Archive of Our Own ^beta

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You heard a story as a child. One that stuck with you.

Ah, no that’s…not quite right – better to say that you heard the same story a great many times, as it was bent to fit the needs of each storyteller who'd taken it up to breathe back to life that old and well-trodden narrative.

‘There is normal, and there is…other. If you need to be told which is which, you’ve already failed the test.’

…That story, no matter the many ways it was told over and over again, somehow always had the same heart, for all the times you sat through it. Also, it was a message fated to fail to ever make the impact those would be teachers intended it to have. How could it not fail – no other lesson of your childhood was more irrational or impossible to live up to that that one, and not from a lack of stiff competition.

Even otherwise sensible parents seem to think that they should retell those stories, same as their parents did when they were young. Be kind, listening to your elders, follow the rules, and…remember you can do everything right…and bad things will still happen anyway.

Ah, possibly you are being a little dramatic right now.

Maybe even…very dramatic.

Siffrin is dead…but that’s nothing new. Just one more instance of you being a little too slow to prevent this thing that is unchangeable, much like the growing sickness pooling in the pit of your stomach, the ache building behind your temples, and helpless rage caged ever tighter in your chest.

You are beginning to fear acceptance of Siffrin’s death is the only way to end the time loops, and how could you not fear that when with echoes of stories linger in your mind. Echoes of all those ‘heroes’ who when faced with the death of someone they cared for, were forced to face down mortality…and the inescapability of death. No power, money, fame, luck, or strength can let someone evade death. No matter who you are in life, at the end of it there are only two true inevitably, no matter what Vaugardians might believe about crabs. If you are born…then you must also die.

It is inevitable.

Death comes with no warning, ceremony, or ritual. Death does not work to a schedule or pause a moment to give the living have a chance to say goodbye. Changing from a body to corpse happens in the space between a

breath in

and out again.

…That’s it. That’s all it takes for the living to become the dead. Nothing left to do but accept it for the inevitable and unchangeable thing that it simply is.

…However.

When there is a time loop involved.

This.

This –

THIS is the one time you feel that a little allowance to stubbornly fight against fate.

This is no corpse you’re trying to raise back to life. No matter how often Siffrin dies, no matter how often he carelessly throws himself into the way of an incoming attack, he will be back…just as soon as you find the most direct way to die, so you can loop back and try again to see if you are simply persist enough that maybe YOU are such that can truly make death back down.

And yet…even put like that…your rational still rings in your ears like the ravings of insanity. A…not unfair judgement, when you are going insane…and worse even then being aware of your insanity is how you KNOW that shouldn’t be happening. This is a TIME LOOP. You should not be on the brink of breaking – not when there’s no REASON for you to be grieving for someone who isn’t yet dead.

It’s been 217 loops.

YOU KNOW THIS.

…You…

…know this.

And you…will remember this.

Just as you will keep remembering this until there is no choice but to accept that this story has a tragic ending…ha, no, even if you knew this to be doomed…you’d still not give up.

Either you and Siffrin will live, or….

….

…you’ve…wasted enough time in this loop grieving for someone only ‘technically’ dead.

Now. Get off the damn ground.

You’re an adult.

ACT like one.

You brace and get yourself onto your feet, eyes fixed on the body.

Your knee hurts worse than ever, but that’s barely even noticeable right now, with so much adrenaline racing through your system. So numbing is it that it’s only the jarring pain when you drop to kneel at Siffrin’s side which reminds you that they’d not blocked the attack aimed at you. But there’s no point checking the depth of the wound in your side.

You only need to live long enough to perform the final rites for Siffrin.

You are the first to reach Siffrin this time, and so allow yourself to take an extra moment, reaching out tidy Siffrin’s hair as best you can considering the lightless blood clumping it up, before you speak. “I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough, you reckless fool,” you say without feeling for these once more repeated words that would be horribly scripted, but for knowing the dead rarely shift from their lines either makes them finally taste appropriate in your mouth, “Siffrin, you were a cut above the rest. You deserved better than to die like this.”

“M-madame?! Are you sure – ?!?” Mirabelle is the first and the only one to speak, and even she cuts herself off without finishing that thought.

However, the reason she did doesn’t make sense…not until there’s a little noise, pained and confused, from…Siffrin. Siffrin who…begins slowly uncurling from the protective ball he’d rolled into, their lightless eyepatch turning away so you can now see his one remaining eye opening to

look

up

at –

“Hey. Odile? Did you…say a pun. Because…you thought I died?” Siffrin rasps, as they wipe the blood out of their face.

You…were not hallucinating apparently.

Siffrin…is alive.

Siffrin…is really alive…and despite that, the violent boiling in your chest isn’t anything like relief. How could it be that when no matter what you do, how you ask, the things you change or leave alone…Siffrin’s resolve to protect you all with their life…never changes. You understand. You understand…very well – just as you understand that there is nothing that can be done to convince someone not be a suicidal martyr when they are already –

No.

Siffrin is not a ghost you are merely too stubborn to let go of….and you are nearly sure of that.

But…how much longer will you still be ‘nearly’ sure?

You…

…don’t know –

There is something in you tearing as that determination wears ever thinner every time you must do this. HA, being always ready to sacrifice your life, careless of those you leave behind…that is the most heartless way treat the those who –

“Odile, wha – nya?!?”

Dragging Siffrin into a hug is…possibly on the higher tier of impulsive decisions you’ve made without thinking through the consequences of them. Yet it’s something you clearly did consider slightly as you find yourself readying to plant the blame for your impulsiveness onto Isabeau before you’ve processed the confusion yourself over what did inspire that…

…or that Siffrin has gone so utterly stiff they must be holding their breath.

Which…

…does…make sense…

…you did just touch them completely without warning –

Gems, no, what are you thinking – blaming Isabeau will NOT be wave away anything you just did even if they did know about the time loops?! Which…they don’t know that…do they! And even if you do know about the time loops – that might not make this better?!

Jerking away, your attention flickers between the slight drawing together of Siffrin’s eyebrows, to how he blinks in bemusement, expression dazed, as you can only seem to stare back, equally dazed and unsure why you did that –

“FRIN YOU STUPID CRABFACE!?! YOU MADE DILE THINK YOU WERE DEAD?!! BE MORE CAREFUL YOU CRABFACED IDIOT OR I’LL PUT CRABS IN YOUR FOOD FOREVER YOU CRABBING IDIOT!?!?!? " Boniface yells very close to you before tackling Siffrin and…tries to…hug them to death.

You…are incredibly thankful for Boniface’s interruption.

More grateful still when Isabeau and Mirabelle join them, all three of them piling onto Siffrin until they’re crushed at the centre of the impulsive group hug. Considering the scare you all just had, that…isn’t completely unwarranted.

Better yet, this might make Siffrin forget your impulsiveness –

…wait.

Is Siffrin…crying. While smiling…?

Due to…being hugged?

….?!?

You cannot form any sort of coherent thought, but you…that is something you should…think about later.

Maybe…?

Yes, maybe – but not now.

Definitely not…best for now put your focus on…burying all of this and…first, you need to remember that all you need to feel is gratitude that Siffrin…did not die.

Everything is fine.

You…just…made a mistake.

Overreacted…slightly and…jumped to a conclusion. Siffrin…is alive and that means…

And…that means -

This is...good.

It must be good, isn’t it – ? Yes. Yes, it is – but if it is good, and if everything is fine, then why do you still feel…feel what? You must feel something…and yet, no matter how you pause, searching for anything…

…you can’t find…

…

…what…are you searching for a glimpse of beyond the grey emptiness filling your mind, chest, guts and –

Something touches your knee and without thought your arm flashes up to guard –

…

Ah.

It was…just Siffrin.

Siffrin…must have…tapped your knee. And he’s now…watching you.

Watching you with…such care – ah. You…know that expression. That is rather how you look at them…when they’ve just had an utter breakdown over NOTHING. Just as YOU, despite being able to see that, cannot calm thundering heartbeat or raspy breathing or find focus to think, let alone speak –

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. Or, uh…scaring you when I got K.O.ed, I guess. So sorry for…both of those…?” Siffrin says as they force a smile, and add, “Sooo…you got…any other puns? Cus that one was…a killer!”

“Sif?! Change!? Do NOT – ” Isabeau hisses.

“I…thought you were dead,” you force out of your mouth, ignoring the pun and Isabeau’s panicked interruption.

“Yes, I got that bit, though I’m still not clear about why that little tumble I took led to such a…sharply worded pun?” Siffrin asks.

“Yeah, why did you make a JOKE about Frin being dead?!?! That was like…REALLY crabbing weird, Dile?!?” Boniface demands, and your eyes instinctively flick to the kid, noting the half-dried tracks of tears still visible on their face.

“Bonnie don’t say it like that, I thought it was touching. Like, not saying that M’dame Odile didn’t overreact a little – no, I think I’ve decided that I might be instead a little insulted I didn’t get a pun when I was K.O.ed! Guess this means M’dame has a favourite!” Isabeau says, tone playful, but he avoids your eyes when you glance at him.

Mirabelle hysterically gestures at you, Isabeau, and Siffrin, with equal exasperation. “Overreact a LITTLE?! The Sadness barely – Madame Odile did you even CHECK Siffrin before – ”

…And now…they’re all talking at you and yelling at each other. All so excited, disjointed, loud, as they interrupt or talk over each other, and…you can’t seem to make yourself listen to any of it.

You don’t understand, this…is what you wanted to happen…?

And yet…

…you…are still shaking.

….

Why…

…can’t you stop…

…shaking.

…

Why…?

….

There is no…reason –

This

…

is

…

FINE…?

Siffrin is alive…?!

Everyone is alive and…

…and…

….

…and yet you can’t –

“Dile…? Are you…okay…?”

It’s only sheer force of will that you smother the torrent of screaming rage that tried to bubble up, only possible because it was Boniface that spoke first, and you recognised it just in time no matter the throbbing of your head and throat. But that is the only control you still have for what comes out of your mouth.

“No. I…rather think I am not – but considering why I’m not okay, I rather think you should direct that question to Siffrin, not me,” you say, and…gems, all that effort and that was still only slightly better than screaming rage?!

“Frin didn’t decide someone was dead, say a pun, and then start crying,” Boniface mutters obstinately.

“I am not crying,” you reply not able to bring yourself check for evidence to prove them wrong or mount a defence beyond that base denial.

“Yes?!? You are – ?!?”

“Hey! I say we let Odile off the hook for like…everything really?! I really am just happy she cares so much as to think up a special pun for me – and since it seems to only be me…that makes me her favourite, right?” Siffrin says.

“Frin you CRABBING – ?!?”

“Oh! Hey, Odile?” Siffrin says loudly, and with a flash of panic as they try and drown out Boniface before they can say anything else. “It would be like…super awkward to use the same pun again, if I do die later. Want me to brainstorm some other puns for you…to use…next time…?” Siffrin trails off and yet ‘next time’ continues echoes in your head like a bell as you stare dully back at Siffrin.

It is…growing so very difficult to convince yourself to keep arguing with this ghost whose lines never change.

“ – I…uh…you know! You should ignore that – please ignore it, even!” Siffrin says. “And if you want to use the same joke when I for real die, you can totally do that, I don’t mind at all – ”

“NEVER MIND!? Dile is RIGHT!?!?” Bonnie yells, frustrated tears returning to gather in their eyes as they glare at Siffrin. “Frin SHOULD talk about how he keeps NEARLY DYING trying to save people who’d have been COMPLETELY FINE?!?!?”

