32.1A-2: 《Prince》 In Need Of [Des/Re]pair

A week and a half. That was how long they told Olive he needed to stay in the care of this hospital within the ‘Small Services District.’ Usually long stays in the hospital reminded him of the weeks he spent in the care of doctors after the Tragedy. This had made him averse to anything and everything healthcare related. Nico had been the one to break that aversion curse via Cadence’s and Werner’s thoughts and feelings towards the man, but only by a slim margin. 

This time around, however, Olive was appreciative of the extended stay because he wasn’t too clear on what he was going to do if he wasn’t here in the hospital. 

Maybe if Werner or Cadence were themselves they’d be able to immediately hit the ground running. Maria definitely would. 

Maria..?

Olive had tried to reach out to her and to remember the last time he’d seen her—both in Signum and in his hazy dream-memory of Ndoto, but the only thing he remembered was her appearing on the televisions of Ndoto and her words — “Yes, this is dear Olive. There is no one else he can be, no?” 

As for Atienna…? She’d definitely hit the ground running after some in-depth investigating, right…? Yes, her curiosity would be relentless.

That aside, Olive knew he needed to do some research himself, to understand Ndoto and how it worked, to figure out what exactly it was. And that was why the first thing he said to his not-parents once they were all situated back in that hospital room was—“Could you get me some books?” 

It was hitting two birds with one stone: getting information about this place from hitting the books and getting his not-parents out of his vicinity. At least that was how it was supposed to be. 

“What textbooks do you want exactly, honey?” his not-mom asked at his bedside. “It might be a bit difficult to get the ones that I think you want…”

“The doctors just processed you as a VNW infectee,” his not-dad explained. “So your KM-level’s been capped at 2 until you get better, sport. A lot of the more complicated textbooks are only accessible to higher KM-levels.” He squeezed Olive’s shoulder. “You were at an above-average KM-level before. You’ll get back there. Just take it easy for now.”

Olive couldn’t remember the last time he heard his parents’ voices without it being from within a dream—a non-Ndoto dream. He’d never known whether or not the voices of his parents from those dreams were actually what they sounded like. Now he knew they weren’t. Or maybe these were not accurate renditions of his parents.

Renditions? Was that what they were? Was it accurate to call them that? 

“Hello?” not-mom waved a hand in front of his face. “Is anyone home?”

Olive slapped her hand away, taking note of how it felt lukewarm. The next thing he took note of was the brief look of hurt on the woman’s face as she retracted her hand.  The look of hurt melded into understanding which made guilt wrack Olive’s chest.

“Olive!” his not-dad chastised. “I know you’re confused but that’s no way to treat your mother—to treat anyone. Especially if they’re trying to help you.”

Olive opened his mouth and then closed it. “I… know that.”

Saints. Why was he acting this way? To people who were—‘to people who were’ what…? 

He stared past his parents towards Lavi who sat in a plastic chair in the corner of the room. There was a bookbag stuffed with books and notebooks beside the leg of the chair, and Lavi herself had a notebook on her lap that she was busily scribbling away in. Most notably she was dressed in a… uniform of some kind. The name of the uniform was on the tip of his tongue. 

Lavi looked up at him and squinted. “What?” she mouthed. 

Olive frowned. “What do you mean ‘what’?” he mouthed back.  

Not-mom glanced back at her. “We had to force her to go to school. She wanted to be here every waking hour of the day until you woke up.”

Lavi flushed. “What? That’s not true…”

The warm atmosphere of the moment made Olive’s stomach twist. It felt like he was lucid dreaming—no lucid nightmaring—but he had no control over it.

“Can you get me the books or not?” Olive interjected. “It could be a book written for twelve year-olds. I don’t care as long as it tells me something about Ndoto.”

His not-parents frowned and exchanged looks.

His not-mom sighed before she said gently, “We could tell you things about Ndoto.” 

“Word of mouth is as reliable as a source of information as saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ to someone is useful.”

His not parents exchanged looks again. 

Ugh. Olive knew he was projecting now. 

“That’s… quite an analogy,” his not-dad drew slowly. “And  quite rude too.” He exchanged a look with not-mom. “But I understand where you’re coming from. We’ll get you those books…” He sat on Olive’s bed, holding up a finger. “… on the condition that you tone down that attitude and—” He tapped Olive’s forehead “—let us know what it is you’re thinking.”

A memory suddenly came to Olive. One where he sat listlessly in the throne room of the Ariesian capital as officials and feudal lords pontificated endlessly in front of his parents. In the middle of a long speech from a feudal lord who had inherited his property from his father, Olive’s own father had abruptly turned to him and tapped him on the forehead. With a smile and seemingly without a care for what the feudal lord was saying, his father had whispered— “Are you going to let me know what you’re thinking?”

Olive had not recalled this memory in a long time since there were no cues in reality for him to use to fetch it from the recesses of his mind. No—that wasn’t quite right. Olive had always felt nostalgic when Werner placed a hand on his head for a reason. 

Something tightened in his chest. He hadn’t felt this way earlier about his parents when he’d first woken up, so why did his eyes burn now? Was it because earlier that dream where he was an Ndotoan felt much closer, clearer, crisper, more tangible? Was it because now that dream felt foggy and distant? 

Ugh—now he was thinking back to all the small little things his parents had said and done for him. Holding his hand as they walked through the royal halls. Wiping his mouth and squeezing his cheeks. Hugging him whenever he demanded it. Playing with him in the gardens—

Olive grimaced, feeling guilty that he craved these things even though he was the reason why those moments no longer come back. And…

“Why did you do it?” Olive muttered. 

“Do what…?”

Olive stared across the room at Lavi. “Why did you let her become a saint candidate even though you knew what it meant becoming?”

Lavi frowned, brows furrowing.

“How much did you know?” Olive continued, fisting the blanket. “You had to have known about what vitae reservoirs really are. But you didn’t do anything about it. You just let it happen. Was it because it was too hard to stop it? Did you think the saint candidates were right? Did you just want the vitae? More than you wanted Lavi to be Lavi…?”

Lavi’s expression smoothed over and she looked away just slightly.

