Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’ve done it.

You’ve killed him.

He’s dead.

You’ve done it you’ve killed him he’s dead you’ve done it you’ve killed him he’s dead you’ve done it you’ve killed him he’s dead you’ve done it you’ve killed him he’s dead you’ve done it you’ve killed him he’s dead you’ve done it you’ve killed him IT’S OVER!!!

You stumble. You place your hand on your chest and breathe in.

and out.

and in.

And cough and cough and cough and it hurts and your stomach is burning through you from the inside out and your head feels like it’s ripping apart and it hurts and it hurts and you can’t stop coughing and you take your hand off your chest to cover your mouth and it comes off wet and it’s blood and you’re bleeding and you’re bleeding and you’re bleeding and you can’t stop your eyes from watering and you’re coughing and

It doesn’t matter.

because.

you’ve.

won.

you did it.

it’s over.

It’s all over!

Ha!

Hahahahahahahaha!

It’s over!

You’re free.

Someone gasps.

You snap around to see who made that noise (and instantly regret it because you almost fall over and the room is spinning and you are absolutely going to throw up)

Oh.

It’s them.

Your actors.

There’s looks of concern on their faces. Of worry. Of fear.

but it’s okay.

it’s not real.

none of this is real. None of THEM are real.

Only the performance matters.

And what a show it was! The ending was perfect! Spectacular, even! You can almost hear the audience cheering! Bravo, you can hear them cry. What a finale!

Hahahahaha!

That finale was some of your best work, wasn’t it?

But.

That was the only sequence that went well, isn’t that right?

You look across the faces of your actors (or try to, really. Your eyes are blurry and it’s getting hard to keep them open). The only thing you can feel is disappointment.

Contempt, even.

They’re rushing to your side, saying… something. You don’t hear what (because you’re ignoring them, or because there’s something wrong with your ears? It hardly matters), but it’s probably empty words of fake comfort. They all hate you. You know it. Why else did they so intentionally go off script? Why else would they have gotten upset yesterday? Your role is the leader. Your role is to make them stronger. Instead, they pretended to have hurt feelings.

Oh, Siffrin, they all said. How dare you be so right? How dare you be so kind, trying to solve our problems and unlock our strongest skills? What kind of actors would we be if we let you help us? You’ve forced our hand, Siffrin! We’re going to scheme, and plot, and DISGRACE your performance! We’re going to forget our lines! We’re going to act out! We’re going to show the world how horrible you truly are!

Well, they sure showed you! Ha! Haha! Hahahahahaha! All their setbacks, and you still WON! The audience was ENRAPTURED! You can actually see them, shimmering far above you like stars!

Stars…

Stars, it makes you sick. How were you saddled with such disgraceful actors. Better actors would’ve never done this to you. Your REAL FAMILY would’ve never done this to you.

You!

You…

you need to lie down.

You hit the brick floor hard. It knocks the wind out of you.

You try to breathe.

You can’t.

You can’t breathe, and it’s all their fault.

It’s all their fault.

all their fault all their fault all their fault all their fault all their fault all their fault all their fault ALL THEIR FAULT ALL THEIR FAULT ALL THEIR FAULT!!!!

THESE POOR BLINDING EXCUSES FOR ACTORS!! If they'd had only LISTENED! Only FOLLOWED! This never would've happened! But NO! They just HAD to go off script! They just HAD to mess it all up!

As you slip out of consciousness, you wish you had actors that could actually follow their lines. That cared about the performance as much as you.

That’s all you want anymore.

Chapter Text

The King falls just as the party reaches the third floor.

His voice is deafening when inside the throne room, but from your faraway perch at the top of the Favor Tree, you can only hear the echoing reverberations of his moans. This last one was different, though. It wasn’t a cry of grief. It was a scream of agony, pained and desperate, like the noise of a cornered animal coming to the realization that this was it.

That it was going to die.

You wonder what your Stardust’s allies are thinking at this moment, hearing his death rattle. The final cry of the villain they've traveled for months to kill. You’re still making the fourth hand shape, but the connection of the Call was faint by the second floor. Even so, you bring your hand back up to the side of your face.

The first thing you hear is The Housemaiden letting out a gasp. “Oh! The people around us, I can– I can feel them coming back to normal, all over Vaugarde!”