“But…I don’t do that?” Siffrin says, sounding only a little lost. “I certainly don’t want to die – I just…it’s just the most likely think to happen and…that’s why I lead…isn’t it? Because I’m fast and observant, and so…am best at protecting all of you – ”

Boniface…is yelling again. Mirabelle and Isabeau look upset but are balancing between that and trying to calm down Boniface. Siffrin is…still talking. And likely making…all the rest worse because they do not understand why ANYONE is upset with them.

And you…

…you…are…

Your tongue feels…thick. Much the same as your head, throat, and nose. The bitter taste of burnt sugar seems to have stuffed them all up, but despite everything feels increasingly muffled and distant sense of the world about you, those previously missing thoughts have returned to you with…crystal clarity.

“Siffrin.”

“ – Oh, uh…yes, Odile?”

“Is there anything I can do to make you value your life, even just a tiny bit more then you do now?”

“I…not sure I quite get what you’re saying here – ”

“Siffrin. This is…very simple,” you say, blinking slowly so Siffrin comes into focus again. “Is there any desire you could feel strongly enough so you’d fight to live? A single person, thing, idea, goal – is there anything at all which would finally force you to put your life on the same level as ours?”

“Even if you think I’m careless, I still don’t – why are you refusing to just believe what I’m telling you about – ?!”

You…can’t see a point in listening any longer. You have heard this all before.

You know how this will end.

There.

Is.

No.

Point.

…Why. Why can’t Siffrin understand that you just need him to do this one little thing.

Wanting to live is not complex. Most animals fight to survive motivated by nothing but instinct – most people too. Those that don’t do that have the urge to survive usually need to be fundamentally broken by something and even those ones will still claw and bite and tear when you push their heads under water.

….

…Well.

If that’s what it takes….

So be it.

Grabbing Siffrin’s collar in a fist, you drag them towards you, the yelps and screams of the rest of your family inconsequential, same as the fear in Siffrin’s expression.

“What do you want me to do. What do you need me to say. Tell me and I will see it done. I promise there is no limit. I’ll do whatever daft thing you could demand of me, as I’d so them all without so much as pausing to think,” you hiss, voice fitting different in your mouth now, but right now feels perfectly right.

“I – I – please – be REALLY happy if you’d maybe…let go of me – !?!?” Siffrin yelps, trying to pull your hands free from their cloak…but still that demand is one utterly irrelevant to the question you asked them.

“Are you going to make me beg? I’d do it, even if it only serves to embarrass both of us! Is there anything I can threaten you with which would matter enough to make a difference? Are there words that would cox you I’m just not eloquent enough to find?! Is there ANYTHING that I could use to convince you to take just a FRACTION more care with your life?!?”

Siffrin is shaking their head – are they STILL not going to ANSWER YOU?!?!? Breathe hissing hot between your teeth, you can taste nothing but burned sugar, but…terrible as the growing realsation that this is a ghost before you...your core is only more fortified to keep trying anyway. You finally having a goal to chase.

One. Clear. Task.

You will pry an answer from Siffrin…

…or you’ll send both of you through the gateway to hell trying to prevent the inevitable.

“Siffrin, what have I missed. What did I fail to do – what can I say? Is there ANYTHING that will make you cease continuously attempting to SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE?! Please, what could I possibly use to get this through your thick skull – Siffrin! If you listen to nothing else, listen to this. I vow on the gems of my family, if you die then I will do everything in my power to ensure I don’t outlived you longer than the few moments needed to raise a blade to my throat and – ”

[STARS, RESEARCHER – PLEASE STOP TALKING?!?!?]

“ – MADAME?!?!”

“WHAT THE CRAB?!?!?”

….

You…

…stop.

There is terror in Siffrin’s eyes, and a horrible silence from all the others, one that does nothing to muffle the fizzing in the air, or rattling breaths jerking in and out of your mouth.

…

…What…

…are you DOING –  

Wrenching back your hands, failing slightly to get as far from Siffrin as you can, your breath catches violently rough in your throat…

…or it tries to catch.

Why…is there nothing to catch with – ?

[Researcher, please?! Just…if you could breathe with me a moment – just close your eyes, and take a slow breathe in through – ]

Loop’s voice cuts through the fog, and it’s only now you remember why you don’t want them in your head

you cannot afford to show weakness,

not when it’s them,

NOT LIKE THIS

YOUCAN’TLETTHEMKNOWTHATYOUAREFALLINGAPARTOVERTHISNONONOSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSTOPTHINKINGSTOPTHINKINGSTOPTHINKINGNOW –

– and…your mind empties.

For the briefest moment you make the mistake of thinking you managed to get control to calm racing thoughts. Then comes the drop upward into…nothing.

Just a single raindrop tumbling upward, lost among a roaring storm.

[WHAT DO I HAVE TO BLINDING DO TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY?!?!]

No matter how much you gasp…

…you cannot fill your –

[WHY DO YOU STILL REJECT EVEN THE SLIGHTEST ATTEMPT OF ME TO DO MY ONLY REMAINING TASK?!?]

 – why…

why…can’t you

…breathe –

[Not like you don’t need me! You’re wasting SO much time getting MAD at Stardust no matter you’re THE BLINDING SAME SORT OF TWIT!!!! AHAHA – nope! CHANGED MY MIND – you are WORSE than Stardust, you useless, stupid, impulsive, short-temped, bitter, cruel piece of cut glass who is so FURIOUS at Stardust for the crime of exactly the same pathetic, MESS as YOU!]

You…still can’t breathe…but somehow…you can’t bring yourself to care.

Not when the vindictive fury you’ve barely been caging for so long, has found all of the ever-widening cracks in your soul to seeping out of as Loop finally gathered up enough handfuls of their guts to find the courage to say that to your face.

[Excuse me?!?! The GUTS – ?!?]

Hahaha – Oh, look ~ ! And now they’re offended.

Who could have guessed.

For someone that claims to not be a god, they certainly have the same unreasonable expectations unconditional affection and praise…and reassurance whenever you make the mistake of reacting to them attacking of you.

[You are….Sssss – thisss…this is really – this is…NOT you. What the hell are – I can’t tell what wrong, but there has to be something DEEPLY wrong with – ]

How observant of Loop – they prove once more to just be so very clever. You’d even say you’re proud of them…or would be if they weren’t struggling so much right now to prove that they will always be a coward at heart, by retreating again without so much as trying to bite back.

[Stars, you do not know how much I want to throttle you right now – ]

Of course you know that – you can FEEL how much this petty, pathetic, desperate, jealous, vindictive and horribly insecure little god wants to do that. And it is a great deal – they crave it nearly as much as you want to tear out their throat in return.

[Researcher, will you just SHUT UP the blinding hell up for one SINGLE moment?!?! Even just to take a blinding BREATH before you pass out – FUCK – stars, I had NOT – Researcher, what is WRONG with your eyes – ?!?!]

Why is Loop still pretending - then again, why wouldn’t they still be pretending! That is one of the things you admire most about them! It is truly impressive how hard Loop works to hide their hate, no matter how it is an incredibly pointlessly effort on their part.

Does Loop really think you’d just forget the incident where they made you watch your family die?

[….]

Oh, and now they are silent.

…Are they wanting for in case you are about to applauded them for pretending for so long…or are they musing how best run away from you, to drive you away, to twist events so you die without them needing to dirty their hands? You’re sure they’ll collect up all the new weak points they can see in your mind, filing away to exploit in whatever way is needed, in whatever way works best to ensure you’re never to a position to demand anything of the little god….

…the pathetic little piece of worthless cut glass who does nothing but while away their days in peace under the Favour Tree  –

[Shut. Up. ShutupshutupSHUTUP – STARS, will you SHUT UP, RESEARCHER!?!?!?!]

A flash of something cuts into your awareness, your sight, eyes, mouth, heart – something burning, violent, and visceral. You think your sensors are still working…but you’re not sure.

All you’re truly aware of it pain inside your head.

Pain...and Loop’s voice.

[Because that little childish RANT of yours really DOES sum EVERYTHING up! I bet I could move the stars above trying to help, and you’d likely STILL think I’m not trying HARD ENOUGH!!!]

HA!

‘Move the stars above’ to help you?!?!?

IT TOOK A DOZEN LOOPS FOR LOOP TO TELL YOU WHAT A ‘STAR’ WAS.

[You were the one that was too stubborn to ASK! And that was when we made a deal and everything!?! Why are you STILL holding a blinding grudge about that?!?!]

That deal has proved useless.

What use is being able to ask questions when you don’t know what questions to ask?! When no matter how you poke at Loop all you get are little jabs to look harder at things you can’t understand, and giving obtuse hints and mockery which tell you absolutely nothing useless. Honestly a concussed squirrel would be more help then Loop has proven to be.

[You?!?! Are?!?! The!?! WORSE?!?!? STARS, you are the DENSEST human I’ve EVER MET – If you think I’m doing nothing then that’s your fault for being a useless idiot!!!]

If it’s someone’s fault, then it should be the ‘SOMEONE’ here that refuses to tell you anything –

[ – then again, what else could I expect from you but being utterly useless!?!? I still don’t know how you managed to get stuck in this blinding time loop?!?! That should be impossible considering you’re so oblivious that you can’t even look up at sky for longer than a few seconds!?!?! STARS, IF I HAD ANY SENSE, I WOULD HAVE GIVEN UP THE MOMENT THAT I REALISED IT WAS YOU STUCK IN THIS TIME LOOP, NOT STARDUST!!!!!]

The echoing scream fades like ripples in a pond swallowing up a struggling soul finally accepting the inevitable of sinking quietly into the depths. You can’t sense anything. All perception of your body have been cut away, leaving nothing but the hollow void of black inside your own mind. Or at least cut off from everything…but for the sense of your chest…or maybe Loop’s chest…heaving with gasping breaths that can’t seem to fill your lungs properly.

….

But…you think you understand Loop a little better now.

Just as you know how to take a damn hint.

It seems you can both agree that this is all your fault…just as you can agree that this imagery ‘work’ of theirs has still done nothing but annoy Loop for needing to put effort into helping you.

Considering that…Loop likely should just give up and leave you to rot alone.

[I didn’t intend – please, don’t say that, I didn’t – ]

That doesn’t sound like a reason ~ !

Just soppy fluff.

Are they really so hopeless that Loop cannot think of a single real reason NOT to give up on you?

[…Do…not…say that – ]

Why not –

Oh.

Of course.

You understand. Loop feels obligated to keep refusing to give up…they can’t do anything but keep up the facial song and dance…not until their duty is done and you give up first.

[Researcher!? I – no?! I…no-no, that is not – ]

Oh, stop fretting – Loop will get to laze about under their tree for a while yet.

After all, it’s barely been 200 loops, and you intend to survive until you’re at least passed 2000 loops. You WILL NOT give up sooner than Loop did….no matter how thin your determination fades, or how utterly pointless this feels, how tired you grow with every sleepless night, every loop that further hammers home that this is doomed because there simply isn’t anything that can keep all of your family alive –

[Researcher, please, I understand that you feel helpless, I know you think I don’t, but I swear I understand how you feel, that’s why I won’t ever give up – ]

What the scattered ashes is Loop rambling about?!?

Yes, you KNOW they understand!? You haven’t the slightest doubt about Loop’s horribly deep understanding of exactly how you feel?! What but that understanding could give Loop such insight into knowing just the right way to hurt you?! You KNOW they understand, just as you also understand how grateful Loop must be to now stand off stage, pointing and laughing as you’re forced to act out this play you were never going to be able to learn the lines for.

