married couple's issues. She was focused on what she might have seen, which was most likely the true reason for her condition.

The worried ghost girl watched as her friend looked through the shelves of medicine for a customer. Dolce grabbed one of the medicine bottles and set it on the counter as she closed her eyes while holding her head. She hadn't been in the clinic for half a day, yet she felt exhausted as if she had been working nonstop for days.

"Are you okay, Miss?" The costumer suddenly asked, getting Dolce's attention.

"Oh, um, yes," Dolce looked the bottle she was holding for a short moment before handing it to the customer, "Here's your medicine-"

"Wait, Dolly!" Pico suddenly called out, stopping Dolce from giving the medicine, "Check that bottle again! She was asking for an invinciroid, not a formuade!"

"No, I know that this is… Oh…" Dolce checked the bottle once more and noticed that the bottle she was holding had red color instead of black, "I'm sorry, I've given you the wrong one."

"No, no, it's fine," The customer took the bottle from Dolce's hands, "I was also looking for a formuade as well. I'm still going to travel to other towns, so I might be able to find a recipe to make this formuade into a better invinciroid."

"Ah, I see. Thank you for the purchase," Dolce gave a small smile as the customer paid for the formuade and left.

Dolce let out a long and tired sigh as she slumped on one of the clinic chairs with Pico hovering closer to her, "Should you let Jones or Nancy check up on you, Dolly? You look even worse than this morning."

The female Guardian let out an annoyed sigh as she pulled out a piece of talisman, "You're tiring me out," She threw the talisman, only too weakly that it had fallen to the floor instead.

"You should listen to her sometimes, Dolly," The voice of the older nurse was heard before she approached the two, "Lest has been worried about you too. He has been asking me and Jones to let you rest at home for the past few days."

Lest had been asking for Jones and Nancy to let her take a few days off? That was something new for her.

"Is that so?" Dolce asked, still looking unconvinced.

Nancy replied with a nod, "Yes, he even asked me to send you home to rest when I saw him this morning. It seems like he had noticed that you have been feeling unwell lately so he wanted you to stay home and let him take care of you."

Dolce looked at Nancy while feeling a bit surprised, though only lasted for a short moment as frown came back, "If he only could do it, maybe I would let him."

Nancy turned to Pico, who noticed her confusion as she let out a sad sigh, "Lest hardly is awake when we come home these days. He would either be asleep without even changing his clothes or half-awake while groaning in pain after some sparring sessions with Frey. Not only that, he also-"

"Pico, stop," Dolce shortly stated, prompting the ghost to stop talking before turning back to Nancy, "This is my family issue, so please don't poke into our problems."

Nancy slowly nodded and gave her a sad smile, "Yes, that's true… Even so, you should actually get some rest, Dolly. You can take a rest here for a moment if you want and I'll make you some of your favorite flan."

"No, that's fine," The female Guardian rose to her feet, "I'm going home to rest."

"Very well. Don't push yourself too hard, okay?" Nancy noticed the weak nod coming from her foster daughter as she and Pico left the clinic.

Dolce was fine to be walking on her own back to the castle, although she only had at least half of the energy she usually had. Was the problem with her husband really making her so upset that she was losing her strength? She knew that wasn't the main cause, though simply thinking about her being neglected made things worse.

Pico could feel that her friend was both weakening and suffering as both of them were connected, but she was left speechless when it was about family matters. She couldn't even remember how she became a ghost in the first place, let alone remembering her own blood family. All she knew was that Dolce was like her sister and her parents were like Pico's own parents, and with Dolce's marriage to Lest, she had also earned herself a brother-in-law.

Just when things were going so well between three of them, another woman came into their life. The woman who claimed herself to be Lest's twin sister, yet her actions reflected her more as a lover than a sister. It was also just then that Lest started to spend more time with Frey rather than the family he always knew, much to Dolce's disappointment.

With a quiet sigh, Dolce opened the door to the castle to give herself some time to rest. The Guardian noticed how the door opened so easily even in her weakened condition, until she saw a familiar a green head by the castle entrance.

"Huh? Isn't that Amber?" Pico noticed the sleeping figure leaning against the door as Dolce knelt down to wake her up.

