Chapter Text
Somehow, Olivia had always thought big catastrophes happen in the blink of an eye; one moment everything was fine, the other moment things turned into the complete opposite. Strangely enough, however, she had to find that it didn’t seem to be the case and instead of one huge cataclysm that turned the world upside down, its destruction appeared more like a long, agonizingly slow trek down a road into hell. The crucial moment hadn’t been just a single second, she had rather experienced in slow-motion, as if fate had attempted to mock her by showing her for even longer where she had failed.
She had never expected that watching someone fold origami, even through a thick veil of tears, could feel like hours — and yet despite that seemingly ample window of opportunity, she had been utterly helpless to stop it. There was no way she would have ever been able to prevent her brother from fulfilling his sinister plans, not on her own. She would have needed Mario for that.
But at that moment, Mario had been the one being folded.
With the final, one thousandth crane completed, their magic had quickly begun to work in order to complete their creator’s wish: total annihilation of the Toads. Every single one turning into nothing but blank paper, bit by bit.
When Luigi had arrived on the scene, crashing into the side of the castle walls after being subjected to the sudden horror of having to witness his passenger becoming nothing more but white scrap, his torment wouldn’t end. Noticing how the only thing left of his beloved brother had been his iconic hat, Luigi had comprehensively stopped functioning while the crane folded from Mario’s remains had mingled with the others to put in motion what the man himself had desperately tried to prevent. With trembling hands clinging to the last thing left of Mario, the younger one of the two could do nothing but drop to his knees and stare at his, and everyone else’s, inevitable end.
Bowser, on the other hand, had tried his damndest to jump into action, heavily bruised from his battle with Olly himself, but still vigorous — and enraged — enough to not let the “little brat” take out his arch nemesis unscathed. He, too, would fail.
The magic cranes had not simply been getting rid of Toad life all around the world, they’d also appeared to have the side effect of strengthening Olly’s own powers since, after all, they were made from origami as well. How much being surrounded by nothing but origami could strengthen her brother Olivia had had to witness throughout their entire struggle, but now it seemed to have risen beyond comprehension, overwhelming the Koopa King easily without even the need of taking on another form. His oh-so puny self had barely needed to move, easily keeping Bowser at bay with just one giant, thousandfold arm until his enemy turned limb. All the while slowly but steadily, the toxic, rage-fueled mist that had taken out Mario had kept filling the throne room, choking the life out of the remaining witnesses to Olly’s ascension.
Except for Olivia herself.
She hadn’t understood, would never be able to grasp it, but whatever magic her brother had employed to kill everyone who hadn’t been a Toad, it had never worked on her. No matter how much, at times, she would wish it had.
Perhaps it had been the mixture of tears and deadly fog that had made everything feel so slow in comparison to how much had happened in a short span of time, but Olivia could never truly piece together the correct order of events, as to her, they had all appeared to occur at the same time and one after the other simultaneously. From there on out, time would progress even more slowly for her as if to keep up with her body, devoid of energy, of vigour to really even move anymore — days ceasing to exist, merging into one long, endless night that had her caught in a terrible dream she just couldn’t wake up from.
Whenever she lay down and closed her eyes, these images would return to her, repeat again and again to mock her, point fingers at her and show her exactly where she, and only she, had failed.
She had taken on this journey to liberate the Mushroom Kingdom from her brother’s takeover, perhaps even to free Olly from himself, from his own wrath. But in the end, she had utterly and indisputably failed.
The Mushroom Kingdom was no more.
In its stead, the Origami Kingdom now stood, growing day by day at rapid pace while its king worked tirelessly to widen his influence. He had reached his goal, erased all Toads from existence, but his conquest was far from over.
Olivia, on the other hand, could not understand why she was still here. Olly made a point of keeping her alive, and no matter how much she wanted to tell him, wanted to beg him to let her join Mario and all her other friends, she just… couldn’t.
She didn’t want to talk to Olly to begin with, at first hated every single second he even so much as looked at her, couldn’t even tell him how terrible he was, how much she hated him. Every time she saw him, the origami girl simply locked up in fear — though what exactly she feared she was never truly sure. On the contrary, if she screwed up, he might finally give her the sweet release she so desired, but he just wouldn’t. And Olivia herself lacked everything needed to do it on her own: she didn’t know what to do, where to start, nothing felt like it would even work. Whenever she thought she had found something, another part of her mind immediately would tell her that it was fruitless and she would be cursed to be part of this grim world forever. A punishment for her sins.
Maybe, she began to think, just maybe, she was supposed to stay and fight on and see all of this through to the bitter end. But she couldn’t. She didn’t know how.