[Stars, Researcher?!?! You think I WANTED this?!?! YOU THINK I ASKED FOR THIS?!?!? I KNOW I’m bad at this, so BLINDING bad at it all, but I swear that I’m not just sitting here pointing and laughing – ]

Oh, YES – you are WELL aware that Loop can be very nice and kind when you’re pitiable, failing, and bleeding!!!

[You really think that I’m only nice to you because I want to later hurt you – ?!?!?]

No, and the fact Loop truly GENUINELY cares makes it all so much worse!!!

You’re struggling, failing, literally losing your mind, tied up in the wrong story, in a tragedy you can’t change the ending of and knowing that the only friend able to listen, able to pay attention, able to understand why you’re acting like this –

[I’m sorry – I’m sorry?!?!?! I’m not doing this on purpose?!?! I swear, I’M NOT – ]

 – why are you so stupid!!!

WHY CAN’T YOU EVER LEARN –

Why do you keep trusting Loop when you KNOW Loop will become your foe again the moment you start making even the SLIGHTEST PROGRESS!?!? And yet?!?!? You keep trying to trust them anyway?!?!?! Why do you DOING THAT!!! Trusting them OVER AND OVER, despite knowing they’re going to stab you in the back soon enough! Why you still LIKE THEM, when you KNOW the moment you again let down your guard – ?!?!?

You HATE THEM?!?! You hate them so much. If you could only touch Loop YOU WOULD TEAR OUT THEIR THROAT  –

[ – please, PLEASE don’t hate me, please don’t – I’m only, I don’t MEAN to – I don’t WANT to hate you either?!?! I can’t help it?!?! You realise that there’s no place for me if you DO break the Loops!?! THERE’S NO PLACE FOR ME NOW?!? I DIDN’T INTEND THIS TO HAPPPEN, I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE, I WANT TO GO HOME, I MISS MY FRIENDS, BUT I CAN’T GO BACK!!! IT’S GONE!?!?!]

– ?!?!

[THEY’RE GONE!!!!]

You –

[THEY’RE GONE BECAUSE I BLINDING WISHED THEM AWAY!!!!]

  – taste –

[AND WORSE?!?! I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DIE?!?! Because?!?! If I CAN’T?!?! If I’m just STUCK here in this alien world?!?! There’s no place for me?!?! No family for me to return to?!?! There is NOTHING here to live for, and if I CAN’T DIE?!?!?]

 – ash.

[I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU FIGURE THIS OUT, I SWEAR ON THE MEMORY OF MY FAMILY?!?! BUT WHEN THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO LEAD ME OFF A BLINDING CLIFF, I DON’T HAVE A LOT TO WORK WITH?!?!? WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO?!?! I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE CRAFT THAT GOT US STUCK HERE?!?!?]

Ash…like the flesh of your tongue has been burnt out to a stump.

[AND EVEN BETTER IT’S ONE THAT’S RUBBED OUT OF EXISTENCE SUCH THAT NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND ANYMORE – AHAHAHAH – ?!?!? ]

The white hot coal burning through you is slow cooling…but as the heat seeps away, it's replaced with the inescapable knowing, down to the depths of your bones, of your body being reforged into someone alien.

[ - AHAHAHAH – !!! ]

Reforged…by…

[hahahAHhaa….]

…a wish...?

[…aha…]

They…wished and….

[….nn…nnn….]

What does Loop mean, they wished…?

[…nn…Researcher. I am…sorry. I am…even more sorry to again have nothing to say but ‘sorry, I don’t know’! But…if it helps, Wish Craft really is the one thing in the universe that is a bigger joke then me.]

What is wish craft –

[And I’m sorry that I also have nothing to offer but consolation that you’re…right to think we’re doomed.]

But what did –

[You can take some cold comfort knowing that whatever you think of me…if you can’t figure this out…I will be exactly as screwed as you. Meaning I will be helping you until the end…no matter how either of us feel about it, or if it’s even possible.]

…How…sweet of Loop to say such a thing. But that still doesn’t answer your question.

What.

Did.

Loop –

[THOUGH, STARS ABOVE, no matter if I’m with you to the end, I am beginning to ALSO go just a little insane watching you try and ‘save’ Stardust in the dumbest way possible – what could you POSSIBLY have thought would happen when you started screaming threats about killing yourself?!?!?! In front of ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS?!?!?! Like that would help ANYTHING you blinding idiot!?!?]

….

Is…

Is Loop REALLY going to avoid telling you ANYTHING about this Wish Craft thing which might be the answer to ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS so they can NAG YOU ABOUT YOUR HEALTH?!??!

[YES! I am. SOMEONE should, and you sure don’t seem to care for your health or life!!! And that thing with your eyes was freaky?!? What WAS that?!?]

Gems alive – they are the worst?!?!?! How would you know what your face looked like when –

You know!?!

FINE!

Go on – you’ll be nice and Loop a moment to think. They have one chance to give you even a single reason that you should care about something pointless as your life. In fact, you look forward to seeing how Loop can possible justify lecturing you about this, when they have done NOTHING but relentlessly emphasis that you shouldn’t care when Siffrin dies.

[See the difference is that it doesn’t matter if Stardust dies – mostly because he deserves it, and also because THEY WON’T BLINDING REMEMBER DYING SO EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE, IT STILL DOESN’T MATTER!!!!]

….

Loop

is a damned

HYPOCRITE.

[I…Look, Fine! Maybe it IS a double standard. But even if it is, which I’m NOT admitting for the record, Stardust does NOT die often enough for this to be REMOTELY comparable – ]

Ten percent.

[…Wha –? ]

Ten percent, means the odds of the thing happening are ‘one in ten’…if Loop needs it explained in simpler terms.

[I know how blinding percentages work, Researcher – ]

Oh good – you are aware of how percent work too, and how to calculate them. This is how you know there is a one in ten chance of Siffrin surviving until the end of the loop without dying.

[It…CANNOT be that – one in ten?! Are you sure that’s right?!?!]

You will admit that is not the exact odds.

[See? I KNEW it – ]

That is rounded up.

[…Oh.]

….

Why can you taste the pain simmering thick in their blood. Who is that grief is it even for – you or them…neither one makes sense…just as how, no matter how you try and bend your mind to the task you really cannot make sense of why Loop…is still bothering.

[I don’t understand, bothering with what…? Uh, in case you forgot, it is my job to – ]

Why does some imagined sense of duty matter when there is no sentiment driving them…and no ‘lines’ for them to repeat. They clearly hate fighting, hate being here, hate the loops, hate your friends, hate your inability to achieve anything, hate…just about everything about you really…and you know they loath knowing how if you do break the loops that will only lead you getting the ending that, even you agree, should have been theirs.

Loop…might possibly by a ghost, but that makes even less sense to you. What desire could Loop have to drive them such to keep trying even past their own death just you help YOU.

Or…did Loop ‘wish’ and found that the universe had just the wrong interpretation of this that they were dragged from their world into this one, to be forced into the role of a stagehand of the failed later show of your existence?

[….]

Loop.

Please just –

Wish Craft is the thing that’s trapping both of you here…isn’t it?

[…Yes. It…is.]

…So.

That’s the answer to the time loops.

As for what that means…who knows. Knowing this…changes nothing at all. It matters so little that Loop now knows that they can drop such details into casual conversation and you…STILL can’t do anything with it Unless there’s something that Loop things might be worth adding?

Are they’re maybe now willing sharing anything else that could possibly help you? Now you know about Wish Craft?

[….]

Ahahaha –

Apparently…not.

…What…a surprise. Looks like you’re going to have to struggle…time to once more, draw the curtains away and see if THIS time the ending to the play can be changed! Start again from the top, killing time one distraction at a time, because what else is there to do when the only two people in this time loop is blind idiot standing dumb on the stage, and the useless stagehand lounging about offstage with a bucket of peanuts ready to throw whenever you make another hilarious mistake.

Honestly, you don’t know which of you is more pathetic.

[I…well, maybe…even if you’re not a complete idiot, Researcher…you’re still MOSTLY one. Gotta say, I’m kinda impressed you turned out to be so stupid that I basically had to spell this out for you! Guess everyone has their off days, huh. And…there’s not really anything else I can say when saying ‘sorry’ hasn’t made a different before this – fine! Let's do this YOUR WAY and pull back the blinding curtain and see if spilling my guts to you makes any blinding difference at all!!!]

You flinch at the sudden return of your eyesight, as for a moment you think that you’ve started hallucinating or dreaming – how could you not think that, when one of the first things to come into focus is yourself viewed from the outside. From a distance…you look like a ghost standing among your friends. Like the echo of who you would be if not for how the layers of separation in these loops have begun wearing away the memory of how it felt like to be yourself...

But...no - that...is you, as you likely looked recently...?

Obviously you…are not seeing this through your eyes, and since the rest of the group are visible – has Loop start following you into the house?!? You didn’t think they COULD do that – ?!?!

[Neither did I! Only found out recently!!!]

Then why did they NOT tell you – ?!?!

[Why WOULD I tell you!? Not like telling you I’m trying helps! Not like telling you I don’t remember things helps! Not like you listen to me either – not like you think I’m struggling to come up with anything so you CAN finally just FIGURE THIS OUT so we can be DONE with this already!!!]

What has Loop been doing – you’re getting flashes of…paper –

No.

Of a page – ?

No.

Of text –

[Besides, I’ve achieved NOTHING for my pain so far - giving me no reason at ALL to admit this. Though! In my defense!! Do you have ANY blinding clue how IMPOSSIBLE these books are to read?!? I don’t remember half the words and the ones I do recognise are nearly worse?!?]

There is text on the paper –

No, is it that you only think there is text...???

You swear you’re looking at text?! But if you are then why can't you –

[Ahah...i...hate this. I swear if I spit up blood ONCE MORE trying to– ]

Yes. You can see text.

And it’s cutting –

[But as I still can’t blinding understand anything they say, then WHELP you haven’t got a hope of using them to get out of this hell!!!]

No, it’s sharp…?

[…nnnn – ]

No, hot –

[Why…did the Universe have to put me here to help you, Researcher? Why did it do this when, as you keep pointing out, I’ve done NOTHING, for all I’ve bled out to CHANGE FUCK ALL!]

Why can you not focus?!?!

The text is right there, and the eyes you’re looking through know what it means, but apparently...YOUR mind does not - or is it cannot?!? You don't know, you don't know, you don't KNOW -

[Hey, Researcher. There’s a little something I’ve been meaning to ask you.]

- oh.

You...

...had it wrong.

There is nothing you should be able to understand in that text –

[Since we seem to be having a nice jolly time airing everyone of our deepest held grudges…]

– but even finally knowing that down to your bones doesn’t prevent the words forming in your awareness through the lens of Loop’s eyes so you can read the text exactly as they do.

[I got a question for you.]

The   words   are   –

[Hey.]

 v i s c e r a l

[Hey, you figured IT out yet, Researcher?]

a n d

[HAVE YOU FIGURED IT OUT YET!?!?!]

y  o  u

[I ASKED YOU A QUESTION! WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING ME – ?!]

s   e   n   s   e  

[ANSWER ME, RESEARCHER!!!!!  H A V E   Y O U   F I G U R E D   I T   O U T ? ? ? ]

s   o   m   e   t   h   i   n   g

[H  A  V  E      Y  O  U   ?  ? ?  ? ?  ? ? ]

b    r    e    a    k    i    n    g     –

[R e s E A r c H e R ,   h O w   h A V e   Y o u   n O t   F I g u r E D    o u t    w h O    I    –     ]

****

[You feel the world rippling, but your hand only presses down harder, pinning down the rustling pages of the book as you fight to keep your place.]