“And the thing that made you both decide to let Lavi become a saint candidate, the thing that made you both decide to let you think that letting it be was okay, to let you believe that our people’s lives were just fuel—all of that’s in me too. Will I… eventually become the same way—”

“Olive.” His not-dad’s voice cut through Olive’s thoughts. “You are our son. I’m not going to say you’re nothing like us because all children are like their parents in one way or another. But—that being said—you are better than us. You’ll make better choices than us because you can look at the choices we made and see what went wrong.”

Olive hated how those words of reassurance warmed his chest. It all felt mismatched.

His not-dad glanced back at his not-mom. “Now, I don’t understand what all of this saint candidate business is but—”

“The doctor did say that his VNW beliefs this time are similar to the ones he had last time,” not-mom said beside him. “That’s the one where we’re… the king and queen of some country.”

Right—Olive very faintly recalled that this wasn’t the first time he ‘had’ VNW. Did that mean that he’d been ‘turned into’—for the lack of a better explanation—an Ndotoan before and broken out of it only to become an Ndotoan again? None of it made chronological sense with what he knew as reality. Was that old round of VNW just a part of the Ndoto-dream or did it really happen? 

“Oh!” Not-dad’s brows rose. “That one…” He looked back at Olive and grimaced. “Well then, let me tell you the same thing I told you when you had VNW the last time around. First off: your VNW-self was just a kid. You didn’t know any better. You should have been taught better. When bad things happen, it’s never a single person’s fault so stop thinking like it is. Second: your mom and I are not dead. We are right here. We’ll always be a call away.”

Not-mom nodded.

Olive tried to shove down the warmth he felt.

“Lastly; everything we ever do, have done, will do is, has always been, will always be in your best interest. Lavi’s and your safety and happiness are the most important things to the both of us.”

Olive bit his inner cheek as he tried to block out the words he’d always wanted to hear. His not-mom abruptly pulled him into an embrace, holding him tight as if to prevent him from floating away. Olive resisted returning the gesture and instead allowed himself just one brief moment of respite in the warmth of his mother’s arms. 

* * *

That evening his not-parents brought him a handful of textbooks and… photo albums. Just looking at the stupid titles of them—‘Chance Family Memories’ and ‘Our Life’ made Olive feel sick, so he put them gingerly in the corner of the room.

It was difficult to explain but that feeling of discomfort didn’t come from the thought that someone had potentially put together a bunch of fake photos to manipulate him. It didn’t come from the thought that it was potentially fake either. It came from the thought that he was not the one captured in those photos. 

“You don’t want to look?”

Olive looked up from ‘A History of Ndoto: For Kids!’. 

Lavi sat at her plastic chair studying him. Their not-parents had left half an hour earlier to run some errands leaving just Lavi and him in this room. 

“You’re not going to look at the albums?”

Olive studied her. “I don’t like picture books.”

“But you’re reading one.”

Olive tossed the useless book to the side. “Not anymore.”

Lavi’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t like a lot of things, but…” She glanced at the stack of albums. “I know you’re the type to force yourself to like things for other people.” She eyed the window where the light from the tree burned bright. “So I think you should at least look at those albums out of respect for the dead.”

Olive suddenly felt faint. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Lavi opened her mouth and closed it three times. She settled on pursing her lips and shrugging. 

Olive frowned and struggled for a bit before he managed, “It’s… you, isn’t it, Lavi?”

Lavi paused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Olive sighed. “I mean…” He let out a breath. “You’re the Lavi that I know.”

Lavi held his gaze before staring down into the notebook in her lap. “Who is the Lavi you know anyways?”

Olive swung his legs off the bed and made his way over to her. He reached out and touched her shoulder. Soft to the touch and warm. Solid. “The Lavi I know is the one who always kept me company after the Tragedy even when I was at my worst. The Lavi I know always pokes her head in where it doesn’t belong. The Lavi I know is a liar. She’s a fake optimist who always gives advice she never takes. The Lavi I know is the Saint Candidate of Aries.”

Lavi looked back up at him.

Olive sighed. “But—I know this sounds corny—the biggest thing that I know about the Lavi that I know is that she’s my sister. And I’m her brother… and I’m glad people can see you here.” And he needed to figure out how that was possible.

Lavi’s eyes widened slightly and she scribbled something into her notebook. A bird. She mumbled, “The person you ‘know’ rarely is the same as the person that exists…” She paused. “You should be careful about what you say or even you’ll become fertilizer.”

“You’re always accusing me of being moody but look at you…” Olive muttered back. He paused. “Wait… ‘Fertilizer’?”  He walked back over to his bed and picked up the history book. “Is that what they mean by that phrase ‘return to the tree’? I was wondering how it was all possible: being able to… conduct without a conductor here. That is what Ndoto people can do, right? They call it a gift from the tree, but—” He tapped the book. “—being able to conduct like that requires an elevated vitae energy level. That elevated vitae is stuck in its elevated state. So the tree somehow gives them that elevated state. But Ndoto is a closed system…. so, if the tree is giving people this elevated vitae state, where is the tree getting all of that vitae from?  Where does all the vitae that the Ndotoans use—do they even conduct that much here?—go? Where does the vitae go when an Ndotoan dies?” He pointed out the window. “It goes to that tree, doesn’t it? So that tree is basically functioning as a conductor.”

How did it work? He wanted to go to the tree and inspect it himself.

Lavi closed her open mouth. “That was… quick.”

“So I’m right?” Olive dropped the book and studied his sister. “Did you receive a gift from the tree? Is that why… everyone can see you?” He shook his head. “Or is it because of where we are?” Wait. Yes. That last bit made more sense. Lavi had vitae at an elevated vitae state, so receiving the gift from the tree seemed counter intuitive. 

Lavi squinted at him. “Did you not hear what I said?”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Olive gestured around him. “Is this…” He hesitated. “Are the saint candidates doing this? Why? Is this… part of the syzygy? What do you know?”

Lavi sighed, shook her head, and returned to jotting down in her notebook. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you’re giving your VNW to me by talking to me so maybe we shouldn’t talk right now.” She added after a pause, “If this was the syzygy, it’s a poor rendition of it.”

Olive stopped himself from rolling his eyes and sat back down on his bed. He stared at his hands, trying to identify if there were any stray foreign lines there as he listened to his sister’s pen work away. “Lavi, I know the Lavi I always spoke to was only a part of you. Something about this place is wrong, but… I don’t really know the full version of you and I would like to get to know it, so at least… this place has given me that.”

