#already did isa and mira

[bogkeep]

reminiscing

[characters siffrin and odile are from in stars and time]

[remxedmoon]

mmy isat fruit gummies…

for the record no these aren’t part of the redraw project. yet. i just wanted to test the waters with pixel art!! so i made these mockups for the hell of it. which somehow lead to redrawing every single icon but shhh don’t worry about it. the actual sprites prolly aren’t going to look exactly like this because Good Lord That Is A Lot Of Detail To Animate. i’m glad to get the practice in at least 👍

anyways. here’re the individual sprites. enjoy :3

[klunkcat]

blackholes and other parables

read on ao3

Fandom: in stars and time

Relationships: loop & siffrin, everyone & siffrin, isabeau & siffrin (can be read as romantic also)

TW's: self-harm, canon typical violence, depersonalization and dissociation, blood and injury, this ones rated M for a lot of heavier suicidal topics as per yanno, canon., It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better,

Spoilers for two hats ending!

Summary: It starts with the stage, as it always does. A boulder, and a slapstick comedian missing his queue.

It gets much worse from there.

Word Count: 18k

___

Another day, that’s all this is. Another day, you remind yourself with hands gripping at countertops and dagger hilts: just one more. If it’s the same one, wrapped up in a myriad of lines and lists, it’s still here and yours. Just yours, no one else needs to know. And there will be another one after, even if it looks just like this, so you can try again.

You’re fine. You are, it’s just that your leg is just a leg attached to the mess of strings that make up your heart and its use in what it can do, never in what it already is. You know this, it’s why you grab the glass every time, why the prick on your finger vanishes like it was never there to begin with. You’re just the blank canvas, just the actor under the spotlight. You’re playing your part and you’re fine with it, you’re fine. 

You’re also careless. 

One would think, after fifty or so odd trips, of walking through the same exact room to follow the same exact steps, that you’d learn. But you’re useless, bad at your job, and there’s another day for you to try and not fuck up, so of course you don��t. 

That’s why you’re still. Here. 

You walk a little too far into the room because you’re thinking about finding books and reading more and what the King said last time, and— 

Loud noises, crashing. All the air compressed out of your lungs at once, then blissfully, nothing at all.

It’s dark. You think you must be dreaming again; eating a tear straight down to the center of yourself and floating off into the vague inbetweens the way you’re used to by now. 

The vague thoughts like slow syrup swim past you— a door in front of you; a lock; a key. Masks that are laughing and crying and you don’t know which one fits best, but you know you’re meant to have them. There is a hallway behind the door that stretches back and back and back and you know where it goes, where all the doors lead, but you can’t take a single step. You’re alone here, it’s dark, danger is coming but danger’s already here, inside you, twisting and warping away at everything you ever had. 

You had something, you lost it, you found something new, and it’s being taken away. It’s you, and it’s you, and that never means anything good at all. 

Then: you wake up.

You look up again to Isa’s face looming over yours. Did you have a nap? Did the loop change? It’s usually Mira, it’s always Mira, or you alone in the field, but there’s no sky over the bulk of his shoulders, it’s all just gray dark and dark and— 

You’re not sure what happened, actually. The trap was sprung, you didn’t find the switch, and the rock fell. You’re not in the field. The loops kick in when you die most often, and you always die when the rock falls. But you’re here still, and it hurts, still. 

Something twisted in you lights up with glee. It’s different, something different, you say to yourself, and you have to concentrate to not let the giggles bubble straight out into the open exposed air. Only, there’s no sun above you, just old dark stone, echoing breathing in circles following you everywhere you go. Oh, you’re in the House. You didn’t think about where to loop, maybe you need to— 

Sitting up makes the strings in your chest catch lightning, a wall of pain and a hot sticky fire so distant and all encompassing that it makes you nauseous. You can’t even really feel it, just this wet feeling of hurt poking through a wall at you. A knowing of what should be, maybe. 

You wished to take hits harder, this loop, didn’t you. Not faster, like usual. Huh. Noise, there’s so much noise around you your thoughts scramble straight up into nothing and land back down uselessly. You think it might be words.

“--frin! Just, lay down, okay? Hold still, ‘Dile and Belle went to find more stuff, but you’re not s’pposed to move!”

“Shh, hey– hey buddy, can you hear me? Can you do the breathing thing with me? I know— I know it hurts, I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, j–just breathe, okay? With me?”

You know this, it’s your thing. You breathe in, and out. The pain drifts somewhere farther away, enough that your words can rush back into your head behind the static. You force your eye open— that’s, oh Bonnie’s here too. They’re safe, they look worried but whole. 

You close your eye again, breathing as slow as you can manage. Your leg, you think. Not so fast now, are we.

“No going to sleep, Frin! Belle said so!” 

You’re not, you try to say. It comes out like wet paper, unfurling on the cold ground. Can’t sleep anymore, anyways. 

“... Yeah, you do look tired, I know, but we need you to stay awake just. Just until they get back, alright?”

You make a concerted effort to blink. Anything for Isa, really. 

“That’s good,” Isa smiles, it’s wobbly. “Good, yeah, eyes on me, okay? Stay with us here.” You frown, and lick your lips.

Your whole self feels funny, floating right off the page in front of you without you having any say in it at all; you don’t even really hurt, just a thought that you shouldn’t look at whatever’s become of your leg. No burnt sugar, though. You’re somewhere, you’re still here. You don’t know what loop this is. You’d been– The picnic  happened, it always happens now and you’d gone through the door— you don’t know this part. 

It’s rare to have new scripts. So rare, you’re almost greedy for it. You hope Bonnie isn’t looking at your leg either.

Isa looks devastated, that’s not allowed. You can do this. “...eye’ve… got nowhere. Left to. Be.” You huff. Isa blinks. 

You wait for the loud laughter. Isa is your most reliable scene partner, he laughs every time. 

“Sif, did you just—” Isa starts, eyes wide. And promptly bursts into tears. Oh, oh stars. You can’t. Move, to help. 

Bonnie leans closer, eyes watery and face red. “Not funny! You can’t— you’re so stupid! You scared us!” 

“S’rry.”

“No, no it’s— don’t apologize,” Isa wobbles. Something warm falling on your forehead distracts you for a moment. “ — just want you to stay here, right? You can make jokes, I love it when you make jokes.” 

Where are… “Mira?” You manage. Isa presses a thumb across your brow, smoothing gently as he sniffles. It feels nice, you don’t feel yourself enough to know if you flinch. 

“They— they just went to find a tonic. They’ll be back. They’re both fine, Sif, I promise.” Isa says, a nervous little nod to go with it. Isa doesn’t lie, so you have to believe him.

“Craft?” You ask. Words are always hard. This is more like a bag of marbles you’re struggling to sort through.

Bonnie’s fists clench on their lap, right there by your limp hand. There’s a lot of dark all over, you notice— on your clothes, on the floor. Smudges of it on Bonnie’s hands and right there on their cheek that they don’t seem to notice. “The death hallway! The big rock fell and— you were under it, only a little. I knew you were fast but it was like I blinked! You just moved, it was—”

Ah, you think. Stupid. Scared them  with how fast you side stepped. Not enough to get out of the way completely, but, you’d have to reset anyways if you had. Wouldn’t be like clumsy Siffrin to dodge an impossibly sudden trap like that, they’d be scared worse.

Your leg groans at you through the static of everything. What did it matter if you were faster than them anyways, you’d always been the fastest. Not fast enough to not get stuck under it, and look where that got you? Wasting time, Mira and Odile wandering off alone. Stars, but that’s a terrifying thought. You should loop back. You should loop back right now so you don’t have to be such a burden every single time, such a massive fuck up who can’t even remember the first way that you fucked up and you need to loop back, loop back– 

The tug doesn’t come. You, and the parts that stick to you stay planted on the cold dark floor. An amalgamation of shapes and noises pass through you. Figures.

“You got hurt pretty bad, buddy,” Isa says, thumb still petting at your face. You maybe lean into it, the vague press of warmth, you’re not sure of anything. “Mira healed you but—” He winces.

It makes sense, you’re still at the beginning; Mira’s healing isn’t strong enough, she doesn’t have those more useful skills. It makes her more tired like this, to heal, and she’d probably tried too much at once knowing how worried she gets. It’s sweet, you love her for it. You’re not sure if she knows that. It would probably be too much if she did anyways, you always love too much. 

“It’s okay though,” Bonnie chimes in. “Right? It’s okay, because. Dile is going to find a big tonic, and Belle will use her healing again when she rests up, and— and you’ll be okay.”

Isa keeps petting your head. He’s never touched you before, not in any of the loops. You can’t help the way you freeze when you realize. 

“Hey,” Isa coos, soft as anything. Big dark eyes peering down at you with so much worry it  makes you sick. “I— I know it hurts, I’m sorry. Just stay here with us, okay? You can hold my hand, squeeze as hard as you want. I’m strong enough to take it, okay? Breathe through it with me, Sif, I’m not going anywhere on you.”

You remember thinking Isa was the strongest person you’d ever met, once. How he made you want to be more of a person, just so he’d laugh. Now, it’s like you’re an oil spill on this open lake and you’re stretching out everywhere and everywhere but he can’t touch you. They never touch you, except for when you do everything right on purpose to make them all love you. When you’re dying, too. 

Well, that’s a thought. 

He puts his hand in yours, though, and you squeeze it. Pretend that the pain in your leg even registers beyond the ache in your stomach and the split of your head. 

“Maybe, um. Frin, would you wanna hear a joke?” 

“That’s— yeah, sure thing, Bonbon. They’d love one, right Sif?” 

Bonbon, the sweetest kid you’ve ever met in all the ways they’ve also been endlessly prickly, all the ways that you fucked up and made them hate you also. You’d said once that they’d been distant from you— had that still happened this loop? You manage a nod anyway. Anything for your kid. 

Bonnie looks nervous, there’s tears in their eyes as they lean closer, hands balled on their knees. You should smile, you try to smile. It feels far away. 

They bite their lip, glancing over at Isa and back. “Okay. Um. I could make a skeleton joke, but. I don’t think you’d find it very humber-oos.” 

You blink.

“That’s humorous, Bon,” Isa says. “I don’t uh–”

“Humorous,” Bonnie repeats, stone faced. “What. Wait. Was that a bad joke? Because his leg is—”

A laugh rips through you— it hurts it hurts it feels like nothing at all, but you’re smiling, you think you’re smiling. “S’okay, Isa. I can take it,” you manage through wheezing. “In stride.”

A pause. “You–” Isa stares at you. You wait. “That’s—” A wobbly smile cracks across his face, and a surprised burst of snickers. Success.

“No,” Bonnie pouts. “Hey. I made a joke, and you didn’t laugh, Za!” 

“Sorry, Bonbon, I’ll laugh next time, I promise.” 

This is so all outside of script, the words keep sticking to your skin and your lips. Or maybe you’re just transparent and fading, somewhere in between the lines out there, watching. You can see yourself almost; head cradled in Isa’s lap, his warm hand on your brow. Bonnie nervously leaning forward, careful not to look. 

They love you, now, like this, don’t they. They’re holding you, now and they never did before.

It didn’t work before, but maybe you hadn’t loved them back enough. Maybe Mira will make it back and heal you up, and somehow your blood on the stone will be a sacrifice big enough to let you out.

As soon as you let the thought coagulate in your mouth, there’s burnt sugar on your tongue. Hah. It always happens when you think love will matter, doesn’t it? Stupid of you.

Your eye flutters closed. 

“Hey, no Siffrin, you can’t— buddy, please, no, no. Sif keep your eyes open, hey? For me? Sif? Siffrin!”

Too late. End scene. 

There’s something wrong with you. Well, obviously there is. You run through a script on purpose every day of your friends bearing their deepest secrets and fears to you just so that they’ll care about you the way you care about them. You don’t think nice people do that. Probably only the rotting ones, the ones who’s rot is so big it can stretch all the way up into the world and fester like an open wound. 

Beyond that, though; there might be something else. 

Waking up in the field this go around, you feel… you think it might be called giddy, the name for the popping stars in your fingertips. You’d gotten half crushed by a boulder and bled out on the floor in your friend's arms while they begged you to stay, and you’re what. Happy about it? 

That’s probably not normal, realistically.

Loop looks uneasily at you under the dappled light of the tree. “So.” 

“So,” You echo. 

Their eyes shift away and back. 

You’re still giddy, you have to fight to look as tired as you normally do. You know Loop can see it vibrating in your core as easy as anything, as easy as they always see everything about you. The twitching yearning need, coiled and barbed right there under your fingernails. 

“Pretty silly of you to forget the switch again,” Loop lands on. It’s maybe supposed to be snarky, but falls just outside of it. 

You shrug. “I’ll do better next time.” 

“Sure you will.” 

The barest wind shuffles at the leaves and they rustle around you for a moment.

Loop sighs. “It would be good, I think, if you didn’t make me watch that again.” 

Then don’t watch, you think, viciously, and tuck it away again. 

“I did try to move out of the way, you know,” you sulk back. 

“Not fast enough!” They sing-song back at you.

They’re prodding at you, the way they always are for reasons you never understand, but you’re immune for this go around. The fizzing in your hands makes you want to end this as soon as possible. Whatever way will get them to ask less questions. “I’ll just remember the blinding switch next time. Or not move, whatever.” 

Loop frowns slightly. “Contrary to what you may think, I don’t actually enjoy seeing you in pain.” 

You’re not sure you even were in pain though, or that it existed beyond your thoughts. You’re not sure at all why Loop cares.

“Oh, Stardust! I can’t stay mad at you. Look at you, naive and stupid, bumbling around. Missing switches you already know about. It’s so endearing, really!” Their laugh twinkles through them, sharp and high pitched. You sink into your coat. 

“I just forgot.” 

“My little darling clown. We should get you a collar, face paint. Slapstick really seems to be your specialty.” 

Annoyed, you’re annoyed. Your brain unhelpfully spins off to play books you’ve read, laughing masks and all. Bumbling foot archetype, yeah, fine, you fit the bill. It seems like someone must enjoy a good comedy, anyways. 

“It’s not on purpose,” you grouse, for the sake of having said it. 

Loop giggles. “And doesn’t that just make it all the sweeter. Stardust, I do think it would be in your best interest to loop forward next time! Just forget the whole business with the hallway, no?”

“Yeah,” you agree, because it’s easier than arguing. Why do you even want to argue, anyways? Because it was new, you think. You’re desperate for something new. Maybe you want to run it all from the first act curtain opening to the closing, just to know if something else would be new, too. 

This part wouldn’t be new again, though, would it. You’d know the lines already, so: no boulder, that’s fine. More room for improvising. 

Is it good that you’re thinking of ways to break your bones again? Just to see what else might be new? You think it must not be at all, because you want it, and most things you want are already gone and you forgot them anyways. You pause, sitting on your usual branch with the bark biting into the backs of your legs. Maybe… Loop would know. Maybe they’d be able to explain this, whatever went wrong inside you. 

You open your mouth.

Loop claps their hands together loudly. “Well! I think you have quite a bit of reading still to do, no? Best get back to it!” 

Well. Maybe next time. You nod, and hop off the tree. Maybe the wrong in you won’t stick at all, or you can bleed it out horrifically somewhere until it’s right again. Normal things. 

“Stardust?” They call, tone hesitant. Strange. Loop stares at you, a flicker of something in their eyes you don’t recognize. Or maybe you know it too well. 

“If there’s an end to this, you’ll find it. You know that, don’t you?” 

You don’t know that, but you have to believe it anyway. “There’s gotta be something to that wish craft thing he mentioned,” You agree. “I’ll find it.” 

You try to remember to force yourself to stumble at least once as you stalk through the halls, playing the part the way you’re supposed to. Poor laughing clown, less a pierrot more a harlequin. You remember not to comment on the Universe, to avoid the stack of checked out books in the hidden library. You’ll get this one right, and something will change. 

You will mold yourself into a loveable shape, and they’ll reach out and love you like they did when you were bleeding. Won’t they? 

Nothing happens. It’s the same. It’s always, blindingly, infuriatingly, the same. 

You enter the room with the broken vials, and— the fizz takes over, maybe. Or you move without thinking. Some part of your mind is lost in the dark, dark, covering your clothes and the floor and that far away floating feeling of warmth. You stab your hand a little too hard, rather than just brushing the edge, and there’s blood. Too much blood. Shit. 

“Siffrin!” Odile admonishes, immediately scooping your hand in hers. “For goodness sake, let's not go around playing with glass, shall we?” 

She’s touching you. Your brain skips. 

Odile fusses with your hand, ripping a piece of her shirt apart to clot tightly at your palm where your pale skin shines through your glove. Bonnie doesn’t have to sneak the glass from your pocket this time, because Odile stomps on it where it falls from your hand. New, you think. New, new again. This is all new. 

“Sif,” Isa pouts, crouching closer, too. “That looks pretty deep.” 

“I can heal it!” Mira offers, “Or, we have tonics, too right?” 

Bonnie nods, pulling out a vial from their pockets and dumping it all over your palm eagerly.

They hold your pinky as they do, angling your hand more towards their eye level. Isa pats your back as a strange wheeze leaves your lips. He’s touching you. Odile’s touching you. 

You’re warm, you hadn’t realized you’d felt cold at all. 

They all seem to realize at the same moment, though, and back away with embarrassed looks. 

“Are you okay, Siffrin?” Mirabelle’s wide eyes meet yours, brows pinched together and serious. 

No, you think, strangely untethered. No, I’m not. 

“Of course, sorry. Clumsy,” You offer, thinking of masks and plays, and you wait for them to all relax when they remember your role. 

Slapstick comedy. You’re always laughing. 

The usual lines take too long. Yes, Mirabelle I know what the papers are. Yes, Bonnie, I do pay attention to you. Of course I know where to find the family tale, Odile. Maybe you’ve stopped caring about the words they’re saying at all, maybe it’s all rote and it’s a shame because to them it’s their very first time sharing but you’ve. Heard it all. Before. 

You want to talk to Isa again.

Something changed, that last loop. Again, it changed again. He’d touched you, even though he always stops. Maybe this will change too. 

“Isa,” you say, brighter than you can remember speaking in a while.

“Sif, hey!” He smiles at you, crosses his arms. The most northern point in your universe, keeping himself carefully away from you.

You say the joke perfectly, you always say the joke. You need him to laugh the way he does with you, or something in you really will snap apart entirely. You think of words, big floating ones you knew once because someone taught you but the how and why goes somewhere else.  Aphelion, the part of orbit farthest from the sun. 

He laughs, the world carries onward, and you watch.

As. His hand. 

Reaches out. 

Please, you think, shooting stars and fizzing bubbles and endless, deep, painful aching, wanting. Wanting. 

Wanting. 

“Oh, hey, Sif, you okay?” 

You blink. His face has shifted, worry more than mirth, and he’s looking at your hands, which are balled up so tight you’re biting right into the meat of your palms in perfect dark crescent jagged tears. Isa’s hand is hovering just there, in the air between you. 

Shit. Stars. You forgot.

Isa’s staring. “You looked really—” He cuts himself off, you watch his hand as he visibly thinks about grabbing yours and stops himself. That’s. That’s more than you’ve gotten, he shifted closer this time. 

He won’t touch you, he never does, you wait and wait and it doesn’t happen, it might never happen, but he’d thought about it. Does that count? 

“Sif, you’re… uh. Kinda worrying me here? Having a quiet day, or?” 

Right; the lines. Your mask. “Sorry,” you smile at him, ashamed and sheepish at yourself. Fit the bill and the play carries on. “Did you need help with anything?” 

Isa’s frown smoothes out, you relax your hands. The sting of it sends something to your brain that you don’t think about. 

Nobody touches you for the rest of that loop. 

You beat the king, you don’t ask any questions about wishes even though you’re supposed to, even though you should. Another thought has slid neatly in between, like a glass in a telescope. A lens to sharpen impossibly far away thoughts, pull them right into the space before your eye. 

You’re… curious, is the kinder way to phrase it. The itch in your palms, in your skin, is loud. You feel real when they’re touching you, when he is. You feel like you can stay. 

Is it okay to want? It can’t be, because you want it in the wrong ways. 

You’re distracted, stupid. Useless, fucking stupid idiot, blindingly bad at their job constantly and yet constantly in the front, the role of the clown etched into your blinding hands: 

A sadness gets too close. Mira’s healing is on cooldown and you're out of tonics. Slapstick, right?

The slide of its attack right against your rib cage knocks your breath from you, rolling silently out into the open. The floor jumps up to cradle you, and the battle slides somewhere sideways around you. It sounds like someone is calling your name. 

Isa’s face blurs in front of yours, pale and terrified, and instantly pulling you into his arms. You’re smiling, you shouldn’t be smiling. You can’t make yourself stop. 

“---Sif, are you— M’dame! It’s—” 

“We got it, it’s done. Quick, pull them into this room over here.” 

Something shifts, your midsection howls with some distant memory.

You’re still. Smiling. 

You must have made a noise, Isa’s face crumples. “Sorry, sorry, Sif, I — hang on, okay? Here.” He lifts you up. Holding you in his arms, your head tilting to press just there against the rabbit quick thrum of his heart. Isa’s holding you, cradling you carefully and bundling all the aching parts of you close. You feel so warm, so. 

Warm.

Mira appears in your field of vision. “Hang in there, Siffrin! I’m so sorry, I should be able to heal again in a minute, oh… I should have paced it out better!” She slides her hand into yours, giving you a reassuring, wobbly squeeze. You make yourself squeeze back and see the flicker of surprise and joy pass through under her worry.

You’re stealing these moments from them all, even now, aren’t you?

Does it have to be like this? With you, broken on the outside as much as you are on the inside, before Isa’ll be brave enough to reach out first, before Mira will believe you over her own brain? You’d do it, you think sickly. Dark as night. You’d break all your bones a thousand times again and suck all the joy right out of this moment too, if it means you can have it now. Because you’re greed and you’re envy and you’d dig your greasy claws into all of them and take every good thing they can give you– you’re already cataloging it, aren’t you? How to get this ending again? How to say your parts right? 

Sick. Disgusting. 

Freak. 