[The text in the book is unreadable, like the messy scrawling of a desperate child, but you will one day understand it.]

[...All you need now is time.]

Chapter Text

….

……….

Ow.

That…what just…?

…Urge.

Something…definitely just happened. And by the feel of your head…mmhp…potentially a great deal of alcohol happened on an empty stomach.

…No…this is…not quite right for a hangover. This is truly a…strange headache – you didn’t die in a new and horrible way, did you? You certainly think you remember something…breaking? Briefly blinking your bury eyes open, focusing only for a second before the rush of disorientation makes you shut them again was still just enough to let you glimpse the ceiling above you. The ceiling was the one in the House, which answers your second guess as why your head is trying to detach from the rest of you.

So bad is it you’re even entertaining the idea of going to seek a quick death, as something preferable to…this, and that is…also odd. You might be careless about dying at this point, but still, feeling unpleasant enough to be craving death is…not normal.

What could have hap –

…Oh.

Loop .

Loop…happened.

And with that fragment of memory your senses too begin returning you…even if they’re doing so very, very slowly. Still, you can now hear your younger companions talking among themselves, along with the warmth of someone is using Healing Craft on you…which has to be Mirabelle, but why is she –

Ah, yes, you were injured earlier when Siffrin…nearly…

…and you…

…you…

…what…did you…?

Everything is…horribly fuzzy, but for the growing sense that at your calm is one resulting from blunt trauma rather than any sort of true serenity. Also likely helping is that very little that seems to have stuck in your memory, beyond that…you think that you learned…something. Learned something…from Loop… Ah, there is also the sense that…you and Loop did not…end the conversation in the friendliest way possible?

Eh, probably you can discount that last one as important. You’ve almost certainly said worse to each other at this point, and apparently this chat didn’t end in a double suicide again so it could be worse –

….

Gems.

How did you manage to think that in complete seriousness.

You need to sit up now and find something normal to do or you’re going to seriously give up on whatever fragments of sanity are left to you. Grunting to get Mirabelle’s attention, you go to move your hand, intending to knock away her hand from wasting energy on this when it’s likely not that much beyond a scratch…only to find you can’t move your hand. That bodes…somewhat poorly for the state of your body?

If you’ve again done something to your spine –

“Hey…Odile,” Siffrin asks softly, and squeezes your hand enough to feel the texture of their gloves against the palm of your hand. “Can…can you hear – are you awake again now?”

…Ah. Never mind. Your spine is likely fine. Seems that your hand is just…being…held. By…Siffrin. Uh. Well, this is awkward. Is it too late for you to pretend to still be unconscious to give them a chance to let go before you – ?

“Dile?! Are really awake again!?! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your weird ‘pun coping mechanism’ thing, even if it IS real crabbing weird –”

“Change – please don’t just SAY it out loud like THAT, Bonnie?!?!” Isabeau hisses.

“But that’s what you called it after you stopped panicking when Mirabelle pointed out that Dile had only fainted – ”

Bonnie cuts off, interrupted by an unpleasant rasping noise…which it takes even you a moment to realise is you laughing, something that decides for you the question of if you’re going to admit to being awake which means you might as well commit to it properly.

“Not the…best way to put it, Isabeau, but you could certainly have made me sound far more unhinged, so I thank you for your consideration,” you croak and open your eyes.

Glancing about shows that Siffrin is hanging onto on hand, but it’s Boniface who’s sitting directly next to your head, leaning into squint at you. Their expression isn’t quite suspicion, but more doubt mixed with deep concern that simply has flavours of suspicion.

“What…happened. I…am not sure I’m thinking clearly enough to…remember,” you rasp.

“Belle said you had a panic attack and also blood loss, and due to both together you just like collapsed. That was like…ages ago now too.”

“It’s been about ten minutes, Madame,” Mirabelle adds quietly, but doesn’t disagree with anything else Boniface said you note, which…doesn’t exactly fill you with joy even before she adds. “You hadn’t told us you’d been cut by the sadness, same as Siffrin. Gave us…a bit of a fright.”

You barely resist the urge to cringe as you read loud and clear all the unspoken things that were implied by that careful phrasing.

“I apologise for…not doing telling you sooner. And for…all the shouting. I didn’t intend to – ” you say, before cutting off with a wince. “ – please, could someone…help me sit? I feel like I’m giving a damned death bed confession trying to apologise while lying flat on my back.”

Boniface and Siffrin are very good, and do as you ask, which…unfortunately means you now need to look everyone else in the eye. There isn’t anyone brave enough to break the silence now. Isabeau wearing a pleasant expression that clearly a mask, Mirabelle is tense and deeply anxious, and Siffrin all but vanished into their hat and cloak. Regardless, you steel yourself to continue, even as you begin to think you were better saying this when you couldn’t see the rest properly.

“There…is a reason for all…of that,” is all you manage before your eyes drop to where Boniface’s hand is now tangled in a death grip at the edge of your sleeve. “When Siffrin…I believe it brought back some…rather vivid feelings I thought I dealt with, but apparently…didn’t.”

“Yeah, we uh…guessed that – just…not sure how it led it…uh…,” Isabeau trials off and you realises he’s avoiding outright confronting you about the things said when Boniface is present…which even with only the dimmest memory of all that…says a lot just on its own, doesn’t it.

...Gem, a little painful emotional honestly as penance for everything you just said…isn’t all that unreasonable, and might be the only way to justify…any of your recent behaviour.

“There was…a friend I-I…” you pause to breath through your teeth, focusing of steading your voice to sound as normal as possible, “It might not…have been a sadness that inflicted the blow…that different cause of the head injury, didn’t…lead to a better outcome. I thought that…ha, I’ve nothing to say for myself, but that I’ve spent far too long thinking of how I should have act that day and so when it seemed to me that it had happened again…I…reacted without thinking of how this was not the same as that day.”

A little bubble of choaking silence closes about you and there is a sudden knowing in the visible wince from Isabeau, how Siffrin’s head snaps up, and in how Mirabelle’s eyes widen…or at least there is understanding from most of the group.

“What the crab – I can’t believe that you had another friend who’d jumped into danger and get hurt, before Frin?!?” Boniface demands.

“They were…a little worse than hurt. They didn’t get lucky…like Siffrin did,” you reply avoiding glancing towards Siffrin, sure that if you do, then it’s you’re sure that this half-truth will unravel instantly.

“Wait…you mean that they…died?” Boniface asks slowly, like they’re half hoping you’re going to say ‘no’.

“…Yes. but, ah, don’t worry too much…this was…a long time ago and…there are worse ways they could have died,” you say and try to smile. “It was a quick and…relatively painless one. The one…good thing about dying like that, you don’t usually have time to be afraid…at least if you’re the one dying.”

Boniface is…not crying, but... what is that expression they’re wearing – ?

“Okay…I…I think I get it now. Your friend…did a dumb thing…and died. That…is a really good reason for you to get so scared and shouty when Siffrin did something dumb and got hurt,” Boniface says, even as their eyebrows grow tighter together and they…gesturing at your face? “But none of that explains why being mad and scared made your eyes go crabbing weird?”

“Bonnie how about we DON’T bring that up RIGHT now when m’dame has just managed to calm down – !?!” Isabeau starts.

You jerk up a hand to dismiss his concern. “No, no, it’s fine, Isabeau, I want to hear this? I also don’t understand – Boniface, what do you mean…‘weird’?”

“Uh. I mean…like…super weird.”

“Describe the weirdness, please.”

“Like…they went a shade I’ve NEVER seen before and everything?”

“Okay, fine! If you’re okay with us asking questions then I’ve got some too?!” Isabeau says with a helpless gesture. "Because, NOPE! Human eyes do NOT do things like that!?! It was seriously almost as unsettling as like…everything else? Which…quite a high bar!!!”

“Yeah!? Because, uh,” Boniface uses one hand to stretch an eye unsettling wide, and points at the centre of it. “You know the lightless bit in the middle of your eye? That bit went narrow. Like it looked like a cat or maybe a lizard eye! Like how did they even DO that?!?”

…Wait….

They…can’t possibly be implying that –

“I know this all sounds silly, but Bonnie and Isabeau are telling the truth?!” Mirabelle adds desperately clasping her hands together. “Your eyes really DID do that, and I ALSO did not know eyes could do that?!”

“Yeah, it was…kinda distracting from the things you were shouting or how you were like…uh…picking me up by the collar? Which…is really impressive, if we’re being honest!” Siffrin adds apologetically.

You are still staring towards Boniface, even if your eyes have unfocused such that you’re looking through them, but no amount of detachment could spare you from understanding dawning on you with the force of a bolder dropped from ceiling height onto your head. Just as when it does…all you can do is pull off your glasses and bury your face in your hands with an incoherent noise that you hope communicates your desire to walk into the woods and never show your face in society ever again.

You take it back.

You take it ALL back.

This .

THIS moment.

THE MOMENT RIGHT NOW –

“Uhhh – Frin? What’s Dile doing?!?”

“Sorry, I don’t know – ?” Siffrin whispers back.

“Uh…Madame? Wait…do you know what happened?!” Mirabelle says tentatively. “Is this…something…normal?!?!”

“NORMAL is NOT how I’d put the most EMBARRASSING moment of my ENTIRE LIFE!?” you snap, voice pitching too high to sound angry due to how mortified you are. “I cannot believe that I – this hasn’t happened since I was a child!? I should NOT be needing to deal with this indignity on top of EVERYTHING ELSE! Gems alive, I’m a grown woman!!!!”

“…So…is this normal then! That’s good to hear – ” Siffrin cuts off to add in a hiss. “Why were you freaking out before, Isa, if she’s only like embarrassed about this?”

“I guess if Madame at least knows what’s happening?!?!? That’s a good sign??? I hope it’s a good sign?!?!? Because but even working really hard to fit this back into my…uh…general knowledge? Can say I’m…still not sure how it was possible!?!?” Isabeau adds with just enough energy to sound slightly hysterical.

Jerking your hands away from your face, fighting to get your glasses back on so you can stare Siffrin, Isabeau, then Mirabelle before gesturing violently and incoherently at all of them, because at THIS point how else could you be expected to respond?!?!

If…this is all a joke – ?!

But even as you glare about and every single one of them, long and hard, it becomes clear that genuinely none of them know what happened…and this is…not a joke. You’re still processing that when Boniface puts up their hand, waving to get you to look at them.

“Dile. Got…a question. I still don’t get it, why are you…embarrassed about your eyes doing that the weird thing…?”

“…I am…just as confused as to you – don’t any of you have the slightest idea of what I’m…?” you say feeling nearly as disorientated as Isabeau looks. “The other Vanguardian I – I am absolutely sure that Camille knew about this before I – hasn’t one of you heard of Expression Craft?”

There is not the slightest flicker of understanding from Mirabelle or Isabeau, same as Siffrin’s raised eyebrows and considering glances about the group show no recognition when you glance at them and you believe they’ve visited Ka Bue at least once.

“I’m very sorry but Expression Craft is NOT something I’ve seen, heard, OR read about?!” Isabeau says.