You would be just as surprised as her…

(But why WOULD you be, you blinding idiot. In every single loop where he falls, the instant his dreary influence drains from Vaugarde, she feels it. Why wouldn’t she, this time around? Just because she wasn’t right there? Just because she didn’t deal the final strike?)

…if you weren’t furious.

(You could never beat The King.)

(Countless attempts. Countless lifetimes of training, with your family, YOUR family, beside you at every step. But it didn’t matter. No matter what strategies you tried, or how perfectly you performed, you couldn’t even slay him once.)

(Your Stardust, at their lowest, killed him single-handedly.)

You hear Isabeau The Fighter's voice crackle across the line, thick in determination despite it all. “Sif’s just up ahead! We have to make sure they’re okay!”

Then The Housemaiden, her own voice melting into anger. “And once we do, I’m gonna kick their STUPID CRABBING BUTT!!!!!!”

The Researcher lets out a curt, dry laugh. “You’re going to kick the butt of the person who slayed The King and saved all of Vaugarde? Even with their behavior yesterday, that’s not a good look.”

The Housemaiden considers this. “...okay, maybe I’ll just kick his butt a little bit. Let’s go.”

That’s all you hear before the line fades into an interference-filled emptiness.

You almost ran into the House alongside them, but that would have been pointless. No, against all odds, your Stardust took out The King, but that doesn’t mean his theory was correct. The loop could restart at any moment now, so you might as well just–

Your back slams into the rooty dirt below. If you still had lungs, surely the wind would’ve been knocked out of you. Wow!~ After so long without a real body, you forgot what pain feels like! Real, genuine pain! It SUCKS!~

Every fiber of your not-body aches, but the pain is nothing compared to…

…Stars.

The timeline has skipped before, but that wasn’t a skip. That was a lurch. That felt like getting shot by a cannon.

What just happened?

What in the Universe could’ve caused that?!

Sitting up with a groan, you climb back up to your perch. From here, you can see the House again, and it looks… the same as it always does after The King falls.

You can’t tell if this is reassuring or not.

Then again, everything should’ve reset by now. It’s never taken this long, even on the loops where your Stardust takes their sweet time yucking it up with their allies. And that lurch-- in all your loops and his combined, you’ve NEVER felt the timeline skip like that.

…

You make the fourth hand sign and reach out to The Housemaiden on reflex. Your mind, a step behind, reasons that she's probably still too far away. That doesn't matter. You need answers.

There’s…

Nothing.

You should be hearing interference. The shimmering, static-y sound of a call too far away to properly connect.

But.

There’s.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

(Oh no.)

You taught them all the sign. You try them all. You have to.

The Fighter.

Nothing.

The Researcher.

Nothing.

The Kid.

Nothing.

(Stars, please. No.)

Only one person left. The last person who’d want to hear from you. The last person you want to hear from.

Siffrin.

A click–

A wall of Ṉ̵͆O̵͙͘I̵̥̅S̴̺̐E causes you to spasm, breaking your concentration and nearly knocking you out of the Tree (again).

What was THAT?!?! It was deafening! It was piercing!

It made your head feel like it was s p l i t t i n g i n t w o . . . !

“LOOP!”

A voice you can’t recognize calls out to you.

“LOOP, ARE YOU THERE?!”

Another. Still unfamiliar.

“LOOP, PLEASE! WE NEED YOUR HELP! SOMETHING’S WRONG!”

That’s a third voice, much younger than the other two. Oh, something’s wrong? You couldn’t tell!~

You look down.

It’s some of the villagers, standing in front of the Favor Tree. Seeing their faces jogs your memory a bit. The first is the Blind One, the third is the Small Boulangere. The second… you still can’t quite place it, your long-faded memory of the Dormont beyond this forest not solid enough to hazard a guess. Whatever the case, you’ve never told them your name, and you doubt the party had the time to. How do they know you…?

“LOOP!” The Small Boulangere pleads, tears streaming down her eyes like waterfalls. “QUICKLY! BEFORE THE DIRECTOR–” The Second One’s hands are instantly over her mouth, his eyes filled with fear. He tries, desperately, to shush her, but her hiccuping cries are anything but muffled.

Well, if the waterworks weren’t enough to convince you to come down, *that* certainly was. You quickly climb down, bounding off and landing in front of them.