“Hush, hey? Eyes on me, Sif. We’re just gunna— can you clear the— yeah, thanks Mira. Okay, shh. Okay, just putting you down here.” No, you think with all your twisted sick parts, let me stay right here. If I loop, it’ll be warm, at least. I’ll die right here like this, and it’ll be the warmest I’ve felt in years. Wouldn’t that be nice?

There’s no burnt sugar on your lips yet, no tug in your stomach, though. You can have this, for more greedy vile seconds, and you’ll take them all. 

Odile swims into focus. “Siffrin, I need you to listen, alright? This is going to hurt, but we need to apply pressure. Can you nod?” 

You think you do. Odile seems content enough. 

“On the count of three then. One, two—” 

A fire blooms in swirling constellations at your side, fiery comets and collapsing stars all in one. It doesn’t feel like anything, but why would it? Silly, really. You’re not a star, you’re a blackhole. You’re what’s left behind when the star gets too tired to burn. 

“ — I know, oh, sweetheart, I know. Okay, yeah, you can squeeze my hand here, okay? As much as you need to. Crab, I’m so sorry, Sif.” Isa’s hand is in yours, he called you— you’re still warm. The pain feels like it’s siphoning itself away into a dark tunnel, a thousand miles away. 

“I should have blocked it, oh… why didn’t I think to block it?” 

“Let’s not play the blaming game, shall we?”

“Yeah! Frin’s hurt, and—and he’s crying a lot, so. We have to be nice, right? That’s what Nille did when I was sick, said you have to be quiet and nice.” 

“Oh, Bonnie, don’t look, okay? Can we—”

“Boniface, let's give them room here, just give me one second.” 

You’re… crying? You can’t feel your cheeks at all, just the hand in yours. Just the sparking lightning, stars in your ribs. Oh, you think you’re still smiling. 

Bonnie puts their hand on your ankle, you can see them peeking up at you over the lip of the table they’ve placed you on. Frowning and worried, thumb brushing back and forth across your leg in some practiced, unthinking movement. Odile is staring intently at your side, but has a gentle palm on your stomach like a balm. Mira’s brushing your hair from your face, and Isa—

They’re all touching you. You fit this once inside the confines of your own outlines, and it doesn’t hurt at all. 

The hands leave, Bonnie and Odile floating out of sight. Isa’s squeezes at your shoulder, knuckle brushing at your cheek. 

“Mira…” he says, he sounds grave. Heavier and lower than you know him as. 

Her hands shake as they move to your stomach, there’s a horrible noise around you like the time before you’d met them, you’d found an animal caught in a trap. Left out in the winter. You’d forgotten that, somehow. 

“I— I know, I know… I’m.” Mira sniffs, watery and shattering apart in a hundred ways. “I don’t… I don’t know if we have enough, why don’t we have enough?” 

Because you didn’t stop by the room on the first floor, probably. Because you lead and they follow and you hadn’t cared about tonics at all. 

“M’bad,” you say. Think about saying, it’s the same. She doesn’t seem to notice. 

The hand on your shoulder tightens more, and Isa bends closer. “Hey, hey… it’s okay, it’s— I’m here, okay? We’re here, Mira’s here. I— why’d you take that hit, Sif? I could have handled it.”

I’m the comedian, you think. I take the falls. You promised you’d never do it again, sit in the tree tops and be left behind; it’s okay if you go, though. Someone has to go first, right?

“Don’t go at all,” Isa says, a hard whisper that sounds like it hurts. He presses his forehead into yours, eyes squeezed shut and upside down. “Don’t go, Sif. Please, don’t go.” 

You think about telling him that it doesn’t hurt, that you’re warm. That you feel here, and held, and staying for once. You can’t feel your lips to tell if you speak. 

You want to cry, stars stuck right in your throat like boulders. You already know it won’t feel as warm the second time around.

There’s something wrong with you; slapstick, laughing, you’re smiling and hollow behind it all. You touch a tear to get back to Dormont faster and your dreams slide sideways and rancid on your tongue. Rotting fissures of disgust that are shapeless, nameless. And you, floating out into the Universe. Cold, empty. Eating the stars up for the warmth they hold inside. 

You dream that you’re on a stage, and you’re watching the play, and you know your parts in all the ways you don’t know what line is next at all. You dream that there’s another version of you, standing across in the hot lights. 

Isa walks out in costume, shadows heavy on him in capes and harsh angles; he has a mask with a long nose that just barely hides the dimples when he smiles. He puts his hand on the other Siffrin’s shoulder. 

You don’t feel it, it’s not yours. You’re overwhelmed with envy and greed and rage and wake before your hand can meet your own doppelgangers face.

And, the sickness at the center of you grows. 

You’re already thinking of it before your eye even opens in the field: how to get them to worry, to get them to hold you, how to make it slower, last longer. You could misthrow the bomb, but, no. There’s too much risk. Everyone stands too close for you to allow it, it might do too much at once, you’d loop before anyone could pull your rubble out from your skin. Getting frozen just means dreams, it just means Mira unsticking you. The blindingly infuriating option in town happens before anyone can see you. 

You catch yourself fantasizing about rivers of dark sticky nothing, pouring out of your side like the night sky itself. 

Normal people don’t do this, do they? Think of ways to manipulate their friends to pretend to care for them. Calculate how slow they can die, how much worry they can swallow up and hold inside themselves. Your insides are nothing, poison-noxious-empty-nothing, maybe they always have been.

You start thinking of caskets, of open funerals. The grass under your hands feels like maggots. 

“I couldn’t find it,” you say to Loop, because it at least looked like an accident this time. They’re still giving you a sideways glance but, it’s nothing neither of you can comment on out loud. “Do you know where I should be looking?” 

“Hm,” Loop says, flexing out their hands like they’re inspecting their nails. You have a sudden pang of intense envy for the way their skin pulses under their outlines, like magma under stone. At least they’re warm, you think vaguely, but— no. They’re stuck here too. Any warmth is just what’s left, right? That’s why you’re stardust, you’re what’s left. 

They tilt their head at you. “If I was a book on a subject no one had thought of in who knows how long, I probably wouldn’t be sitting out in the open.” 

True, and there are all those ones you can’t read. Where can you learn more about the patterns and the stars? 

If you tore yourself open. You shake your head. 

“I should ask the King, right?” You sigh. You make sure to make it look like you care about this, still. Like you’re trying and you’re tired, and that’s why you messed up. You’re not sure how Loop knows you so well, but you’re fairly certain they can’t read your mind at least.

“...Yes,” Loop says, squinting. 

You stare back, thinking nothing. 

“Hm. Well, it must get tiring having to walk back to all those tears to restart, no?” 

Are they… trying to get on your nerves? Slapstick, right? They want you to find something creative, surely. 

“No,” they wave a hand, “not antagonizing you on purpose of course!” 

Hm. Mind reading is back on the table. 

They snort. “No tricks required, silly. I just know you so well!”

“It. Is annoying to walk back,” You agree, squinting back. You’re not sure what Loop would be implying, unless– they called you the director once, maybe they know this play, too. Less the harlequin more the leading role.  “Well, I do have a dagger.” 

Loop giggles. “That’s true, you—” Suddenly, the mirth drops from their shoulders, a blank wide eyed stare takes over instead. “What do you mean you have a dagger.”

You shrug,  you know what the play demands. Separated lovers, hamartia, the you across the stage that gets everything he wants. Surely, they’ve seen you leaning in and taking more, right? Surely that’s damned you already, hasn’t it? Your fatal flaw, greed and indecision, like the brightest touch of sunlight streaming across a windowsill.

“Stardust, you can’t be serious! Stabbing yourself isn’t like a tear, you know! It’ll hurt! A lot!” 

Yes, you think. You know. And it’ll pour out of you somewhere else behind the warmth, and you’ll feel real. You’ll feel like you exist. 

“I’ve died multiple times already, Loop,” you roll your eye, playing at nonchalance just like every other mask you wear. “I know. It wouldn’t be any different.” 

Loop just. Stares. 

“It wouldn’t be any—” their voice cuts off, splinters. They don’t blink. “I don’t want you to!” 

Their light flares, fractals spinning off into the swaying trees. You don’t think you’ve ever seen them react like this. “Since when are you in charge of me?” 

“Since I chose to be here to help you, obviously!” 

You scoff, tucking your face further into your cloak. “You said you didn’t choose me. You said that. So why does it matter? It’s faster, I’m dying all the time.” You think, you pick open the scab wound of the dark oil slick inside yourself and say: “I’ll just use the glass, then. It’ll be messier, won’t it?”

Dark ultimatums and threats behind painted lips, is that what you are now?

Loop’s glaring now, fists balled up at their sides. “You’re an idiot. You’re— I don’t want you to, because it should hurt, because you should care. Because you are the only thing you get to keep across all these blinding restarts, don’t you understand tha—”

Something happens. 

The air goes still, clicks. Resets, fizzes out. Burnt sugar, but you don’t feel a tug. 

Loop stares back at you, eyes white and unseeing. “You can use your dagger whenever you want. It’ll end the loop if you choose. Whenever you want.” 

“Um,” you say.

“You can use the dagger. It will end the loop.” they say, voice stretched out and blank.

You don’t move. The sugar taste goes acrid around the edges. 

Loop blinks back with another fizz before you can manage to think further. They won’t look at you.

“You should probably leave,” Loop says, tone flat in a way that reminds you of harp strings tightening. “I don’t want to see your face again, this loop.” 

You run. 

You’re scissors type, you know what that means: Cold, calculating. Unfeeling. Callous, sometimes. You’ve tried to live the opposite, ever since you— since you woke up. Since you met Isa, really, and decided to make yourself the one who jokes and leads and checks for traps. 

You’re starting to think of other words, now. Void, maybe. Trapped, is another one. Harlequin, pierrot. 

“Hey, Sif? You feeling okay?” Isa asks, in the safe room, you forget which floor you’re on. You haven’t touched your madelines at all, and you need to, or Bonnie will get upset. You know this, you just— you spaced out for a moment is all. Your thumb is on your dagger unthinkingly, inside your pocket where nobody can see at all.

It feels like you’re on a cliffside, waiting for someone to care enough to call you back from the ledge. Waiting for the wind to blow either direction and make a decision for you.

You give him a thumbs up, and cram the whole fistful of food into your mouth at once. 

He blinks, snorts. “Hungry as ever, huh? Don’t choke on it!” 

Yeah. Hungry. That’s another word you’d use. Gnawing. Constantly ravenously hungry and greedy for everything and nothing at all. 

You wear gloves most of the time, just because it’s easier. Because it means less splinters and road rash when you trip and less likely to nick yourself when you were training before. They have a pointed tip, just a little from when your nails grew out longer. 

You see your hands and you see claws. Something to dig in, to hold in place. Something to bleed. 

For the first time in a long time, the thought scares you.

You think about running back Dormont and to Loop and begging. About throwing your dagger across the room, about fighting with your fists and claws. Loop, you think, please. I don’t want to be the leading role, or the director anymore. Don’t let me have this, say no. Take it back. 

Take it back. 

You can’t keep the doll or the bell or the four leafed plant, but you can keep your hands, and those can stay yours, can’t they? If you’re good, if you play the clown right? They’re your hands and your mask isn’t your face yet, it isn’t, and you could find the way out Loop is so sure exists, and you could keep all of you right here and yours, couldn’t you?

Except.

The skin of your hands is smooth. No scar to remember the last time they touched you at all. 

The pain didn’t even matter to you then, either. It should, Loop said. It should hurt. Like the hurt is a benediction, an earned punishment. Or maybe a reward. Maybe Loop was too late already. Maybe if you cut yourself apart, there’d be absolutely nothing at all inside to fall out. 

You can’t trust yourself with anything anymore. 

Isa watches you funny, as you eat all the food Bonnie will give you. You find yourself smiling without meaning to.

You play with your dagger at the picnic with the stars lighting up the curve of your blade. 

The King won again, you were distracted. Fighting him isn’t even hard now, usually, but you didn’t tell Mirabelle to prepare the shield at the right time again, and you didn’t ask him anything about wishes at all. Stupid mistakes, forgetful ones, and everyone died. Loop would laugh at you, probably, if you’d been brave enough to see them. 

The dagger sits at home in your hands, light and quick as always. Flipping it up, around. A flourish between your fingers. You’re not sure if someone taught you this, long before like guided lessons or well worn family tradition. Maybe your mother taught you, or your father, and all that’s left of either of them is just muscle memory. Maybe you should feel guilt for your hunger, for what you want as some kind of sullying or a defacing of this last memento.

“You’re good with your dagger,” Odile speaks up, soft in the night ambience. “Practicing this late, are we?”

Performance is practice, you think someone once said. “Want to be ready for tomorrow.”

Odile leans back on her hands, Mirabelle and Isa are swinging Bonnie around between their linked arms in the field— giggles pouring up into the open air as easy as anything. Fireflies chase along with them, like stars pulled straight from the sky. 

“I think you’ll do just fine, Siffrin,” Odile says without looking at you. She sighs. “Though I appreciate your focus on preparedness. I can’t say I’m not nervous myself.” 

Odile? Nervous? You’d never have guessed. Her mask is better than yours, even. She must read it in your face as she glances over, she chuckles to herself as she pushes up her glasses. “Oh come now, it can’t be so surprising that I have nerves. We are facing the end all be all subject of our quest, are we not?”

You think about all the times you’ve won, the times you haven’t even come close. You think of a massive fist, tightening, someone calling for help— of being in the trees and thinking: they made it there without you. You swallow. “We are.” 

You flip your blade around your fingers again; this is new in itself, having a quiet side conversation with Odile isn’t in the usual script. Normally, you sit in silence, smiling at the antics of everyone else until the stars are fully out and bright and no one knows the name for them except for you, but it’s time for bed. 

You would be excited, usually. Differences are so hard to come by anymore, you should be excited. You’re somewhere beside yourself, watching from across the stage though, mask in place and empty as always.

You remember to smile at her though, and give a tiny shrug. “He’s also facing us, too.” 

Odile snickers. “You know, somehow I hadn’t quite thought of it like that.” 

You don’t know what her point is, or why she’s even speaking to you; it feels like you’re lying in a thousand directions all at once. You flip the blade, and balance the tip on your finger until your tremors shake it to the ground. Odile raises an eyebrow. 

“Is… something the matter, Siffrin?” 

Stars. You don��t even have it in you to be afraid either. Your smile is bland and stretched thin, a veneer of paint, a shitty thin nothing of cheap fabric. “Nervous, too. I guess.” 

She breathes out. Bonnie shrieks with giggles a few feet away, sending another spark of fire flies bursting into the sky. “Well, never let it be said that I’m one for emotions, but. I have faith in you completely. If there’s a way through, we’ll follow.” 

“Yeah,” you say, because you lie more than you breathe these days.

Blackholes and sinking ships, you realize you’ll just drown them all with you.

To give yourself credit, you try to make it all the way to the King. You commit yourself to trying to read the books and look for an answer, the way through that Loop promised, you even pretend you believe it. There’s something wild in your chest that sounds like a clock ticking even as you skim pages, a counting down of hands— the clock tower, six o’clock, dinner and food and your friends laughing around a meal that fills absolutely nothing at all in you, it’s all irrelevant. It shouldn’t be, though. 

It should be the only thing that matters, shouldn’t it?

If you can break out, this loop, this time, then— you won’t think about it anymore, you tell yourself. If this is it, you’ll stop. You’ll leave your dagger and glass shards and sharp edges alone. You’ll find warmth somewhere else. 

If you let me out, I’ll stop, you think, pacing alongside the stage. 

Please, you think, aimlessly. 

The Universe stays silent. 

You linger, at the end after winning once more, saving the world like it’s the first time and it’s real. You spend too much time talking to everyone as many times as you can even though Bonnie calls you stupid and Mira gives you a nervous smile and Odile pretends to read while watching you. There’s a biting tearing thing in your heart that wants out, that’s caged behind the teeth in your throat: notice, it says. Pay attention. Stop me. Keep me here. 

“It’ll hurt,” Loop had said, and you know this. You know. Your heart already hurts. 

“Siffrin?” Odile’s voice rings through the static in your head. You’re standing in front of the Head Housemaiden, and she’s looking at you with a strange half-smile, full of concern and confusion. She hasn’t started speaking yet. 

Move, you tell yourself. You’re not sure what your face is doing at all, frozen in time right before the plunge. 

Isa perks up. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

The Head Housemaiden tilts her head at you, hands clasped together. Her mouth opens and— no, you think, please. I’ll be good. I’ll stop thinking about black holes. Promise me my insides are good. Tell me there’s something at all inside, it’s not just empty, I’ll believe you this time. I swear.

“Frin?” Bonnie steps forward, frowning. You can’t. Turn your head. Watching the slow parting of her lips, the death sentence waiting beyond it. 

I didn’t even kill myself this time.

Isa reaches for you, face alarmed and serious like it rarely is. He looks sheet white, concerned beyond measure. Terrified for you, even as the world turns sickly sweet and burnt around you.

“-- You’ll be going back,” she says, of course she says. Fat droplets of tears pouring from her face like she’s sorry. She won’t even try to listen, she’s wearing a mask, too. 

“Siffrin!” 

He’s reaching for you. You can’t reach back, you don’t try to. 

It’s not like he’d touch you anyways, you’re not even bleeding. 

There’s a dream waiting for you. It might be a memory, the way it shifts and grows like paint on a page, but you don’t remember. You never remember any of the things that you want to. 

“Hey Sif?” Isa says, because you’re sitting together on a bench in another city, far before you had all the orbs to unlock the first door, before you’d lost your eye. The stars are twice as bright but you don’t think about them, that hasn’t happened yet.

Adventure was fresh on your lips, then, wasn’t it? It still felt like a page being written. This thing that existed in the in betweens of Isa’s words wasn’t so thick and cloistering, you hadn’t seen it at all yet. 

You tilt your head towards him, kicking your feet. You don’t remember where Mira and Odile had taken Bonnie— maybe some supplies shop, or for ingredients. Maybe they’d forgotten you entirely, you wouldn’t know. 

He rubs the back of his neck, looking down at the grooves in the cobblestone road below you. “I was just thinking. Not to be morbid, but… what if. What if we don’t win?” 

You’d smiled at him before. You’re not sure if you’re smiling here, if the mask is already part of you before you walked into the play. “We will,” you say, because that’s what the wish wants, or thinks it wants, and you wouldn’t leave where you were without it. 

He gives you a tiny lopsided smile back. “Right, love the confidence, really. I shouldn’t be talking about this, I just. Do you think he’d—” He swallows, glances around. “We’re really the last hope, is all, huh.” 

The last hope, the only one. The combined fueled up image of hope at all, and it’s all stuck in the fading crumpled up photograph that is you, faking a grin. Sorry, everyone. Show’s lost its sparkle. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. 

You pretend to contemplate this. “I think that means something,” you say, not knowing that it’s because of the Universe yet, because you’re following and it’s leading, yet. Because you don’t remember who told you the bedtime stories or your own language, or all the words that don’t stick because you learned them differently. 

Isa looks at you, absorbing every word like it’s scripture. You shrug. “Doesn’t it? If it’s just us here, then. That means it’s supposed to be us.”

“Huh,” Isa says. You forget the next part. The dream fades between two planes of glass, Isa’s voice melting and pulling itself across dimensions in front of you. 

“I guess it has to be you then, too.” 

Spotlight. On. 

You… wake up, in the field. You think you wake up. It’s hard to believe there’s differences between when you sleep and when you’re on stage. It’s all motions, even your dreams are repeating. 

There’s the static in your hands again, tiny electric jumping stars trying to burst straight out through your skin, making them shake and tremble. It itches. You can barely think about anything else— enter Mira, say the method, find the book for Odile, check the blinding change god statue, talk to Isa and waitwaitwait. You let Bonnie hug you and try to hug them back as tightly as you can.

They’ll hug you when you’re seemingly fine, they’re the only one that will. Is that enough?

Of course it isn’t. You’re made of greed and gnawing hungry things, nothing is ever enough.

It should hurt, you think. And: It will.

The giddy feeling is back, distant and layered but it’s enough to make your grins come easier and spread wider. Some of your usual monotone affect is missing, you’re not sure if that’s the version they’d remember anymore. Did you talk more often? Were you happy? You think you’re happy now, knowing that you can bend everything again to your needs. That you can play the part right, that you can only follow and make them join you the ways that make you warm.

Sick, disgusting. Manipulative. You’re too full of thick lightning bolts and storm clouds to mean it the usual way. 

You get past the trap easily, forgetting to seem surprised at all with this constant thrum of go, move, next, pushing at your outlines, but no one questions you at least. Not that you’d have the ability to play it off, really. Maybe you’d just stab yourself the moment they asked, rewrite the whole scene mid word, wouldn’t that be funny. 

Odile gives you a strange long look as you navigate around a corner easily. Your hand hovers over the hilt of your dagger, is it now? 

Should it be now?

The moment passes, no one speaks. You don’t look at yourself in the mirror. You close your eyes and smile as big as you can and look everywhere except for yourself when Odile hands it to you. You ignore the way she stares at the photo slightly too long, also. 

Whatever she’s seeing, you already know.

And then: there’s wishes, made by everyone at the Favor Tree. Involving you somehow, you’re sure of it. And you need to— logic says you need to ask them, to figure out what the wishes were specifically, how it’s keeping you here. Logic says: this is the next step. 

You have to go back to the start, walking to a tear would take too long. Isn’t that annoying?

“Oh, I should have asked everyone in Dormont,” you say out loud, not for your family because they’re just characters on a page, they’re the Il Dottore and the Franceschina and Il Capitano and you’re erasing them even as you speak, but for Loop. To keep up appearances on a thing they shouldn’t be watching anyways. Here, Loop, an offering. A reason for what I’m doing, isn’t that nice? You can look away, now. We don’t have to talk about it, you don’t have to watch. There’s a purpose to it, it’s efficiency, isn’t it? Scissors type means efficient. 

“Ask them what?” Mirabelle says, with a head tilt. You’re in the secret side library and it’s cramped in here with old paper smells and mildew and the not-real sense of should-be warmth. Her voice echoes off the stone walls, wrapped in the candlelight Odile had kindly set. 