"Wake up, Amber. This isn't the place for you to sleep," Dolce shook her fellow Guardian awake before Amber slowly stirred and opened her eyes.

"Um… Oh! It's you, Dolly!" Amber looked at her surroundings, "This isn't my room…"

"Of course it isn't," Dolce helped the confused Amber back to her feet, "You're going to catch a cold if you keep on sleeping here."

"I know…" Amber responded with guilt, "I remember falling asleep on my bed last night and you woke me up here just now…"

"Huh?" Dolce turned to Pico, who was as surprised as she was before turning back to Amber, "I thought that I saw you walking around here this morning."

"That's weird," Amber responded in confusion, "Ellie said the same thing yesterday after I woke up in the forest."

"That's… definitely not usual…" Pico commented.

"Oh well, I should be going home now," The butterfly girl's tired eyes soon recovered as she started walking away, but suddenly stopped and turned back to Dolce, "But… there's something that I've been wondering, though…"

"What is it?" Dolce questioned.

"Have you got a dream that someone is asking you to leave the town?" Amber asked, surprising both Dolce and Pico.

"I… No, I don't," Dolce shook her head.

"Okay… see you later then!" Amber waved her fellow Guardian a goodbye as she headed back to the flower shop.

Dolce stood still in front of the half-open door, leaving Pico to question her as she hovered in front of her, "Dolly…?"

"It's just a coincidence. A coincidence for one stupid dream," Dolce simply shrugged off Pico's worry and headed straight towards the bedroom. She would have said something about the coincidence of having similar dreams, though she was too tired to make a simple argument. A short nap would be the only thing she wanted.

The sky had turned dark as nighttime had come, but Selphia was still lively with the townspeople still doing their late activities. While the village was still lively at that hour, it wasn't as lively as it would be in daytime. Most of the stores had closed for the day, leaving only the bath at the inn and the restaurant open.

Even with the liveliness in town, one of the townspeople was fast asleep in the castle. Dolce had changed into her night gown and was still sleeping in bed with Pico keeping her company, though she was sleepy from the lack of activity besides watching over her. She hovered over to her side of the bed to take a nap as well, but the sound of the door opening stopped her from taking her nap.

Lest entered the room while carrying some vegetables in his hands, "I'm home… huh?"

"Dolly's taking her beauty nap now, so don't you dare bother her," Pico noticed the vegetables in his hands, "What are those?"

Lest approached the bed and put his rucksack on the bedside table, "I'm planning to cook dinner tonight, so Dolly can take a rest from doing the housework for the rest of the night."

"That's a nice thing to do for Dolly, but," Pico pointed at the vegetables, "I thought that you know that Dolly hates vegetables!"

"Don't worry, I know," Lest showed the vegetables, "I'm making curry rice tonight, but we're out of carrots and potatoes so I bought them on the way home."

"Oh, I see…" Pico turned to see that Dolce slept through the whole conversation before turning back to Lest with a smile, "I'll wake her up later when it's done, so tell me when it's-"

"I'll bring it here."

"Huh?"

Lest let out a nervous laugh, "I haven't been spending much time with her lately, so I hope this makes up for all the lost time. I mean, I don't think I want to spend another hour when Nancy gave me quite an earful…"

It was Pico's turn to laugh, "Since Nancy already did the job for me, I guess I'll forgive you if you cook her favorite dishes," Pico winked at Lest, "I'm counting on you, Lest!"

Lest let out a nod, "Yeah, I will do my best."

A few minutes had passed since Lest left the room to cook dinner and Dolce had woken up from her long nap. Pico kept quiet as her friend looked around drowsily before Dolce saw the dark sky through the window and kicked the blanket off her in panic. She was supposed to be taking a short nap and woke up before it was dark to prepare dinner as usual, but it seemed like she had overslept.

Dolce saw Pico casually hovering above the bedside table, which made her notice that her husband had already returned home, "Pico, it's already this late! Why didn't you wake me up?"

Just as Pico was about to answer, the bedroom door opened to reveal Lest carrying a tray of food on his hand. Pico prompted Dolce to turn around to see Lest, who was also surprised to see that she was awake, "O-Oh, did I wake you?"

