#Morgan figured out Rayshifting I think she could figure out the simulator if she wanted

[randomlywanderingmoth]

Simulation Camelot, location Hidden Village.

Master had brought us out here for what she referred to as, "Bond Farming." Mash elaborated that it was a good place to grow socially close with other Servants, for reasons that made no sense to me.

Be that as it may, it was my turn to "Bond Farm."

Well, mine, alongside Morgan, and all three of her Tam Lin.

And so, here we were, tending a fire, and periodically fighting hostiles- or rather, periodically watching as Morgan reduced the hostiles to smoldering ash with extraordinary proficiency.

Barghest and Melusine had got it into their minds to spar. I didn't mind that so much, a chance to watch two of Fae Britain's greatest fighters go at it. Some would've paid good money to see that fight.

Baoban Sith had gotten it into her mind to chat up Ritsuka. That I minded a bit more, but Ritsuka waved me off. I could read between her motions (fae eyes helped), she was socializing. Making bonds with my Servants. Nothing for you to get jealous over.

Mash was coming in and out of the simulation with apple pies, apple fritters, boxes of apple juice, and sometimes plates of sliced apples, cut into little bunnies. Golden apples, meant to rejuvenate us. At some point Baoban Sith complained the lack of variety, and so the support team relented and sent curry. I wasn't going to thank her for complaining where I wasn't about to, but I was quietly grateful for the reprieve in the unceasing flow of apples.

That left the two Avalon le Fae. Me, squatting down, tending the campfire with a stick. Morgan, sitting in a mock recreation of her throne, watching me tend the campfire.

I felt uncomfortable with the silence. "What?"

Morgan passed a dry glance directly through me.

"Are you still mad that I ruined your Britain?" I shot.

"You didn't do anything. Aurora ruined my Britain. You were simply an impediment." Perfectly emotionless.

She was baiting me. If I were a slightly younger me, I would've taken the bait. "Doesn't change the fact that you've been staring at me like I did something to you personally." I was feeling rather catty.

"You completed the pilgrimage."

I was staring into the fire instead of into her. "Because you wouldn't. Because you decided not to. Because you decided you wanted to play Queen and force the Inner Sea to cough me up."

"You sacrificed your life."

"To kill Cernunnos, not to forge the sword. A job that wouldn't have needed to happen if you'd done yours." If I hadn't been pulled from the Inner Sea, if I hadn't been born, I wouldn't have needed to experience everything I had been put through. I wouldn't have needed to experience Fae Britain. All that selfishness, that spite, that pointless cruelty and hatred.

"And you never would have met Master."

"Don't you dare make it a good thing!" I was to my feet, glaring daggers at her. "Don't you dare make it out like suffering through Tintagel was somehow worth it!"

"It wasn't. But you survived it. And you're here now."

"Like you fucking did it for me." I was fit to burn, smoldering angry with her. I had no chance of beating her in a fight, but I was fit to try a shot anyway.

"You met Master, and yet you sacrificed your life." Confusion. Ah. Her deadpan was making it hard, but my eyes had sorted it out. She didn't understand me. She wanted to understand.

"I sacrificed my life for her." She was one of the few good things in my life, so of course I would die to keep her safe. I would've regretted it if my other self in the Inner Sea hadn't given me the chance to save her again, but it was enough to lay down everything I had to save her twice.

Silence.

We both quietly stared into the campfire together.

===== =====

"Well, union rules are union rules, that's all for today!" Ritsuka skipped merrily, kissing me on the cheek, waving at Morgan and the Tam Lin, and ambling away from the simulators. I tried not to blush too hard while the others were watching.

Mash politely bowed to Morgan, and left with the faerie knights. I elected not to mention the obvious similarity in emotions- the only thing lacking was color in the queen's own cheeks.

I would've left too. I was half looking forward to eating something prepared by the cooking Servants. Steak and fries sounded nice.

"Wait."

Oh good. "What?"

"It would be unfair if I learned about you, and you failed to learn about me. Come along. I'll only be a moment." She promptly strode into the simulator room.

I raised an eyebrow, but elected to humor her. I followed her back in.

===== =====

Somehow, Morgan was able to make the act of reprogramming a simulator seem dignified. I would've been more impressed if I didn't know what a ridiculous and overpowered Servant she was.

What appeared was a different sort of village. A town, a city center. I recognized it easily. "Orkney."

"Formerly home to the Rain clan." She turned her wrist in the air, and the ruined city shimmered like a mirage. The ruined and dilapidated buildings were neatly replaced with seamless architecture. Flower bushes rose out of the stone planter boxes. I heard birdsong. More pressingly I saw people.

"The Rain clan," the queen exposited, "were good faeries. Kind faeries. Gentle faeries."

"And they died," I shot back.

"And they died," she repeated in agreement, lifting an arm to point. I followed the line of her finger, to a girl among the faceless masses.

She looked like me, and yet unlike me. Her hair was well kept. Her clothes looked soft. She was wearing glasses.

"That's you," I muttered, realizing.

"Aesc, the Witch of Rain. Aesc, the Savior. Unbeknownst to Fae Britain at large, the sole survivor of Orkney's massacre." There was a puzzle, clicking and clacking about in my head, completing itself slowly. Morgan filled in missing pieces. "I did not understand why they loved that Britain, but they did. Living with them, I also learned to love that Britain. I wanted to make that Britain, my Britain, something good. Something beautiful. I wanted to save my Britain."