“What they wished for,” you say. “Maybe if enough people wished it, even though the steps were wrong, it could do something.” Even though there was nothing to hold it, maybe you would have. You’re a blank canvas, and you could fold right around anyone's wishes just to steal the warmth, you’d eat straight through the stars themselves.

Bonnie perks up. “Like beating the King?” 

Isa glances between the kid and you, a small divot forming on his face. “I guess so, but we can just find out when we beat him, no?”

You smile. You smile and you smile. “Sure, yeah. Let’s go then.” And you make your way towards the door. 

Isa doesn’t move, hands on his hips and staring at you funny. 

“Sif? You look weird.” 

Do you? Your face is somewhere far below the swimming static, you wouldn’t know what you’re doing with it. You’re just. Moving. Fingers dancing across the hilt in your pockets, feeling cramped even though there’s a perfect bubble of distance around you and everyone. Oil and water, they’d kill themselves to get away from you. The thought makes a bubble of laughter crack at your teeth. 

“Tired,” you say. Think you say. Isa nods, slowly, crossing his arms warily. 

“Well. You didn’t get a nap today.” 

Bonnie gasps. “Cranky Frin!” 

“Perhaps we can make it to the next floor quickly, then. Stop for a breather?” Odile suggests. 

Bonnie throws a hand up. “I’ll get him snacks!” 

You hate when they talk around you like this, more distance, more separation. Talking behind your back, making eyes, side conversations they can’t have with you. Their roles are to deceive, are they not? To doublespeak to be the Pantalone and Dottore and all the other masks. It’s all just space and space and cold empty nothing. Your hand is on the hilt now. 

“Right,” you say. “Let’s leave then.” 

Isa stares at you for another long second. Do it, you think viciously. Cold, calculating. Manipulative. You’re a coward. You won’t push it, you won’t touch me. You won’t say it. Do it. 

He breathes out, he lets you pass. 

You step out into the hallway first, they can’t see the way your palms bite into the grooves of your dagger’s hilt, or the way your eyes close. They can’t see the hitch to your breath as you think. This will hurt. Then: it should hurt. 

You hold the blade out, dark and smooth like a stone in the river before you. This is thy sheath.

It’s surprisingly not hard at all to push, like butter really. You try to give them time to notice, because you’re a sick wanting thing. You treat your blood like an offering. See? See, it’s dark inside, it’s nothing. Does that scare you? Do you want it?

“Siffrin, what are you— shit! Stop that, Isa, grab him!” 

“What— oh, fuck, Sif, why—” 

It does hurt, worse than almost anything, but you’ve died slower. Isa knocks your dagger out of your hand, you hear Mira’s ragged gunshot of a gasp as she pulls Bonnie close and tucks their face into her side as they fight to know what’s happening. Isa’s grip on your wrist is hard, it hurts, too; the good hurt, the kind that sinks all the way into your bone, swims farther and worms into your heart like a confirmation.

“Sif, why would you—” Isa chokes, face crumbling blearily above you and— oh, you’re on your back again. He’s holding you upright with an arm behind you, you can feel the heat of him through your shirt because— your cloak is in a pile across from you. Dark, dark stains like ink blots across the front.

Fire burning like dry kindling runs through you. Your eye crosses, fades out and back in. Odile is pressing her shirt against your side and speaking quickly to Mirabelle in a tone you haven’t heard from her before. She could heal you, you realize with some amount of dread. Then you’d have to— you’d have to explain. 

That can’t happen, they wouldn’t want you at all. You bite your tongue, waiting for the taste of sugar. 

It’s funny, really. You want to drag out the seconds long enough to know, not enough to be known. Greedy, selfish. You can’t have it all. 

You trip over into the sweet empty warmth anyways before you can be dragged farther back into the night, and feel relieved. 

Avoiding Loop is normal, it’s fine. You’re fine. You crave warmth and dream of rivers of nothing at all, cascading ink spills of night sky, of eating a star whole and burning through the paper of your skin. But you’re fine. You feel nothing, so that’s fine. 

They said it should hurt, and it did. You did it right. You can do it again, if you need to. 

Want and need are funny words aren’t they. Words that crawl up into each other and rust and break apart into nothing when you pull at the seams. Your needs are like that: a hangnail that bleeds and bleeds, a word that’s lost all its meaning and can’t be spoken. 

(You try to speak it anyways, once. Twice, alone in the field. The tinge of copper in your mouth that rips you open isn’t even anything special anyways, like you’ve grabbed hold of the singularity and pulled the gravity back outwards. Just means the blackhole is you.) 

Acting doesn’t require feeling, at least. It requires knowing lines. No one asks, no one says anything. No one touches you. 

You wake up in the middle of the night holding your dagger, the tip pressed against your chin, and you think: this, too, is a play. These are my lines: the next scene beyond the intermission. Maybe that’s what this is all for. 

But then you’d be sitting here, all the blood in you lined up against your spine and the backs of your legs, pooling and still. And you’d still be cold. 

You put the dagger down, it stabs your finger and for a moment it barely feels like anything. 

There’s something to what Loop said. The broken doll will never see the end, you’re not sure if you’re the mask or the actor. You pour and you pour everything out that lives in you and it goes nowhere. Just you and the space and no sound reaching through. 

Stabbing yourself isn’t even hard the second time. You mess it up and do it too fast though, so all you can see is the rounding of Isa’s scared eyes before you’re yanked to the stage. The third time, there’s not even anyone around to see. 

A long time ago, someone told you a story.

Look up at the night sky, all the way up to the moon, they said. Do you see how brightly it shines? That is made of love, you know. The sun is long past its time for rest, and the world went dark, and she rose to give us light to walk by. 

You’re walking on a rock hewn path, you’re jumping from stone to stone carefully. Someone waits patiently, holding your hand as you contemplate how to jump and how to land. You don’t know where this is, but it doesn’t matter because a hand is in yours and the moon shines bright because it is love. 

The sun's light made her vanish, so they could never meet. The moon asked for love as a messenger, just for her, so the sun could hear her in the day. The messenger went up to the clouds and pressed them together, and made time slow. You see the sun, just there?

The sky is something, another shade. Not light or dark. A vibrant thing that pours out of the inbetweens of night, the way your eyes have forgotten how to see. 

That’s for them. The dawn, so they could meet. So they can say ‘I love you’, and know they are loved too. Them, reaching across time to hold each other for a moment every new day. When you meet, you can see the love, because it looks like yours in the shape of their eyes and their lips and their smile pouring the sun right back into you. Do you know this, Siffrin? 

When you think of this, you imagine a smile and creased eyes and dimples and the sun, pouring love into you, too. You don’t think of it. The world has never let you think of it. 

You carry touch and love in you like an illness. Yours is not a love that looks like anyones. It pins down everything in its path like butterfly wings under glass, and keeps the dawn stretching out and out forever. And you are made wrong for it. 

“Hi Frin,” Bonnie waves their hand at you, making a show of slowly inching towards you until they poke you lightly in the stomach. “You saw that, right? You didn’t even flinch that time! Good kid, good kid!” 

You didn’t flinch because you didn’t feel it. All of this for a touch you don’t feel anyways. Your arm is just an arm attached to the messy strings that make up your center; it’s not yours anyways. You don’t exist there. 

Bonnie squints at you and tilts their head, hands on their hips with a pout. “You didn’t eat your food, you know. Did you not like it? I have other food.” 

The samosa is in your hands, or— no. It’s not a samosa. It’s plantain chips. You think of rocks and bleeding to death and cracking your head open so hard all of you runs out onto the grass like egg yolks. You think of Bonnie, skipping along and finding the empty shell of you and saying silly stupid Frin, napping out here all day long, and propping you up and taking you along inside the castle anyways. It would be the same, wouldn’t it? They’d made it to the King without you. 

Dead weight, and sinking ships. 

Bonnie pokes you again. “Frin? Are you even listening? Are you doing something stupid like sleeping with your eye open? Your back will get all crunched up like that, you know, Dile said so.” 

Are you sleeping? The maschere would know. Your palm is splitting itself open and sewing itself up over and over again and never leaving a mark. Do you know this, Siffrin? It should hurt. 

The maschere blinks at you. “Um. Frin? I know we— I mean. I was angry at you, and I didn’t talk to you and stuff, but you know I… I was just worried, right? Za said I should say it to you when I asked so, in case you didn’t know somehow. I didn’t mean it, Frin, and— and this is pretty serious in here and we’re gonna get Nille back, but. I don’t want you to go away, not really.” 

The actor playing you isn’t moving. Puppet strings cut, limp and still on the stage floor. There’s an exit line they should say, it’s the same one for every show because it’s repeatable and inoffensive. He should say it now, you think, if he’s done. He can’t leave the stage without saying it. 

“Frin? …. Is it a quiet day? You— normally you nod or something, I— are you ignoring me?” 

Maybe he can pull the strings from inside himself right out, through their fingertips or their mouth. String themselves back up the right way, the kind that has a smile. 

“Frin, you’re scaring me. It’s not. It’s not funny, stupid! Your face is scary!” 

Say goodnight, leave the stage. If you’re tired of shining, let the moon burn instead, come on. Say the line. Leave the stage. 

“Dile! I think… I think something’s wrong with Frin! Belle? Za!! Can anyone—” 

“It’s fine,” the actor says. “It should hurt.” 

“It should– what?” 

There’s no dawn here. No weights to hold you inside yourself. The actor flourishes his blade with gusto, and the crowd ooh’s and ahh’s with the quick flash of steel. He can find the strings, if he looks. Look, maschere, love will win out in the end, we just have to keep the play moving! You could help string them up, too, you know. Il Dottore would know how to make it neat.

I can show you my strings, you think, and this maschere’s mask is changing right before your eyes. You wait for it to match yours, but you’re already pouring your love out all over the stage floor and it’s not light at all, is it? Lightless, as black as the night; taking all the stars and spitting them up, used and dark, too. 

You think you see other masks, rounded eyes and stiff mouths, and theirs aren’t like yours either. Maybe if you. Dig in. Deeper. 

Visceral— something bright but not darkless. A great big splash of it. There we go, the actor laughs. There is something inside after all.

“Siffrin!” 

Well, that one had been an accident, you think. Your brain had tripped and fallen outside the lines, and you hadn’t caught it in time, easy mistake really. You don’t even know if anyone had held you, if you bled out too quickly onto the stone. Why Bonnie had been left alone with you at all, it’s just blurs and noise.

You’re glad Bonnie won’t remember your last burden at least.

(Some maggot filled corpse in your mind wonders if they’d get the joke of it, the slapstick at the center. If they’d look in and see you laughing. Didn’t get hurt for you, Bonbon! That was for me! Selfish selfish Siffrin, good kid good kid.)

It’s almost funny, really, how little of your sanity you have left. Do you even know what loop it is, anymore? Do you remember all the times you killed yourself? Maybe you forgot. You don’t remember anything anymore beyond this field and the dagger and this hunger in you gnawing at every thought. 

You look at your palm being smooth and whole and want to tear it wide open. You do, with the sharp points and your nails to dig in wider, and you reset because no one would find you here in the grass because you sent Mira away and your skin is smooth again. Over and over again, smooth glassy palms like nothing ever happened. 

Giant gaping messy holes digging down into the center of everything. Perfect, smooth black leather and pale skin. Someone once said you had a long love line. You slice right down along it just to be sure your love can’t hurt anyone else. 

Maybe it hasn’t, right? If you find a way out and through, you’ll be the only one left to hold all these shredded versions of yourself. You’ll have bit and chewed your way through a hellish cocoon and emerged as some fucked up mirrored version of everything you hate, and they’ll all say you’re the same. 

Loop won’t though. Loop will know, Loop always knows. 

You don’t know how long you sit there. 

“Siffrin! Are you napp–” 

Oh. 

You tilt your head back. You’re sitting in the middle of the field, trees swaying with blank audience faces around. Cheering and clapping in the breeze. 

Act Five

Scene Nine

Harlequin is sat in the open field, tossing about their favorite dagger. The field is empty as it always is. Harlequin has been having some fun to himself. The grass is dewy and dark beneath him.

Franceschina enters. Stage left. 

Franceschina: [Siffrin] what— (immediately, stunned into silence)

She is coming to fetch the Harlequin from a nap in the fields. They are gathering all the maschere for a feast! Their big day begins tomorrow, and she freezes mid stride, taking in the scene before her.

Franceschina: Is that. (faltering) Oh my— 

Her hands come to cover her mouth. Her mask remains beautiful and pristine, her skirts sway. 

Harlequin: (loud laughter) My nap went too long again.

Franceschina: (struggling to speak, hand over mouth) I’ll… I’ll get someone, or. No, I— you’re bleeding, [Siffrin], what— What happened! 

She shuffles forward, pausing. Hands outstretched as if to assist, but too afraid to dare to come close to the Harlequin. They must never touch of course.  

Harlequin: (through laughter) I’m just napping. Just a nap, silly. I might nap some more. 

The Harlequin flourishes his blade, smiling wide.

Franceschina: (lurching forward) W–wait! I– what if we just talk? Can we talk, please?

Harlequin pauses. 

Harlequin: (perplexed) What is there to say?

Franceschina: You— (visibly gathering herself) you’re hurt.

Harlequin: It doesn’t hurt.

Franceschina pales.

Franceschina: It— 

Harlequin: (tilting their head, thoughtful) It should though, shouldn’t it? Maybe there’s nothing left to hurt.

Harlequin flips the blade, grips it hard by the handle. Pointed in at themselves, smiling.

Franceschina: (lunging forward) Wait! 

And pushes it. Directly into. 

His heart. 

Scene end.

The pages are blank, they’re blank they’re blank and you grab at your handle but it won’t stick. You wake up and your hand slips right through the back of it, right through into the dirt itself and nothing at all can keep you here. 

I need it, you think, maybe you say. Mirabelle might stare, the Franceschina can never touch the Zinna here, she might leave instead with the knowing of it. Doesn’t matter, the script restarts. But it can’t restart because you can’t find your props. 

You practically run to the tree, blurting out some rote shit to Il Capitano Isa that won’t blindingly matter just to make him leave. If he says anything, if he looks at you with that concerned mask, you have teeth and you can tear, what does it matter. Isn’t that funny, Loop? You said they wouldn’t be mine anymore, and you were right! Stage props, a puppet you were given to play your part better. Any part is reattachable! 

Loop can find your props, the benefactor knows. They’ll set your strings right. 

“I thought I might just stay out of it, far be it from me to judge how you handle being trapped after all, but this is getting too pathetic even for me,” Loop is saying. Loop isn’t a mask, they have no expression at all and the mask is the maschere. It’s what the play demands, Loop isn’t playing the right part. 

“No, Stardust,” Loop frowns. It’s funny that they don’t have a nose or lips— maybe they are a mask, just a blank one. A nothing emotion, not laughing or crying. The thought makes some forgotten panic shift around in your throat. 

“Siffrin. Stay here, listen to me. Just— feel the bark under your hands? The wind? That’s all real, you know it is. You’re real. Don’t go down that road.” 

Your mouth moves, you don’t hear any of your own words. Puppets can’t speak. You think about wanting to stay, that it’s what you’ve always wanted, but now you’ve lost everything else but the staying and it’s leaving you too. Time is fluttering right past you without you being part of it at all, that doesn’t seem fair. 

“It’s not. It’s not fair, you’re right, and you can be mad all you want, Stardust. Be mad at me, if you must. Or— or the stars, or the Universe for leading you here. But feel something, at least, it’s better that way. It is.” 

It should hurt, you remember. But it didn’t, it didn’t even hurt that first time. You can’t remember the last time it hurt at all. 

“Your friends! You did this for them, didn’t you? That matters. Are they even people to you anymore? Stars, you spent all that blindingly useless time running through their problems because of what. Because the only thing you think you’re worth is keeping them safe. It’ll hurt if you stop seeing them! It’ll hurt more than anything.” 

That’s. Specific. You think that might be true, you miss them. The masks taking up their face and their names aren't the same, and they don’t touch you and you don’t feel it anyways. Pierrot, the sad clown; somewhere an audience is laughing as your misfortune catches you sideways over and over because you’re meant for this. 

“For stars sake, it is adorable really, how completely inept to anything in The Universe—” 

Leads. You can only— 

“ — Follow? My voice, at least? I know, Stardust. You can’t— this isn’t what I came back here to witness either, you know!” 

You bite your tongue, it pulls the focus back in. Planets, stars. You’re here in these hands and this skin, for now. For now. 

“How blindingly stupid can you– oh! You’re back. Well, that was painful. Let’s never make me watch that again, hm? Have your existential meltdowns somewhere else, yes?” 

You… blink, feel around the backs of your teeth. Stretch your claws hands and relax. Okay. Okay. 

“... sorry,” you manage, it scratches at your throat. 

Loop stares at you, brows pressed tight and firm together, like a current on a blank sea. 

You breathe in. And out. “I’m back. I think.”

“You think?” 

“It’s not like I meant to–” 

“No,” Loop stands up abruptly. You realize that they’re as tall as you, it seems funny. You’d thought they’d stretch up taller, like their shooting star parts would brush against the bottom of the leaves, but they stay at your eye height instead. “You didn’t mean to, but you did. You took the dagger, and you used it more times than you should have, and you’ve gone all… desperately pathetic and charmingly stupid with the remainder. Like I said you would.” 

“It would have happened anyways.” 

“I guess we won’t know that now, will we! So desperate to throw yourself into a gorey tragedy, hm?”

Not a tragedy. There’s too much laughing. 

“Oh no, I know you know your play structures, Stardust. We call this pile of dead bodies a tragic waste, don’t we? Can’t have the catharsis without the death of the villain, and you seem awfully primed to just let him win up there.” 

Him? Oh, the King. You’d forgotten he existed, isn’t that funny? He’d be furious to know. You’ve forgotten your land and where you were born and you’ve forgotten the only other person who has the shape of it somewhere in them. Maybe that’s what you need. They’d held you when you’d tried to say it, hadn’t they? Like biting clean through your own tongue. 

Loop glares. “Now, Stardust, I know you’re not thinking about that directly in front of me. I know you wouldn’t do that to me.” 

You would, you are. You shouldn’t, but you are. 

There’s a flicker of something in their face, an unreadable other. You think about when they went blank, the strained monotone like the palest shade of grey to their voice. There’s no sugar though. 

“I’m here to help, remember that. Regardless of what you believe, I asked for that much. You make it rather hard, you know.” 

It’s fine, you think. It’s me. It’s how I was made. 

“I should go,” you say. You want to remember the name, bleed out through your eyes and nose but having known that you held it for a second at all. Maybe it would be warm then, too. To remember anyone at all like that, maybe it would matter. 

“And do what?” Loop sounds angry.

You shrug. “There’s… I have to ask everyone about what they wished.” 

“You did that already, did you forget?”

You. Did?

Loop stares at you, hands balled on their knees. “Yes. You asked everyone, and then you went through the House and you found the list in the Head Housemaiden’s quarters, and honestly Stardust, do you think this act is fooling anyone?”

What act, what at all. The mask is the character, they are the same. If there’s no curtain call the play never ends. 

“The act where you pretend you care about any of this.” 

You blink. “I…” 

Loop crosses their arms impatiently. “You’re not trying to get out, to follow the clues. That desperate thread of hope you adorably keep clinging to is just hanging there all sad in the middle of nothing while you prance around in the background trying to control how everyone cares for you.” 

“I’m not controlling them,” you frown. You are, and you aren’t. You’re following the lines, you didn’t make the masks. 

“Pfft.” Loop giggles that sharp pointed way. “Sure, you’re only controlling how you hurt yourself in front of them to make them react how you need.” 

Selfish. Disgusting, you know this, you’ve heard all of this before from yourself. 

You’re not angry, you’re nothing at all. But your palms itch and Loop won’t let you tear them open here. “I don’t have to sit here,” you remind them. You avoided them for however many loops, if they want that again. 

“You don’t,” Loop agrees. “But you’re the most yourself right now than you have been. And I’m tired of watching this stupid exercise.” 

“Then don’t watch!” You think, but your mouth moves and with it, the whole cage you bar the worst parts of yourself with. It bursts out of you, the worms, the maggots, all of it. Dead on the floor. 

Your chest heaves. “Just. Look away, then. I’m fucked up, manipulative; you think I can’t see the blinding shitty reality of me? I know, alright? It doesn’t— I don’t feel it! Nothing. Not this, right now. Not you. It’s just. A big black hole, right there.” Your hand is on your chest, the pit that yawns. “Pulling every fucking thing with it. Doesn’t matter.” When it’s on the outside, it’s warm. It exists. Loop can’t take that from you, they can’t. 

You won’t let them. 

They stare. It’s not shock on their face. “I said I wouldn’t tell you how to deal with your prison, but I am here to help you. You wouldn’t believe how annoying it is to know those aren’t the same.” 

You feel… something shift. A small rewind, like sugar cubes melting in a cup of tea. No. You reach inside your cloak, hand on your dagger. Everything in your mind says ‘it’s not the time for that’, like it’s locked up tight in its sheath somehow, no matter how hard you pull. Your hand slips right through. Your prop is— 

Your hands scrabble at the hilt, clawing at it, the belt, the leather. Nothing shifts. You stare up at Loop, sitting impassively. That small furrow in their brows. 

“You can’t— what did you do?” 

Loop has the audacity to shrug, inspecting their nails instead of you. Legs crossed and poised as ever, like the missing control over anything going on with you means so little. Maybe you are angry, maybe the gravity well will let you keep this. 

“I’ll just bite myself apart then,” you snarl, leaping to your feet. The world sways around you, spinning in orbit around the star in front of you. “I’ll leave and I’ll find the. The glass shard and, my teeth.” Fangs, they’re fangs and claws on the outside, you’ll make it all outside. Loop wants to see a tragic waste? Okay. Fine. Gauntlet set. “I did it before. I’ll just do it again. I’ll loop right now.” 

“Do it,” Loop meets them, evenly. “I’ll keep pulling it from you any time you try. If you so desperately need the child safety lock, I’ll give you it.” 

You stalk away, and back. Caged in a bigger prison. A stage within a stage. “What’s the point? You said it was faster. Anything to make a loop faster, you said.” 

“I said I might make the same choice, not that I wanted you to,” Loop matches. That strange expression is still annoyingly floating in front of you. You hate it, you hate seeing it. 