"No, not really…" Dolce's eyes trailed off to the food on the tray, "Did you… cook dinner?"

"Yeah, I'm planning to do it anyway," Lest responded as he approached the bed and put his rucksack away to place the tray, "Let's have dinner here, just for tonight."

"If that's what you want, then I'll go with it," Dolce replied flatly.

"Oh, Dolly is being so cold today," Pico's suddenly mockery earned her a piece of talisman on her face, but not strong enough to knock her out, "Come on, Dolly! Lest is trying to be attentive to you!"

"It's okay, Pico. I understand if she's mad at me," The bickering came into a stop when Lest took one of the plates of curry rice and took a spoonful of curry, "Would you like me to feed you?"

"Huh?!" Dolce looked back and forth between Lest and the spoonful of curry with a blush on her face.

"Or… do you not want to…?"

"One bite," Dolce whispered before turning to Lest, "Feed me one bite."

"Okay, here you go," Lest gave her the first spoonful of food before giving her the whole plate to eat, but she pushed it back to his hands, "You didn't like it?"

"No, just…" Dolce couldn't hide her blush as she looked at her husband from the corner of her eyes, "Feed me more, will you?"

"Sure," Lest obeyed as he gave her another spoonful of food, and another, until the whole plate was clean.

"Well, that was good," Dolce noticed that they were the only ones in the room, "Wait, where's Pico?"

"Didn't you hear her when she said that she was going to fly around a bit?" Dolce's confusion turned into embarrassment, knowing that she was so lost in her own world with the man she loved that she didn't notice her best friend leaving.

"O-Oh…" Dolce nervously avoided looking at Lest, who had simply laughed at her unexpected ignorance, until she noticed that there was another portion left on the tray, "Sweetie, you haven't eaten your dinner yet."

"Oh, this?" Lest took the other plate from the tray, "I was planning on eating it with you here, but yeah, I don't mind feeding you at all."

"Here, let me," Dolce took the plate from Lest and took a spoonful for Lest, "I'll feed you in return."

"T-Thanks Dolly," Lest nervously took his first spoon before they started talking about other things that happened that day as their relationship started healing within a single day.

"That felt so good!" Lest had stepped back into the bedroom in his pajamas after he had his bath before noticing the silence between Dolce and Pico, who had just returned from her random strolling, "Is something the matter?"

Pico turned to look at Lest and then turned to Dolce, who was looking down at the blanket, "Well, what are you waiting for? Lest is already standing there!"

Dolce turned to Pico with a glare, "It almost sounds like you're the one who wants it the most."

Pico let out a giggle as she looked at her with a wink, "But you do want it too, don't you Dolly?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lest let out a laugh as he walked over to the bed and sat next to his wife.

Dolce took another look at Pico before she flew away through the window, knowing that she wanted to say it without the ghost ruining it. The female Guardian took a deep breath before she took Lest's hand in hers and leaned against him, much to his surprise.

Dolce let out a whisper, "Sweetie, have you… have you thought about… having kids?"

Her voice became smaller and smaller, making it barely audible to Lest, "Sorry, I can't hear the last two words…"

"Kids," Dolce's voice became a bit louder, "I… I want to start a family, if that's okay with you…"

"So that's what you want, Dolly?" Lest let out a chuckle as he put his arm around her hips, "A cute miniature Dolly running around here seems like a good sight to see."

Dolce let out a chuckle as well while she held Lest's hand firmly, "Or a small version of you who's more responsible and less dense would be nice."

"Sure, anything will be good as long as they're our children," Lest put his head on hers as they spent their first night after making up.

Dolce had never expected that Lest had been attentive without her knowing, but she felt happier when she knew. What she had felt might have been jealousy as she had seen Lest with Frey, who was another woman, though she was his own sister. She didn't become a Guardian and leave her parents to meet someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, but she never regretted her decision. If she hadn't become a Guardian, she would never have met and married Lest.

Dolce was happy, but she wasn't aware of another soul which had been eating her inside the whole time. The one soul who had been betrayed many times and wished that others would feel the same pain it felt.

"Damn, this isn't going my way anymore!"