"You failed," I blurted out.

"I know," Morgan replied.

I watched the memory of the other girl smile in a way I didn't think an Avalon le Fae could. I watched her talking with the other, less distinct figures. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I quietly envied her.

The queen's voice never cracked. Her stone expression never faltered. "I don't remember them anymore. But I knew I loved them once."

Click. "That's why you made Camelot, and put all the faeries of Britain under heel. So that they couldn't mess up the Britain your family loved any more than they already had." If something came after Chaldea, Ritsuka would likely have fought with similar fervor, if perhaps different means.

I glanced over at her, and for the first time I saw a shift in her expression. A turn of the brows, a purse of the lips. "I could not bring myself to end the Britain that they loved, the Britain that I loved, the Britain that I wanted to save." She glanced at me with a forlorn gaze. "To put in a way you could understand. If you had to kill Ritsuka, could you do it?"

I didn't have a response, out loud or in my mind. We both watched the shifting view of her memory of Orkney together.

I want Castoria and Morgan to talk and come to an understanding. Perhaps neither sides will ever forgive each other and perhaps neither side will ever love the other but. At the very least a catharsis has been reached and both can have their hearts be at ease.

Oh ho ho!

[thessaliah]

If Chaldean Romani = Solomon from Chaldeas. Then Priestess = Olga from Chaldeas?

Huh. Well.

...

Let's have a disclaimer this is all speculative, but assuming Chaldean Person isn't Lev or Goetia, then absolutely there's a certain parallel of those two figures (Olga and Romani) in roles, or perhaps that's my impression. The whole cutscene of Romani with Lev to Olga crying with Chaldean Person showed before another Crying Olga. I think the Olga from CHALDEAS was the Director Olga all along.

Spoilers and speculation.

If this hunch is accurate, I assume that the switch happened during the first years CHALDEAS was operational. In that case. Olga only met the staff of Chaldea after her father died, so nobody ever met her, or knew her. She's also weirdly unpopular with everyone, unlike her Case Files self. Perhaps this was because unconsciously, she was never from 'there.' The sense of alienation Daybit has but lesser. Regardless of Goetia's plan to manipulate Olga and isolate her, the mats calling out her negative popularity seems important. That's why you have that younger-looking Olga appearing as important and she was the one all-powerful in the Melty Blood Back Alley manga crossover. She's the one crying in the Opening, making her design like this would be a giveaway of the twist. It's possible that she was the test subject and the core to turn CHALDEAS into Panhistory as the God. Think about it. All the flashbacks of the "Director" are to an age after CHALDEAS was activated. Kirschtaria's thoughts about her being withheld (happened the same with Daybit, due to spoilers), him treating the Priestess as the actual Olga, perhaps because she's the one he knew from childhood and realized of the switch. He also said the priestess' body was going to manifest from the tree, so Olga was from the beginning intended to be the Servant God, but not the one from Fuyuki. When U Olga Manifested, she acted like a psycho, so Kirschtaria assumed he failed to prevent her metamorphosis.

The Director's Olga's lack of rayshifting capability or the ability to be a Master in Panhistory may be because she was never part of Panhistory. This was before her Servant self. She could be in simulations or places within CHALDEAS frame. Her body (Subject E) can be a Master in CHALDEAS painting the Earth without a problem. Lev sending her back to CHALDEAS made it so both Olgas were there, so the entire organized scheme Marisbury pulled became a mess, for the CHALDEAS Olga became Subject E (she has the body of someone from CHALDEAS) and the Panhistory Olga got burned instead, becoming the Priestess ("nothing" where used to be a person), but this was probably the original plan until Lev weighted in:

I've speculated in the past it was an Angra Mainyu meets Nurse Sakura/BB deal, but I wasn't sure how, now it's becoming clearer, but Nasu can be a mess. I'm not very enthusiastic or interested to see this plot resolution, but I wanted to answer you anon. It's also probably why the Olga who resembles the one from FGO Prologue in the manga is the one from a simulation, while the ghost one is different. Reines dropping Director Olgamarie was different from the Olga she met but has the same appearance in her interlude wasn't just a zany dimensional statement but that she was effectively not Panhistory Olga.

Gyakkou song is about Olga, but about the original Olgamarie. This is why is a spoiler so far. She's the one who has received a lot of "you need to do something" scolding from Kirschtaria and Morgan, and has observed without taking a stance. U Olga has had her arc, she already took a choice of where she stands and the song didn't play.

If this is correct, Chaldean Man then indeed could be CHALDEAS Solomon. They are foils. The Romani you met was the Panhistory one but sacrificed himself, and this one is CHALDEAS. The Olga you met was the CHALDEAS one, and the one left after her sacrifice is the Panhistory one.

Note this is just one possibility. Chaldean could be Goetia or Lev. Olga could have splintered in Heart/Body/Soul as Extella Hakuno, or be like Captain Nemo, so she had her bond with Marine. I'm inclined to believe the Olga options are less likely after Daybit confirmation she's the old Director, and we had the ghost young Olga showing up before this to be a coincidence, but it's just me.