“So let me make my choice!” 

Loop stands, slow and slinking as always. “I did, Stardust. You were stupid with it. Contrary to your charming and adorably stupid self destructive desires, this is for your best interest.”

You— their face is the only thing in focus, that unaffected heavy stare. You’re pinned under it, a bug under a magnifying glass. Slowly being heated by the sun, burning apart from the inside. You’re neither the moon nor the sun at all, are you, just some insignificant creature trying to pretend to be big enough to be part of it. But— 

It matches, you realize. Their eyes, their frowning steady brows. Standing there across from you, they’re matching everything that you’re pouring out, just like you were told. 

You can’t look at them. 

“Leave me the fuck alone,” you bite out, and force yourself to move as fast as possible out of the clearing before anything else reflects back at you, too. 

You find the open field. You dig right into the heavy meat of your hand and wait for the pain to hit.

Breathe in, breathe out. Copper on your tongue and on your teeth. Metallic and sharp. Dark greys shifting on the lighter grass below, seeping right into the ground like it’s drinking you down all the same. 

It’s not. Helping. 

The field is empty, the birds in the trees across the stage don’t care to join you. There’s no audience. There’s just you. 

“I don’t want this,” you confess. Your palms still itch underneath, all the way down to the bone. 

Nothing speaks. The Universe shifts on without you. 

After a while, you shove your gloves back on the wounded gaping holes of you. Black and fingerless, leather and thick enough to hide all of it away. Your nail beds are cracked through with dark, dark nothing.  

Somehow, you make it to the third floor again, just by walking. No loops, no bleeding out. Just the shakey, weary, empty husk of you. You know Odile is whispering to Isa when you charge out ahead, you know Mira is keeping Bonnie close and away from the amalgamating horror behind your eyes. You know none of them know, but they feel it anyways, and you can’t bring yourself to try any harder. 

Your friends, Loop had said, you did this for them. Did you? Did you do this somehow? Did you look at yourself and see the infestation of rot and the dead star burning out and decide you had to be quarantined from everything else?

There’s a thought buried inside you haven’t let yourself have before. You hate the taste of it, you stop digging. 

The King is on the next floor. And then more of the same. Maybe you’ll let him kill you again, it feels deserved. Loop’s only ever tried to help you and you yelled at them, and you scared Bonnie, and you did something unforgivable over and over again because you could. And now you’re mad that you can’t. 

And your palms itch. 

“Well, time for one more snack break?” Odile says, surveying the last safe room. Mirabelle is quiet— did you talk to her before you set out? You don’t remember. It’s fine anyways, you always say the CARROT method by autopilot, you don’t have to think. 

The itch on your hands grows, now on your wrist. You pull at your gloves distractedly, under your cape. 

“I have some snacks! Not a lot left, though,” Bonnie bites their cheek, rustling over to their bag and fussing with it. Burnt samosas, you think. “The leftover samosas! These are the burnt ones, though.” 

“Hold on just a second, Bonbon,” Isa interrupts. You— you blink. That’s. Not the script. 

He’s looking at you with a twist to his mouth. “Siffrin and I are gunna take a walk, okay? We won’t go far. We’ll eat when we get back.” 

Odile raises a brow, but nods and holds back Bonnie as they pout. Mira looks surprised, then curious but nods cheerfully enough. So, not something they’d talked about then. You’re not sure if that’s a good thing. 

“Sif?” Isa asks, gesturing with their chin towards the empty corridor you’d come from. You follow wordlessly. 

He never says what his secret is, he never will you’re sure. You know what it is anyways, but it isn’t real if it’s not spoken, and you don’t have to worry about why it shouldn’t be real so long as he doesn’t say it. He’s never done this before, though. You don’t know what this means, you’re not sure you have anything in you to care what it means at all. 

The hallway is dark, flickering candles still pin pricking the walls in a long winding stretch. When you dream about being here you’re always alone and it’s always longer than it should be. 

“So, you wanna tell me what’s going on?” Isa’s voice startles you. You look up at him, mouth opening. Closing. 

What?

Isa snorts, more a sharp exhale than anything. And gestures at your side. “I covered for you by taking you out of there, but. Buddy, I— you gotta know that doesn’t look good.” 

You glance down. There’s the rug, it’s dark grey plump like the fruits outside, and— oh. A small spattering like ink right there, and another.

“You’re bleeding, Sif.” 

You pull your hand free from your cape. There’s dark, trailing out the top of your glove, it feels sticky and peels on your skin, the leather has gone stiff in patches with blood. 

Isa kneels down, gesturing for you to hold your hand out. Cradling it carefully in his big palms. See, you think, tired and as weighted as the thing in your chest. He’ll touch you now. You’re bleeding again.

He peels the glove off, it pulls and makes more rivulets of dark spill out and you see him wincing. You see him glancing up at you, too, but you don’t bother making your face move. What’s the point to this at all, really. Let me bleed out in this room and be done with it. 

You forget that the marks won’t look like an ill dodged attack or accident until Isa’s choking off his own breath. You haven’t looked at it, just felt the itch and wanted to widen it more than you’d be allowed to without resetting. Some part of you had wanted it to stay, the wound and the warm all on the outside for as long as you were allowed to, just once. Look where that got you.

“Sif, this is—” He glances up at you again, eyes shining in the candlelight. Back at your hand, and sets his jaw firmly before squeezing your fingers. “They were right, weren’t they.” 

“Who was,” you manage, almost a whisper. 

“Your… friend. They came running out of the woods so fast I wasn’t sure if they were just… I don’t know, telling me a tall tale to scare me but—” Isa closes his eyes, brings your hand to his forehead. Your knuckles press against his skin. He runs warm, he told you so but you feel. 

Nothing. 

Hah, you think. Lost its sparkle already, too. 

“Sif, did you. Did you do this to yourself?” 

His voice shakes, warbles completely. A fat tear rolls down his cheek and you think: rotting, something’s wrong, it’s rotting, you’ll be going back. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, one day I hope you’ll forgive—

You pull your hand back. Hold it close to your chest. Your breaths are heaving, are they heaving? “Why would I do that,” you think you say. There’s an edge to it, a hysterical note that cracks through the air embarrassingly. “That would be—”

Isa stands, you don’t know the look in his eyes. You don’t know it, because it looks like pity and you can’t possibly— 

“You did, didn’t you.”

“No. No! I—”

“Siffrin, those are teeth marks.” 

You know, you know because you find yourself licking your gums like you can bite again harder and keep the taste of it longer. Keep the warmth longer. Because there’s something rotten in you, but it was supposed to be yours and not his. Never any of theirs. 

“They’re not,” you try. “It’s— I cut my hand on a rock, I didn’t notice.”

Your voice is too loud, Odile’s going to hear and then. And then you don’t know, you don’t know any of this. You don’t feel warm at all, even though his hand was on yours. Isa’s face twists in front of you, smoothing out with the blank nothing of a mask in its place. 

Loop was right, this was never a comedy. You were never the leading role. You’re the ghost haunting a story that should have moved on without you, and you’re making this a tragedy. 

Sugar. A pull in your stomach. 

You’re running for the Favor Tree before you can think. 

“You told him!” You’re yelling, that’s your voice. Your thoughts won’t connect, there’s metal in your teeth and copper on your tongue, and dying rotting citrus fruits you’ve never tasted. Loop dangles in your grasp, hands held up palm side, because your hands are fisted in the strange give of their center. 

“Stardust—” 

“No!” You shake harder. “You told. You said— you took it from me! Why are you taking them, too?” 

You didn’t even feel anything, you were bleeding and it didn’t do anything. Loop did something, didn’t they? They pulled that right out, too. They were never here to help, only to trap you more, judge you for the thing under your skin. Give and take away. 

“I’m not.” They spit back. “You’re doing that just fine on your own.” 

“I need this,” your voice sounds like broken glass. It’s not yours, it’s across the field and mirrored backwards. Some other Siffrin with sharp, frightening edges and bags so deep under their eye they can’t even see. 

“No, you don’t. You and I both know that’s an excuse.” 

You shake your head wildly, a laugh punching through your chest like a cannonball. Exploding behind your lips and into your brain with just, sound. Noise. 

“Fine! It’s not real, none of this is real. It’s an excuse, or it’s a need. A want, whatever you’re trying to get at. Fine. You wanted this, didn’t you? Maybe— maybe you’re the audience, not the benefactor at all. Right? Watching me— How’s your little show? Having fun yet?” 

Loop watches you. “...no,” they say, quietly. “No, I don’t think this is fun at all.” They place one hand carefully on your fisted ones without blinking. “I guess I was simply. Waiting for the dawn, too.” 

You. Blink. “No,” you hiss. “No, that’s not...” Rage spinning out and away and cresting with some other feral wild thing. You’re floating right out into the thick nothing of space and the Universe isn’t leading anywhere you can see, at all here, you don’t know— you need— 

Another hand lands on your shoulder. “Siffrin? Who— who’s this?” 

Isa. Right, you’d. You ran past him, you hadn’t asked him to leave. He saw the whole thing. Stars, how stupid can you possibly be.

“It’s okay, buddy. Easy,” Isa says, squeezing lightly. Your hands go limp immediately, call and response. You always end up shaping yourself in the ways that make Isa the happiest, don’t you?

Isa’s voice continues on, over your shoulder. It’s not at you, you don’t have to listen, you can think about the fact your nothing is pushing all the way out to your skin and your nails and he can probably see it already. You can try with every failing thing in you to lock it back up under your strings and your mask and be what he likes, the way you always want to. 

You’re. Fine. You need your dagger, the hilt, the bite in your palm, anything at all.

Your hand is— your holding his hand. Isa nods at you, his smile a watery and timid thing and squeezes back. “Good, hey, that’s good. Breathe in and out, like you always do, right?” 

You… try. Your lungs feel far away, your breaths escaping faster than you can find them. He demonstrates nice and slow, and his hand is on your shoulder. You’re not— you’re whole, now, and his hand is on your shoulder, your hand is in his. It’s enough to push you back to the ground and into your skin. 

Isa’s smile widens, eyes on yours and earnest, even as they flicker over your shoulder and back. His other hand pushes against yours, uncurling your nails and sliding your fingers together. You bend. 

“I don’t. Know what’s happening, but. Can you look at me? You were saying something, just now. Can you say it again? I couldn’t hear it.”

Your lips are forming soundless words. You can’t give them air, you can’t speak them.

“Okay, that’s okay, um,” He blows out a long shaky breath, hand still in yours. “Can you, um. Can we drop the dagger?” The– oh. You’re not supposed to have that. Loop made it so you couldn’t have that, but. You let go and there it is. Blade shining up at you in the sway of the longer grass.

Isa smiles, that’s what you want, isn’t it. You’d do anything to keep that. “Good, that’s good,” he says. He kicks it further with his foot and keeps your eyes on his. “Sif? What… was…” He stops, licks his lips. 

He looks pale and shaky, behind the smile. He glances over behind you again. “Um, who’s this?” 

You can’t possibly speak, there’s no air in you anywhere at all. Soundless, shapeless, nothing. There’s a rustle behind you.

“I’m a friend,” Loop says. “We were. Having a disagreement.” 

Isa frowns, glancing back at you. You don’t react. “Okay. It looked like Sif was pretty mad at you though, mind explaining that super quick for me?” 

Loop hums. It’s not as twinkly as you’re used to. “I could try, but I think he’d be more mad if I did.” 

Isa’s face twists further. “Normally, I’d be all for keeping my friends' secrets their own and not prying, but.” He pauses, looks at you apologetically. There’s nothing here, yet. Your palms still itch, but there’s nothing— “I just had to pry a dagger out of his skin. I think we’re passed that.” 

Silence. You think very quietly about shooting stars, burning up on entry. The air displacement at the front that makes them glow. You think once you had another name for that, the glow. You think it used to be more than just white. 

There’s a laugh, a tragic sort of thing. “We may just be. It’s true, Stardust here was less than thrilled that I caught them, I suppose.” 

Your words return, shaky and weak. “That’s not—” 

Isa’s face is hard, blank. The light in his eyes is luminous, though. He grits his teeth, the bolt of his jaw harsh and steady for a long pause of nothing, not looking at you but at Loop. Harsher and more serious than you’ve ever seen him. The moment passes, and you know he’s understood. 

You freeze. That wasn’t— you don’t— 

Isa’s eyes are on yours, he’s leaning down again. His hand slips out of yours, but he’s right there, radiating sun out at you from all directions. The harshness falls entirely away leaving only soft, worried, tender edges the way you know him. 

“Is that. Is that true, Sif?” 

You can’t. There’s nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.

His expression falls. A horrific crest of heartbreak washing over him that makes you panic, makes your hands reach up to— to what. To nothing! You can’t stop this, he knows. He knows. And Loop is, what? Just going to keep ruining this? Keep telling him? 

But this is you, it was all you here. You forgot again, like the trap and the tears and the shields. You’re the one ruining this last thing, this time.

Isa looks down at his hands, they’re trembling. “If… if your friend here is concerned, I… maybe that means I missed something, and I’m sorry, is all. I’m really, really sorry.” 

No, no, it’s never been Isa’s fault. You didn’t want him to know. He wasn’t supposed to ever know, you don’t know what to do with him knowing.

“You wouldn’t—” he tries, helplessly and lost. 

“I think it’s less a matter of if they would,” Loop adds in, sourly. “And rather more if they should continue.” 

Isa looks punched clean through, off kilter. Your heart is snapping in half and plunging into the cold dark center of yourself and freezing over all at once. Loop back, you think. Loop back. 

Loop gives you a sideways look, like they know. Stars, but they’ll just tell him again, won’t they. There’s nowhere to run.

Isa sighs again, shaky and wet. “If you um. If you felt you couldn’t talk to me about it, that’s on me. I will do whatever I need to do, to make sure you trust me next time.” His eyes shoot up to yours, pinning you all the way through and then some with the weight. “But I’m here, okay? And I don’t want you to be upset or hurting and not tell me. I want you here with us, the way M’dame and Bonbon and Mira all do, too. There’s no one I’d trust more at the end of the world, you got that? There’s no world to save without you in it.”

There’s no possible way this is happening, you think you must be dreaming but all of your dreams have gone sour, too. 

“Isa,” you try. 

You’re not spinning off, you’re heavy and layered and stuck tight right under all the hurt but it’s surrounding you all at once with noise. You feel weak under it all. Impossibly pressed by gravity beyond yourself, like the black hole has left you and moved right into the open air between you both. 

Touch me, you think. Because his hand has left yours and he’s keeping his distance, and you’ve never actually thought to ask before, but your words keep getting pulled right along with the stars into the pit beside you. 

You shake your head helplessly. You’ll be lost again, pulled right back under with the waves, if he doesn’t— 

A hand circles your wrist gingerly. Your lungs expand, contract.

Oh, you breathe. 

Loop stands beside you, looking away angrily. Hand perfectly looped around your wrist. This is real, then, because. Someone is here with you. Someone’s always been here with you. 

“Yeah, it’s real, Sif. Okay? It’s real. You’re with me, and your friend here. And we’ve got you, right? You don’t have to hurt on your own, I promise. We can take it from you, bud.” 

It should hurt, you think. But then— Isa isn’t touching you. And you still feel so warm. And the warm is loud, and it’s heavy and overwhelming and it does hurt, but it’s. Yours. Your palms don’t itch, the masks fade. 

Loop isn’t looking at you, their hand doesn’t move. A perfect circle, right there, around the rapid thrum of your heart beat. Nowhere to run at all, only to go forward through it. 

It hurts, but you think you might be tired of it hurting for once. 

“I think.” You swallow. Roughly. “I think I need some help.” 

EPILOGUE

You stare at your hand. Curling your fingers in until you make a fist, until the light of your bones shows through your pale skin, and: release. Faint imprints like dark moons, a neat row of dark where your nails pressed in. 

Long lifeline, someone once told you. You no longer remember their face. 

There’s a scar, just there. A faint sliver of something across the thick of your thumb. You’d gotten that somewhere lost in the House apparently, although you’re not sure when. Things had gotten a little… fuzzy, for a while. You think you must have grabbed for the glass again, more instinct than anything, when you stopped being able to tell where your hands and teeth were. 

It’s been a while since everything happened. You’re managed to furl your edges back inside yourself at least, after laying everything out in the most painful and agonizing series of conversations you’ve ever been forced to sit through. There’d been a lot of crying, hugging, reassuring careful touches, but— you made it through. Defeated the King, broke the loops, came out of it with more instead of less. 

Mira had been especially helpful at the end. Her hands gently in yours and her lips pressed flat and nervous across from you, just as stressed about the concept of being honest as you were. “Feelings are. Hard to say, or. Know? I don’t know mine very well. We can practice together, okay?” 

In the face of everyone else’s gungho forward words heavy approach, maybe it was good to know you weren’t the only one with a clawing wild need to be seen and not known. Maybe it’s helpful to find out that someone as kind and lovely as Mira doesn’t see the stars in her own words either. 

Isa had also been a rock in ways you always knew he was. Picking up on all the meaning between your words, carefully assessing and listening. Sometimes when he looks at you, you feel the names and places of forgotten homes springing up out of the dark in your heart like they’re waiting to be shared. You’re not sure what it means yet, but he tells you that you have time. 

“Sif!” 

You look up. Sunlight bounces off the water in front of you, a dark roll of ripples and fluttering light that makes you squint. You lift a hand to cover your eyes, the other one still buried in the dirt beneath you.

Isa bounds over, grinning wildly and hair in disarray, holding a squirming Bonnie under one arm. “Sif, Bonnie has something to say to you.”

Bonnie stops squirming, falls limp and flat in Isa’s hold. “Sorry I filled your hat with beans because I was mad at your pun.” 

“And?”

Bonnie scrunches up their face. “And. I’ll make you fritters as much as you want for a week.” 

Isa looks at you hopefully. You hum for a second playfully, hovering your hand in the air before tilting it into a thumbs up. Isa plops Bonnie upright on the ground between you both and pats their head. “See! Nice words, good job BonBon.” 

They cross their arms, kicking at a tuft of grass. You lean over conspiratorially, stage whispering. “It was pretty un-bean-lievable.” 

“No!” Bonnie yells, outraged, lurching forward and stopping. Even in the pits of rage, they’re the sweetest, always checking. You give them a slow nod. 

Bonnie tackles you, all rocket no finesse. “No, no no! No more words from you! You use them for evil!” 

Your vision is entirely flailing limbs for a moment until you can scoop your hands under Bonnie’s armpits and tickle them back. Which involves more flailing and screaming. 

“Jeeze, you guys,” Isa laughs. 

“Is siblicide being considered?” You hear Odile ask dryly. 

“On my watch, M’dame? You wound me!” 

“You are quite literally just standing here, watching, Isabeau.” 

“Got me there.”

Neither of them move in to save Bonnie at all, and Bonbon shrieks with rage at the betrayal. Or would, if you were not poking them repeatedly in the sides and turning their outrage into a round of giggling. 

“No!” Bonnie squeaks, slapping at you ineffectively. You decide to let them up, purely out of the kindness of your heart rather than because they’ve earned their freedom. You pat them on the head. Bonnie scrambles up to their feet instantly, leaning down with their hands on their feet and a pout on their face. Something in their eyes still looks vaguely worried, though, which isn’t allowed. 

You wink at them. “Fritters sound great, Bonbon.” 

They huff, and poke you once in the chest. “Good! I’ll make so much you’ll barf!” 

“Okay!” Mira calls, “The picnic is ready everyone!” 

Isa reaches his hand out towards you, smiling widely. The sun streams across the side of his face, making his eyes twinkle at you— stars, it’s all stars. For once, thinking of them doesn’t make you yearn for anything more than being right here. 

You take his hand, and let him pull you to your feet.

“Do you think they got those cheeses again?” Isa asks.

You shrug. Odile pauses the book she’s reading to hum thoughtfully. “Well, our dear Mirabelle did say she was ‘pulling out all the stops’ for the venue, whatever that entails. Something about giving Petronile and our new friends a full welcome to the party celebration?” 

“Not without me!” Bonnie gasps. “I’m the snack leader, no snacks without me!” 

Isa pats them on the shoulder, looping his other arm lightly around your shoulders. “I’m sure they only bought the ingredients expecting you to make something super cool, Bonbon.” 

Bonnie huffs, and breaks off into a run ahead. “I’ll just make sure!” 

You laugh, and lean ever so slightly into Isa’s warmth at your side. It’s. Nice, really. To be full of enough warmth on your own, that this can just be that: nice. 

“Should I warn them?” You ponder, looking up at Isa. He’s blushing slightly, surprisingly, and takes a second to register your question. 

“Oh, that Loop’s got that thing about cheese?” He hums dramatically, looking up at the clear sky. “Nah. It’s not like they’ll actually tell them.” 

It’s true. If there’s one thing you know about this strange new dynamic you’re stumbling into, is that Bonbon has Loop wrapped entirely around their finger. You’re not sure how that happened— it was a long, difficult few months of convincing and arguing, and one memorable ‘fight to the death turned crying session’ to even convince Loop to talk to any of them. The moment Bonnie had grabbed Loop’s hand though and very loudly shouted ‘thank you for making sure Frin was okay’, you saw it shift. The flicker of their light, the re-orbit. 

They’d always understood you, after all. You wish you could have told them that they were always warm on their own, too. 

Silly, really. That Loop had ever thought they wouldn’t fit in right here with everyone as easy as anything else. 

Your palm itches— you pull at Isa’s arm until he drops it to his side, and slide your hand into his. Locking your fingers together, you breathe. In and out. 

You’re out, the stage is gone. It’s just you and the people that loved you loud enough to pull you through with them. A home to make somewhere new, and somewhere you bring with you.

“Here’s to tomorrow, hm?” You say. You think you mean it. Isn’t that a funny thought?

[vulpixisananimal]

(Ramos)

(Wren belongs to @fungal--wastes)

(You gripped the windowsill and looked out on the rainy courtyard. You, Bonnie, Mirabelle, and Siffrin had all returned not too long ago and the whole place was in a panic. After Sif and Mira left, you and Bonnie had convinced Wren, Vixul, and Polaris to help you with the eventual sadness after you fixed Pols mind craft. After that Bonnie got worried about Mirabelle and Sif, so you trusted the three strangers with keeping everyone safe and ran.)