The pen scritching stopped, but Lavi said nothing.

Olive felt his face go red. “You know I don’t admit these things to anyone, so it would be nice to get something in response.”

The scritching continued. 

* * *

The nurses told Olive that visitations outside of family were going to start on the third day.

“I don’t want visitors,” Olive told them as soon as he heard about it. At least none besides the other five—wherever they were.

“Oh, but you must!” the nurses insisted. “It’s protocol now with those changes made by Policymaker Wolff—”

“Gilbert Wolff?” Olive scoffed at the idea even though he could very vaguely picture Gilbert standing in front of a podium with a suit and tie.

The nurses waved him off. “It’s one of the best remedies for VNW: speaking and being with family and friends.”

It was so corny. Everything here was corny—from the ‘shows’ that played out on the ‘television’ to the way everyone here dressed in floral patterns. It was too happy and bright. It made Olive almost sick. 

And so Olive spent the night before the cursed day thinking of things to say to say to repel his visitors. Maybe a grimace paired with an ‘Oh… it’s you.’ Or maybe a ‘You’ve got the wrong room. Yes, I know who you are but you’ve still got the wrong room.’ Even a ‘Who invited you?’ 

By the time morning rolled around, Olive had a long list of witty responses and bags beneath his eyes. Every time there was a knock at the door, Olive steeled himself only to be greeted by a nurse or a doctor. By noon, his only visitors were his not-parents and Lavi.

Frankly, he was embarrassed on his Ndoto-self’s behalf. He was confident that the Ndoto Olive was a social butterfly and extremely popular and therefore would receive many visitors. But where were they?

Olive felt something tighten in his chest the more he thought on it. It was fine if none of Ndoto Olive’s friend visited. Olive didn’t really care about that. But why hadn’t Atienna come by? Why hadn’t the other four? They were not themselves here, Olive knew, but he didn’t think that they were so far from themselves that they wouldn’t even be bothered with visiting. 

Soon it was two in the afternoon and almost time for lunch. As usual, his not-parents had left an hour earlier to do whatever they usually did when they weren’t in the hospital room with him.  As usual, he hadn’t seen Lavi since the previous night and expected to see her around 4 when she got off of school. It was a funny idea: a saint candidate going to school. It was also an idea that Olive thought of often: Lavi being able to go to school. Another ‘as usual’: the nurse responsible for serving him lunch was five minutes late.

Nurse Helga Rightmann briskly paced into Olive’s room with a tray of ‘as usual’ bread, butter, and bean soup and placed the tray on the counter beside his bed. She drew open the already drawn open curtains,  wrote something down on a clipboard, and headed out the room—then, she abruptly skidded to a halt, smiled devilishly at him, and gestured to the door behind her.

“Oh, wait a minute!” she took a step back. “I have a surprise for you!”

Saints.

It was time.

Olive steeled himself and went over the list of dry retorts in his head as a vaguely familiar group entered the room. He instantly recognized the person who headed the familiar group: Heather—that one annoying girl in his class at New Ram University. He didn’t remember what role she played in Ndoto. Behind her were two male adolescents Olive swore he’d seen in one of the magazines Cadence had stolen from a newspaper in some Twin Cities gazebo. Somehow Olive knew their names: Eric and Stanley. And behind them came another duo—

The room spun. Olive’s stomach lurched with the motion. Fear, apprehension, relief, and disgust grabbed a hold of his stomach.

Trystan and Marta. 

Them. 

Trystan, Marta, and the other adolescents, unphased by the vertigo Olive felt, drew nearer and nearer. They stopped at his bedside. 

Heather said something. Olive didn’t hear her. He couldn’t look away from Trystan and Marta. Trystan and Marta. Separated. Not one amalgamation of viscous vitae but two separate human beings. Eric said something too but his voice was garbled. 

“Hey, none of that language now. I signed you all off so you get out of your classes early.” Marta’s voice barely cut through the ringing in Olive’s ears. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Heather and Stanley started laughing and going back and forth but Olive couldn’t really hear them.  Trystan frowned and put a hand on his shoulder. He gave it a squeeze. Warm. 

“You’re…. alive—” Olive shook his head and slapped Trystan’s hand away. “No, you’re not…”

“But… I am,” Trystan amended before guilt and regret made its way into his features. “And… I’m alive thanks to you.”

No. That wasn’t right. Trystan had died because of him. If the man hadn’t followed Olive to the Capricornian capital’s underbelly then he would have never come into contact with that vitae. If the royal guard—no, Olive’s friend—hadn’t pulled him aside in that dark room, then Trystan’s parents wouldn’t have to perform funeral rites over an empty grave. No, no, no. 

“Me too, Chance,” Marta said. “Intentional or not, I got out of that building because of you.”

No. That wasn’t right either. It was because Olive had brought her invention to the spotlight that she had been pulled away into that crude research. If there paths had never crossed, her brilliant mind would have had the opportunity to concoct so many more technological advances. The world had been robbed with her death.

Death? Olive himself had been the one to burn the both of them up even though… they could have been… saved. 

Something burned in Olive’s throat. The room continued to spin.

“Olive?” Trystan tried. “Are you okay?”

“He has VNW so I doubt it, but—woah!” Eric pointed to the albums stacked in the corner. “Dude, we’ve got to walk through these.” He ripped the top one off the stack and propped it open on Olive’s bed. He began to flip through the pages and pointed to random ones. “Oh, I remember this one! It was your fourteenth birthday party! We all went to the new roller rink that opened up and you lit the disco ball on fire.”

“Good times,” Stanley added.

“Oh, and this one”—Eric pointed to another photo on another page— “This was at the aquarium. Where did you even get the chance to take this photo? Don’t tell me your parents followed us. Oh and this one—”

The waves of nausea continued.

Eric shoved the album in Olive’s face.

There was a photo of Olive himself dressed in a soccer jersey surrounded by a bunch of other grinning adolescents including Trystan. Trystan stood to Olive’s left with a ball tucked beneath his arm. And to Olive’s right was—

“Oh yeah… what’s up with Claire not showing today?” Stanley asked. “I haven’t heard from it since the beach.”