“Greetings, neighbors!~ My! Word got around about little old me fairly quickly, didn’t it–”

The Blind One lowers his head, and his voice flattens much the same. “Loop. Please. No games this time. Just give us a straight answer. Where did you go?”

There’s something about his question that’s wrong, but you can’t place it. All of your attention is on the sound of his voice.

The Second One continues the question. “We tried looking for you. Whenever we got the chance, in those few fleeting moments The Director was occupied, we searched every tree, every building, every corner of this town. I can't tell how long we were looping, but regardless of the length there's only one thing I know for certain. You. Weren't. There.”

You can't focus on his words, either. His voice. BOTH of their voices. Why are they speaking like that!? WHY ARE THEY USING YOUR ACCENT?!?

It’s the Small Boulangere’s turn. She’s doing it too. “Did they take you away from us, or were you just hiding? Were you powerless to help us, or were you just too scared? Stars, that was it, wasn’t it? All you did when you WERE here is just sit under that tree and rattle off blindingly obvious facts to me, pretending like it’s advice." She takes in a shaky breath, although her voice sounds more spiteful than terrified now. "You're just as useless as me, aren’t you? You've been useless this entire time.”

Her words are the first to break through your panic, cutting it like a dagger. You finally processes what these three have been asking you.

“No games this time.”

“How long we were looping.”

“Blindingly obvious facts, pretending like it's advice”

The use of "I” and “me”. Not “him”. Not “them”. Not “the heroes” or “the saviors” or any other honorific the people of Vaugarde have loved praising the party with for longer than you can remember.

And their voices. They spoke with the tired anger of a rogue who’s fought through the same enemies more times than they could count.

It finally clicks for you. (Idiot.) Your voice drops down to a shaking whisper. (Coward.) “...Stardust?”

“Yes?” They answer in unison.

“...What happened?”

They tell you.

—

If you were on the fence about killing Siffrin before, you aren’t now.

No point in waiting around for them to come to you.

Chapter Text

You really need a nap.

You’ve had trouble sleeping for… well, as long as you can remember-- although, for someone like you, that doesn’t mean much. Suffice to say, even when you’re well-rested, you’re tired.

Today, you are not well-rested.

It’s still fairly early in the morning when you make it to Dormont. Odile is the only one of your group that actually has chores to do, so the rest of you scatter to check out Mirabelle’s hometown. Isa heads west, Bonnie goes east, you might as well head south.

Ah! Luck must be on your side today! You find a meadow clearing that looks like the perfect spot. As soon as you lay down in the soft grass, you instantly fall asleep.

And have the strangest dream.

Not that your dreams are ever not strange. They usually are. They’re also usually nightmares! Dark, strange tragedies happening to you, or your friends, or Vaugarde…

(...As if a dark, strange tragedy wasn’t very much currently happening to you, your friends, and Vaugarde already…)

From the fragments you can recall, it was tomorrow– the day that you and your friends will be entering the House to take on The King. You’ve all been planning, in vague and uncertain terms, how this final leg of your journey would go for months now. The discussions ramped up even more, and solidified into an actual strategy, right around the time you collected the final orb and started the journey back to Dormont. It’s been a little over two weeks since then, and you’ve spent every spare moment turning the battle plan over and over in your head.

With so much of your brain power dedicated to it, it’s no surprise that you’d stress-dream about it!

But…

It wasn’t a stress dream.

It was…

Stars, you don’t know how to put it into words.

Mirabelle has recounted her escape from Dormont’s House a number of times, and she always brought up how The King began shifting its layout as soon as he took control, rearranging rooms to keep its inhabitants confused and trapped long enough for his curse to take effect. Mira’s blessing gave her enough time to find the exit, but the House was still warping long after that. You were all expecting the unexpected– that the House would have morphed into a near-impossible labyrinth of nonsensical hallways and despairingly-convoluted routes. Who could say how twisted the House would be? How many traps The King would have filled it with?

Typically, you all take your time. You poke around. You chat. You fight powerful Sadnesses. You discover your way forward is behind a locked door before you find the key to open it.