(You found Siffrin passed out, Mirabelle protecting them, and that sadness fighting a couple of strangers.)

(Strangers you knew.)

(You knew their faces, but couldn't put names to them. You couldn't put memories to them. Whatever they did to your head, the connection of what they did and who they are was severed. You know factually they're the ones who controlled you, but. . .)

(. . . They're gone now, and everyone was safe. You had to carry Siffrin back, but that was alright. He was surprisingly light, actually, and his cloak was really soft!)

(There's a knock on the door.)

"Come in." (You sigh, and step away from the window. Isabeau opens the door.)

"Hey Rams." (He says with a weak smile.) "Uh, Sif's feeling better. Do you, want to, uh, visit him?"

(Isabeau had been acting weird, but once you were back he was same as always. You checked everyone for mind craft, but there was barely a trace. You could tell by Isabeaus tone he was asking more for his own nerves than for you to check on Siffrin.)

"Uh, sure!" (You agree.)

"Thanks. . ."

(You exit the shared room and walk down to Isa and Siffrins. Isa knocks on the door, and the curly haired, dark skinned boy called Wren opened it. He was wearing a scowl, but aparently that's how he always looked.)

". . Come in you two." (He left the door open and walked back inside. Following him in, you saw Siffrin lying in bed, his breathing shallow, and a few bandages where there were cuts. Wren walked to one side of the bed and picked up a book, standing to read. Mirabelle sat in a chair on the other side, she was adorned with more bandages than Siffrin. She stood when you two entered.)

"Oh- are you two okay?!? Is everything-" (She starts.)

"Sit down, madame." (Wren interupts, not looking up from the book.) "Or you may open a wound."

"S-sorry." (She sat down again, sighing. Isa walks over to her, you stay at the foot of the bed.)

"Nervous?" (Isabeau asks, kneeling down next to her.)

"V-very." (She took a breath.) "Scared, too, and still a bit angry."

"Because of. . ." (Isabeau prompts.)

". . ." (She huffs.) "Because of those two crabbing idiots who caused this."

(You can related. You want to comment, but you don't. It felt wrong.)

". . We'll catch 'em, Mira." (Isa reassures her.)

"I, I know, but, what if we can't beat them??"

"You beat The King. No?" (Wren comments again from behind the book.) "A man who not only broke a fundimental rule of crafts, but on a continent wide scale? Why are you worried about two overzealous archaeologists."

"Too true!!" (Isa chuckles, patting Mirabelle's back.) "We beat the King! So I know we can do anything!"

"By the looks of things, you already had Perci on the back foot when me and Bonnie showed up." (You finally jump in.) "So, then, I don't think he could beat everyone."

"I-I think most of that was the sadness, to be honest." (She replies sheepishly.)

"Speaking of." (Wren interrupts again.) "You are absolutly sure it isn't a threat? And that it really did just, dissolve into a sugary smelling stone?"

"I'm positive."

"Mhm." (Wren looks up finally, then looks at you.) "Hmm. Ramos, you know mind craft, I'm sure you could check inside Madame's mind to make sure there is no sadness ready to strike."

"H-HUH?!?" (You're taken aback.)

"W-woah! Wait a second!" (Isa waves a hand, worried.)

"N-no no, it's fine! I-I understand."

"But, it's, well-" (It's that you have a bad record with using mind craft on people.) ". . . Do I have to?"

"I encourage it." (Wren replies.) "While I know a fair bit about physical, mental, and craftomical maladies, I cannot work mind craft. So I cannot make sure myself."

". . ." (Isabeau looked to the side.) ". . . If, if Mirabelle is alright with it. A-and, I trust Ramos."

"It'll be alright, Isa." (Mira reassures.)

(You sigh.) "A-alright. I'll, I'll try and be quick, and, not do anything."

(You walk over to Mirabelle and Isa, and kneel down next to her. The look on your face must have given away your nerves, because she smiled wider at you in support. You smile back.)

"Ready?"

"Ready."

(You reach up and make your hybrid rock/scissors sign, and place it against her temple. Show. Danger. Sadness. Show. Danger. Sadness. Show. Danger. Sadness-)

(In a click the world fell into a soup of sounds and sights that you had to focus to tune out. Show. Danger. Sadness. Mind. You focus. Signs of sadness. . .)

(. . . The ebb and flow of Mirabelles mind was chaotic and shifting. You felt like a deckhand holding onto a ships rigging for dear life. You saw glimpses of her memories, of schools, of sadness, of joy, of- stop that, focus. You reach a bit deeper.)

(. . . . . . . You feel something. You did reach to the sadness' mind when you first fought it, but it was nothing but screaming and emotion. You feel a bundle of that emotion, knotted, bouncing around her head at it's own will. But it didn't feel dangerous. In fact, it passed through you, and you felt. . . afraid? Afraid of what.)

(And just as it came, it passed. It wasn't a danger, just emotions. You let go of her mind.)

(Back to reality. You stood up, a faint smell of mint in the air. You shook your head.) "Whatever it once was, it's nothing now. Just a ball of emotions, I've seen it before in other peoples heads."

"Other peoples?" (Wren raises an eyebrow.)

"I-it was for a test!" (Isabeau jumps to your defence.) "Just, y'know, training and all."

(Wren didn't look convinced. Or at least you assume so, since his face didn't even change.) ". . . If it's not any trouble, would you kindly do the same for Siffrin?"

"Is, that nessesary?" (You ask, glancing nervously at the resting rogue.)

"It might be. He was fighting a master of mind craft, after all."

(He has a point, you look to your companions. Mira and Isa both gave you a nod, so you turn back to Siffrin, gulp, and place your hand to their sleeping mind.)

(. . . . Mind. Protect. Explore. Mind. Protect. Explore-)

(The world clicked again and everything melted away, you took a moment to tune your senses out, then focus on Siffrins mind. You had to look for-)

(You're standing at the foot of a favor tree. Bellow you are stairs leading to a black sand beach, above, the sky is lightless and filled with stars. Everything seems lucid yet foggy. It was so, so detailed.)

(Most minds you entered where abstract, some had a bit of physicality, but this was differen't. It was like a whole world inside Siffrins mind. You took a step, you looked around, you could walk. You could still feel your body over Siffrins bed, and move in this, mindscape. It felt like everything was flickering in and out of focus.)

(You reach out, focus, you had to focus. Mind. Protect. Explore. Mind. P-)

(You felt a hand around your throat and you felt yourself slammed into the favor tree. It was blurry, the world still flickered, but you could tell who was holding your neck and was looking at you with murder in their eye. Null.)

<What. Are. You. Doing. Here.>

(I, I was asked to, check, and make sure S-siffrins- your mind was- You feel the grip on you tighten, it, it felt so real how, how is this, possible?!?)

<Get. Out.>

(The figure got clearer. He, he looked like Siffrin, but, taller, and a bit more muscular. They had a a ponytail, a cloak only over one shoulder, and no eyepatch. You were terrified.)

(J-just, I'll be gone just, I need to check, if, there isn't, any mind craft here, or-)

<There isn't. Get out.>

[Oh my! Caught a rat, my dear friend Null?]

(Voice, you, almost recognised it. You look up, a figure jumped from the tree. A lightless body, and a bright, blinding head. They turned to you, eyes staring daggers into you. Loop.)

[Oh not even a rat, but a stupid, blinding flea!!!]

(P-please wait I'm-)

<Here to ensure we aren't effected by mind craft? I heard you the first time.>

[Oh is THAT why you're here? Well in that case then the only pests in our mind is you.]

(Loop walked towards you. You felt your legs quiver, you felt numb, your body felt numb. Loop reaches to you, a knife coming from nowhere and in your face.)

[I have so wished to be able to scream at you personally, Ramos~]

<Agreed.>

(I'll, I'll leave! I'll leave right now!! T-there's no need just-)

[Say, if I stab you, what would happen?]

(Your eyes go wide, breathing fast, you shake your head. Loop nods.)

[Oh yes, what WOULD happen! You see, we can't exactly die~ We just come back after a few days rest as peachy as before! But what would happen to someone like you-]

{Enough. Out.}

(You stumbled back away from the bed, falling on the floor, back to reality. That third voice threw you out, shoved you from the mind. You couldn't make it out, you could only make out, Null, Loop, some dark figure who appeared for only a moment, and, a-and, Siffrin? Did you see Siffrin peaking over the edge of the staircase?)

(You grasp at your throat, breathing heavily. Change, it, it felt so real. You felt like someones hands had been at your neck, someones knife at your throat, but, but your necks fine. Your bodys fine. It's, it's all fine.)

"R-ramos are you alright?!? Is Siffrin alright?!?" (Isabeau rushed over to you and helped you off the floor.)

(You shook your head, stars it felt hot.) "H-he's fine, j-just, I had, a-an interesting experience."

". . . Care to elaborate?" (Wren asks.)

(You look between Mirabelle and Isabeau. It was that private, personal thing you were all asked not to share.) ". . . I, well, it's private."

"My lips are sealed. Tell." (He was giving you A Look.) "I have already kept a number of secrets. If it's no danger to my friends, it wont leave this room."

(You hesitate, waiting for one of the other two to make the decision.)

". . . . You can say it, Ramos." (Isabeau finally speaks up.) "If, it's to make sure Siffrin's okay."

"A-alright. . ." (You breathe in, and out.) ". . . Siffrin has a mental disorder that, well, they have multiple differen't people in their head-"

"Dissasosiative Identity Disorder?" (Wren interupts. Again.) "Or some other non-specified identity disorder. Or do you not know." (You all shook your head.) "Reguardless, I know what this is and how important a secret it is to keep. Continue."

(Hmm, you wonder what that implies.) "Okay, well, when I went into their mind, it was, well, a place. A beach with a favor tree. Most minds are abstract but, not that. I started to poke around and I got slammed against the tree by, uh. . . I-I think it was, Null."

"O-oh!" (Mirabelle perked up.) "I-I mean, I'm, sorry that happened, b-but also, well, glad that, he's okay?"

"I don't think I've met Null. . ." (Isabeau ponders.)

"W-well, well, they told me that there wasn't mind craft, then, a star headed someone showed up-"

"Oh! Loop!" (Mirabelle smiled.)

(You nod.) "Yeah, Loop. They threatened me, I tried calming them down, I heard another voice I couldn't place and, I was kicked out."

"Fascinating. . . You will have to teach me mind craft, Ramos." (Wren looked back in his book.) "That's all I wanted to. . . . Are you sick, Ramos?"

"H-huh? No?"

"Really?" (Wren looked up again with the slightest of smiles.) "Your cheeks are off-shade, is all."

"H-HUH?!?!?" (You slap a hand to your cheek, burning hot?!?)

"Ramos?!?!?"

"A-are you BLUSHING?!?"

"N-NONONONO I'M NOT!!" (You hold up your hands and back away) "N-not blushing here!! Not at all no way now how I don't know why I'd be BLUSHING y-you guys must be seeing things!!"

(Isabeau looked at you, eyebrow raised, arms cross, and a slight smile.) "Do you uh, have something to talk about buddy?"

". . . . . I-I didn't think I did-" (You mumble.)

"Alright, that's enough you two." (Wren waves a hand) "Go have your lovestruck thoughts on the rogue away from me. Gods Polaris is already bad enough."

(You swiftly make your way out, head down. Once out you lean against the wall, panting hard. What, what the crab. Why are you blushing? WHY ARE YOU BLUSHING!?! You, y-you didn't, you weren't attracted to him like that were you?!?)

(You're so caught up in your thoughts you don't notice Isabeau trying to talk to you untill he has his hand on your shoulder. You jump, and turn.) ". . . S-sorry I- I- oh Change Isa I'm so sorry-"

"Woah buddy." (He put his hands up.) "Calm down, you're okay! I'm not mad or anything! Just, checking in!"

"You're, y-you're not?!?" (You were trying your blinding best to keep your heart under control.) "B-but, I, I, wasn't, didn't mean to-"

"Hey, breathe with me? Talk after."

(You pause, but nod. You follow his leade, and breathe in. . . . . And out. . . . .)

". . . Good?"

". . . N-no, but, better." (You rub your shoulder, looking away.) "I, just, o-okay. . ."

". . . . Soooooooooooo." (Isabeau leaned down to be face to face with you.) "He's cute, right?"

"H-HUH?!?" (WHAT?!?)

"What, am I wrong?"

"I-I, I mean n-no! I mean- well, he, uh, maybe, b-but-" (You had to take a second and shake your head.) "I, o-okay well, he, he is kind of cute." (You mumble out the last part.)

"Hmm?" (He was wearing that smug smile of his.)

(You cant look at him, tugging up your bandana to hide your face.) "I-I mean he's, he's cute but doesnt everyone think that?!?"

"Well, kinda?" (Isa put a hand to his chin.) "Sure he gets called cute, but for Odile she said it's more 'wow that's cute' then move on, same with Mira."

". . . ." (Oh no.) "A-and, they, don't dwell on it?"

"Nope!"

". . . A-are, you sure-"

"Positive! You got something in mind?"

(You sink down into your shoulders, tugging your bandana up more.) "U-uh. . . . Well, uh, how, how he, he holds a mug with both hands and takes a big drink?"

"And how he he always has a big stain on his face after?!?" (Isas eyes light up.) "Isn't that the cutest?!?"

(You laugh a little.) "Y-yeah! O-or how stretches before training or a long walk?"

"Oh be still my beating heart. . ." (Isabeau dramaticly holds his chest and mocks a faint, making you laugh a bit more.)

"What about when he's making a fire-"

"'Please be warm please be warm please be warm-'"

"Exactly like that!! It's so cute!!!"

"Oh! Don't forget those chubby cheeks!"

"How could I ever forget those chubby little cheeks-"

(You cut yourself off. You were about to list off every tiny little detail you had noticed about them. The hands, the legs, the hair, the cloak. The way he laugh, the way he yawned. The way they ran and fought. The way they carved. Just, just everything. Dread filled your stomach as it hit you.)

"O-oh, oh stars."

"Heh." (He had that smug smile again.)

(You turn around, headed back to the shared room.) "I'm going to go jump off the roof."

"No!!" (Isa catches up to you, walking side by side.) "How will you ever express your unrequited looooove~"

"Shut uuuup." (You sink down again.) "I'm going through the stages of grief give me a break."

"Oh absolutly not. I survived months of Madams teasing, it's about time I gave back."

"Months?" (You finally got back to the shared room, looking at Isabeau as you enter.) "It took you months to confess to him?"

"H-hey! We were all under a lot of pressure!" (Isa follow you in.) "And hey! That means if you confess to Siffrin soon you'll beat me byyyyyyoooohhiMadamegoodtoseeyou-"

(You turn around. To your unending horror, the Researcher was on her bed reading. Well, she WAS reading, now she was looking at the two of you.)

". . ."

". . ."

". . . Does being a defender make you particularly weak to short, white haired rogues?"

"Isabeau, please kill me." (You mumble.)

(Isa coughs into a fist.) "I don't think that'll save you."

"It wont." (Odile responds flatly.) "Do you two know how loud you were being in the hallway? By now the whole inn must know your 'secret.'"

"I'll just wipe my own memory that'll work." (You put your head in your hands.)

"Oh it'll be okay buddy, you'll survive!" (Isa pats your back.)

"No you wont." (Odile was back to her book.) "Mirabelle alone will be talking your ear off. Isn't that an entire genre in romance novels?"

"Enemies to Lovers, madame!"

"Exactly."

(You stomp over to your bed collapse. You're doomed. You close your eyes.)

". . . . Who were those guys anyway." (Isabeau ponders.)

"From what Mirabelles description, they both seemed skilled and educated on Island history." (Came Odiles response.)

"Not a lot of people who know about the island."

"True, that could narrow it down. What were their names again?"

"Perci." (You reply, sitting up again. Thank change the conversation moved on.) "Perci and Merlon."

". . . . . Hah! Haha!" (Odile was, laughing?) "Perci had messy hair, didn't he? And a fancy looking vest?"

"Uh, yeah? How'd did you-"

(Odile closed the book she was reading, and turned the cover for you to read.)

("History and identity of Mwudus lost funeral rites." Written by. . .)

"WHAT?!?"

". . . Huh!"

"Percival Monet and Merlon Monet." (Odile reads aloud.) "They have some reputation in historical and craftomical studies. Publishing historical accounts, reporting details on old ruins; they're known to travel the world for their reports."

". . ." (You stare in disbelief.) ". . . They're historians?!?"

"In some way. Perhaps Perci got far too invested in his work."

"Maybe. . . ." (You lay back down and roll to your side. Facing away.)

(They were just, historians.)

(You closed your eyes. You had, a lot to think about.)

[livesworthlivingau]

Lives Worth Living Chapter 18

ISAT/Two Hats Spoilers below. CW: Suicidal Ideation/Mention, Intrusive Self-Depricating Thoughts, Verbal Abuse, Hacking up blood, just very emotionally painful themes and tones.

(The lightless void... You're back here... You kneel and hold yourself close, shaking. Tears streak down the right side of your face again. No no no no no no! Not here! Not now!! You have to get out, you have to wake up, you have to get away! You look around frantically, trying desperately to find an exit, some sign of difference, anything but- oh no...)

(You spot it in the distance, the dark cloaked and hatted figure, approaching with silent footsteps. The dark reflection of yourself, here to replace the bright one you had lost.)

(You stumble back, staring in absolute horror as it keeps growing closer. Nonononono... Not you, not again... You shut your eye tight and turn the other way, starting to run as fast as you can manage. It can't get you if you can't see it, right? It's not real, just ignore it!)

(You run in the lightless void, even darker with your eye closed, just sprinting in whatever direction you faced. You can't manage to keep up the pace for long, but you think hopefully you lost it somehow. Just as you begin to slow to a stop you feel a hand suddenly grip your shoulder, clenching down like a vice as you cry out in shocked pain.)

["Stardust..."]

(Your eye shoots open at that voice, immediately getting blurry from more tears forming.)

"Loop..." (You whisper out, unable to stop yourself from turning to face it. You're met face to face with that horrid sadness. Its wide, unblinking eye staring deep into your very soul, darkless and lightless in all the wrong places. It opens its mouth as loop's voice flows out of it.)

["Stardust... You only needed to help me with one simple thing. Get us out of the loops. That's all I wanted from you. And you couldn't even manage that~."]

(Their voice tears into your heart like the knife that once entered it. You choke out a few sobs before falling to your knees, collapsing against the figure and hugging its lower half.)

"Loop... Loop I'm so sorry..."

["I did it because of you, you know! You drove me to it, teehee~. I could barely stand a two day loop with you, how could I bear thirty years? You're terrible, terrible, terrible, stardust~! Imagine having to be stuck watching you crawl your way through the decades, just to watch you repeat a cycle..."]

-"Of erasing my change."- (Mira...)

<"Of never letting me grow up."> (Bonbon...)

|"Of breaking my heart."| (Isa...)

="Of letting me die."= (Odile...)

["Honestly, Stardust, it's a wonder I made it as long as I did~."]

(The tears flow down your face and soak into the figures cloak, just shaking and sobbing.)

"I-I'm so sorry I couldn't help you..."

[""Oh, stardust... You already have. Don't you see? It's your fault I'm gone. There's no longer a Loop in this universe, and I couldn't be happier about it! All you had to do was love me, and accommodate me, and include me in your lurid little life until I wanted to kill myself~."]

"N-No... No that's not true!" (You cry out, pulling away, starting to stand and walk back away from it.)

["Of course it is~! You were so gracious too, ready to hand me the Fighter's heart without so much as asking him. Aren't you the worst, Stardust~? Only one loop in and you're already back to treating your family like playthings, teehee~!"]

"NO! NO I WASN'T! THAT'S A LIE!!"

<"You'd know, Frin... You lie all the time!!! You lied about our super duper wish promise!!! You said you wouldn't make yourself loop and you CRABBING LIED!!!">

(The cold sensation in your body grows even colder at that.)

"B-Bonnie... N-No, I-I didn't! I-I couldn't, I swear!"

["It wouldn't be the first promise you broke, stardust. Remember when you promised not to tell anyone about our past? And then you went right to the Researcher and spilled your withered little heart out~."]

"SHUT UP!! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!" (You scream, making a scissors sign and swiping frantically at it. It doesn't react in the slightest as a flash of craft slices through it.)

="I'm glad you would trust me with those kinds of secrets, Siffrin. Researching your predicament is going to be the only thing I enjoy about your company for the next thirty years."=

-"When can we move on, Siffrin? You're not going to put our lives on hold just so you can figure out these new loops, are you?"-

"I CAN'T- I-I- IT'S NOT MY FAULT! I-I'M SORRY!" (You scream, gripping your hair and pulling on it, falling to your knees again as you feel the tears continue to pour down the right side of your face.)

["Oh, but it is, stardust! You made that wish, after all! You wished to stay with them! You wished to trap them together with you until they had no choice but to love you and stay with you!"]

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!" (You cry out, slashing out with your scissor sign again and again and again, the most you manage is to blow their cloak around the slightest bit...)

|"You keep playing with my heart, Sif. You had your dagger ready, why didn't you use it? Were you just waiting for me to come through the door? So you could make me pity you more than I already do?"|

"SHUT IT YOU BLINDING MONSTER!!!!" (You have to get out of here, you have to escape! YOU HAVE TO GET FREE! You look around for something, anything, there has to be a way out of here! You turn around and start running again, just hoping for some time to think.)

(You feel around for your dagger, you can't find it anywhere. Isa took it from you. He took your way out. He trapped you in here because he cared about you. You run yet again, but everywhere you turn, you see it again, slowly getting closer each time you double back.)

(With one last turn, it's hand lurches forward, gripping your throat again as you choke out, struggling and kicking. You're quickly slammed to the ground, knocking the wind out of you, gasping violently to try and recover.)

["Maybe us Siffrins should stick together, stardust. Why don't you join me?"]

(You fall limp under it... Maybe it was right... maybe you should just put an end to all of this...)

"L-Loop..." (You let out in a pained whisper.)