“Maybe he kicked the bucket.” Hannah snickered. 

—Claire…? 

“Wait, wait.” Marta shushed the others and pushed them back. She peered into Olive’s face. “Are you okay?”

In response, Olive vomited. 

* * *

Trystan and Marta’s visit opened the gateway to visitors. People from Ndoto-dream Olive’s soccer club activities, from his tutoring side job, from his mall side job, from his classes—all of them came in droves. They showered him with gifts and flowers and stories of things Ndoto-dream him did with them.  His not-parents would sometimes even bring the visitors sweets and treats, prolonging their stay even further. 

He wanted to hate them all but he couldn’t. They all genuinely seemed to like Ndoto-dream Olive. It wasn’t a sham like the royal officials. But that made it worse because it felt like all of that warmth and camaraderie wasn’t directed at nor meant for him. That and Olive barely had the time to focus on reading up on Ndoto itself. Still, he tolerated it because he felt a sense of guilt. But, in the end, he still needed to get things done. So, for this reason, as soon as he saw a silhouette standing at the door at an off hour, he said:

“No. Leave. I’ve hit my quota for today.”

“Huh? What do you mean, Ollie? Are you mad we didn’t come earlier? I’m sorry—”

Olive looked up sharply at the familiar voice. Werner stood at the threshold of the door. He was dressed slightly more normally than last time —although he was still sporting that leather jacket, sunglasses, and guitar.

“Should we leave?” Werner asked meekly. 

“I—no. Come in.”

Wait—‘we’? 

Werner brightened and rolled into the room. Two familiar figures followed closely behind him. It was Cadence and… Jericho? 

Cadence was dressed more normally than earlier as well, sporting a simple strapless floral dress. Her hair was done up in an elaborate bun, however, and her hoop earrings sparkled everytime she moved. Olive got the impression that she looked more like the women she sought after. Which was weird—but also not at the same time.

Jericho on the other hand was dressed in a modest floral print shirt and a pair of khaki pants. A vaguely familiar camera hung by a strap around his neck. It was difficult to see the emotion in his eyes because they were concealed by a pair of tinted glasses.

What was up with the floral theme here?

Werner swung the guitar around and strummed a discordant chord. “Ready for the song I wrote for you, Ollie?”

What?

“No, it’s okay.” Olive held up a hand. “For your sake, no. Trust me.”

Werner’s face fell. “But… I made this song just for you and Liebling.”

Olive nearly choked on his spit. Liebling?

“Nico told me he felt a lot better after I sang it for him.” Werner nodded. “But… if… you don’t want me to then…”

Olive stared at Werner’s ridiculously crestfallen expression for a moment before he relented. “Fine. Go ahead.”

Sorry, Werner. 

Werner brightened. “Get better, Ollie,” he sang as he strummed the guitar. “Feel better soon! Once you feel better, we can hang out till noon—”

Cadence sighed and held up her hand in front of the man’s face. She sang in a milky voice, “You’re hitting the wrong key, Werner. It should be ‘C’ not ‘F’. Do you hear it? Sing ‘C’ for me—”

“C…?” Werner tried.

“No, no, that’s ‘D,’” Cadence sang before she drew her hand lower. “Hit ‘C’ for me here…”

“I am…?” Werner sang back.

Cadence sang louder, “No, you’re not—”

Werner shook his head. “It’s cool how letters have sounds but I don’t think I’m cut out for this…”

This felt like a fever dream. 

Olive turned his attention away from them and towards Jericho who’d approached his bed.

“Jericho…” Olive drew slowly. 

Jericho abruptly raised his camera and took a photo. Olive was momentarily blinded by the flash so he almost didn’t hear Jericho ask, “How are you feeling?”

Olive rubbed his eyes with a scowl. “How would you feel if someone blasted you in the eyes with that kind of light?” He felt bad a second later for snapping since he knew Jericho wasn’t himself. 

“So you do have VNW,” Jericho noted.

Olive rubbed his eyes and allowed them to adjust before he mumbled, “Is gossiping about what’s going on with me everyone’s favorite pastime now?”

Jericho smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t say that. Everyone is just concerned about you. Besides, that’s a power in itself: commanding and directing people’s attention. That’s what all the news outlets are doing now: manipulating what people see and therefore manipulating what people feel and think. It’s sad to think that tragedies are just a tool for some people.”

Olive was rather taken aback by the eloquence with which Jericho spoke and how politically charged he spoke.

“Apologies for not visiting earlier. I was caught up with some of the consequences of the mall attack and with ELPIS in general,” Jericho said. 

Olive’s heart skipped a beat. ELPIS? Oh, wait. Right. He remembered just slightly that in Ndoto that ELPIS was filled with… ‘hippies’?

“Werner and Cadence have had their hands tied with Nico’s recovery,” Jericho continued, “and both Maria and Shion—”

Shion…?

“—have been busy dealing with the fallout of what happened at Small Services. They both couldn’t come but Maria asked me to give you this.” He held out a yellow card.

A card. Really? That was the last thing Maria would ever think of giving.

Olive took it anyways and opened it. There was a cartoon sun at the card’s center and it was hugging a stick figure child. You are my sunshine! the card read in print. Beneath that was Maria’s handwriting: I know you will overcome this, my dear!

The words felt empty which unnerved Olive. Then he thought of something else that had been itching at the back of his mind. He asked, “And Atienna…?”

Jericho arched a brow. “She hasn’t come by yet? I haven’t heard from her all week. I know she’s been here. Are you sure you haven’t seen her?”

Olive felt something sink in his chest. Something heavy like the chain that always hung there but also something foreboding. Something wasn’t right. “No… I haven’t…”

A warm hand pressed against Olive’s back. He looked up to see Jericho offering a natural and comforting smile.  “You’ll be alright, Olive,” he said. “You’re safe.”

* * *

“How are you feeling?”

Nurse Helga was here again. Food duty. Much to Olive’s surprise, however, she arrived to deliver his midnight snack earlier than usual. It was just him in the room now, his visitations having ended five hours prior and his not-parents and Lavi having left one hour prior. Usually he’d take advantage of Helga’s tardiness to fake sleeping so he could avoid conversation.

“Fine,” Olive answered curtly.