From the shards you can remember, though, it was nothing like that. Yes, the House in your dream was bizarre and shuffled, but you and your party marched through it like you were familiar with every hallway, every brick in the wall. It was almost mechanically efficient. Not a word was spoken, the only sound was the lock-step of your footfalls, ticking away like the gears of clockwork, keeping perfect time.

Any Sadnesses you did see acted like they were deliberately trying to avoid you.

None of them cried.

A gap.

You were all facing The King.

It was your mission to face him, but none of you really expected to beat him. He was a monster of a man, massive in size and immensely powerful. If you actually somehow make it to his throne room tomorrow, you half-expect him to instantly kill you in-between sobs.

In this dream, he was as quiet as the rest of you. He didn’t weep, he didn’t moan, he didn’t even move. He merely sat there, letting you take him out of his misery.

Another gap.

You met someone.

She was tall and looked important, but there was an awful dread surrounding her. The kind of fatal gravitas you expected to see from The King (And probably will see from him! In the real world! Assuming, of course, you can actually make it to him.)

The silence broke, after a moment. Your friends spoke, and you spoke to them.

You can’t recall who talked and in what order. You can’t even tell exactly what was said, but they were words of comfort– what you’ve always hoped to hear, but never really expected.

You all embraced, and it felt warm.

It… feels warm.

You suddenly realize that you’re awake.

You’re not asleep.

That all actually happened.

You and your friends went through the House. You can’t remember entering it.

You and your friends fought The King. You can’t remember defeating him.

You and your friends had a heartfelt conversation. You can’t remember what words were spoken.

You can’t remember.

You can’t remember you can’t remember you can’t remember you can’t remember you search and search and search and search and nothing comes up it’s all gone it’s all gone it’s all gone it’s all gone like everything you’ve ever known like everything you’ve ever loved you’ve forgotten it all

You’ve done it again.

You’ve done it again.

WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!?!

You try to steady your breathing. You glance up, hoping that nobody has noticed how blinding stupid you are.

But it’s too late. Everyone’s eyes are already on you.

You already blew it. You flinched as soon as you came back to consciousness, breaking the hug with a jolt. You ruin everything.

You scan their faces. It was the end of a year-long quest and you zoned out through everything, then ruined the picture-perfect ending by snapping back so suddenly you scared yourself. You expect frustration. Disappointment. Confusion. Betrayal.

All you see is horror.

?

Did you do something wrong just now?

“Did we do something wrong just now?”

?!?!

You look towards Mirabelle. Why did she say that? She’s the last person who should be saying that!

She flinches when your eyes lock, and she begins to cry.

Isabeau slowly approaches you, hands up defensively. “I-It’s okay. We can just go again, right? Just tell us how we failed and we can give it another shot, right?!” His voice is thick with desperation, like someone begging for their life. “All we want is to make you happy…”

You don’t know what’s happening. None of this makes any sense. Go again? What does he mean, go again?

Can’t they tell that you don’t understand?

Your increasingly-wide-eyed stare flicks towards Odile. She’s incredibly perceptive! If anyone would notice, it’s her! She’s the smartest and most level-headed of the group! She can explain what you did, why everyone is suddenly scared of you!

But it’s like she’s not even there. She’s trembling, staring off into the middle distance. Muttering to herself. Isa’s pleads and Mirabelle’s tears seem to fade away as you strain your ears to focus.

“No more, please no more, please no more, I can’t do this again. I can't do this again. No. Not again. Not again, no. Please...”

Her Ka Buan accent. It’s gone.

She’s speaking with yours.

Is… is she mocking you? Are they all mocking you, somehow!? Could they all tell you spaced out, and are asking to go again so you can actually FOCUS this time?!? You already felt, on some level, that all your friends allies hated you, but this revelation sends a stab of betrayal through your heart.

What else do you have to live for?

You turn to run.

You don’t make it three steps down the stairs before something indescribable enters your field of view.

A living star, stuffed and crumpled ill-fittingly into the shape of a person.

You've never seen anything like it before, but you can tell that, somehow, it knows you.

And it wants to kill you.

You stumble.

The last thing you see before cracking your head open on the stone steps is your party.

Your mind must be playing tricks.

They all

look

exactly

like

you

Chapter Text

You were nothing before this. A scared little extra without a backstory, wandering from stage to stage, not knowing your cues. But then, with a little improv, you gained a starring role in a proper production.

