I almost forgot to tell you about Ololian wine. With so many fruits available, it’s only natural that they would make fermented beverages. Some of them made you happy. Euphoric! Some made you feel relaxed. Sleepy. Their flavors would bring out subtle notes in the fruit, and most people made their own, imbued with their own personality. It wouldn’t make you drunk, no matter how much you drank. It never caused hangovers, and even the children drank it without causing concern.
You could drink as much as you wished with no negative effects. In much the way the jewels weren’t precious, the wine wasn’t forbidden. Nobody cared, any more than if someone on Earth drank the most delicious fresh mountain spring water.
By drinking wine made by a friend, you were welcomed into that friend’s dreams. If your friend was gone, you could meet them in those dreams, and run, hand in hand together through sunny fields. You could sit and talk together under a starry sky. You could ride a whale together to the edge of the Giddings Phenomenon, or anywhere your heart desired. This was further proof that nothing is ever lost. Loved ones live on within us even after they transform, much the way Olo had. They are still there, close by, embedded in the layers of us. An occasional relic might reveal them. Finding the artifact, or digging below the surface only brings the reality to our consciousness. You don’t have to find it, or go. The truth is still the truth, regardless.