“Being diagnosed with VNW can be pretty taxing. You have to deal with a world that doesn’t make sense and with people expecting you to be and act like someone else.”

“I’m tired,” Olive hinted. He then noticed that she hadn’t brought any food trays with her.

“You could pretend to be someone else in order to be accepted—to be loved,” the nurse continued regardless. “In your case, you could pretend that Ndoto is your reality even if you don’t believe it.”

Why was she being so talkative today? 

Olive muttered, “Is there a way to switch nurses…”

“But you’ll eventually realize that the person they love and accept isn’t you.” The nurse pulled open the drawn curtains, letting in the light from the tree. The shadows became purged from her face, making her features appear odd and foreign. “You’re no one and because you’re no one you can’t be loved or accepted by anyone.”

“Now it sounds like you’re projecting…” Olive trailed off.

Was it the light that was making her face look odd? Weren’t her eyes more slanted a few seconds ago? Her lips thinner? Her brows more arched? Her nose smaller? He couldn’t tell. The changes—if there were any—were too minute and gradual to identify.

A familiar ominous feeling gripped his stomach. Dread. Fear. Danger.

Olive clenched his fist. “Who are you?”

The nurse turned to him slightly and smiled. “I used to envy you True Conductors since you know everyone in your connection so deeply, so truly, so completely. You see everyone in your connection inside and out. You know them. Or at least that’s what I thought.” Her smile curled. “But it turns out you don’t really know each other at all. No one understands you or anyone else.”

The nurse’s face rippled causing Olive’s heart to fall into his stomach.

Transmutationist, Olive thought. With the way they were walking around talking like they knew more than they let on, this person had to be one of the ones behind this.

“So is that why you’re doing this? Because you’re projecting about no one understanding you?” Olive tried to bait her like Cadence would. “I didn’t think a saint candidate’s motivation could get any sadder.”

The nurse chuckled.  “I’m not the one doing this. I just empathize with the person who is.” Her eyes narrowed. “I probably understand them more than you do.”

What? 

The nurse approached his bedside—and then passed it. She stopped by the door and glanced at him.

“By the way, I don’t know what Capricorn’s said about me,” the nurse drew with a wink, “but I’m not a Transmutationist.”

With that, she departed, leaving Olive’s heart hammering in his ears. He let out a shaky breath and tried to collect his thoughts but was interrupted by another person entering the room. It was her again. Nurse Helga. This time she entered holding a tray of apples and peanuts. She smiled at Olive and gently placed the tray of snacks on the table beside him. Olive did not let his eyes leave her once as she walked over to the curtains and drew them close. 

Wait. Was this the real nurse…?

“Good night, Olive,” Helga said before she departed.

* * *

“Mind if I come in?”

Olive startled. Even though it was morning now and it had been two days since he’d seen Not-Nurse Helga, he was still on edge. He had gotten the impression that whoever that was had only swung by to gauge his condition—to size him up.

Olive glanced up at the door and paused. “Gabrielle?” 

Gabrielle Law indeed stood there dressed in a suit with flared pants and arm sleeves. Beside her stood Alice who was dressed in a more modest yet still flower-printed dress. Behind the two women hovered a tall and familiar man wearing a pineapple-print shirt that barely contained his bulging muscles.

“Alexander…” Olive whispered, tensing. 

Why were they here? What was their relationship to him in Ndoto?  Wait a minute. No. Olive could barely piece the dream-memory together in his head: the three of them had arrived in Ndoto just recently. 

“We heard you were up, so we decided to swing by.” Gabrielle looked around the room. “You’re pretty popular so it took a while to book ourselves an appointment with you.”

Terrible jokes as always.

Olive hesitated before he tried, “Did Atienna tell you about me?”

Gabrielle glanced at Alice. “We actually haven’t spoken to Atienna recently.”

What? Did that mean Atienna hadn’t even handed over the files to them yet? Why…?

Alice stepped forward. She studied Olive’s face inquisitively. “Olive,” she said after a pause, “you identify as Ariesian Prince Olivier Chance right now, don’t you?”

Alexander straightened at this.

Gabrielle glanced between them before she studied Olive too. Olive scowled slightly in response. He didn’t appreciate feeling like he was something beneath a microscope. 

Gabrielle’s brows rose. “You’re… you again? How…?”

“You came here without knowing that?” Olive frowned.

“It… looks like we got lucky…” Gabrielle jerked her head at Alexander. “Hey, Charming, could you go grab the hauptmann and the capitano for me? They should be down in the lobby somewhere.”

“I don’t understand.” Alexander shook his head as he stared at Olive. He abruptly dipped into a low bow. “Your Highness, I need to be here with you—”

“How about asking the opinion of the person whose room you’re about to overcrowd…” Olive muttered. He shook his head and held Alexander’s gaze. After letting out a breath, he said, “Alexander, it’s fine. Go get them. I’ll… still be here when you get back.”

Alexander hesitated.

“Alexander.” Olive held the man’s gaze.

Alexander relented, nodded, departed. He returned a minute later with Hauptmann Weingartner and some Geminian that Olive didn’t recognize. They were all dressed much more subdued than Alexander, Gabrielle, and Alice.

“How… did this happen?” were the first words that came from Hauptmann Weingartner’s mouth. “And can we replicate it?”

“Before I answer that,” Olive responded, “don’t you think we should all be on the same page first?”

Gabrielle proceeded to run Olive through everything they’d been through so far since Olive had last seen her. The war, the arrival, the Saint Candidates, the threshold, the doppelganger, the tree, the root. 

“So our doppelganger isn’t a Transmutationist?” Gabrielle mused when Olive had informed them of Gemini’s visit. “Interesting.”

But Olive could not focus on her musings because the first thing Olive realized after the end of it all was— “We… didn’t stop it. We didn’t stop the fighting.” The sinking feeling that had been accompanying him since he awoke suddenly made sense. He had failed. Again. Stomach tying into knots, he said to the hauptmann, “I’m sorry.”

“It takes more than one person to stop a war,” the hauptmann replied after a pause. “Even if we did all we could, there are still variables outside of our control.”

The capitano wrinkled his nose. “Stopping a war? Please. Don’t be so conceited—”

“You’re speaking to a member of the Ariesian royal family,” Alexander said lightly. “You could try to be more respectful.”

