#I’m gonna make an actual fic at this rate lmao. cracking open the google doc

[chimerahyperfix]

Being frozen in time definitely does something to you. Physically it cages you. Mentally it throws you into the longest dream you could ever have. It's not comfortable-- far from it in fact-- but you've grown to look forwards to it, when you loose. It's better than being mashed to dark paste at least.

You're frozen right now, in fact. Waiting in silence for time to loop back. Stuck with your thoughts and a vauge feeling of a dream. The house is around you and you're moving through it. Empty rooms and endless hallways, curling and twisting in ways that make them feel alive despite the lack of any living thing that isn't you. No sad monsters, no frozen bodies, no dark stains. There doesn't seem to be an exit.

The dreams you have when frozen seem to correlate to how you're doing emotionally. Most of them have been lost to time, like most things in your life now. Dreams, wounds, emotional bonds; everything is turning back with you, and that’s started to do something to you, because now you can predict the actions of those around you with quite a bit of accuracy. You can recall little bits of things, but the further back you go is just static. There was a bunch of dumb things that you can’t piece back together anymore, there were times with those you love, there was endless rage flowing through your very being, and there was this. The desperation. The empty halls of the very House you’ve worked so hard to protect.

You want out.

You've kept count of how many times you've been frozen. How many times you've died. How many loops. 61 is the counter and it's far, far too many times to relive the same day over again. You grew tired of the monotony by the tenth go around. Twenty five felt like a stab wound. Forty, like you were being split in two. Big 6-0 felt like drowning. You don't feel real anymore.

But that's fine! You can still see the good in this, if you stretch your imagination like taffy, as far as it'll go. It's better to be just you, just one person, than everyone else! You can live with the weight of the country on your shoulders for a bit longer, if only to keep it off of Euphrasie's. You’re doing this for her! For everyone. You can do it for a bit longer. You just need to find the King’s weakness, or something. Make a more powerful potion, or scrap together the materials to make a second craft bomb, or, or something! You’ll find it soon enough. You’re smart! You can do this!

You have to.

You turn down the hallway. Find yourself on an entirely different floor. Just as much of a ghost town. Just ice and cold and tiredness, your breath forming clouds in the air. That’s fine. This is just a dream or something, anyway. You’ll wake back up at your desk any time, with the looming vials of all sorts of toxic stuff you keep drinking that you crabbing neglected to put away because you didn’t think time would crabbing loop, because realistically, WHY would you assume that would happen? Preposterous! Ignore the burning feeling in your throat and the smell of sugar and push on. Wait for it to start all over again.

Because it has to be you, doesn’t it? You wished for this, or something. You don’t remember. It was a long time ago. It has to be you, because only you have the power. It HAS to be you, because who else would it be? Euphie? She’s already got enough on her hands. Mirabelle? You’d rather die. It’s better you do this than the ones you love.

It has to be you.

it has to be you it has to be you it has to be you it has to be you it has to be you it has to be you it has to be you it has to be

It's sucks, having to be the one to do it. Your limit was a long time ago.

You can't do this forever.