Olivia Duma

"You don't need to do this Olivia." the Lay Mother Superior looks worriedly at me as I empty the contents of my handbag into the donation box.

"Its fine." I reassure the Lay Mother while shoving the last few bills into the slit of the box, "I made a personal oath to the Divines to do it anyway, so here I am."

"The Cathedral is grateful Olivia, and I'm sure the Divines are as well," the Lay Mother frowns, "but how much do you make a month?"

"I said its fine." I insist, "You even changed my bedpan, that has to be worth something right?"

"You're a Lieutenant of the Yellow Roses right?" the Lay Mother insists, "That's several months salary you're putting into the box."

"A promise is a promise." I shrug paying brief obeisance to the carving of the Divines hung on a nearby wall.

"This isn't the first time Olivia." the Lay Mother clutches one of my shoulders tightly, "You do this every few months. Didn't you say the other day that you wanted to get a designer eye patch? What happened with that idea?"

"I decided the money was better used for a worthy cause." I grunt somewhat uncomfortably. At this response, the Lay Mother spins me about forcefully and glares hard into my eyes, refusing to break contact.

"Are you spending any money on yourself?" she demands, "Or do you empty your bank account every few months on donations to the Cathedral?"

"Food's free. And the uniforms are not expensive either." I murmur, looking away, "The Leader provides, right?"

"That's not my question." the Lay Mother scowls, "And you know it."

"Lay off!" I snap, my temper breaking as I roughly shake the Lay Mother's hands loose from my body, "Just ... just let me do what I want, OK?"

The priestesses standing about in the main hall of the Cathedral look at us curiously before the Lay Mother makes a shooing motion, telling them to mind their own business. I take a deep calming breath and continue to speaking in a calmer voice.

"Sorry." I say, "But I'm an adult. I've been one for decades now. I can handle myself."

The Lay Mother nods sadly and gestures at the pews before taking a seat. I follow suit and sit beside her, the two of us looking on in silence at the portraits of the seven Divines that decorate the stage.

"You were taken away from your father." the Lay Mother finally says after an uncomfortable pause.

"Yes." I agree, "I was levied by you Lay Mother Superior, to serve and add to the glory of the Divines."

"I enslaved you." the Lay Mother snorts, "There's no need to be polite about it. We have passed that point a long time ago Olivia. If you hadn't shown such promise, I wouldn't have bothered pulling you out from the levy barracks."

I make a vaguely agreeable sound, not sure where the Lay Mother Superior is going with this. The Lay Mother, realizing I'm not about to say anything more, drops a massive bombshell on me out of the blue.

"Perhaps things would have been better if I left you as you were." she muses, "Serving the divines in a more humble role."

Both of us stare at a young woman dressed in rough sackcloth, scrubbing the floor of the stage with a brush while a supervising priestess occasionally gives instructions. The young woman's face is drawn with exhaustion and she is thin, not malnourished, but certainly far from well fed. Even though food may be free, the rations allocated to the levies are poor.

They have been brought to the Citadel as labor to pay off debts to the Cathedral after all. Feeding the levies too well would go against that aim.

"I very much doubt that." I grunt after watching the levy scrub at an invisible stain on the floor for several minutes.

"I sent you to the Roses after you did well in the assessments." the Lay Mother sighs, "I think that was the start of the rot."

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"The rot?" I repeat, narrowing my eyes at the old woman. But rather than answer my question, the Lay Mother shoots back with one of her own.

"Do you hate yourself, Olivia?" she asks.

"Huh? Where is this question coming from?" I sputter, taken off guard, "Of course I don't hate myself. That would be crazy."

"Your mother was killed by one of the Roses." the Lay Mother observes while looking straight ahead at the stage away from me, "Then you became one as well when you grew up."

"Red Rose. Yellow Rose." I answer, "Two different things."

"You were always a sullen child as well." the Lay Mother continues, "Getting you to do anything was like pulling teeth. Being your supervisor was certainly a challenge."

"As you say, I was 'enslaved'," I snort, "Was never a big fan of that by the way."

"Then after you left for the Garden, you never bothered coming back." the Lay Mother responds, "None of us saw you for, how long was it? Years, if I'm not mistaken. Other than for the mandatory sermons of course."

"Sounds about right." I agree mirthlessly.