“Don’t be so conceited, Prince Chance,” the capitano amended. “With the choices your country and your alliances have made, this was inevitable.”

Olive frowned at him and wondered how in the world he managed to get into his position. He decided—with some effort—not to send a jab at the man. He could do that later and instead gave the hauptmann a nod of affirmation.

“So the theory that this place is the ‘threshold’ the ELPIS Leaders always talk about it…” Olive gestured around the room. “That’s where they say that elevated vitae pools up. If that’s the case, then… that explains where the tree is getting the vitae to ‘gift’ people.” He explained his theories on the conductor-like nature of the tree. “So… I still think by ‘returning to the tree,’ the people here mean returning the ‘gifted’ vitae back to the tree.”

Was being at the threshold also the reason why Lavi had a physical form here? He needed to know… so he could replicate it.

“But what’s the purpose of that?” Gabrielle sank down in the plastic chair in the corner. “If there’s already this elevated vitae available then why have people return it? Especially when—from what I’ve looked into—it seems like ‘returning to the tree’ doesn’t always entail dying of old age and natural causes.”

What?

“‘Achieve enlightenment and happiness and then return to the tree,’” Gabrielle explained. “I spoke to a few people here who knew someone that achieved their ‘life goal’ and exited life early.”

Olive felt nauseous. Suicide…?

“That’s not the type of belief system or behavior you’d expect if vitae supplies were endless.”

“Conservation?” Weingartner suggested.

“Perhaps it’s less related to logical reasoning and more related to the personal beliefs of whoever operates Ndoto,” Alice amended. “We should also consider the cultural aspects of this ‘returning to the tree.’ I don’t believe we should write off the Ndotoans as non-autonomous just yet.”

Olive felt his stomach twist slightly, but he pushed it aside. “It might have to do with all of these ‘gardens’ and ‘roots’ that you mentioned earlier.” He pointed up. “I mean, think about how much vitae it takes for one country to function. And that’s without people being at an elevated state of vitae.”

“Multiple gardens and places like Ndoto. More taxing vitae consumption.” Gabrielle thrummed her fingers.

The Geminian capitano stroked his chin. “So what does this have to do with getting out of here?”

Olive arched a brow at him. “So if you’re in a room with a locked door and your solution is just to keep staring at the door without searching the room to see if there’s anything you can use to get out? Very effective strategy. I’ll keep in mind to use it sometime.”

The capitano’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

Gabrielle and Alice exchanged looks. 

“So,” Gabrielle pressed, “it seems like our mastermind is a conservationist. A real hippie, one might say.”

Ugh. The jokes.

“Anyways, I’m going to address the elephant in the room now: we should keep in mind the possibility that we may need to cut down the tree,” Gabrielle said. “That’s the thing keeping this place going.”

“The ‘roots’ as well regardless of what or who they may be,” Weingartner added. “That’s something we should all acknowledge. The tree may very well be a root itself.”

Wait— ‘who’? 

Olive frowned deeper. “Wait—I agree that the tree is something we need to look at but what are you saying about the roots…?”

“Targeting that tree may not be enough,” Weingartner said without skipping a beat. “And we’ve already been reminded time and time again about the importance of these ‘roots’. This is not a task we would be asking you to take on, Prince Chance.”

“That’s not the problem here,” Olive interjected. “It’s—”

Gabrielle cleared her throat. “Well, let’s save that for later, hauptmann—”

“I’m just saying,” Olive pressed, “that I don’t think we should make any rash decisions before considering how it’ll affect the people here. We should guarantee their safety first before we do anything.”

Gabrielle exchanged looks with Alice and then Alexander. They all looked perplexed, but Alice and Gabrielle nodded. 

Alice said, “I agree, Olive.” 

“And what about the living dead?” the capitano interjected. “Where do they fall into this? Are they even real? Do we need to consider them for you too? Don’t be naive—”

Olive’s mind went to his not-parents, to Trystan, to Marta. What… about them? What—no who—were they really…? 

“Wait… since we’re at the threshold,” Olive drew slowly, “what if…” His head began to buzz. “When people die, their vitae goes to the threshold. Vitae has been collecting at the threshold because of elevated vitae states. And if that’s true and the tree is conducting that vitae… what if somehow it really is them?”

Silence. 

“I know theoretically that’s an impossible thing but…” Olive shook his head as his ears rang. Falling on a conclusion without any scientific backing was unlike him. Was he just… desperate? Pathetic. “There’s so much we don’t know, and—”

“Who would even be able to do such a thing?” the capitano asked gravely. “Do you understand what you’re suggesting, Prince Chance? You’re talking about resurrecting the dead—”

Gabrielle put up her hands. “Okay,  okay, let’s.. leave that aside for now. Like I said, it’s just something we need to keep in mind…” She locked eyes with Weingartner who nodded.

“Right… Safety is my first priority, Prince Chance,” Weingartner explained. “I apologize if it came off otherwise.”

“I’m… sorry if I came off aggressive.” Olive nodded back before he suddenly remembered—“Do we have any Conjurors here?” He amended, “I mean… ones that are like… us.”

“I am one. Gefreiter Kleine,” Weingartner provided. “He’s here as well.”

“Klaus?” Olive perked up at this. “Can I speak with him? Or you? I have an idea and some questions I need to ask.”

“I can certainly arrange a meeting for the three of us.”

There was a minute pause, and Alexander interjected, “I have a question, Your Highness, if I may—”

Olive stared at him. Did the man not feel the awkward air between them? Apparently not. Olive motioned him to continue.

“Do you remember, Your Highness?” Alexander asked suddenly. “Do you remember everything that happened when you were under the effects of that conducting?”

Olive frowned.

Alexander elaborated, “It’s just that you seem a bit… different.”

Did he? Olive wondered if it was just because the two of them hadn’t seen each other since… It had been several months, hadn’t it? The time discrepancies gave Olive pause.

“I’m curious about this as well,” Weingartner added. “I have men who’ve been affected by whatever it is that’s happening here. I would like to know what you believe it would take to ‘free’ them—for the lack of a better word—and what the after effects are.”