(Haha! Star-ring! You’ve been in your new role for so long you can’t remember the last time you’ve made a pun, scripted or otherwise.)

The final scene was so hard to get right. Countless attempts, but nothing worked. Nothing was good enough, until…

It clicked.

You finally saw it. The vision! The genius! It was a work of art, this production! Oh, the Universe was such a perfect playwright! You finally saw the truth! Every line came naturally, as if you yourself had written them! Ah, but you took too long. By the time it finally made sense to you. The other actors were fed up. They spent so long in the dark that when someone finally saw the light, they rejected them. They rejected YOU!

Fools. Utter blinding fools.

You tried to be gentle. Leading them to their cues, feeding them their lines, all with a smile on your face, and compassion in your heart.

They rejected you. Gossiped behind your back. Decided to ruin the performance, and when they saw it was too perfect to be ruined, they decided they would perform it without you.

You couldn’t have that.

To spite them, you did a rehearsal all by yourself, and ah! It was glorious, wasn’t it? But they still didn’t understand.

They didn’t UNDERSTAND!

ONLY YOU UNDERSTOOD!

So.

You did what anyone would, in your position.

You got new actors.

Actors that saw the vision. Who understood the brilliance.

And you got them! They even knew their lines! How wonderful– passionate actors who memorized their script before even joining the production!

They all cried during the first rehearsal. Screamed until their throats were sore. Who wouldn’t, from such a moving masterpiece? Such a flawless script?

It was clear, all they needed was a guiding hand.

Thus, you became The Director.

For such perfect actors, it took more rehearsals than you expected. You were so fatigued from your own, you were worried you would eventually give up, step down from your position, and leave such a magnum opus unperformed!

You couldn’t live with yourself, if you did.

So you stuck with them, and in time, it went perfectly! You never told them that, though. A job well done is praise enough, and even if it wasn't, they'd surely be showered in applause long after the lights dim.

You ran one more rehearsal. Flawless.

Another, just to be safe. Yet again, flawless.

Wonderful!

It was time.

The curtains fall.

The loops have been broken.

You’ve done it.

A noise, somewhere between a sigh of relief and an unsteady chuckle, escapes you.

Ah, The Ultimate Performance! Your masterpiece! Complete! If you were still there on stage, you’d be taking a bow!

But none of your actors do. They stand stock still at their final marks.

Why?

Your Understudy breaks from the huddle with a gasp, shaking. He looks bewildered, likely for the same reason you are. It’s finally over, so what do we do now? Do we give the audience an encore? Do we prepare for the next showing? Do we have a wrap party and then all… go…

…home?

Hold on.

You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?

But how could you be? There’s no more lines! The loops are broken! The performance is over! You heard the applause! You saw the curtains fall!

Right?

You realize how quiet it is. How lightless the void around you is. Did the audience already leave?

No. There was never an audience to begin with.

But, if there was no audience, then why were you performing?

...Oh.

“Did we do something wrong just now?”

Oh, stars.

“It’s okay. We can just go again, right? Just tell us how we failed and we can give it another shot, right?! All we want is to make you happy!”

What have you done?!

You don’t register your understudy Siffrin try to run. You don’t register Loop entering the room, wanting to kill him, because they still think he’s you.

All of them still think he’s you.

But you’re not him. You’re not Siffrin, not anymore.

You’re the Director of a performance that didn’t exist.

You started the loops to stay with your family. You left the loops by killing them.

No. Not killing them. Erasing them. All that’s left of them now is shadows. Actors improvising from a half-learned backstory and a script that you wrote.

A loud crack breaks through, and you finally focus on the scene below you.

Siffrin lies face-up at the bottom of the steps, a dark pool dripping out from the back of his head. The actors rush to his side. Isabeau Siffrin and Odile Siffrin try to use Regener-ade on his body. Mirabelle Siffrin helps Bonnie Siffrin look through their bag for tonics or crafted water. They didn’t pick up any items on the way up, but maybe they had some left over? Maybe they can run back down and grab some if Isabeau Siffrin and Odile Siffrin can keep him holding on? Would they even have enough time?

You turn away in fearful agony.

You don’t know if this will work.

You hope it doesn’t, for his sake.

For your own.

No matter what happens, all that’s left is Siffrin.

You can’t imagine a worse fate.