["It's better being dead, Stardust. Take it from Loop, helpful Loop~ The life of Siffrin isn't worth living. Your little family will be better off without you taking up so much space in their lives~."]

(... It's true... you've consumed so much of their lives in the past 30 years, and this time it's only going to get worse... Maybe they would be better off...)

["Isn't that so much easier? To just accept you'll never truly be worth loving~. I don't know why that silly Fighter of yours bothers so much. You must have done quite a number on that poor man to make him so obsessed with you~."]

(... Isa... You grip at its wrist as its hand remains around your throat. The figure tilts its head some at this.)

["Awww, is my little Stardust getting a second wind? You're so pathetic~."]

(It grips your throat tighter. You choke out, struggling and squirming in it's grasp. You have to get out of here, you have to find a way, you have to make it back... You have to make it, for Isa, for all of them...)

["You were soooo close~. Just one little wish away, so why fight it now? You're so much cuter with that sad, defeated look plastered across your face~."]

(It remarks, lifting you up and slamming you back to the ground again, hacking up some blood. You wheeze and choke for air, kicking about frantically. Get out get out get out get out get out!!! Your mind races, digging for something, anything to help you get out of here... and then you remember it, that visceral shade. The one that lit up the sky on that last loop, the one that flashed in your mind when you said it's name...)

["You better get comfortable Stardust, because I'm going to enjoy killing you over and over and over again! No escape this time~!"]

(Before it can manage to lift you up again, you shout the name of your home. Everything goes to that color as it fills your mind and vision. Once it fades you can hear your own screams, hacking up the same shade across the floor, looking up to see the figure stumbling back in a daze. It's working... it hurts like hell but it's working.)

(You shout it again with another flash. Your senses slowly return again, shaking violently, hacking up more of that bright blood. You weakly look towards the figure as it had fallen to it's knees, the air around it like static, buzzing and glitching, like the house reacted on your last loop. One more time... that has to do it...)

"---------!!!" (Your senses fade again, for much longer this time. When they finally return to you, you're screaming out, on your hands and knees on your bed. You hack up more, staining the sheets with the horrible tint.)

"SIF?!" (You turn to see Isa practically having kicked the door down. You weakly reach your hand out for them, gasping and choking for air, still hacking up more and more of that horrid shade.)

"S-Siffrin!" (Mira shouts as she rushes in as well, Odile is standing at the door still, holding back a struggling Bonnie.)

"Let me see Frin!!"

"Not now Boniface, let them help first."

"FRIIIIN! IT'S OKAY WE'RE HERE!!" (Odile shuts the door behind her as she exits the room. Isa is tightly gripping your hand in his, Mirabelle is pumping as much healing craft as she can into you. You did it... you made it out... you escaped, thanks to the love they have for you...)

"Isa... Mira..." (Is all you can manage to choke out, laying somewhat limp against him.)

"Shhh, shhh, save your strength buddy. We're here, we're here for you..." (You let him hold you gently, just enjoying his warm embrace again. You slowly close your eyes to rest once more, feeling safe from the sadness locked within you, at least for now.)

Huge thanks to @tactical-shrubbery for helping me with the dialogue for MDP, she is SIMPLY TOO GOOD AT IT! I actually had to change the ending because Sif would have literally give up if she kept going ^^;

[abowlofsourcream]

⏳💫Congrats Stardust! You got Memory of Dreaming!💫⏳

I’ll make sure you won’t forget this!

…

Teehee! Sweet dreams, Siffrin!

…

If you got One Hat at the ending of the game, DO NOT READ THIS AFTERMATH! Get the secret in Act 6 and then you can enjoy this aftermath! If You got Two Hats, read on head! ;)

v Aftermath v

*…

*He should be here any minute…

*You can imagine them right now.

*The poor little thing probably is so confused…

*Their most likely aimlessly searching for the party, thinking the worst is happening!

*…

*You can’t help but pity him…

*…

*Finally, You see them come to the foot of the Favor Tree.

“H-Hello, guys? The villagers said I should go here… Is… Is anyone here?”

*They forgot their eyepatch and still wearing their undershirt and pants…

*…

*He looks so small…

*Were you this small? Back when it was you?

*Stars, has it been so long?

*That you don’t even remember what you look like?

“Mira? Isa? Madame? This isn’t funny!”

*You can’t help but stare.

*…

*Okay, you’re wasting the time you have…

*You did your part! Now, it’s their turn.

*It would be silly to ruin all your hardwork!

*You hop of the branch and put on your best performance!

“Oh! You finally found your way, Stardust?”

*They jumped at your voice.

“What the-?! Who… What?!”

*You put your hand to your face…

“Oh my, Stardust! That’s no way to greet someone! Especially someone who has been helping your friends!”

*That gets their attention, of course it does…

“You’ve seen them? Where are they? How can I get to them?”

*… Stars, you forgot how clingy you were…

“Stardust, you know where they are…”

*After all, They should remember now! Remember what they did to the others…

*They can no longer hide behind their ignorance anymore!

*They know it’s all their fault…

“B-But! W-will they be okay? Without me?!”

*What a stupid question.

*You imitate picking your nails…

“They were doing just fine without you before… Besides, are you really in any condition to do anything useful? Hm?”

*Ha! Even now… You can see how much the loops destroyed your body…

*No, it’s not your body anymore…

*They look down on the ground, ashamed…

“But… I’m the reason why we’re suck here… Shouldn’t I be the one fixing it?”

*That’s exactly what you were thinking…

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

*They rub their left elbow, looking defeated…

“I don’t know… I didn’t think that far…”

*…

*It’s amazing, how clueless they are…

*But it’s fine…

*That’s why you’re here!

“Well, I have an idea… You might want to try it!”

*They look at you, confused.

“Why? I barely know you, yet you somehow have me already figured out?”

*Ha, of course!

*How could you forget how paranoid you were!

*You roll your eyes.

“Believe me, I’m probably the only one who could understand how that silly little brain of yours… Unless, you want the others see how awful you really are?”

*Yea, that shuts them up.

*So eager to please, in hopes of getting people to stay…

*It’s funny how easy you are able to shift him into place…

*How pathetic…

*How disgusting…

“Hm… They should be nearing the third floor by now…”

“Hmm…”

“You want to hear my plan, now?”

*They chew on the inner part of their cheek.

“Hmm, okay… If it can help the other’s, okay…”

*You take a deep breath.

*Mira asked you not to do anything stupid.

*She made you promise to watch over them…

*She would be heartbroken if she knew what you were planning on doing…

*The others too…

*You would be betraying the little trust they had with you…

*…

*But…

*But that promise was for this Siffrin, wasn’t it?

*She’s not your Mirabelle…

*She could never be your Mirabelle.

*Your Mirabelle is long gone, you think about that every blinding loop...

*Just like your Isabeau, your Odile, your Bonnie, they are all gone!

*Why should you care about that mere copy of your precious family that you destroyed?!

*IF ANYTHING, THEY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO YOU.

*For the fact that you’re letting them escape…

*For fixing this mess…

*Once and for all…

“You could… Make a new wish…”

*His eye grows wide…

“But-”

*You take the coin from their pocket.

*You roll it across your hand.

*They stare at you…

“You can use this…”

“How did you-”

“You know how. Stars, you can be so annoying…”

*You can’t hide the venom in your voice.

*Sorry, Odile…

“Come on, Stardust…”

*You hand them the coin…

“Let’s take this from the top, and get it right this time!”

*They look at the coin, conflicted…

“After all it’s the least they deserve,”

*You make sure that they can hear you.

“After what you put them through…”

*You see their face crumpled as you say that.

*Yep, that got them…

*They take the coin and looks at them…

*Looking at you for any guidance.

*They only have you.

*…

*How tragic…

”Make your new wish, Stardust, and free your family…”

*He looks at the coin, cautiously…

*…

*They close their eyes…

*Breathe into the coin.

*Repeat the wish three times.

*Holds it to his chest, to keep it safe…

*Then… They flip it to you.

“So… Now what?”

*You see them yawn… The affect of your wish beginning to show on their face…

*Part of you feels guilty, on how easy this plan went…

*How all your little actors played directly into your hands.

*But you in to deep now, are you?

*This is what the Universe wanted from you…

*…

*They should be near the king now…

*…

*You can’t help but laugh!

“Now we wait!”

[lunarmoff]

You're not alone!

Sooooo I got into In stars and time a while ago and I came across an Au by @tealgoat called in tales of time. And its awesome!! I highly recommend it!! This fic takes place between Siffrin blast and End of act 5 falling. Anyways down below everyone has their own color for when they speak!

Odile: Blue Siffrin: Red Mirabelle: Pink Isabeau: Orange Bonnie: Green

<You can’t let them find out! No, no, no, no, no, NO! THEY’LL HATE YOU.> <What did Loop tell them!? IT DOESN’T MATTER JUST LOOP BACK-> <You feel a tug on your stomach. . . <. . . !> <You feel something grab onto your coat before you can loop back…You glance down to see none other than Sffrin climbing on your coat.> “Odile! Please! Stop running! You’ve been through all of this many times haven’t you? The way you went through the house without any problems by yourself… You knew what Mira’s papers were about…How you knew about Isa’s dream to design clothes…You taught  Bonnie to stand up to that sadness…And how you got me to open up about my forgotten past…” <Suddenly Siffrin looks up with you.> “Odile! What did you wish for at the Favor tree?!” <! No, no, no, no, no, NO!!!!> <The others down below become determined.> <NO! YOU CAN’T TELL THEM IF YOU DO THEY’LL HATE YOU- YOU DON’T WANT TO!!!!> “Tell us so we can help you Madame!” <Isabeau..> “Tell us already Dile!!” <Bonnie..> “Odile!!! This is what I wished for! I wished for Vaugarde to be saved!” “I wished for Nellie to be okay!” “I wished to be able to find you! To help you!” “And I wished to be able to help everyone!!! What about you Odile?” “What did you wish for!” <Mirabelle..> “What did you wish for, Dile!!!” <PLEASE STOP!!!!- I’M JUST SO TIRED! IT WON’T MATTER IT NEVER WILL!  I'M TRAPPED FOREVER IN THIS BLINDING PLACE!!! IT’S NOT LIKE IT WILL EVER COME TRUE!!!!!!!> <THEY CAN’T MAKE YOU TELL THEM! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE- LET ME REST!!!> “Tell us!!” “Tell us!!” “JUST TELL US!!!!” “TELL US- whoa- wha- AAAHHH!!!-” <Siffrin loses their grip and starts to fall. No! You won’t let him die because of you again!!!> <You quickly catch them with your hand and he looks up at you.> <Then- > <A flash you feel yourself return to normal. Your hair tie come out of its place letting your hair fall lose…> <You feel air around you as your family link their hand with each other and you as the stars shine above you.>

Art does not belong to me! It belongs to @tealgoat!!! Go check out her Au named In tales of time!! If you want to read the rest of the fic I'll put it down here! https://archiveofourown.org/works/58817581

[auncyen]

"Disappear...disappear, disappear, disappear...don't come back, don't come back, don't come back..."

M'dame Odile was right. You should have said something sooner.

Siffrin had been acting strangely since yesterday afternoon. When the bathroom break turned much too long, Mira encouraged Bonnie to share with you and Odile what they'd already told her: that Siffrin had run up to them while they were looking at the field and nearly grabbed them, only backing off at the last second, trying to laugh off the uncharacteristic behavior while looking sick to his stomach. Mira confirmed that she'd found Siffrin waking from his nap with a disturbed look on his face, and that beelining to the field had been the first thing he'd done. At the time, the explanation of a nightmare was enough for both Mira and Bonnie to not push further, and Siffrin had seemed back to theirself in the evening.

But Siffrin wasn't acting right again. They'd been tense all through the House, attacking Sadnesses at the slightest sign they might get close instead of skirting around and evading as they normally did, and at the same time listless, barely present when you all stopped and talked about something. They chimed in, yeah, but their tone had been flat nearly every time, even when they were beaming. None of those smiles had been real. All of them dropped the second they thought no one would notice.

"Something's wrong," Odile said before looking at you. "Isabeau. You should talk to them."

"Me??" You'd been trying to figure out what would snap Siffrin out of the weird mood all day and couldn't come up with anything. For all the work you'd put into expanding your emotional intelligence, it apparently was still lacking when you really needed it.

And yet Mirabelle nodded too, apparently convinced alongside M'dame that you were the one for the job. "They might listen if it's you!"

You'd really like to think that but also you didn't think that at all. "I don't even know what I'd say..."

"It doesn't matter," Odile said emphatically before amending herself. "Well, what's said does matter, but how it's said is important too. There's a reason I'm not volunteering myself for this, Isabeau. With how on edge he's been, he probably needs someone...gentle, at the moment. But being gentle doesn't mean passively standing by." Her eyes narrowed at you.

You could figure out what she meant easily enough. She was afraid she'd be too forceful for Siffrin right now, and you could agree you'd be concerned if she tried. She wasn't afraid to push you on this, though.

Before she could say anything more, though, you heard one of the bathroom doors swing as Siffrin finally emerged. "There you are, Frin!" Bonnie shouted. "Did you fall in?"

Sif laughed in the empty way that didn't meet their eyes, offering no explanation for how long they'd taken. "Let's get moving," they said, and didn't wait for agreement before proceeding down the hallway. Mira looked at them worriedly, then at you. Odile's eyes were burning holes in the back of your shirt as you all followed Sif to a rather...unique-looking statue of the Change God. It...offered you a Keyknife? Or a Knifekey? And teleported you back to the start of the third floor, right in front of the door you needed to get through???

It was more than you'd ever heard of the Change God doing, and your surprise (and slight disorientation--you weren't sure what the mechanics of teleportation were, but they made your head feel floaty) almost distracted you from Siffrin's hands trembling slightly as he sharpened the blade: "please be sharp, please be sharp, please be sharp".

But you did notice. You knew you needed to talk to him. And you did try when you all took one last snack break before approaching the King. You hadn't let Sif dissuade you with more empty smiles and a chirped "I'm fine, Isa!", the tone just slightly wrong in the way everything had been wrong today.

But you'd let the matter drop for the moment when Sif looked away, frustrated, and his shoulders dropped. When he looked up at you again, it was with a slightly sad smile. "You got me, Isa. There is something wrong. Can we talk about it after the King?"

You'd been so relieved he was admitting something was wrong. That they trusted you to support them. As long as they knew that they could rely on you and the others, sure, you could talk about it after the King!

...They'd

frozen

at the King.

Not in time, but in fear, their breath starting to hitch even as you all walked toward the King in a way that would have made you grab them and run if you'd been facing any less of an opponent. You were pretty sure there was no running from the King. They'd stayed behind you at the beginning of the fight as you jumped forward to try hitting the King. Normally Sif would be right by your side, the two of you both close range combatants when not using Craft. Something was wrong. You had to keep the King's attention off of them.

But the King was overwhelmingly strong, shrugging off your blows, and his eyes narrowed at Siffrin after Mirabelle's shield saved you all from an attack that you could feel would've otherwise been fatal in your very heart, still shuddering from the dread it'd inflicted. Siffrin had choked out a cry for her to make the shield at just the right time, like he'd somehow known the fearsome attack was coming. ...The King waiting beforehand was suspicious. You'd made a mental note to look out for that, and thanked Change Siffrin had realized beforehand. But right at that moment, the King swung out to hit Siffrin--or grab him?--and you sidestepped to push Sif out of the way--

The King's huge gauntlet hit you, and--

You must have blacked out for a few seconds. You came back to a throbbing head, painful breathing, and a teary-eyed Bonnie who was patting your arm anxiously as they swam in your vision. You tried to force a reassuring smile and push yourself up and immediately cried out. Your arm was broken. You think--the King must have slammed you into the wall, and Change, what a beastly strength he had. You felt like a cracked egg shell.

"'Za, can you--I have--" Bonnie was crying too hard to get the words out, but the tonic in their other hand was explanation enough. They'd been trying to wake you so you could drink. You nodded, tilting your head to drink the tonic they lifted to your lips. The sour taste cleared your head a little, and you tried to look past Bonnie to find Siffrin...

Sif...

Sif...was...

Sif's earlier hesitation was gone now. They were--they were tearing into the King with savage abandon. The mysterious strength they'd found against the Sadnesses today had returned, double what it was before, maybe triple, Craft attacks being used with no cooldown, Scissors and Paper and Rock and sheer fury. Or maybe it was still terror.

Odile had pulled Mirabelle clear of Sif's range, and they were both assisting with their support Crafts slowing the King, shielding Siffrin. Both their faces were tense, Mira's betraying more of her fear at how things had turned out. Now that you felt a little less like a rolled-out crepe, you pushed yourself up with the one good arm, trying not to breathe too deep, and staggered back toward the fight. Mira startled at your limping approach, but both women looked at you only briefly, their attention focused on Siffrin.

"I'll heal you soon, Isabeau!" Mirabelle said. "I think...I think the fight might actually be over soon. I can't believe Siffrin is--were they this strong all along?"

"No," Odile said. "They're running on adrenaline. ...Maybe something else, as well. This isn't natural."

She could have been right. There was a strangely sweet smell in the air as Sif struck the King again, unless you hit your head hard enough to hallucinate smell.

Siffrin only seemed to calm down marginally once they'd reduced the King to his own panic. Then, he glanced to the side, to the three of you, and you could see the immediate relief on his face as he saw you standing.

The pain as his eye swept over, noting your injuries. It distracted him for a long enough second to scare you over his proximity to the King--and then, in the next second, Mira and Odile stepped in, taking Siffrin's hesitation as invitation for them to finally go back on the offensive. Odile started a Craft and a chant for the King to "disappear!" Bonbon was still crying, but managed to throw their wok and the Craft energy they know how to control into the spell. You made a rock sign limply with your good hand, mustering the energy you could spare. Siffrin somehow still had the energy to add to the Craft, the air spiking with sugar like you were at the boulangerie in early morning. Mirabelle finished the Craft, and the King, off.

"Disappear!"

The King disappeared. Light returned to the House.

Siffrin sank to their knees like a puppet discarded. "Disappear...disappear, disappear, disappear...don't come back, don't come back, don't come back..." He started shaking. "...No more...I can't...I can't do this anymore... I keep failing, I keep..."

"You haven't failed, Siffrin," Odile said, her tone both worried and confused. You wanted to say something as well, but every breath still hurt, even as Mirabelle used her healing Craft with a focus on your chest. There was only so much Craft could do in the short term; you needed serious bed rest.

But you were alive, you'd heal. So you weren't sure why Sif looked so devastated, shaking his head. "I got Isa hurt."

You understood even less at what he next said.

"Last time it was Bonnie, and it was--" A dry sob. He needed to calm down and breathe, he wasn't making sense. When had he ever gotten Bonnie hurt?

"Who next? You, Mira? I can't do this again, I can't, I can't..." He gripped his hair, nearly yanking at it. "Please, please, please..."

The air seemed to stand still around Siffrin.

You realized what was happening, even though the King was gone, just as Sif went lightless.

At the very moment they froze, their expression seemed relieved.

[beneathsilverstars]

i do think it makes sense for isabeau and loop to kinda hate each other at first....

like loop tried to kill siffrin when he was already sick and weak. even though loop lost or decided not to go through with it, isabeau still witnessed the aftermath. and he's so protective!! yes loop is also siffrin but that makes it MORE of a betrayal. like if siffrin tried to kill mirabelle or smth yknow, it's fucked up for someone you love to attack someone you love. but maybe if it was actually siffrin he would find it easier to understand the weird situation and forgive them - but loop is a different person now, and they're a person who's mean to isa's siffrin!

and then on loop's side, you've obviously got the jealousy (isa likes siffrin, not me) and attempt to create distance (this isn't my isa, just a fake copy). but you've also got loop's feelings towards their own isa, which could be pretty complex at this point. kinda depends on your headcanons for exactly what loop's og timeline looked like, but. they could be mad that og!isa never tried to confess like new!isa did, was loop!sif not good enough? or they could be mad at themself for not realizing isa liked them in their own timeline even though he was being more obvious, like, i fucked it up worse than stardust did and this isa is just a constant reminder.

loop is just very upset about many things, and i think isa would make the next easiest target after siffrin, bc he's strong and kind - easier to lash out at than anxious mirabelle or young bonnie or intimidating odile. plus, since romance has more cultural precedence as a sharp dichotomy that leads to jealousy, it might be easier to channel their feelings through that simpler lens (isa will never cuddle me like that bc he's not dating me, and never will bc he already has sif) rather than the more nebulous concept of friendship jealousy with its wider range of possible conclusions (maybe mira would tell me secrets like that if i worked to become closer friends, but maybe she never would. oh god now i have to figure out what i actually want and what i'm willing to risk to reach for it). so it's easier for loop to focus on being mad about the more straightforward thing that they clearly can't have.

anyways what i'm saying is loop and isabeau keep glaring at each other over siffrin's head bc obviously they both sat next to him at the dinner table even though that regrettably means they're stuck being near each other.

[sharkylass]

Hey!!! I don’t know if anyone has already asked (and I am too dense to figure out,) but how did Isa get stuck in the time loop? What did he wish for?

(also, I REALLY want to know about the friend-quests!!! How does it change? Especially with Sif?)

I guess you're gonna have to wait and see together with everyone!

As for the hangouts- I'm still figuring out Mira, Odile and Bonbon (even if I have some vague directions)

But I do have something in mind for Sif. I want it to be touch related. Not inherently romantic, but more so- both of them talking about it and getting to clear up some stuff. (I also wanna explore Isa's own relationship with touch so bad BECAUSE I HAVE... THOUGHTS...)

I felt like the country might be a bit much, especially when Sif couldn't remember. For Sif to talk about things they can't recall is gonna be very tough (I have other plans for the country stuff anyway.)

And the og game proved they wouldn't actually express their want to stay with everyone until the bitter end.

So touch felt the most approachable topic that the two could bond over.

[amuseintime]

Crossed Stars (Pt 2)

Star Souls AU

Siffrin wakes up back at the meadow and Loop appears! But what IS their deal?

<<PREV || NEXT >>

—————-

Thank stars that Siffrin had been sitting down, because otherwise he was pretty sure he’d have fallen over…

Wait. Why was he sitting down? Wasn’t he just in the house? He looked down to the broken doll in his hands, but it wasn’t a broken doll, it was his own detached calf with that stubborn patch of mud once more needing to be cleaned out.