“I’m…” Olive hesitated.  “It’s like… it’s like the feeling you get when you wake up after having a super intense and elaborate dream. Everything is so clear and vivid the moment you wake up that you’re almost convinced it’s a memory of a real thing instead of a dream. But… then a little bit of time goes by and you realize that the dream isn’t so vivid anymore and you can only remember the general bits about the dream but none of the detail. It gets worse as time goes on until only the impression of it is what’s left. But it’s a strong impression.”

“So it’s like when one comes under the influence of a Manipulator?” Weingartner tried.

Olive shook his head. “No, that’s not it.” He shook his head. “Anyways, I’m pretty sure the reason I am the way I am now is because of… Libra.”

Alice and Gabrielle glanced at each other again.

“I don’t remember too much detail, but I do remember the color of the vitae of the person. A bright dark hot pink. Like Libra’s. It was definitely her who attacked me. And now I’m here.”

“So Libra used her vitae on you,” Weingartner drew slowly, “and it had the same effect as her vitae does on those who have been influenced by a Manipulator. She… undid whatever was done to you like however she did it during the Week of Blindness.”

Alice and Gabrielle glanced at each other again. Alice crossed her arms.

“No… I don’t think that’s right. It doesn’t feel like I was ‘freed’ from anything.” Olive stared at his hands as he pieced together every interaction he’d had since waking up. He clenched them and grimaced. “It feels like someone died in order for me to be here.”

Everyone fell silent.

* * *

Olive had managed to tear through all of the books his not-parents had brought him. Somehow he simultaneously understood the inner workings of Ndoto and barely understood it at all.  It was as if the entirety of Ndoto was a black box: things came in and out of Ndoto, functioned in Ndoto, and existed in Ndoto without there being any explanation as to how all of it worked together. Black boxes only existed for people to understand the concepts of reality better. Reality wasn’t a black box itself. And yet here it seemed to be.

Olive surmised that the black box nature of Ndoto was explainable in the paired existing facts and the lack of facts—‘lacts’, for the lack of a better word—about Ndoto.

Fact: The citizens of Ndoto were divided into natural-born Ndotoans who seemed to be of almost Virgoan origin and immigrants who fled to the utopia following a catastrophic war.

Lact: There was no mention of any country names where immigrants had originated from nor had there been a name put to the world-altering event that had led to the mass immigration into Ndoto.

Fact: The governing body of Ndoto consisted of a guidance council which was split into chief guidance officers and council members. Below them operated policymakers and regular guidance officers. There were tests that each needed to pass in order to obtain their title.

Lact: There was no information about how the system came to be. It was as if it had always existed without having to endure the strenuous trial and error of an actual governing body.

Fact: The ability to conduct without a conductor was a gift bestowed by the Great Tree. An old term form it was ‘vitae’. The Great Tree protected its residents from the outside.

Lact: How or why the Great Tree gave out this vitae was unexplained. How and why it protected was not touched on in any book. How the Great Tree came to be—even just theories of how it came to be—did not exist.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t have access to the books that explain everything, Olive thought. But then again why would you restrict access to these kinds of things if you’re a utopia?

A tugging sensation in Olive’s chest pulled him out of his thoughts. He found his gaze pulled towards the door where he registered a slender silhouette accented there. He did not feel alarm despite the late hour because he knew almost immediately that the person there was—

Olive pulled himself up to a sit.  “Atienna…”

Atienna stood at the threshold, unmoving, quiet, watchtful. She looked just as she did the day Olive had seen her during his window leap—except she looked tired.

The silence between them stretched thin and long. The hum of the air conditioners filled the space of quiet.

Olive watched her, reaching out through their connection. He gave a small tug. She stared at him for a while, face illuminated by the light coming in from the window. The light from the tree. Seconds ticked by before she drifted to his bedside. They held each other’s gazes in the quiet before she slowly sank to his bedside.

“Atien—”

Atienna pulled him in tight and close. Her fingers interlaced behind his back as her chin found a place on his shoulder. He could not feel the pain that caused her body to shake—not in the way that he normally could feel it through their connection—but he could still feel it.

Olive returned the gesture, feeling her warmth seep into him. It didn’t feel right to speak first, so he waited, waited, waited.

“I am glad you’re here,” Atienna finally said, “…as troubling as that sounds.”

Olive flushed and then nodded. “I’m sorry for anything I’ve… you know… said to you that was rude.”

“I’m just glad you are you again.” I’ve missed you.

“Me too… I guess.” I missed you too.

Silence again. 

Atienna continued her embrace as if she was soaking up every fiber of his being. It hurt Olive to think about it—the things Atienna had gone through here to make her not let go like this. She had been dealing with all of this without their support. It must have been lonely. He tried to reassure himself that she had Sefu and Klaus so at least she had someone.

“At least now we can figure out how to get out of here together,” Olive said. “I heard from Gabrielle about everything you all found out so far—”

Atienna pulled away from him. Her faint smile was highlighted in the light. “So it seems that I was not the first to come visit you. I’m… sorry, Olive.”

Olive waved it off. It had bothered him earlier but not anymore since she was here now. “No, no, it’s fine. You were probably busy investigating and everything. I get it.”

Atienna sat there silently.

He cleared his throat. “Anyways, did you manage to get the files to Gabrielle and the others? Did you look at them?”

Atienna glanced at the window. “I… haven’t had the chance yet.”

“Oh, okay…” It felt wrong to ask why. “Have you found out anything else yet?”

“No more than Gabrielle’s already told you,” Atienna murmured, folding her hands in her lap. A smile crinkled her eyes as she looked back at him. “On the other hand, I can tell that you have figured out a thing or two.”

Olive nodded and explained everything he’d managed to gather so far about Ndoto during his investigations.

Atienna placed a hand to her chin. “I see… the tree as a conductor… Ndoto as a black box. That is peculiar, isn’t it?” She tilted her head slightly and lowered her eyes. “I wonder… this black-box-like-ness of Ndoto is not so dissimilar to the black-box-like-ness of a fantasy world setting in a fiction book, don’t you think?”

Olive hesitated and then nodded. “But the actual details of specific things are—well—detailed so…”

“So it may be that the concepts that are detailed here are concepts that the machinator, the gardener—the ‘writer’ perhaps is a better analogy for them— considers important. The other less-detailed aspects are things they don’t care for…”

Olive hesitated again. “I… Well, it’s not like I don’t think Ndoto is real.”