The Lay Mother pats me on the arm fondly as she replies, "It may surprise you now, Olivia, but you were neither the first nor last levy that I had the duty of supervising. So your reactions to the situation were far from being unique to me. Most levies arrive with a boatload of angst and resentment with them, which eventually matures into a kind of mulish uncooperativeness."

With that pronouncement, the Lay Mother points back to levy cleaning the stage, who is still going hard at it. The supervisor minding the levy begins to look increasingly frustrated, her arms gesticulating impatiently. The levy on her part remains silent, scrubbing away with dogged determination.

"That's one dirty floor." I mutter absentmindedly.

"Only because that levy insists on cleaning around the actual dirty spots." the Lay Mother laughs, "She's lucky her supervisor is so patient. I would have had that silly girl flogged a long time ago."

"Yes. Flogging." I wince at the memory and glare venomously at the Lay Mother, "You had me flogged several times if I recall."

"Until you stopped being silly." the Lay Mother smiles broadly at the memory, "But I digress. You left us, and I thought that was the end of that."

"It was." I confirm, "I was no longer a levy. That part of my life was over."

"I'm not talking about that." the Lay Mother frowns, now deadly serious, "Levies who leave almost never associate with the Cathedral out of choice. That's fine. I don't expect them to accept or forgive what the Cathedral had put them through. But not you. After you had lost your eye."

My jaw clenches at what the Lay Mother is saying as a roiling sense of discomfort builds in my heart.

"I'm a Valkyrie. I have to pray as a matter of necessity." I point out, "Then there's all the services the Cathedral holds specifically for pilots."

"Stop avoiding the real issue." the fat old woman makes a dismissive motion with her hand, "The donations you make aren't compulsory. And if my guess is correct, you drive yourself to penury through these donations. Explain that."

"I am not driving myself to penury!" I hotly deny, before quickly getting control of my voice as people start looking in our direction again.

"Your clothes, Olivia dear." the Lay Mother sighs.

"What about them?" I snap back defensively.

"Your clothes are ugly and obviously don't fit you all that well." the Lay Mother recites with an arched eyebrow, "Surplus standard issue uniforms most probably? And you're not wearing any jewelry. While your partner is obviously buying herself custom fitted uniforms on a much smaller paycheck. And she does her hair up, unlike you and your standard issue crew cut."

"I don't care about fashion." I wave the old woman's objections away.

"Liar. You made yourself so pretty the day we held your farewell party. And there's the business of the designer eye patch." the Lay Mother smirks, "All this started after you had lost your eye. So what happened?"

I shrug helplessly, lost for words. And then immediately blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

"I just feel there's too much suffering in the world." the words flow from my mouth, "We should just do what we can to make the world kinder maybe? Bear a little bit of the burden for another?"

"Olivia, are you feeling alright?" the fat old woman asks, this time incredibly concerned.

"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?" I try laughing off my lapse in composure, but its not working.

"You were never very generous when you were young." the Lay Mother says delicately, "You would fight the other levies for extra food."

"I grew up?" I say, but my voice rings with insincerity.

"What happened when you lost your eye?" the Lay Mother leans close to me, her eyes radiating worry, "You're literally not acting like yourself."

"I ... I ..." my best efforts to answer are fruitless. My voice trails off into impotent silence.

"Olivia, we need to get you tested immediately." the Lay Mother grabs me by the arm, "The Divines are not always kind when granting their attention to us mortals. You might have been marked by her."

"Lay Mother Superior," I whisper softly, "if I had been marked by her, what good would a test do now?"

"Ah." an awkward silence falls as my interlocutor struggles to come up with a response. Both of us go back to staring at the paintings of the Divines lined up as the stage's backdrop.

"Those that she marks have a dark path ahead of them." the Lay Mother says, "A great destiny perhaps, but one that you would not wish on your worst enemy."

"I know." I respond plainly as the portrait of the bent, hooded old woman looms over us from the distance.

"If you need help -" the priestess offers.

"I'll be here." I nod, "You couldn't stop me even if you wanted to." I get up to leave and the Lay Mother follows suit, leading me to the Cathedral's exit to see me off.

And to my surprise, she embraces me tightly just as I am about to cross the threshold of the Cathedral.

"Stay safe." the old woman urges.

"You too." I pat her back in return.

The doors of the Cathedral open and I step out into the afternoon sun. Ready to face whatever the future throws at me.

Whatever it may be.