“But…I’m nearly sure that’s how it’s usually translated into Vanguardian – this is just the stupider cousin of Body or Healing Craft, only a THOUNSAND times less useful as it’s main application is being an utter pain in the neck?!?!”

“Uh?!?! No?!?! I…really have NOT heard of this?!?! Sorry!?!?” Mirabelle says.

“How could you possibly –  isn’t the House of Change dedicated to celebrating every single sort of Change even in its worst and most destructive forms – and don’t you have children recklessly using Body Craft on themselves to give themselves animal traits, all the time? This HAS to happen here, if only due to the raw numbers involved!?”

“No?!? Because Body Craft DOES NOT work like that!? AT ALL?!” Isabeau replies sounding very nearly as helpless as you.

“That’s why I said that it’s like it, but not the same as – I'm not saying you could use Body Craft to turn into a animals - ”

“WHAT?! No?! That's somehow worse - and I do NOT think you’re getting my point? Body Craft has HARD limits! Same as Healing Craft?!? And both of them are ones that you can’t just ignore?! Change can only move, or shift what is already there? Just like Healing cannot fix scaring, and when used recklessly can twist bones out of place while repairing them – ”

“I am not an IDIOT – just because people use these stories for their own ends and throw a wild fox into their own house before fleeing the town doesn’t mean I’m stupid as the officers that made us ARREST the damned creature!!!”

“You…arrested a fox…?” Isabeau says very distantly.

“What crime had the fox committed?” Siffrin asks.

“Tax fraud.”

Siffrin whistles. “Clever fox!”

“That is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE?!?!?” Isabeau retorts seemingly more incredulous then disbelieving now.

“Yes! Thank you! I agree, it would be impossible!” you reply throwing up your hands. “THAT is why I was sure it was not him! But despite that the superstitious idiots on the town council still took weeks to also decide that!”

“You…really arrested an animal for some person’s taxes due to it being found in their house?” Mirabelle asks.

“Very much against my will!”

“…Yeah, uh, not going to lie! Not sure if that…make it better or worse?” Isabeau says.

“I can tell you that it made it very much worse. I can tell you no one was happy during that week we had to keep the ‘suspect’ in custody. Damned fox managed to chew on every piece of furniture in the whole of our offices. Honestly, even if the insane theory was right – SO WHAT?!?! If someone is ready to become an animal to avoid paying taxes, then we should applaud their determination and so we should then set the fox free.”

“But what if he WAS the weirdo criminal?!” Boniface asks, with an…frankly strange amount of excitement.

“…Well. If he had managed that, which I very much doubt, not like he’d have ever been able to turn back into a human after being so consumed by the wild Expression of his soul. Basically, the same as dead at that point since it’s not like a fox can pay taxes… something which is written into the legal code. That was the thing I finally used to get the wretched animal out of our building and put in the forest were it should have been from the start.”

“So people can randomly turn into animals in Ka Bue?!?!” Boniface says now with…fascinatetion?

“No, I just said that was a rumour,” you correct wearily. “The idiot likely just thought finding a fox was easier than faking his death. No rational person would believe that is how Expression Craft works in real life – even the deepest connection to an Expression shouldn’t have done more then give him fox ears and MAYBE a tail if he was DEEPLY immature.”

“No, THAT is not – okay, M’dame changing the structure of your ears to one like an animal – THAT I KNOW is UTTERLY impossible!!!” Isabuea says, jabbing a finger towards you.

“Trying to do it through Body Craft would be impossible…I agree. And that’s why I keep telling you it’s not Body Craft,” you snap back.

“Okay, I’ll accept that maybe there’s something to explain your eyes, but I know for a FACT that you cannot change hair to fur, and to move your ears to the top of your head?!?! That would…you’d be LUCKY if it just made you DEAF,” Isabeau says with slightly helpless irritation like you’re doing this on purpose to annoy him.

Eye twitching slightly you glare. You…did not need this sort of energy right now and maybe…you are also not explaining this well.

Or…coherently.

…This…is the only way to covey this to this by showing them…? That is the most…direct solution, and that feels…appropriate. All you need do is relax a little, where your will is holding together the cracks and allow them to…ease open. Just the slightest fraction and –

That…would work.

“So. You think that a little change of my eyes is explainable…but nothing else could possibly be so I must be lying to you, or so stupid as to believe folktales.”

“That is not what I – ”

“Scepticism…is smart. I’m not saying it’s not…wanting evidence and data before you believe something to be real…that’s very smart! That’s why the old fools who’s only right to claim wisdom was being half dead were such a headache to convince to discount those superstitions. The folly of age is CERTAINLY why my grandmother didn’t think through the consequences of teaching her hot headed and impulsive granddaughter the rituals passed down through our family to honour the Expression of Ends – ”

Ah – that’s what you were hoping for. There’s the shift of something seeping past your still otherwise intact and tightly wound control –

“Ends?” Mirabelle says now looking VERY worried. “What kind of ends?!?! Because I think that?!?! Explains even less?!?!”

Your breath is tight and rough with how your unpleasant this makes your mouth taste. But this time…you are at least aware – the shift of your teeth and jaw is subtle, but enough for the bone to tickle the insides of your gums as they move. Lifting your lips as you tap over your teeth to confirms to you, and those staring at you, that while slight there is now a visible change to the structure of your teeth and the range of movement availed in the changed hinges of your jawbone.

“For clarity of understanding, I’ll say the word ‘End’ is a little different in Ka Bue. They are more like…Expression of…searching for the shortest distance to the desired end point – or even ‘finding the shortest route to, and if need be, most VIOLENT, solve all life’s most INFURIATING problems’.” you say and…

…smile.

“…What…the crab,” Isabeau says, in an impressively even tone. “Whelp. Guess…you showed me!”

You half laugh, but the rattle in your throat doesn’t feel correct now, and…that means it’s time – time to press everything back down where it SHOULD be. Breathe out and let the tingling bittiness of burned sugar gust from your mouth enough to purge it from your system.

Put away too the raw desperate intention screaming you find a solution to everything right now.

You…know that is not…reasonable.

That…is not how you want to act.

No matter if you are never as in control as you should be…you will always be better than that. This is how you’re meant to be…and no matter it will always be less then you’d choise…it is, and will have to be, good enough.

….

There you go. You…don’t quite feel human again, saying it like that would be putting the whole of that little moment in the wrong light. But there is something far more…unhinged about that part of you, that makes you think of it in that light, even if there is nothing that can be projected onto your physical body which isn’t deeply linked to the core of your soul.  

But even if it is all just you…there is still a slight flash of relief when you open your eyes and find the sharpness of your thoughts tangled up back up into the layers of analysis and consideration interlinking and informing your every work and action which is how they’re meant to be. Shake yourself slightly to rid yourself of the unpleasant pricking of hairs over the back of your arms, you hum.

“So, was that data something you all found useful regarding your assessment of if this is real? I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure that would work that smoothly. I’ve spent most of my life figuring out how to suppress it. Wonder if the fact I could let it bubble up so easily is a good sign for age giving me increased control…or very bad if it’s so close to the surface…enough that maybe it’s why I’m again beginning to become more…volatile when…put under pressure….”

You…trail off.

…now you’ve said it out loud…gems, it is definitely the second one, isn’t it –

“WAIT, THAT MEANS THAT EVERYTHING YOU SAID MIGHT ALL REALLY BE REAL?!?!” Isabeau yells, apparently hitting the peak of a crisis from a standing start in less then a breath.

“MADAME?!? YOU REALLY MEAN THAT PEOPLE CAN CHANGE INTO ANIMALS AND MONSTERS AND NO ONE TOLD ME?!?!?!” Mirabelle shrieks, sounding more excited than upset for some weird reason?!

“I WAS RIPPED OFF!!!! I WANNA BE ABLE TO TURN INTO AN ANIMAL SO I NEVER NEED TO GO TO SCHOOL AND DO MATH AGAIN?!?!?” Boniface bellows at the top of their lungs…not seeming to quite understand the limits to this.

 “Ah! That would explain the dude I saw with animal ears. Thought that was odd – good to know it was normal after all,” Siffrin says in a considering tone.

…Slowly everyone turns to Siffrin, as they realise that one of these reactions was very much not like the others. Siffrin blinks at the sudden attention on them and then raises an eyebrow. You are a little surprised too, even you also quite relieved to have someone else that knows about this…even if it took a while for Siffrin to put the pieces together. But anything that takes the attention off you for a bit is a good thing.

“…What?” Siffrin asks.

“Where did you see this?!?” Mirabelle demands.

“Saw the guy…in a bar,” Siffrin replies very helpfully.

Isabeau sighs before he helps Mirabelle out by adding to her question, “Hey, what country was the bar in, Sif?”

“Ka Bue. Which…huh, that would track with Odile thinking this is normal, now I think about it?” Siffrin replies.

“…Does it?” Mirabelle says in near whisper like she’s scared that if she speaks any louder it will lead to this secret knowledge being taken away by the defenders for being illegal to learn. “What was he doing at the bar, Siffrin?!”

“Eating dinner?” Siffrin replies.

“Just…a normal dinner?” Mirabelle echoes sounding just a little disappointed.

“Looked like it.”

“Sif? Buddy? You…sure they weren’t like…fake ears?” Isabeau asks.

“Yup. I asked him about them and how he’d got them to flicker realistically. That’s when I found that boy could those ears move when he was angry. His friend nearly fell off their chair laughing. Gotta say they sure seemed to think they were real, as that was why it was apparently so funny.”

“AHAH – ” it takes a moment to get your biting laughter under control meaning maybe your little show before is likely still slightly impacting your control, no matter if this is hilarious. “Perfect. Siffrin, you could not have given a worse insult to the man, unless you’d asked to touch his ears.”

Siffrin winces.

“…You…did…?!? HA!?! That’s…even better?!?” you say not even trying to smother your glee this time.

“Uh?!?!? Why?!?! Was that an insult?!?!?” Mirabelle asks, hand shooting up.

“Because…Siffrin drew attention to them?” you reply bemused.

“…And?!?!?"

…Of course she wants more, fine, fine – you can prove why this is funny with a little deduction. “They were fox ears, yes?” you ask gesturing at Siffrin to add whatever else they can to this.

“They were…pointy and…fluffy?” Siffrin replies tentatively after a long pause.

Rolling your eyes you wearily carry on without help, “Well, them being pointed means it’s unlikely they were the ears of a cat or racoon dog. I’d also say that since he was allowed entrance to the bar, and didn’t later take revenge on you for humiliating him in public, those were not the ears of a wild fox, which significantly narrows our options.”

“Oh?! Okay so uh what does that mean?!?!” Mirabelle asks, now a little more excitedly.

“It means I can say with near certainty they were the ears of a holy fox, and that his living gem – I mean core self is being expressed through the Expression of Loyalty, Effort, Devotion – or maybe the Expression of Messages or Service,” you and sit back as you gesture for Mirabelle to now be amused too.

“…I don’t get it. Those sound like good things. I still don’t get why’s do you think it’s funny, Dile,” Boniface asks flatly.

“Uh…because…Loyalty? Or Service? As the deepest and yet most repressed Expression of your core self?! That’s basically a massive sign waved about by someone so violently devoted and repressed about it that it can only be Expressed by literal transformation. That’s ridiculous. You’d have to have a deeply unhealthy inability to convey your core through subtleties that for an adult…and why this sort of thing is usually grown out of while still a child.”