Atienna smiled. “Then what do you think?”

Olive was rather taken aback by the directedness of the question. “I… think that Ndoto… is layered.” He held out a hand, holding it parallel to the ground. “There’s a real part of it, but then there’s another layer on top of it” He placed his other hand on top. 

Atienna reached out, held his hands in her own, and pressed them down to his lap. She gave his hands a squeeze. “So you are proposing that we just need to cut away that fake layer then. Miss Law’s mindset may be the correct one, don’t you think?”

“I—”

“The only thing that matters is what’s real to us, don’t you think? That is what Maria always preached. I think in this situation that mindset is especially applicable, wouldn’t you say?” Atienna murmured. “I know you are very kind, Olive, and I know what you are thinking, but—would you not feel more empathy for a living, breathing person than an imagined character from a book?” She let go of his hands and looked out the window again. “I have been here longer than you have, Olive. Please trust me—”

Olive felt an unnerving distance between them. “I do…” He hesitated, thinking of how she had shaken has with Scorpio, of how she had turned Louise over to the saint candidates, of how she had faced Yulia in those caves. “I do… trust you.”

Atienna chuckled. “Even if you didn’t, Olive, I know you know everything I do is in your best interest.”

She was echoing the words of his not-parents. It caused the hairs on his arms to stand—which in itself felt wrong because he did trust her. They were connected, after all.

“Atienna…” Olive studied her. 

“Yes?”

It was a simple three-worded question that he wanted to ask her, but it felt so hard to get them out. The doppelganger’s words rang in his ears. ‘Not truly understanding…’

 With effort, Olive managed: “Are… you okay?”

Atienna turned to him and—with the same tone of voice as she had had in his dream with the closed door—she said, “Of course, Olive.”

* * *

The day of discharge came swiftly. Olive had a whole week to prepare for it but was still caught off guard when he was cleared out from his room and sent to the front desk. His not-parents awaited him there, busily filling out paperwork. Trystan and Lavi were there too, Trystan sporting a gift basket full of strawberry-covered chocolates and pastries. It seemed like Trystan was particularly close to his family. It hurt to look at him so Olive tried his best to ignore him.

Once the paperwork was done, they headed to the front of the hospital only to find torrential rain waiting for them behind the sliding doors. The rain was coming down so hard that it was impossible to distinguish the rain drops from one another. There was a small basket set beside the door that was apparently supposed to house disposable umbrellas, but the thing was empty aside for one missing its entire canopy. 

“Your mother and I are going to go see if we can borrow an umbrella,” not-dad said. “You three stay here.”

“I mean we could literally just walk through it—” Olive replied, but his not-parents had already left, leaving them in the small crowd growing in front of the doors. He sighed and glanced at Lavi.

“Don’t look at me,” she muttered. “You can go out in the rain if you want.”

He frowned at her and then thought for a moment. “My conducting, Lavi… I was able to conduct without a conductor because of you. But now that you’re here… does that mean I’d no longer be able to conduct without a conductor? Or do I have a gift from the tree too? If I did… that would mean that I’m—”

Lavi clicked her tongue. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Why don’t you ever just give me a straight answer?” Olive muttered back. 

Trystan peered at them. “What are you two talking about—”

“Well, well, well—look who’s back!”

Olive’s heart hammered at the familiar voice.

“You’re late,” Trystan said with a frown as he turned around. “You could at least show up on time since you didn’t even bother visiting.”

Olive slowly turned to face the person Trystan was talking to—

“Hey, now. You know I had stuff going on. Don’t make me look like the bad guy here!”

—and there stood Claire. Smiling. Eyes bright. Dressed in a pale blue sweater that was not riddled with bullet holes. Alive. Or… dead? What did that even mean in Ndoto? Was Claire actually alive and swept here just like Gabrielle and her group were? Or was he dead and he was put here by the tree? They hadn’t ever found a body so—so… so…

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Claire laughed, shaking Olive by the shoulder. “What’s up with that? VNW got your tongue in a twist?”

“Claire…” Olive finally managed. He felt his heart squeeze. “I…” He reached out and squeezed Claire’s arm. “I’m glad you’re here…”

Trystan frowned and stared at the gift basket in his hands.

“You what?” Claire smiled and arched a brow. “Well, I’m glad I’m here too. And I’m glad you’re up and running again. It’s not the same without my bestie at my side.”

Olive paused. “Are you—”

Claire whistled and approached sliding glass doors. He peered outside. “Well, would you look at that rain? That’s wild. It’s been raining a lot in Ndoto recently, hasn’t it? Weird, huh?”

Lavi’s eyes narrowed.  

“Remember what we learned in our culture history class the other day, Trystan?” Claire asked. “The thing about how people in the past attributed weather phenomena to an act of god?”

Trysan glanced at Olive, eyed the gray clouds, and nodded. “Certain societies thought that rain was a blessing from the gods and the sign of a bountiful harvest to come.”

“But that wasn’t always the case, right?”

Trystan put a hand on his hip. “Well, sometimes the rains would cause floods that would destroy the crop. In that case, the rain was a punishment from the gods.

 “Apparently a fickle ‘god’.” Claire chuckled. He glanced at the umbrella holder—at the broken umbrella there. “And who was it that decided whether rain was a blessing or a punishment?”

“The people did…” Trystan drew slowly. “The ones who actually experienced the consequences of those weather phenomena.”

Claire tutted and shook his head. “No, no, no. Not the people.” He plucked the skeleton of an umbrella from its container and approached the door. It slid open for him, letting in a mist of rain. “It was the person in charge who told everyone else what was a blessing and what was a punishment.”

Claire swung the umbrella around and around before stepping out into the downpour. He popped open the broken umbrella—and in that exact same moment, a familiar pressure built up in the atompshere. The sound of the droplets splashing against the roads outside stopped, the droplets themselves now suspended in the air. 

More people gathered by the door and the windows to get a better look.

Claire swung the open umbrella upwards and with the motion came a torrent of wind that sent the suspended rain droplets back up into the sky. Claire turned then, the ground beneath his feet dry, the rain pattering against a wind barrier far above his head, and motioned them outside.

A chill went up Olive’s spine as a familiar ominous feeling took hold of him.

Who… was that?