…

HUH?!

Hadn’t he already done that yesterday? Wasn’t he in the House? Had that been some kind of vision? That wasn’t really a thing that happened to him though…? It wasn’t like he really “slept” either, more just… dissipated? Relaxed? The best human term he had for it was somewhere between “trance” and “stretching,” awareness softening and widening as he just watched… Which maybe? That? Happened? But he didn’t exactly move much during those little space-outs of his, and he didn’t hallucinate either… probably??? It wasn’t like he could go ask the owls if they’d really caught that mouse or anything like that.

So? What? Happened???

[Pale One? Is that…?]

… he probably should’ve been way more concerned about the fact that he was hearing voices in his head, but sure! Though… Pale One? Why did that sound familiar…?

“Siffrin! Siffrin!” Mirabelle! Coming to the meadow calling his name. Didn’t that happen in the weird hallucination thingy he apparently had?

“Sif- FRIIIIN?!” She gasped, jumping nearly a foot in the air and ran over.

Well that was new! What could have?

She looked down at his still-detached leg and oh. Yeah. That’d do it.

“Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Um, I’m not sure my healing will-“

“Hey, hey, it’s okay…” Siffrin said. He swiped the worst of the mud-clump away with one hand and lined it back up to where it slotted with his thigh. With a click, it reattached, and he pushed himself back up to standing. “See? Good as new!”

“Oh… oh! Right,” she sighed in relief, giving him a nervous smile. “Sorry, I forgot you can just do that and sorta panicked… kinda silly in retrospect.”

“It’s okay! I know that for most things it’s really, really bad if limbs come off… I just wanted to get that mud out.”

“Oh. That makes sense…” She stared intently at his knee, fidgeting a bit, but looked away. “I’ll give you a little more time if you wanna clean it properly! Come to the village when you’re ready, okay?”

Siffrin gave a thumbs up as she walked away…

…

…

…

Okay. Okay don’t panic. This isn’t TOO weird yet! But what WAS that? Why is he back here? Was it because… because…

… he failed.

Okay, he was not in the House, that’s the first thing. Secondly, it’s apparently the day before when Mirabelle came to check on him just as he put his leg back on… or failed to do in this case. Third…

…

Okay he can’t think of a third. Weird voice in his head maybe counts? Sure, that counts, if only to make it three.

[Stop by the favor tree when you get a minute. See you soon!]

Well… get up Siffrin, you have a weird voice in your head and a country to save… Hopefully, he’ll do it right this time.

————

The little talk with Mira went better this time! He didn’t mess up the sleepover talk! Woo! Then straight to the favor tree (after some puns with Isa, of course).

The tree reaches overhead, just as before. There’s something strangely comforting about it. So tall that he can’t see all the way to the top from here, wide enough to cover a house or two, sturdy, old… It must’ve seen so many people come and go. Did the village build around it? Was it already grand then? He drifts under, putting a hand on the trunk. Some of the roots come up through the ground, flat enough to give some room to sit. So he does. He finds a root and sits. He’s not sure if this tree has a spirit or not, or if it’d care to hear from something like him, but he strokes the trunk and silently thanks them for the place to sit.

[Sappy as ever, I see.]

Siffrin jolts in place, looking around. Who said that? “… Favor Tree?”

[Noooope~! But close enough with the whole wishes thing.] There was something warm nearby, a subtle tug. Instinctively he tried to find the source of the voice, the warmth, the tug, but…

[You really are attached to that whole ‘sight’ thing, aren’t you? Fine, fine.] The light and shadows seemed to refract, bending into something vaguely humanoid. Dark limbs with little spatters of light (it looked like him, looked like paint he hid) and a larger light as a “head.” Indistinct, but something. [There, easier for you? Yes? Good, good.]

[So! Looks like you went back in time!]

“I… guess I did. Yeah.”

[Isn’t that convenient? And hey! It got my attention, guess the Universe blessed both of us, hmm?]

[And I do believe I can feel whatever brought you here still lingering, so no worries if you mess up again, teehee! So in other words… you’re in a timeloop!]

[So, Stardust, how can I help you this wonderful new loop?]

Siffrin looked awkwardly at this… spirit, he assumed. They seemed quite happy, and it was nice to have someone that knew, but why were they acting so over familiar?

“… sorry, but do I know you?”

The other’s glow dimmed, form threatening to collapse into darkness. Oh stars, they messed up!

“Sorry! I, um, feel like I should? But…”

[Well, we’ll have time to get reacquainted, I assure you. Though maybe it’d be a little easier if you took that off?] It gestured to all of them.

It took embarrassingly long for Siffrin to register that they probably meant their body… the doll. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “… no???”

[Oh well, suit yourself.]

They both lingered in awkward silence. Siffrin kicked his legs while, um… wait…

“Do you… have a name right now?”

Names were strange things with spirits. Gifted things. A way of saying “I want you, this you, to stay. I want to be able to get your attention and call you.” Which was distinct from a title or description since, y’know, people had to be able to refer to you as something.

[Oh Stardust, you don’t need that to get my attention! Call me whatever you like. Though since I imagine you will, in fact, be referring to me, I’m it/they by the way.]

They fidgeted on the log, looking around and trying to think of something. And, well, in his defense for what eventually came out of his mouth, spirits in general were not known for their ability to name things. “Loop Helper… no, that’s a mouthful. So just… Loop?”

[Loop works! Loop! Your helpful guide through the loops! Or I’ll try to be helpful, at least. What can I say, I like trouble and it likes me~]

[But for now, well, whatever you did, you should know better this time, right? Go on Stardust, get back out there! I’ll be waiting~]

Whatever they did next looked somewhat like a wave, but felt more like a push… well, that was overselling it. A nudge, more like. Loop was probably right, he had a second chance, so might as well use it!

“Good meeting you!” He said, giving a wave as he left. He doubted they’d see each other again though.

After all, he couldn’t mess it up twice, right?

——————

Mirabelle’s inner thoughts: “Be normal be normal be normal BE NORMAL BE NORMAL” (she really should’ve just been weird)

I prefer tea, but buy me a Kofi?

[maryonmega]

Like a heavy blanket

A little feelings buddies moment because they deserve it. And also so I can have Siffrin live one of my fantasies.

The room around you feels cold. Nothing unexpected.

You must have frozen yourself and don't remember. You dreamed of being surrounded by stars. Not on the ground, but up, so high if you didn't know better you could believe they were in your reach.

Back to the stage.

You slice through sadnesses.

You destroy that blinding counter.

You get key after key.

You see visions of your allies.

You reach the King.

Your body feels heavy.

You

You know what comes next.

You would be panting if you could breath.

You wake up in a soft bed. Your throat feels tight.

Clocktower?

No, doesn't smell like the clocktower.

You open your eye. Doesn't look like the clocktower.

You look around.

You're on a large bed between Isa and Mira. Bonnie is clinging to Isa's back for dear life. Odile is sleeping on a sofa just across the room.

Oh, right.

You're in a village. A nice family let you borrow a room. Mira had to insist on them letting your group help around the house as thank you.

And, you were high in the air yesterday. On Isa's back.

It still feels surreal.

Well, it was just a dream! You can go back to sleep! You're so tired, it's gonna be easy.

...

You can't sleep.

Stars, you can't have one easy thing.

You climb out of bed, and slip out of the room, careful to not wake up your bedmates. You're soon out of the house and into their yard. It's cold, but at least this time it's physical. It's not very cloudy. You can see stars.

Despite everything, this is something the loops did not take away from you.

You take deep breaths of the late summer air. It's been a week and a half. It's colder. Time is passing. Why do you still need reminders?

"Still up?"

You need to hold the impulse to jump at Mira's voice. You turn to face her. Still in her sleep clothes and looking tired. Did you wake her up?

"You're up, too."

"Someone got out of bed."

You did.

"Bad dream again. Was facing the King alone."

"Siffrin..."

"It was as if, those past days had been a dream..."

You, can't face her.

She gets closer and stands beside you. You don't mind, but...

"Which is stupid. It's been over a week already! I know the loops are over! Why it's like I don't really get it?"

You feel her take your hand.

"Siffrin, I, uhn..." You look at your joined hands. Her small but calloused hand is grounding "I don't think I really understand, I never got stuck in a time loop, but, I, kind of do?"

Hum?

You finally face her. She's looking away, but in a thoughtful way.

"I mean, I, might feel similar about the King? And the curse?"

!!!

"He's frozen and harmless now, and Vaugard is moving again, and I get to spend more time with all of you! But..." She gives you an awkward smile "I sometimes feel like, it's too good to be true? Too much good stuff happening? Like something bad will have to happen because it's too much good at once? Or, like stopping the King was too easy so there's gotta be catch?"

Hum!

"I had no idea!"

"I know." She's the one looking at your hands, now "Not the most honest feelings buddy."

Oh, no! None of that!

You put your other hand on top of Mira's.

"But you said it now! And... And it does help, to know it's not just me." You rub her hand. This is nice, so nice. You hope it's nice to her, too "Does it help to know it's not just you?"

She smiles, a real one, and nods.

"It does. Thank you for telling me."

Stars, you could bask on her presence forever.

"Good, then!"

You open your arms.

"Can we?"

Mira doesn't hesitate and all but scoop you up. It was, so easy to forget she's strong too. You hug back, feel the softness of her curvy body against yours.

Your mind drifts. You look at her arms. Her smooth arms. Earlier? Yesterday? Hours ago, they weren't smooth at all. And Odile got it all. And didn't even get to appreciate it, too focused on not panicking on top of the lovely housemaiden...

"Can-" oops! Almost slipped!

"Can what, Siffrin?" Oops! Too late anyway!

"Nevermind, it's nothing."

She let's go of the hug to hold your shoulders. The look on her eyes is, not angry, but you know she's putting her foot down.

"No, you started, now finish."

No choice now. Live with the consequences!

"I thought if, uhn, we could, hug, while you're on your dragon form? You don't have to! It's silly! I just, thought back and you looked soft, and-!"

Stop embarrassing yourself!

Mira makes a noise and lets go of your shoulders. You messed up you messed up you-

"Ah, sure!"

What?

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course!" The awkward smile comes back, her hands clasped in front of her chest "I just, don't usually hear that. But, I'm glad, really! That despite not knowing before you don't think I'm scary."

Even if the dragon form itself was scary, you don't think you would be scared knowing it's your friend Mirabelle.

"Just one moment..."

She takes a few steps away.

You watch her form shift.

She’s big, but not the type of behemoth you would see in a book. Her head is about twice the size of a horse’s without the feathers, and the rest is proportional.

She raises a wing.

You raise a hand towards it, and stop.

“Is- Is this fine?”

Mira nods. Still takes psyching up, but you touch her wing.

Up close, you can see that she’s covered in feathers, in a variety of sizes. You run your hand over one easily the lenght from your shoulder to your fingertips, and see that the base have some not bigger than your thumb. There’s smaller ones coating her body, too. Making her look fluffy.

She’s not scary.

“You’re beautiful.”

You hug her neck, and she curls around you, her wing over you, heavy, yet gentle. Her snout touches your back and you lean into the touch.

She's as fluffy as she looks. You can feel even smaller feathers on her neck. A sharp contrast to the scaly feeling snout. It's not bad. Shows you that's still a living being. Still your friend.

She's so warm, too. Like a heavy blanket near a fireplace.

You sink your face into her feathers and inhale. Smell fruity.

"Thank you, Mira."

She rubs her face on you again, and you can't help but smile.

You don't think you've felt safer in a very, very long time.

You close your eye and just take in the feeling.

When you open it again, you're being carried back to bed.

[justdarklr]

In Stars And Time: Providence

An In Stars And Time x Persona AU

Created and Written by JustDarklr, Co-Created by mizzle-moths

CARD III — STARLIGHT

Bonnie’s here, looking out onto the field. You approach them from behind, offering a small smile. They greet you as they always do. You tell them to meet up at the clocktower, and talk to them for a moment — before walking off. But… before you can go talk to him, you hear Bonnie call out to you from behind. You spin around, confused — do they want something from you? You weren’t expecting that. They barely even talk to you ever since then. Why now? What could they possibly want? You wait with anticipation, staring at them for what seems like forever until they speak.

“... N–Nevermind,” They stutter, seeming a little… intimidated? Oh, stars, what did your face look like when you were staring at them? You probably made them scared!!! They probably think you hate them!!!

“Ah, um… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you?” You spit out, quickly— please fix things. How did you mess things up more than they already are?!

“I said it’s nothing!! Stupid!!!” Bonnie retorts, glaring at you. Ah. You’ve probably ruined this conversation, huh. Well… you probably can’t do much about it now, unfortunately.

You… nod, and turn around. If only you could redo that whole conversation. But that’s not possible…

Well, the only one left is Isabeau, The Fighter. You’ve saved the best for last! … nevermind, that sounds like you don’t like the others as much. You like every one of your allies equally! Isabeau’s just… you dunno. There’s something about him that flusters you. Really, really badly, sometimes. But, um, you don’t think about that. You’re just friends. Yeah. Mhm!

… ‘Stars, you’re helpless’, you think. You’re so stuck in your own thoughts you haven’t even walked away, yet, so Bonnie’s just… standing there, staring at you. Oops!! You quickly walk away, towards the favor tree. Quickly. Very quickly. You are so embarrassed, stars. It’s even more embarrassing because you’re supposed to be the one that pays attention to your surroundings!! You’re supposed to be good at this stuff!! Awareness, and all that!! Okay, okay, stop thinking, you’re already here. Right in front of him. There he is! Isabeau! The Fighter! Big, buff man! Oh, why did you think that. Um.

“... Hey, Sif, you okay? You’re just, um. Staring at me?” He questions, looking down at you slightly. This is… so embarrassing, stars. How could you let this happen.

“Oh! Um, yeah, yeah, I’m fine! Uh, sleepover tonight at the clocktower? It was Mira’s idea, not mine, so, um, yeah. Are you up for it?” You stutter out, in possibly the most embarrassing way you could’ve. Why are you like this?

“Sounds good to me! We were meeting up at the Clocktower anyways, right? Though… Mira and Bonbon are probably gonna be sharing a bed, and Madame Odile is definitely gonna want one of her own, so… guess we’re stuck sharing one, then?” He speaks, offering a smile to you. Oh.

“Right! If that’s okay with you, I mean. I can sleep on the floor, if you want! If you’re not comfortable with sharing a bed, I mean!”

“... Sif, you say that every time. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you– I’m fine with sharin’ a bed with you. So don’t worry about it! We’ve done it countless times, anyways.” He states, bluntly. Oh, that’s right. You have. You forgot. Like always.

“... Alright. Um– oh, while I’m at it…” You trail off, and have a conversation with Isa for who knows how long. The sun’s starting to set as you finally close out your lengthy conversation, waving at him as he heads off towards the clocktower. You wanted to look at the favor tree again, after yesterday. You didn’t really get a chance to admire it beforehand, so… you wanted to. It’s a beautiful tree, after all. The townsfolk often talk about how it… sometimes looks like it shines foreign shades, unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. You… hoped to see that, this time. Even though it’s unlikely. Very unlikely, actually– you doubt these rumors even have much truth to them. It’s probably just lies, or people genuinely believing they saw something, or maybe just a tactic to draw more people to the favor tree. Though, you don’t know why they’d do that, so… maybe you’re just overthinking things. Maybe there is some truth to it. It would be interesting, after all. New shades, never seen before by Vaugardian eyes… It's an interesting thought.

You stand there for what seems like forever. The sun setting below the horizon. Before you know it, it’s gone, and you stand there in the soft glow of the favor tree, basking in it. Something about its aura is… comforting. It’s a familiar feeling. A very nice one. But… you should get going.

You stand there for a moment longer, watching as the tree’s leaves sparkle in the starlight before you turn away. But… you hear a voice, as you do.

“Thy vows carve thy path. Take solace in them, lest you lose what thou hold dearest…”

You spin around quickly, but… you don’t see anyone. Was that in your head? Are you going insane?

Maybe you’re just tired. That’s… that’s probably it, yeah. That voice didn’t mean anything. It especially didn’t mean anything that it sounded eerily similar to yours. Nothing at all, you’re sure of it.

You take a deep breath, in, and out, before you turn once more and walk towards the Clocktower with an ominous feeling lingering in your gut. It feels like your stomach’s collapsing in on itself. Why is it getting to you so much? It shouldn’t be. It really shouldn’t be, right? It’s just in your head. 

‘But it felt so real,’ you think. Was it? It could’ve been. Was it the tree talking to you? No, that’s stupid, trees can’t talk, right? Or can they???? You don’t know much about Vaugardian culture– trees could talk here!!

You  take another deep breath. Calm down, Siffrin. You’re overthinking things. It’s nothing, so don’t think about it! You just need to focus on the Clocktower, and the sleepover. They’re probably expecting you… 

You enter the clocktower, seeing everyone waiting for you. They all turn towards you as you enter.

“Siffrin! You’re here!” Mirabelle exclaims, smiling brightly as you enter.

“We were waiting for you! C’mon, Sif, let’s eat! I am SOOOO hungry.” Isabeau fake-groans as they complain, patting the spot next to him as he waits for you to sit down next to him. You offer a smile, and sit by his side. You are pretty hungry yourself…

Bonnie jumps up and down as you sit. “I brought back a bunch of food!! Come on, Come on!! I’m hungry!!”

You all begin eating. Bonnie brought a lot of food, but you’re focused on one thing. The samosas. You scarf them down quickly– Bonnie looks amazed as you do so, offering you some more, and you happily agree.

After everyone is done eating, Isabeau lets out a loud sigh. “Phew, Bonbon… that was DE-LI-CIOUS!”

“You keep getting better at cooking, Boniface. Those samosas were indeed delicious.” Odile agrees.

“...Really? It wasn’t bad? You liked it?” Bonnie questions, before quickly switching their attitude. “I-I MEAN, OF COURSE IT WAS DELICIOUS!! I’m a master cooker, y’know!!”

“Chef,” Isa corrects.

“I’m a chef cooker!” Bonnie yells out.

Mirabelle lets out a small giggle before she speaks. “That was the perfect meal, Bonnie! We’ll all sleep well tonight and be full of energy tomorrow~!”

“It was almost too much, to be honest… I don’t think I can even move…” Isabeau fake groans.

…Was it too much? Honestly, you could have eaten more. 

“Aw, Sif, are you still hungry?” Mirabelle asks.

“Frin, you ate a lot, huh!!! You liked my cooking a lot, huh!!! Here, have some more food since you’re so hungry and like my cooking so much.”

… Bonnie gives you a singular carrot slice. Chomp.

“How can you still eat…? How can a small body… eat that much…?” Odile groans.

“I’m a growing kid.” You say, with a grin.

“A growing kid that drinks alcohol?!” Mirabelle looks shocked.

“You’re older than most of the people here?!?” Isabeau matches her shocked expression, and you can’t help but laugh. And wink cutely, of course.

Mirabelle stands up, and looks at everyone, before speaking. “Um, everyone… Can I... say something?”

Isabeau perks up. “What's up, Mira?”

“Um… 

We... We've all been traveling together for a while now. It hasn't always been easy, but meeting you all… Traveling through Vaugarde to get the Orbs needed to open the House's Gate again… There's no way I could've done this alone. I... I want to say thank you... For coming with me this far!” She clasps her hands together, pouring her heart out to all of you. But then, she looks down.

“But, tomorrow… we’ll go and fight The King… someone who’s thrown Vaugarde into stillness and silence. Someone who has… has now frozen almost all of Vaugarde in time. I–I’m going to do my best to make sure this doesn’t happen to any of you, but… but if you don’t want to come, if you want to go back home, I wouldn’t–”

Odile chirps up. “It’s kind of late for that, Mirabelle, is it not?”

“I… I know, but… but I…!”

Isabeau stands up, smiling at Mirabelle. “And by that, M’dame Odile means we’re with you!”

“Of course I do. We’ve come this far, after all.” Odile adds.

“Did you really think we’d leave you behind? After all this? Let you go alone?”

Bonnie hops up as well, joining Isabeau. “We’ll follow you, Belle!!! We’ll help!!! Don’t worry!!!”

You smile. “We’ll stay with you ‘til the end, Mira.”

… Mirabelle looks like she’s about to cry. “Oh… Oh, everyone… Thank you!”

Isabeau and Bonnie rush to Mirabelle’s side, hugging her tightly. You and Odile stand a bit away from each other, as always. This is when the audience at a theater would say “awwwww”.

“... Let’s go to bed!”

“We have a big day tomorrow!” Isabeau adds, and Odile nods. “Indeed we do. Goodnight, everyone.” 

“G’night!!” Bonnie nearly leaps into bed as they say this. You should follow their lead… so, you go lay down in bed, next to Isabeau. You have to face away from him. You couldn’t handle being face-to-face!!

… As you’re drifting off to sleep, you suddenly hear something. Isabeau’s voice, in your ear, whispering your name. You turn around and look at him.

“Um… Sorry? To wake you up? I just… I have to tell you something. If that’s okay.”

He dares interrupt your beauty sleep… How could he. He knows you value your sleep, so this must be important, though… so you nod.

“Um… okay, okay, okay! Then I shall tell you the thing! The, um, thing I woke you up to tell you! Haha! Ha… um, okay, so. The thing I have to tell you

 

Is

That

… I… don’t have anything to tell you right now. But I will, when, uh, we beat The King tomorrow. Okay?”

“That is so ominous, Isa…” You respond.

“I… I just don’t wanna tell you right now, is all! It might distract you, and we wouldn’t want that, right? So, um. I’ll tell you when we beat The King. Okay?”

What could he want to tell you? It seems important to him, but… he doesn’t want to tell you right now, so the only thing you can say is “Okay.”

“...Okay!” Isabeau responds, at a louder than average volume. Uh-oh.

Isabeau is hit square in the face with a pillow. Bullseye. Ouch.

You turn to see Mira and Bonnie glaring at the two of you.

“SOME PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!!” Bonnie quietly yells, as to not wake Odile.