There was nobody left for her little, powerless self to lean on, to confide in, she didn’t know what to do. Fighting her own brother all by herself was simply impossible; just existing in this place, Olly’s very own origami castle, sucked all of her energy out of her despite being surrounded by origami left and right. It was all just… gone.
And Olly knew.
Sometimes Olivia would wake up from another one of those nightmares within the living nightmare, shivering despite all the sweat she was drenched in, and found her brother by her bed, pretending to be worried.
There was no need to be afraid anymore, he’d tell her, now that the world was full of origami with both of them at the top. King and princess, side by side. It was all going to be better now, if she just embraced it, if she just finally cared to leave this room and join him on the throne, the place that had always been meant to be hers. Together, they could turn the Origami Kingdom — no, the entire world — into something just for them and origami as a whole, where they could finally be free from the whims of flatness. Olivia could shape and crease the world to her liking, her brother claimed, but she never had the mind to truly comprehend what he was saying. She just wanted him to go away.
Indeed, going away he would; sometimes for days on end, only to return to her later while apologizing for how busy he had been furthering the spread of their “glorious” Origami Kingdom. But if only she came with him and helped, Olly kept saying, progress would be made much faster and sooner they’d both be able to enjoy this new era and be together like the family they had always been meant to be.
Family…
The longer this continued, the less it felt as if they had ever been family at all. They had finally been reunited, sure, but at what cost? The brother she had loved and had always wanted to save was long gone and in his stead, this creature had emerged, this
monster
wearing his papery skin as a poor imitation of the kind figure that had brought her into this world. Now, whatever this not-Olly was wouldn’t let her leave it.
It was almost as if she was still stuck in the wall her brother had put her into before all of this hard started, only now her prison wasn’t damp and dark — yet despite that, whenever the sun’s rays fell into her jail cell others called a bedroom, they seemed unreal, a figure of her imagination. There was no way there could be light in a world like this, devoid of life.
Of course, she knew it wasn’t entirely empty, but that was only on a technicality: almost immediately Olly had once again started to raise the number of his folded soldiers, preying on Bowser’s minions in their entirety now that their own king was no more. Anyone who dared come to Origami Castle to seek revenge was greeted with the sight of an arrangement of origami statues made from crumbled paper that once belonged to the proud Koopa King, his son, Kamek as well as Luigi. A warning to never underestimate the vast powers of the Origami King.
Olivia herself had only ever heard of these statues from her brother, didn’t want to look at them. They would have never ended up like that if only the young origami princess had been stronger. She didn’t deserve to see them.
With this in mind, the young girl swore to never leave this room, the only place where she could be by herself instead of being surrounded by constant reminders of what had become of this once so lovely world, the world she had wanted to show her brother. Her bed was both her only companion and also her tormentor, as whenever she drifted away into sleep, memories would resurface of that fateful day when she had failed them all. She couldn’t imagine anymore how long ago this had been, as it felt like an eternity since she had drifted into this waking horror with no end in sight; she didn’t even remember how she had gotten into this room in the first place, everything that had happened right after the last flat friend of hers had fallen was nothing more than a blur of tears and screams. Olly towering over her own trembling body, laughing hysterically at his triumph, was the last thing she could recall.
After that, there had only been this room, dark even when sun fell in, filled to the brim with what others would think as luxuries — toys, furniture, flowers and more, all made from origami, of course. But to Olivia, they meant nothing, she had never even so much as touched any of them. They weren’t her lost friends, therefore they had no worth.
There were only the bed and Olivia herself, as well as the brother who with each passing day looked less like the person she used to know. The facsimile of him that this dark creature was parading around crumbled more and more with each time
it
tried to talk to her and Olivia was only waiting for the day it would fall apart completely to reveal the beast underneath. Yet with every time the two met, she was reminded how there had once been a kind brother and king she had trusted in and sometimes, just sometimes, she caught herself wanting him back.
Yet just like she couldn’t tell him how much she hated him, tell him to end her, she couldn’t say this either. Her voice completely disappeared whenever he was in the room.
“Olly” never paid much heed to that and happily continued to blab about all the things he thought were great triumphs, completely ignoring how much the destruction of the Mushroom Kingdom and even Bowser’s Kingdom hurt her. Or maybe he didn’t fully ignore it, as from time to time he’d mention how none of this was worth the anguish and if she just forgot about all of this and embraced her duty as princess she’d be much happier. He was so sure of it.
But Olivia knew better. There was no happiness left in this world, only the bitter reality that she had failed them all, and that the last, cruel ally, the unwanted, dreary shelter she truly had left was this room, this bed. Leaving it would mean losing that as well and at this point in time, she just didn’t have the energy left to even imagine what would happen then.
It was much easier to just keep on existing here in this one place and wait until her monstrous brother finally annihilated them all in his dark wake.