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Some chose to be loud about their beliefs in Prime. Some wished to spread the Good News and rejoice in the deity that brought wealth and prosperity to their lives. Some didn’t believe in Prime at all, staying out of the church that bore the symbolic purple that radiated across the server.
Some were in the middle. Some chose to stay quiet about their faith. A whispered prayer sent up in the morning just before dawn had broken above the trees. A carved necklace in the shape of a cross hidden underneath layers of clothes. Losing sleep to go to the church away from the crowds of worshippers that usually came and interrupted during the day.
It wasn’t like Wilbur had hidden his faith in Prime. Tommy had known a little about it, known that he’d held some belief. They’d even prayed together a couple times, over meals. The former president had felt more comfortable worshiping in his own way. On his own terms. Organized services had bored him, taking away from his ability to truly appreciate what Prime had done for him and his country, his people.
Wilbur had prayed every night for years, as long as he could remember. His father had never encouraged it, or even taught him about Prime. But learning and freedom of expression had been praised in their household. So when little Wilbur had asked Phil if he could go to a temple and learn about the church, he had been obliged. His faith had been sparked, ignited, and it hadn’t wavered since.
Even during the L’Manburg war, when the fear of Dream hurting him and the refusal to leave the borders of his country unless absolutely necessary had kept him away from the Holy Land and the church within its borders, Wilbur had prayed, sometimes twice as often as normal, prayed that his country and people would make it out safely.
The Final Control Room where he and his friends, his brothers, had died trying to keep their country intact and free, only to be betrayed by one of their own, had been the first time his trust in his church had faltered. Surely, after years of devout worship, leaving offerings at altars, burning candles and fasting to show deference, Prime hadn’t done this to him. Hadn’t hurt his family, and made it so their hope and life would drain.
No, it couldn’t be that. Prime wouldn’t punish him, he hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t sinned, hadn’t questioned. This was a test. It was a trial to see if Wilbur’s faith was as strong as he said it was. Yes, that had to be it. He’d take it in his stride, pray more, show Prime that he was strong in his faith, and nothing would ever shake his belief.
That had worked at first. The war was won, despite everything lost. Wilbur, along with his friends, and his son, had been able to create a free country where peace and brotherhood were cherished. He’d even decided to hold elections to allow the people of L’Manburg decide who their leader would be.
He was happy and he had proven his faith to Prime. All was well.
Until the day of elections when everything was suddenly ripped away from him, by the cold hands of a man he had once considered his friend. The last thing he saw of his nation that he had spent months and lives fighting for, the night of the Manburg Revolution, was the fearful faces of his former citizens and the new mantle of Ram’s horns on the podium.
Prime had abandoned him. All that he had done, all the prayers, all the time, the sleep, the offerings, all of it was not enough to keep his precious god satiated.
That first night in what would become Pogtopia, Wilbur isolated himself in a small room against all of Tommy’s pleas. He spent days there, not eating, not sleeping, refusing to come out even for a few minutes. When he finally emerged, voice hoarse, eyes red and puffy from the sobs that wracked his body for three days, Wilbur was a different person.
Funny, what losing everything can do to a man.
The Wilbur in Pogtopia was unrecognizable. A man riddled with paranoia, hallucinations, and unbridled rage coursing through his body. He had one goal, and that was to take back L’Manburg. His L’Manburg.
Wilbur’s addled mind fixated on his goal, placing it at the forefront of his thoughts, replacing what once had been a beacon of hope with a wrathful fire that sought to destroy everything in its path.
He had renounced his faith. Committing the mortal sin of apostasy. with ash and dirt smeared across his brow.
Wilbur wouldn’t pray again for the next 16 years. Not in Pogtopia, not when he contemplated destroying everything in the room of the cataclysmic button room, not when he finally pressed it, his symphony blown to smithereens to be left forever unfinished. Wilbur didn’t pray when he lay dying in his father’s arms. Wilbur didn’t pray those 13 years spent at a train station in a limbo tailor-made for him, and he didn’t pray when Dream dragged him out of it.
Sixteen years and a few apologies later, Wilbur talked to his son and watched as he jumped into the hole that was once their home, losing yet another life, all to get away from him.
Wilbur’s vision went dark.
He woke, bleary eyed and unsure of where he was.
Bleached white quartz pierced his gaze, and purple glass stained his peripheral vision. On a raised altar, stood a bell.
He had awoken, laying in a place he didn’t recognize. It was a church, yes, but it wasn’t the small one he had spent so many late nights in. This building was new, renovated by he didn’t know who.
But it was the church all the same.
Delirious and disoriented, Wilbur’s instincts took over and he staggered up from where he lay sprawled in the middle of the center aisle.
Gasping still as his smoke-damaged lungs were tormented with sobs, the broken man kneeled at the foot of the altar and placed his hands before him in a bow.
For the first time in over a decade and a half, having gone through hell and back, Wilbur Soot prayed to the god he had once loved and devoted his life to.
“O Prime,” Wilbur muttered the words at first, a prayer he had memorized from a book when he was but a child. The verses grew in volume, and emotion perforated his voice. “I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of your adoration and the pains of your indifference, but most of all because they offend Thee, Prime, Who art all good and deserving of all my love.”
The prayer ended, but he continued speaking, asking for help, for guidance, anything.
“Please,” he begged. “My son- I tried so hard to apologize. I tried to make it right, and he-.”
He cut himself off as he screamed in pain. He didn’t know why Fundy had done what he did. Didn’t know if his precious son was still alive. All he knew was that he had jumped. The last thing he had seen of Fundy was a crumpled body at the base of a ravine, and then nothing.
“I don’t know what to do,” Wilbur said. “I want to make things right, I want to leave them all with- with closure before I go.”
He sat up and looked at the bell on the altar. He reached up and pushed it gently with his hand, the clapper ringing out, echoing through the hall. The sound settled his mind a bit, something familiar, something warm.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if something like this happens again. I’m- I’m scared .”
The admission was whispered and he looked at his soot-stained hands in shame.
The ash was still leftover from when he had blown up L’Manburg in the war against Schlatt. It covered his clothes and body, a harsh reminder of his own mortality.
Sunlight filtered through the windows, bathing the propitiated man in purple light as he wept and prayed.
He was interrupted not long after he had calmed.
“Wilbur?”
At Tommy’s voice, Wilbur snapped out of his reverie and looked behind him where the boy stood in the entrance of the hall.
“H-hi Tommy,” Wilbur greeted.
“What are you doing here, man? You haven’t been here since- since the election.”
Wilbur nodded, standing and opening his mouth to speak, but tears formed in his spectacled eyes, and a ball formed in his throat.
Tommy seemed to notice and rushed forward, catching the man as he stumbled.
“Hey, hey,” the boy spoke softly, holding up the man he considered his brother gently. “Let’s get you out of here and talk it out, yeah?”
Wilbur nodded again, and Tommy led him outside and back towards the docks.
“Fundy-he-” Wilbur tried to say.
“I know,” Tommy said. “He’s alright. He’s still got a life left.”
Relief washed over Wilbur and Tommy stopped walking as the man seemed to go limp in his arms.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah,” Tommy replied, concern lining his features. “You good to walk still?”
“Yeah,” Wilbur answered, breathless.
“Alright.”
The brothers walked away from the church towards the docks of L’Manburg where they would quell the remains of Wilbur’s tears and finally talk, really talk, after way too long.