“YEAH ISABEAU!! SOME PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP! SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND SLEEP!!” Mirabelle whisper-yells at the large man. He looks embarrassed, but musters up a response.

“YOU CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, HOUSEMAIDEN! YOU’RE GONNA WAKE M’DAME ODILE!”

“I’m already up.”

Uh oh. Everyone’s eyes dart over to Odile, who’s laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “And if the noise continues, I will stand up. And you do not want to know what will happen if I stand up.”

Everyone quickly apologizes. First Bonnie, then Mira, and last but not least, Isa. You turn back around to see him looking at you, embarrassed… but then, he locks eyes with you. And smiles.

“Good night, Sif! I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

You can’t help but smile back.

You feel… safe, surrounded by all your friends. And so… you slowly drift off to sleep.

In the morning, you all stand in front of The House’s entrance, as you all offer up your orbs to open the gate. As it shutters open… you all enter, with you leading the charge.

You all rush through the beginning of The House, avoiding all the Shadows you can. Mirabelle seems nervous, but… it’d be best to avoid all the fights you can. You need to conserve your energy. That is… until you reach a certain hallway. As you enter, Mirabelle yells out.

“WAIT!!!”

Bonnie looks startled. “What?! What is it?!”

Mirabelle immediately tries to recompose herself, but… she’s sweating bullets. “I, um, I’m sorry for screaming!! Sorry, sorry!! But, um, I, um…! I…. don’t know if this is relevant, but I recognize this corridor. The… The Head Housemaiden used to warn us about it all the time… she used to call it the “Death Corridor” !!! 

“Oh! Oh, that sounds bad!” Isabeau starts.

Odile thinks for a moment, before speaking. “The House is supposed to be a safe building, but with The King here, some traps might be activated… is that what you mean?”

Traps? Traaaps? You immediately perk up. “Sounds like a job for me, then!”

“It IS your job.” Odile smirks.

“Protect us, trap master~!” Isabeau says, playing along.

To be fair, it’s not the first time you had to deal with traps. Or reassure Mirabelle. So– you take a look around. Mostly at all the pillars. But after a while of searching, you don’t… find anything? Huh. Was she wrong? You can’t find any traps, though, so… you return to Mirabelle.

“So? So??? Are we safe??? We’re not safe, are we? This is the Death Corridor… oh nooo… the older Housemaidens said people died here!!! So– So there must be a trap, something weight sensitive, or… or something…!! Or maybe it’s time–sensitive!! If… If we spend too long here…!!!”

You try your best to calm her down. “There’s nothing here, Mira. Don’t worry.”

“But… But there has to be!! It’s the Death Corridor!!! There has to be something!!!”

Bonnie approaches her, giving her a small hug. “Belle, Belle, don’t worry about it!! Frin isn’t great at a lot of stuff, but they know about traps. Trust ‘em on this one!”

Okay, hey, ow!

Odile chimes in as well. “Right. If we can’t trust the one who is supposed to lead us THIS early, that won’t bode well for later, will it?”

HEY…!!!

“But… but…!!” Mirabelle retorts, clasping her hands together nervously. She’s picking at her nails.

You take a step forward, now standing in the middle of the hallway, smiling.

“We’re not dead yet, are we?”

“W–Well… that’s true, but…!” She retorts once more. Odile places a hand on her chin.

“We HAVE been in this room for a while, you know. And with Siffrin walking everywhere, it’s clearly not weight sensitive. If it was, it would’ve killed us all by now.” Isabeau nods, and Mirabelle looks around nervously, before letting out a sigh.

“Oh… well…

Okay! Yeah, okay! I’m, um, I’m sorry, I’ll believe you! … And, um. Sorry for… worrying. I’m a little on edge…”

You shake your head. “It’s all good, Mira.”

“See?”

“Everything’s fine–”

You hear a whooshing sound, and everything goes black.

As you live through the novel experience of having your body crushed by a giant rock,

You feel    like you’re    drifting through the stars

Where   are you?    All you can see     are stars            bright,   bright stars

You hear    that voice      again

“Are you simply going to give up and accept your fate?”

Who     …?

“Vow to me that thou shall not give in.”

You can’t         speak

“Show thy strength, and overcome this trial. We shall meet again soon, lest thou lose thyself in the stars…”

You feel

A tug

On your stomach...

Card III — END

[ack-cough]

Writing down meow!sabeau thing while eepy bare with me bare with me

During one of Mira's meeting with the Change god (the one where she rocks their shit) They just kinda lay it out plain and simple something along the ones of

"Well, I noticed you weren't doing so well with the whole 'Savior of Vulgarde' trauma, so I wanted to do something to give you a lil help! (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

And wouldn't you know, a certain wish granter just received a wish from your pal Isabeau. He was already planning to capital-C Change again anyway so why not do my specialty and give him a little nudge.

So boom a therapy cat for my favorite little cutie, everyone likes cats right? ฅ⁠^⁠•⁠ﻌ⁠•⁠^⁠ฅ/⁠ᐠ⁠｡⁠ꞈ⁠｡⁠ᐟ⁠\"

And Mira is just Horrified this was done just to make HER feel better.

I'm still debating why Mira was turned cat too- Maybe as a misinterpretation or CG trying to prove that what did to "Isa wasn't that bad"

[vulpixisananimal]

<Null> {Mal Du Pays} [Loop] (Siffrin)

. . . .

Ha. . .

HahahahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yoooooooou're fine!!! You're fine!!!!! Look!!! Everything's fine everything's fine everything's fine everything's fine everything's fine everything's FINE!!!!

You're sitting back at the favor tree with the stupid rain raining on your STUPID STUPID FACE!!!! HAHAHAH OF COURSE IT'S NOT THAT EASY!!!

Oh nieve little Siffy~ naive little cute little STUPID LITTLE SIFFRIN!! You're so stupid so stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!!

You want to go home.

You're stupid. It would never be so simple. Stupid, stupid, stupid. . . You just, just, j-just wanted to, fight that stupid blinding sadness and what happens?!?

Mirabelle, she, she, s-she--

Someone's calling your name. You can't, can't, can't make out what, w-what they're saying. Your whole body hurts, everything hurts. You're crying, you're shaking, you can't, can't, can't, t-think or. . .

Mirabelle died.

Mirabelle died and its your fault. YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT YOUR STUPID STUPID FAULT!!!

You're being talked to.

Isabeau hates you Odile hates you Pétronille hates you Mirabelle hates you Ramos hates you Bonnie hates you everyone everyone everyone hates you you're stupid STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID-

"SIFFRIN!!!"

You snap back to reality. You're hyperventilating and sitting there. Mirabelles hands are on your shoulder, she's worried, panicking, no, she's, she's crying.

"M-mira. . ."

"Siffrin!!! Oh change you're okay! Y-you weren't responding, a-and, I thought you were hurt, or-"

"M-mira. . ." You feel weak, but. ". . . hug, please. . ."

She blinks at you, then wraps you up in a soft hug. She's warm, she's alive, she's okay, she's, she's not dead. You're crying. You, move your arms, around her. You cry. You just, cry. . .

You're, okay. . . You're okay. . . . .

". . . Siffrin, what, what happened?"

You're mumbling. "I-I, it was, w-was. . ."

"You don't need to answer right away, okay?" She responds, holding you close, you're safe. "Oh! Uhm, who are you right now?"

"I. . ." Who are you?

". . . I don't, know."

"T-that's, that's okay." She pulls away from the hug, smilling, softly in that was she does. "Do you need a minute?"

"N-no I'm, fine-" You try sitting up and instantly are hit with a huge wave of dizzyness and nausea. You fall to the ground, Mirabelle and, and, what, was, their. . . Ramos. They're both next to you.

"C-careful! You look like death, j-just, lay down for a minute, okay?" You feel Mirabelles hand on your head. It's so cold.

"O-okay. . ."

"Craft exhaustion." Ramos finally speaks up. You close your eye.

"R-right, it, looks like it. Have you been looping?" Mirabelle asks.

You nod.

". . . Rest up, Sif, can't have you dying on us, okay?" Ramos' voice. You nod again, breathing steadying. You feel a vial at your lips, medicine, you drink it. That concoction for this kinda thing, right? Okay, okay. . .

. . . Your breathing. . . It's like waves. . . .

Black sand beach. . . A path to a tree. . . Looking out to the lightless sky. . . You're, shaking. . . You're alive. . .

You want to reach out to a star and eat it.

You breathe in. . . And out. . . . .

Who. Are. You.

. . . . . . . . . . .

"So, they probably already know, huh?"

"About Isa? P-probably, oh Sif. . . Just, how many times have you gone through this."

"It looks like a lot already. Stars, they're such a savior for being able to give us a second chance."

"Y-yeah. . . When, when we were going to fight the King, when Siffrin was stuck in those two days. We, we had to chase after Siffrin up the House."

"Chase him?"

"Y-yeah, they ran off because, uhm, it's not important. B-but! Going up the house, all the traps were disabled, sadness beat, everything."

"Woah. . . Did, did Siffrin do that, all by themself?"

"Yes it was! It was, well, impressive! A-and, terrifying-"

"'Belle!! 'Oz!!"

"Bonnie?!?"

"Why's everyone acting so WEIRD. Za's weird, 'Dile's weird-"

"It's mind craft again, kid. Did they grab you at all?"

"Nuh uh, I'm okay. I-Is, 'Frin okay?"

"Oh! They're exhausted, looping again. It's, well. . ."

[You take in a deep, deep breath, fill your lungs, before errupt into a coughing fit. You're okay, your body hurts, where, were you? Favor tree? It's raining. It's raining? Oh right, it's, raining. You feel a hand on your back.]

"A-are you alright?!?" [Mirabelle asks. You nod. You're just peachy~]

[You sit up, holding your head with a pounding headache. What the, stars, you're, what, where, uh. . . Okay. . .]

". . . Better?" [Ramos asks.]

"Oh stars no." [You chuckle.] "My head's been cracked open like an egg."

[They laugh, you smile. Well at least you can still do THAT. You look up at them.] ". . . Sorry, I'm, not entierly sure what's been happening, aha. . ."

"Uhm. . ." [Mira tilted her head.] "Do you know who you are now?"

"Oh! Loop, just your good ol' wonderful loop~" [You wink.] "What did those blinding idiot other me's do."

"Looped a lot, by the looks of things." [Ramos comments. You noticed they scooted away from you a few inches.] "Are you sure you're, uh, okay?"

"Ah just give me a few minutes and we'll be set to go!" [You rubbed your neck. Looking between Mira, Ramos, and. Bonnie, Bonnie was here. Was Bonnie always here? Stars. You close your eyes, and think.]

[. . . No, no they weren't. Have you really been out here that long? Usually by now you had been inside, right? Well when you went through the kitchen they were gone. And you had only ever seen them when the sadness appeared.]

[You shake your head, stars, wait, what on earth did you miss? Break ins? Sadness? Strangers? Stars. There's so much. Last loop, what happened. You fought a sadness, yes, beat it, everythng went fine, then. . .]

[. . . Something terrible happens. You can't remember what, just that absolute fear. Just that, you shouldn't, kill the sadness.]

[Concerning!]

[You shake your head again, back to attention. You smile at your companions.] "All good, now, I think."

"Don't push yourself, okay?"

"Yeah you CRAB!!!"

"You're our key player here, can't have you getting KOed."

[You nod, sheepishly.] "I'll do my best, can't say the same for the others~"

"Well that'll have to do!" [Mira huffs, and nods.] "If they keep being like that I'll have a stern talk with them. Now! What happened."

"Well. . ." [You start explaining what comes to mind. Suspects, who's affected, the sadness, it came to mind like. . . Like you were asking the questions to someone else, and you got an answer. Then you relayed that answer to Mira, Bonnie, and Ramos. What a strange memory to have. You don't remember, you more, remember remembering.]

"And, last loop, we were able to beat the sadness, but then. . ." [You squinted, trying to remember, but. . .] ". . . I don't remember, but something bad happened."

"Oooooookaaaaaaay." [Ramos rubbed their neck.] "Don't kill the very dangerous big scary sadness, got it."

"Uhm. . . What about those two who left?" [Bonnie asks, finally speaking up.]

"About. . Oh right! I never met them." [You try to think, could it have been them?]

"Uhm. . . I asked Jan about m' this morning." [Bonnie shrugged.] "Some traveling, uhm, researchers. Going to Worlworth, left early. Stayed a few extra days, so uh. . ."

[Hmm. . .] "How far could they have gotten?"

"In this rain? I dont know. . ." [Mira looked out to the woods.]

"Well, there's some chance they're still near. Mind craft has a bit of a range limit, I think that's what that star I had was for." [Ramos quiets down sheepishly at the end. Good, feel ashamed~]

"Well then I have a plan~" [You stand up, stumbling a little, then stretching your legs. You needed to get feeling back in them.] "Ramos, Bonnie, you two stay here. Those two random travelers, Vixul and Wren, they can help fight off the sadness, I think. Polaris too if you can undo the mind craft."

[You stretch your arms next.] "Me and Mirabelle, we're going to find that couple, hopefully they're right down the road~"

"Are you sure about that si- Loop?" [Asks Ramos.] "If they ARE the people who caused this, then, maybe I should-"

"We can't leave the inn undefended~" [You stick your tongue out. Plus, you didn't want Ramos around. And Bonnie should be out of harms way.] "Mirabelle and I can handle it."

"But-"

"We'll be alright, Ramos." [Mirabelle replies.] "We wont even need to fight if they are, and, if it is then we can beat them easily."

[Ramos looks between the two of you, unsure, then shrugs.] "I-if, if you're sure."

"Hey!" [Bonnie stands up.] "Just, don't get hurt okay?! Crabface."

"Not a scratch, Boniface, teehee~"

[The others stand up as well. You say a quick goodbye, Bonnie hands you some tonics, and that's it. You and Mirabelle went to the road leading to Worlworth, you had no idea how far you'd have to go, or if those two were even there, but. . .]

[. . A few minutes pass. Mirabelle speaks up.] ". . . . Loop, what's going on?"

"Hmm?" [You turn to look at her, smiling as you walk.] "Apart from the looping? Oh nothing~"

"Loop." [There was that stern voice again.] "I know you didn't promise to talk about your feelings, but you're still in my friends body, s-so."

"Nothing's wrong, Mirabelle." [Mask in place.]

[She stops in the road. She's looking at you, glaring at you. You feel a shudder run up your spine.]

". . . Mira-?"

"Loop. Please."

[. . . Your mask slips for a second.]

[You can't trust Ramos you're tired of looping you're paranoid about mind craft Isabeau yelled at you Isabeau kissed Mal you don't feel right in your body everything hurts all the time you still can't remember so much and they'll never know.]

[They all must never know.]

". . . . . . . . . . . ." [You look away.] "I'll. . . . Try to tell you, sometime."

". . . . Alright." [She sighed, then smiled.] "That'll have to do, but rememer, we're feelings buddies too, okay?"

[You nod, and smile.] "Okay, thank you, Mirabelle."

[She offers you a hug. You hesitate, then take it. She offered you a hug. You. You. Remember that. You hold the hug for a moment before stepping back.]

"Better?"

"A little~ Shall we?"

[The two of you headed off again at a steady pace. The rain didn't hinder you, if anything, it made you more determined to get this done- wait! You look down at the path, sure enough, there's a pair of footprints in the soft mud.]

[That makes you speed up. Maybe this was it? Maybe this was who you were looking for! Maybe you could get this all resolved and not tiptoe around everyone. Maybe you could finally relax.]

[Looking behind you, Mirabelle was keeping pace. Her expression. . . It was determined. She was a good friend. Is a good friend. She's, she's not your Mirabelle. But, she's family.]

[And she's strong.]

[One of the strongest people you know.]

[You don't know how long it took, but you soon came to a fork in the path. One to Wolworth, another leading to the Poterian border. There's a tree at the fork.]

[There's a couple sitting at the tree.]

[You feel a knot in your gut.]

[livesworthlivingau]

Lives Worth Living Chapter 21-23

Spoilers for ISAT/Two Hats below!

"You sure you're good Sif?" (You give a nod and a slight, genuine smile. With plenty of rest and soft food you were mostly feeling back to normal. Your throat was still pretty sore, but Odile let you keep the journal for the time being incase you needed to give more long winded answers.)

"Alright, if you're sure then. How about you Bon? You sure this is the right way?"

"I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life." (They say with a very neutral expression, causing Isa to laugh heavily.)

"Well I can't really argue with that, now can I?"

"This didn't happen last time, did it Siffrin?" (Mira asks you curiously, you just shake your head, looking as confused as everyone else.)

"I wonder what would have caused such a difference? Have there been any significant changes that you think might be to blame?" (Odile asks you, that investigative glint in her eyes. You shake your head at first, but then think some more, your expression dropping some.)

"Well... Loop..." (You mumble with a sadder tone. Odile raising a brow.)

"... It is a star... Maybe they're still out there somewhere, somehow? Helping guide you along one more time?" (You know Odile was just trying to make you feel better, but there may have been some truth to it. Nothing like this had happened before...)

(You feel Isa's hand on your shoulder suddenly, snapping you out of your own head and looking up at him. He smiles brightly down at you, giving a comforting squeeze with his grip. You smile back happily, leaning against him.)

"Nille, here we come!" (Bonbon cheers, leading the charge down the trail towards where they last saw the bright star guiding them.)

------------------------------------------------------

"Why isn't Frin coming?" <You ask, looking around as you notice he didn't leave with everyone.>

"Sif's just tired after the hike yesterday, still kinda recovering, but he's fine! Besides, between you and me I think he liked breakfast so much he went into a little food coma." <Za leans down to tell you that last part, you give a giggle in response.>

"My cooking IS pretty amazing... I guess it's only fair he couldn't handle it all!" <You grin wide, proud of yourself. Za just chuckles and pats your head.>

"Be careful Isabeau, we don't want their head to get too big for their hat." <Dile teases, you just stick your tongue out at her.>

<You all keep walking along to the center of the town, looking at all the fancy ingredients and foods at every stall you pass.>

"Does everyone have their shopping lists and coin?" <Dile asks everyone like the responsible grandma as usual.>

"Yup! Got mine! Camping supply duty!"

"A-And mine! Bonnie and I are food duty!"

"Yeah! I gotta find everything to make Nille's favorite!!" <You cheer, taking Belle's hand and heading off towards more of the food stalls.>

<You look around at what's available, looking for all the ingredients for a shrimp alfredo dish that Nille adored. You only get a little bit to browse before you suddenly hear her.>

"BONNIE!!" <You jump up, recognizing the voice instantly, looking around like mad to find where it came from. You finally spot her, Nille, running towards you with tears in her eyes.>

"NIIIIIILLE!!!" <You practically scream, sprinting towards her and tackling into her, wrapping your arms around her middle, her covering you with her own arms too as she kneels down to your height.>

"Oh Bonnie I've missed you so Crabbing much!!! I'm so glad you're okay!!! I can't believe you helped save the whole dang country!!!" <Your eyes were already pouring with tears, just so happy to finally see her again after so long. Her hug felt the same as it used to, you were so happy to feel it again.>

"I tried so hard Nille! I ran and ran and ran just like you told me to!" <You shout through your tears, sucking at keeping your emotions down even a little.>

"I know you did, I'm so proud of you Bon!" <She shouts back through her own tears. You were both kinda losing it, but it didn't matter, you finally had each other again.>

<After change knows how long of a hug, Nille finally sets you down and stands back up, wiping her tears with a shaky breath.>

"O-Oh! You gotta meet everyone!!" <You shout again, grabbing her hand and dragging her over to the others, they were already together behind you, having been watching.>

"Nille, this is Belle, Za, and Dile!" <Nille goes one at a time, shaking their hands.>

"Thank you all for taking care of Bonnie, and for saving me and the rest of the country of course!" <She cheered, like she was getting a little star struck. I guess we are kinda famous now, hehe.>

"Of course! We couldn't just leave the poor kid alone!"

"Y-Yes! It was our duty to take care of them, but they were a lot of help to have around too! I don't know if we would have made it without their amazing cooking, it really kept us going!"

"They're a real talent, aren't they? I can barely boil water without ruining it, they probably learned out of necessity." <Nille chuckles as you grin proudly.>

"I apologize for the interruption, but did you happen to see a bright star in the sky recently? Perhaps one that led you this direction?" <Dile pokes in, you turn to Nille with bright, wide eyes, wanting to hear the answer too.>

"Oh yeah! That's how we found you!! I saw a star and I just knew it was you!!" <You shout to help explain.>

"Yeah actually! Pretty sure that was my friend's doing, they made a little wish for us to find you and we noticed it a little bit later!" <Dile looks very shocked by that, you tilt your head some too since that was a weird thing to just have happen.>

"A wish? As in... Wish Craft?" <Dile asks after a second.>

"Oh, yeah! Hold on, this'll make more sense if they explain it I think." <Nille turns around, looking through the crowd and spotting someone, waving them over. Someone with a very pretty outfit walks over, darkless hair just like Frin, and... starry lightless skin on their arms?>

"Everyone, this is Vale, we've been travelling together for a little while. They saved me from a sadness that got the jump on me, about a week after y'all unfroze everyone." <The strange person waves a little, smiling really wide. Something about them feels familiar...>

"LOOP?!"

...

"Lead the way!"

<Nille whispers something into their ear before turning back to you. You smile so big, holding her hand tightly. You start to tell her about all your wild adventures as the saviors. Mirabelle coming along and holding your other hand as you all walked together.>

------------------------------------------------------

(You sit at the dining table, working on a little sewing project. You were never the best at it, but you still wanted to surprise Isa with a little gift. Besides, He'd probably cry over any gift you give him, even if it's complete garbage. The thought makes you chuckle to yourself as you work on the little bird plushie for him.)

(You suddenly hear a knock at the door. You perk up at that, wondering who that could be. If it were the others they would just walk in, the door was unlocked, it's Vaugarde after all, people don't do a lot of knocking. You get up from the table and walk to the door, peeking it open, met with the sight of a rather beautiful individual.)

"Uhm... Can I help yo-" (You start to ask, examining this stranger up and down, your words stop and you freeze as you notice the gradient shade of their arms, speckled with stars, looking to their face to see the slightly discolored eyes.)

"L... Loop?..."