“So, why’d you express a big feeling just now,” Boniface asks, with the cutting precious for hitting someone’s insecurities also something only a child can manage with so much damage to the ego of the targeted adult.

“I’m…usually better than that. Just…a bit stressed. I…think that’s why my control slipped,” you mutter, not happy with that weak answer, but and out of irritation for that you add in a hiss. “It wasn’t that bad. At least this time I didn’t try and bite off someone’s arm.”

“You…what?” Mirabelle squeaks.

“…Oh boy, Sif, you are going to need to chill or you’re going to lose another body part before we reach the king,” Isabeau mutters under his breath but still just loud enough to hear, and Siffrin slight but vigorous nodding to that is very nearly more insulting then the insult itself.

“I am not going to – I was ten at that time that incident happened!” you add pointedly since that’s young enough for such poor judgement to be understandable due to how you were a literal child.

“Wait, wait, WAIT – DILE?! Does that mean you can you STILL bite off people’s arms if you WANTED to!?!?!” Boniface yells fixating on entirely the wrong bit of that sentence.

“No – I have far more effective ways to…communicate that I feel something is unjust. This is why I have Craft Skills. And…theoretically the legal system.”

“WHY would you EVER do that if you could just BITE off their ARMS?!?” Boniface demands, apparently with genuine bewilderment.

Gems, this kid –

“Because, Boniface, they are far better ways to intentionally channel our sense of…justice without risking someone…bleeding to death…or ending with my mouth being coated in someone else’s blood and a deep sense of shame,” you finish awkwardly out of the corner of your mouth, as you look away.

“But you CAN still do it?!? Oh! I think I get it?!? This is about…being able to show your deepest and most ugly thoughts and feelings…by Changing into a monster!!!!” Mirabelle says, staring at you…eyes sparkling.

Gems, how is she being weirder about this than Boniface – ?

“Why do you think THIS is a GOOD sort of Change?!” you snap. “Vaugardians developed Body Craft because they wanted more ways to change themselves into the imagine they WANT to be! I’d have thought that this sort of Change would be repulsive to you?!”

“I mean it is that…a little. Maybe? If you put it exactly like that – but also this is really really fascinating?! Like…the idea that you could Change and yet…it’s not Changing yourself so much as having others see all of your deepest feelings on the surface?”

“Most people don’t have cute ears, or slightly pointer teeth, Mirabelle. There are some that have their basic form become destabilized, who look perfectly normal and still induced dread in others who see them, or who even end up looking like demons!”

“They…do?!?”

“ – ?!?!? Why does that make you happier?!?”

“Can ANYONE find an Expression they feel connected to and perform the ritual?!?!” Mirabelle asks.

“OH?!?! YEAH?!?! CAN I DO THIS, DILE?!??! CAN I TURN INTO AN FOX?! I WANNA TURN INTO AN ANIMAL SO I NEVER HAVE TO DO HOMEWORK AGAIN?!?!” Boniface demands.

You look between Boniface and Mirabelle…both of whom very clearly and hoping you’re about to tell them how to perform a secret and extremely illegal family ritual to a god they still haven’t even decided on yet…because they want to avoid school or live out their monster specific fantasies.

Gems.

They are such weirdos.

Glancing to Boniface as the easier one to address, you begin in a resigned sing-song tone, “I am deeply sorry, but I don’t think it would work for you Boniface. You’re a little too…expressive for these rituals to have anything to bite into.”

“…Uh…what.”

“What do you do when you miss your sister.”

Boniface’s expression tangles and they look away, as they mutter. “I just…miss her. What else would I do.”

“What do you do when Siffrin does something dumb and nearly die?”

“I TELL that STUPUD crab face that he’s STUPID…not that he LISTENS.”

“Mm…and Boniface…you are very bright and observant, along with being a far better cook then me,” you say with a half-smile

There is a slight narrowing of Boniface’s eyes, even if they can’t stop the smile trying to pull at their mouth so matter that they’re still thinking of the other two things you said.

“…Boniface, you are very good at expressing yourself. If you feel something, then you say or do something. Sometimes you do bottle things up…but even then, it comes out in the end, which is the smart way to be. And…that is why I think nothing would happen to you.”

“But Dile, I wanna be a badger. Or fox. Or bird. Or fish – I’m not fussy. I just don’t want thumbs so I can’t hold a pen and so don’t need to do math.”

“Boniface. If you didn’t have thumbs you couldn’t cook. You’d have to eat raw food or food cooked by your sister…for the rest of your life.”

“…Oh.” Boniface stops and then makes a deeply aggrieved expression. “Maybe…going to school…isn’t worse than Nille’s cooking forever. Never mind, changed my mind, I’m happy to stay being a human with thumbs.”

“Good to hear – and THAT is the other reason you’d not be able to do this. You’re far too sensible for this utter nonsense,” you say as you glance to Mirabelle and she all but sits to attention as your eyes fall on her, fingers tapping anxiously at her knees. “As for you…I…believe you would be unfortunately inclined towards the animalistic sort of Expression Craft, Mirabelle.”

“I AM?!?” Mirabelle shrieks with delight.

“HEY!?! HOW COME BELLE CAN DO IT AND I CAN’T?!?” Boniface yells.

“Because Mirabelle is an anxious wreck who’d find exactly the right sort of depths of repressed feelings necessary for this. Though…I also suspect that you’d be far more likely to have it happen…is a more orderly way then myself,” you add with a sigh.

“Orderly? How can becoming a raging wolf person be…orderly?” Mirabelle asks, frowning so deeply you think she might be insulted that you don’t think her able to become an utter menace to society.

“I mean that you could likely schedule the days on a calendar that you were going to perform the ritual, and have it work every time you did. You would also be so orderly as to HAVE to do that, I can’t image you having it sink into you like it did me…but it would be something you could return to as long as there was the need to express the otherwise inexpressible in your soul.”

“Could I get this to be more…wild…if…I made my own ritual…maybe one…with the cycles of the moon involved?” Mirabelle asks.

“I very much doubt it and have NO idea why you would do it even if it was possible,” you reply flatly.

“Mirabelle…you desperately want werewolves to be real, don’t you,” Isabeau asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I WANT WEREWOLVES TO BE REAL SO BADLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!!!!”

“Mirabelle. Even if you really want them to be…Werewolves…are still not real,” you say, incredulous you have to SAY this to a grown adult no matter how many horror novels she reads.

“Or. Maybe. They ARE?!?” Mirabelle retorts, clasping her hands together. “Is there an…Expression of ‘make my brain STOP stressing and instead think about HUNTING’?!?”

“…Not in those…exact words but…yes. There are…ones that aren’t unlike that,” you reply unwillingly.

“Hunting? Really?” Siffrin says with amusement. “What do you want to hunt, Mira?”

Mirabelle looks away shiftily and then back again as she steals herself to lean forward and hiss, “…I mean…doesn’t the idea of just chasing a rabbit or deer…not to like catch, but…haven’t you ever wanted to just stop thinking and instead run really really fast after a moving target? It sounds…so calming and simple. Also I bet it would be really easy to go to bed and sleep soundly afterward without lying awake worrying about stupid things.”

“I think…we’re all learned something about Mira from this!” Isabeau says with a grin. “Hey, want me to get a rubber ball? Or maybe playing a sport would scratch that itch?”

“…No. I think it…wouldn’t be the same at all.”

“HA! Fair enough! Alright then, let’s hear it then, M’dame! What do you think of me? Am I too sensible like Bonnie, desperate to be a wolf so I can chase rabbits like Mirabelle, or maybe even secretly want to bite people like you?”

Staring at Isabeau you weigh him, even as you find the answer to that question coming rather easily to you this time. “You are most like Boniface in how you’re not inclined to it at all…but unlike them, I think you’re…like my grandmother. You could make it work, and make it work for you…if you thought it something you could use.”

“Wait, you can do that?! Just try really REALLY hard and be able to do cool tricks like you?!?!” Boniface demands. "That’s…not fair?!?! Hey, why can Za do it and not me?!?!”

“This is not about trying hard and doing cool tricks. For myself and Mirabelle, it’s a matter of there being something…rather desperately clawing to get out in any way it can, and the ritual providing the cracks for that to happen. For Isabeau…for him this would be a matter of searching through his core to find and…amplify fragments of his choice until they became something that resonate with the Expression he wanted to project through his physical form. That is…something that while most certainly possibly for anyone to do, needs to be extremely deliberate and as such is incredibly difficult to do.”

“That’s…kinda cool you think I could do that? Not sure I agree though, I think I’m too flaky for something that would need so much effort and soul searching – and I’d definitely not do all that work, if all I’d get out of it is cool eyes or teeth,” Isabeau replies carelessly.

“Ha…that I agree with. You’d not do it without a reason…and I’ll also add that unlike Mirabelle I doubt you’d find any familiarly in an Expression with a straightforward representation as an animal,” you say, glancing briefly at her before returning your attention to Isabeau, “More likely you’d find you could bend yourself to the Expression of…Speech, Perception, or…mm…you might also find yourself drawn to the Expression of…ah, how does that translate – ”

Snapping your fingers you rummage about in your head for words, until you find enough to try again.

“ – liminal? No, should I say the redirection – they are the Expression of…uh…let’s say, ‘poison brewed, and then brewed again into a cure, embodying both to understand them to use to the ends deemed wise’.”

“That…is a lot of words,” Boniface says.

“Ah, that one doesn’t like getting pinned down. Maybe that would turn you off them, Isabeau, but I think that you would very much be able to…brew yourself into a more fluid form, one that lets you be…what you want to be, for everyone you speak to, while still managing to reflect part of yourself in the process. And once the ritual did work for you…that would be it. You’d likely never need to do it again – you’d retain the ability to present yourself naturally as just how other’s expectations subconsciously prompt you…as long as you wanted to keep doing it.”

That explanation definitely lost Siffrin and Boniface, but Mirabelle followed along and might even be a little offended on Isabeau’s part for your assessment of his core, by how she’s staring at you fixedly.

 “Hm! I…well, that’s a thing,” Isabeau says with utterly unreadable cheer. “Kinda funny that for Mirabelle you were arguing about if werewolves are real, and for me you managed a frankly haunting reading of my personality in a way that I’m not sure I want to think about that hard! Neat! Hey Sif, you going to gamble on what M’dame says, or are you going to be smarter than me and not give her the chance to do that?”

Your eyes narrow slightly, but before you can object to that, Siffrin snorts and waves to get your attention before pointing at themself. “I’m DEFINITELY not smarter than you, Isa, so I guess it’s my turn now! What about me, Odile? Got anything to say about me Expressing my soul with like…cats? Or puns – oh, or maybe something with being quick?”

“…No. Those are not really thing that would…call to you. This ritual…there must be…intent and desire. Deep…deep desire. You…like jokes and telling them. Same as being quick. They’re not the hidden parts of your soul that are desperate to get free.”

“Huh. You’re really beginning to make this sound like how sadnesses are formed, M’dame,” Isabeau observes.

“It is…not unlike that? And nor is it unlike…wishes – actually…now I think of it, the ritual of Expression is…rather similar to the way you taught me…how to wish…" you trail off, staring at Siffrin.

“Wait if you can wish for – hey, Dile, does that mean that when we win, I can go back to the favour tree and ask it to make me an animal, so I never have to do math again???” Boniface asks.

Siffrin laughs as they answer even before you can think of a way to explain how that’s as ridiculous as you know it must be. “Nope. Sorry, Bonnie. Wishes aren’t like that – you must ask for things that aren't too big, or else...they just can't happen.”

There’s a disgruntled noise as Boniface objects, an Siffrin only shrugs, mouth openings as they…begin to explain wishing to them. The words are…familiar. You did hear this before, just before the loops…you did know how to wish, how Siffrin thinks you should wish, the ritual of it and…

…the longer Siffrin talks, answering the scattered questions of the others…the more you realise that Expression Craft …really is…very similar to Wish Craft. The only thing that is different is…what is thought of as ‘too big’ to ask for. Your memory is a mess, barely legible as would be expected for such a horrible outburst…but…you can now again…feel how the word ‘Wish’ sounded like a curse in Loop’s strangled voice, as they screamed it out at you.

Wish Craft…the reason why you are…here.

You…don’t remember…a lot of things. But…you can’t have forgotten this – you truly hope you haven’t, because no matter if was over half a year ago, the little conversation under the Favour Tree…might now be the balancing point between you breaking the loops, or…

What

did

you

wish

for?

Which, of the dozen thoughts that passed like lightening through your mind in that moment, counted?

You wanted a great many things, from a good idea for a wish, winning a coin toss, to take the place of your friends regarding anything bad that might happen fighting the king, and….

And to….

…your…

To protect…all of….

….

…………

…ah, how could you possibly know what your is ‘wish’ when you gave up and settled for just folding the leaf with as much care as possible and breathed on it without ever deciding on a single coherent thought, desire, want, or even just IDEA –

“ – H-hey? Odile?!”

Jerking your head up you stare at Siffrin.…mind…empty, but for…one thought. One trivial little thing that is all you can seem to summon clearly to mind from the beginning of the loops because it infuriated you do very deeply for how stupid and ridiculous it had seemed to you. But…seems that time has vindicated Loop and finally handed you the proof they were telling the truth…as ridiculous as it sounded then and now.

You…really did get stuck in this time loop though nothing but an…accident.

“ – Dile?”

“Odile, okay, right she is really not okay, Sif do not just– ”

What are they –

Mmph.

Stop thinking – put away these thoughts too. You need to finish this conversation, and all your current worries are ones that will keep perfectly well until you have the strength to look at them directly. You…need to answer that question now.

…Need to do it now…before you forget again what you’re doing…or why you care enough to answer it.

“…You…I’m sorry, I…got distracted – I think the ritual could work for y-you…Siffrin,” you say, distantly staring at the blood on Siffrin’s face, as you work to try and pin down the answer to if and how this member of your group would Express the core of themselves.

“I...uh, okay!? Cool, but not what I asked – you just shut down?! And…and now you’re – ” Siffrin cuts off, gesturing at your face and…your eyes.

Your hand rose automatically to rub at your face, like that would have told you anything about the appearance of your eyes. But then again, a brush at the corners of your eyes is all you need to do to know exactly why Siffrin is staring at you with such panic. Though how can you really judge them for that…it’s not like you do much better, when on pulling back your hand, you’re only able to stare blankly at your wet fingertips.

How long have you – that…would be why your voice is unsteady. Crying…does tend to do that. Just as now you know why you were having trouble with your vision blurring, along with why your chest is so tight…and…

…and…you’re also aware knowing all this…

…hasn’t stop it happening.

….

This

is

…infuriating.

And yet…you don’t have the energy to be angry anymore.

Not the energy to feel…much at all, really. So you know now that some wish or other got you stuck here. A wish you might not be able to figure out the wording for, one connected to a Craft you know you’re not going to be able to learn alone, with…only a stagehand who…cares about you despite having no reason to…and your….

…your…

…these…people about you – these ones that…

…if Siffrin dies…all of them will go their separate ways because...it would break them as much as it would break you, and yet there is nothing of any of this gives you the slightest chance of changing how it can ONLY end –

“ - Siffrin, I don’t know what Expression would call to you…but I do not think it would be a simple one. Nor would it be one you felt called to before that point. It would awaken in a violent and desperate in your struggling to reject…whatever it is that must at some point express itself regardless,” closing your eyes you brace yourself and add, “Likely…a-also…your final moments, echoing back a ritual you’d made…so long before without thinking it had ever done anything tangible in your life.”

There…is silence.

Why is there so often silence leaving you the only one to speak when like Siffrin you seem cursed to only ever make things worse for the trying –

“ – or maybe…I’m wrong? I…it’s possible your core…is just what’s on the surface?! Haha – I could certainly make an argument that your desperate throwing of yourself into danger for other’s sakes is how you Express the depths of your living g-gem and you’re perfectly able to do all that without any outside god – ”

Cutting yourself off with a hiss, you try and steady your breathing, forcing it to be steady enough to force out more words to make up for the first ones, even if it will not change anything. Loop was right, ‘sorry’ is the most worthless word in existence, and yet you are such that for as many mistakes as you’ve made before, you cannot seem to find another one to use.

“I’m s-sorry. This is…utter nonsense – I shouldn’t be saying any of this! I don’t know why I am saying any of – ”

“ODILE!!! Please!!? I – ” Siffrin jerks to attention when you raise your head at their yell, but rally surprisingly quickly as they rush onward. “Odile, would you maybe please promise you’ll hug me when we defeat the King!!!”

……??

You open and shut your mouth, before finally giving up and instead of trying to get your tongue to form a coherent thought, settle for gesturing at Siffrin to please add some more information to that utterly baffling demand?!?!

“Uhh…I don’t – which bit do you…not get…?” Siffrin says seemingly a moment from fleeing.

“I understood NOTHING of t-that!?!?!”

“…REALLY?!?!”

“You – Siffrin, please tell me why you want me to hug you?!?! What could POSSIBLY inspire you to make that request NOW?!?! Of ALL times?!?!?!

“Uhhhh – stars, is this a test?!? Are you only going to promise to hug me later if I give a good enough answer as to why?!?!? I didn’t know pop quizzes were part of hug etiquette?!?!”

You find you DO feel something now, and it’s like the cheery version of anger, because you’re honestly not sure if you’re more annoyed at Siffrin you thinking you should understand what the shattered gems they’re talking about, or at yourself for apparently having STILL not stopped crying?!

No, ignore your shaky breathing, ignore the choaking, focus on the stupid scissor wizard because seriously WHAT do they want right now – ?!?

“That is NOT what I – WHY! Did you ask THAT! In response to…to – to the e-everything t-that I – ”

“Because! Uhhhh! Oh stars, don’t cry more – no, no, I DO have an answer, I swear this makes sense when you just think about it – See! Odile. I want you to promise to hug me later because you seem REAL sure that I’m going to die before that…and THIS way you can know I’ll live!!!”

You…can’t think of an answer to that which doesn’t involve curses, and settle for staring at Siffrin instead, hoping your expression conveys your utter lack of comprehension.

“Sif, buddy? Maybe stop talking before – ?!?"

“ – Look! Uh! No, I WILL say this! Also I’m going to say that I’m sorry, I know this is really weird, but like Odile being even weirder so – ” Siffrin cuts off, having to dodge away from Isabeau trying to slam a hand over his mouth for that out of panic, as Siffrin yells over their shoulder towards you. “Just promise to hug me later! I promise – nope! Better then that I wish that if you’d promise to hug me later then I’ll literally raise myself back to life to make sure I get that hug – NYA – ?!?!!”

You…

…blink.

Siffrin is now…being held in a careful arm lock by Isabeau…as both of them seem to be holding their breathe. Siffrin likely as much from the contact as the arm lock, but possibly also from anticipation as they wait for your answer.

“You…will wish to live…if I…hug you?” you manage at long last.

“Yup!” Siffrin says, and tries to give you a thumbs up, something Isabeau lets go of their arm so they can do.

“…A…hug.”

“Yes.”

“Me. Hug you.”

“…Yes?”

“…Touching you physically to hug you?”

“Is there another way to hug people?”

“I guess there’s not…but I really don’t…why do you want that????”

Siffrin gives a placid smile that nearly manages to look careless, impressive for someone standing on their toes with one arm pinned behind their back by a man nearly twice their height, even if it does look like a very gentle one which is easing for every moment you don’t do anything but sit about staring like an idiot.

“I want this because…as of about…ten minutes ago…I found out I really like hugs,” Siffrin says.

“I suppose that…answer’s one of my…long standing questions, as I take it that means you’re…not adverse to touch,” you say like a dullard.

“N-no? I’m not some weirdo that thinks about this an unusual amount or someone that needs to be touched, but I’m not going to say no to it if someone’s like…offering to hug me.”

“Sif? Why does that phrasing really makes it sound like you’ve NEVER been hugged before?!” Isabeau yelps, letting go of Siffrin completely in his panic.

“Are you saying you’ve not EVER been hugged?!” Boniface adds with something like sudden panic, something equally echoed by Mirabelle’s sudden swing to stare at Siffrin.

“Why would I? Come on, none of you hug me…or like…didn’t before today. Anyway, if even you guys didn’t want to hug me, why would you think someone else would?” Siffrin asks, tipping back his head to raise an eyebrow at Isabeau like he is one being weird here. “I mean you do sometimes touch me by accident…by not much. I don’t remember it happening much. Today has had…the most physical contact with people I can remember!”

There is another…awkwardly long pause, now half of the attention on you and the other half on Siffrin. This is…better but also considering THAT admission you’re fairly sure that ALL the attention should be on Siffrin right now.

Then again…considering everything it took to get to this point –

“What are you idiots waiting for – ?!” you snap, gesturing helpless at Siffrin. “Hug them already and prove we were all just under the clearly UTTERLY incorrect impression that they didn't like to be touched!!! And put some effort in, would you, apparently, THIS is the only way to convince them to LIVE?!?”

The correct decision was made by the group as they reprioritise and collectively all pile onto Siffrin again for their third hug…in their living memory.

“There’s no need to be that dramatic – oh!” Siffrin yelps, before complaining loudly from where they’ve just been buried under love and affection. “Look! I am…completely normal and can happily live without any sort of contact – as proven by how I’ve done this for years!”

“SHUT UP AND GET HUGGED, CRABBING IDIOT?!?!?”

“Siffrin! STAY STILL and BE HUGGED!”

“Buddy you cannot say things like that and expect us not to do this – really, why didn’t you just SAY something?!?”

“Uh…didn’t want to…be a bother? Figured there had to be…some reason you didn’t touch me.”

“YEAH?!? To not UPSET YOU, Frin?!?! You like FLINCH if I touch you unexpectedly?!?”

“…I do?!?!?”

What is WITH these idiots – gems, even if this doesn’t make a difference to Siffrin’s horribly self-sacrificing behaviour…you still might be thinking a little of how you could try and get them some hugs in later loops. That might be very easily achieved as long as long as…you just tell anyone about this, and after that only slightest push would probably lead to this result,

It would be nice to make sure they know how much they’re loved, even if only for a little while before –

…gems.

You…are still crying? Why? Honestly the effort of wiping them away is just getting annoying at this point. Seriously, why hasn’t that stopped already considering that you’re barely sure why you started in the first place –

“ – Odile.”

You blink, eyes snapping about to find Isabeau crouching next to you, holding out a…handkerchief towards you.

You take it.

“…Thank you, Isabeau.”

“Not a problem,” Isabeau says easily.

Rather than returning to the rest, he drops to sit next to you, eyes shifting to where Siffrin is being hugged to death by Boniface while Mirabelle sets to work trying to clean up the blood from their face and hair and brushing it while at that task. You…try and steady your breathing, and…

…you…are very tired.

“Hey, you never did tell us why your eyes and teeth went weird,” Isabeau begins voice light but too quiet to carry far. “Like is it a cat or – ”

“ – I assure you they are not even remotely feline and that I have NO affinity with those creatures whatsoever.”

“…Okay then! Cool, cool, cool, take that on board and…made a note of not to imply that ever again,” Isabeau replies. “And in the spirit of educating me a little help avoid that…will you tell me what kind of animal you do…uh…‘vibe with’?”

You hesitate, thrown as ever by how willing Vaugardians are both to ask and answer such personal questions with any build up, and the dreadful way Isabeau phrased that. “…The visual elements of…Expression Craft…don’t always track logically.”

“Ahuh, I gathered as much by that by how being loyal can give some fox ears.”

“Oh, that one is extremely straightforward – Holy foxes are shapeshifters of a thousand stories. Foxes that can take the form of humans to act as the messengers and servants of the Expressions. Due to the…nature of this Craft always looking for ways to twist the body to express the core…there is a direct link between stories where characters indirectly give away their ‘true form’ due to slipping up and revealing they possess inhuman traits and…well. People having that happen…but in reverse.”

“Hang on, what – you’re saying that some people go ‘well! The foxes in these stories and loyal and good boys, who accidently give away the fact they are a fox by accident…that’s just like my extreme unspoken loyalty for my commanding officer – oops! And now I got a tail!?’”

“Not actively. Usually there’s no thought at all. But that’s also…not not what happens.”

“…And this happens…often?”

“No is doesn’t – it happens occasionally. Very rarely one might even say. And that do have this happen… figure out how to make it stop while still a child. Like I…mostly did,” you mutter, twisting the handkerchief about your fingers.

“Right. Still doesn’t explain the…you know. Teeth.”

Grunting you acknowledge that no, you hadn’t and accept that Isabeau is not about to take a hint and stop asking. “The traits I tend to express are…not typical, when it comes to the Expression of Ends. My grandmother Expressed her core as…mostly an aura of threat. She was deeply confused by the changes I had in appearance. The fault of this was place finally on how I was…extremely bad at meditating.”

“I…am not tracking the line of thought in that in the slightest.”

Your mouth twists into a smile. “Oh, that’s to be expected, because it’s utterly ridiculous and stemming from an even more ridiculous set of circumstances leading up to it. My grandmother was aware enough to realise she should try and teach me to stop starting fights with people, but for some reason thought the way to teach me to be less angry way by meditating on how there were ‘better ways to get the ends we want’ then judo throws or biting.”

“Meditation has been known to help people process feelings better…but uh, depends on a lot of your personality I gather, which…meant it did not suit you?” Isabeau says squinting at you.

“It…did not. Rather the problem, really. As in the many hours she tried to make this lesson sink in, she’d make us sit before the family shrine to the Expression of Ends as…she’d meditate. For my part, I would stare about and think of all the far more interesting things I could be doing. And one of the main things that I could look at was the painting in the shrine of…the dragon incantation of the Expression.”

“I…oh, I get it – let me guess, the small bored and angry child left staring at the dragon definitely had some thought along the lines of ‘I bet a dragon wouldn’t have to meditate. Also if I was a dragon then biting idiots is would be normal and everyone would let me do that, and then agree it was way more sensible to let me go read and not sit about for ANOTHER long afternoon bored out of my mind pretending to meditate to make grandma happy’,” Isabeau says, quirking up an eyebrow.

“…That…is eerily accurate.”

“Yes,” Isabeau fist pumps the air as he cheers softly. “Win for Isabeau being able to unsettle others with being too observant.”

You manage a bark of laughter, as you shake your head. “Yes, yes – see? This really is utterly ridiculous. A ten-year-old thinking ‘being a dragon would be a direct END to all my pressing and childish problems’…should not have this much effect on a person.”

“Well never mind how old you get, I suppose there just will always be a part of you that thinks that biting people SHOULD be how some problems are solved!”

Glaring slightly at Isabeau you mutter, “Well as much as I loathe your phrasing…unfortunately you are right again. And that is why I’ve spent a lifetime of learning how to control all emotions that could express like that.”

“Uh…maybe repressing your feelings is…part of the problem?”

“Those are bold words for someone that I’ve never seen cry.”

“Hey! I cry! You’ve just never seen me under enough pressure!”

“…Hmph. Of course I haven’t. And besides, this isn’t repression. This is the very fine line between repression which inevitably leads to explosions…and not enough control, leading anger to bleed out thought the cracks very much against my will. My father worked quite hard with me as we figure out where that line was, at least enough so that I didn’t have a giant sign indicating those…anger issues visible to any and all I met the rest of my life.”

“I…wait, you mean that…hang on, which would make you seem to have dragon-ish eyes? Repressing it more or less? Cus letting it explode is bad but like…does that mean finding healthy outlets to the same thing?”

You pause, trying to think about that, because you…haven’t really thought about it that way. The primary issue with this was how you tended to get unfortunately violent as a child and that was very bad when combined with razor sharp teeth and even less impulse control.

The problem of how slit pupils and animalistic teeth are clearly associated with a variety of Expressions of whom would make someone extremely unwelcome in polite company had been a close secondary after that such…that……huh.

“…I’ll admit that…I am unsure – this isn’t studied. Gems – this is barely acknowledged. For most people that do have permanent and visible Expressions of their core marking them…the thing to do is find whatever ways are needed to pretend that they aren’t there, to the point of dressing to hide it if possible….while everyone about them pretends also not to any things that are impossible to hide.”

Isabeau raises an eyebrow, seeming to be thinking about something very hard, before he speak again. “Hey, ever wondered what would happen if you just…repressed things a little less? Cus…you’re clearly going…not great right now.”

You narrow your eyes, waiting for him to clear up which of the dozen things that could be used against you is the one Isabeau is currently referring to.

“…Change – ” Isabeau hisses, and lowing his voice leans in to add only just loud for you to hear. “Odile. Half hour ago, you threatened to cut your throat if Siffrin died.”

…Did…did you really –

You…stare back at Isabeau and into the depths of your soul as the fuzzy memory fading in very unclearly but despite how much you’d very much like to deny that it does still fade in, and you find you have no answer for how you can possibly explain this and still come off as sane.

“…Does it help that…might have topped the long list of most embarrassing moment in my entire life?” you reply just as quietly.

“You know…? I think…that makes it…worse!?” Isabeau says between his teeth, smiling very fixedly at you. “I was going to make Sif have a feel-feels chat with me later…but you know? I think you need it WAY more than him!?”

“Oh, I don’t disagree, but also if you do manage to keep me to that promise, then I’d beg you also make Siffrin address their dreadful complex for trying to waltz with death. In fact, vow you’ll do that first and then bring a few bottles of vodka with you, and I’ll tell you about every emotion I’ve ever have even had the misfortune to experience or inflict on my fellow human being, regardless of it you or I want me to.”

“You better mean that because I am going to hold you to that promise, Odile.”

You smile back at Isabeau, even if it’s a little wanly. “If you can manage it…then I would welcome it. I think I need to…change a little or else the next slip…might not be that harmlessly embarrassing.”

Isabeau…doesn’t laugh. But that’s fine.

It wasn’t a joke.

Not…either part of it. You are going to need to find someway to process or deal with any of this. Not when there is slim hope that Siffrin’s promise will make a difference. Even just considering that Siffrin thought wishing would make the slightest – ha, the mechanics of Wish Craft likely do not work like that. Considering how similar to Expression Craft it seems to be, well – there wasn’t any ritual to that wish, and Siffrin would have known that.

…Really. Such a statement is completely pointless…

Though maybe…a little cute.

Ah….

…Wish Craft, huh.

A wish got you stuck in a…time loop. That…feels deeply silly to think, but…well. The evidence is before you, and honestly a time loop is just as ridiculous just on its own.

You have no further reason to doubt it’s true, even as you equally…understand why Loop didn’t bring this up sooner. You can’t imagine that you’d have been inclined to believe Loop if told ‘there is a secret Craft, only written in secret books which I can read but you can’t, and that is how you got stuck in a time loop up accident’.

Mmph…secret books…that seem to be the only way to read about this…and which looking directly at was enough shatter all coherent thought in your head just seeing them…and ones that even Loop reading leads to them coughing by blood.

That…would make the Wish Craft appear to be the extreme version of your inability to think too much about the stars, which bodes so very poorly. More than that, if Siffrin knows the basic rituals of Wish Craft, you can’t imagine that Loop wouldn’t also know them…meaning more and deeper understanding of this ‘forgotten’ Craft is needed to answer so much as the question of why you’re stuck here.

You really might not have any hope to break free of these loops. Eyes tracking to Siffrin you find your mouth twisting slightly. You potentially being doomed to fail is not new information, or a change from how you’ve been fighting on for many loops now.

Siffrin is not dead in this moment…and may even shock you by living to the end of the loop.

...They are all alive, for the moment.

Isabeau sitting at your side still, even as he now laughs at something Mirabelle said as she bushes out Siffrin’s hair. There is a flash as Siffrin glances towards Isabeau, and you, but only long enough to have begun smiling before their attention is forced to return to Boniface who is poking at his face with a disgruntled expression like they’re trying to cram a lifetime of missed touch into those little jabs.

There is such dissonance in this life you’re stuck in. Flicking between jokes, chatter, screaming and tears, the heights of battle centred on ideology and hope, to those odd moments of serene quiet snatched in the most unlikely places as…just outside the kitchen on the…first floor.

….

Wait…

Does that really mean that—

Did you really just have that ENTIRE breakdown on the FIRST FLOOR – no, you think it’s WORSE, this is the SECOND hall of the first floor!?!?!

….

……...

… Gems .

You…okay, you’re done being contemplative now.

You will give the others a moment to finish what they’re doing and will be politely asking if you can carry on so can try and forget how embarrassed you feel in hindsight of not even having the good sense to have this breakdown on the third floor like Mirabelle does.

Just get through this loop, see if Siffrin lives, and then give them the hug they want for whatever mysterious reasoning compels them, and then…return to Loop and…

…You…just have to wait to see how that reunion goes, won’t you.

There is little hope of anything changing…but out of everything in this eternal endless loop of time, the only thing that can EVER permanently shift is you…and the stagehand. Just an eternity for the two of you to come to truly despise each other’s flaws, and how there is no way to escape your own…or each other’s.

Endlessly repeating the same mistakes seems to just be the nature of time loops.

****

[The Traveller gains Memory of Hug. The Traveller will always remember this.]

[When the Traveller has received a hug, and a clear sign you care for them, their defences will be boosted by 50. With such high defence, the Traveller will now always be able to survive direct attack, even one from The King.]

Hours later, staring into the bright sky of the Housemaiden’s courtyard, a ringing voice that you're nearly sure is not Loop’s fading away from inside your head.

Your hand is still hovering over Siffrin’s back where you’d been patting it. It had taken fifteen minutes for Siffrin to get the nerve for this, but as he had in the end done as vowed, and come to ask for the ‘wished for’ hug, which you’d agreed to because he had managed to survive. The pressure of Siffrin trying to crush your ribs is…still something you notice but only distantly now, much the same as you find your head empty, with only the vaguest suggestion of coherent thought.

Not a blinding thought in your idiot head…but for…one.

One…single thought looming sudden and oppressive like a passenger ship appearing out of a dense fog, towering above the tiny rowboat of your cognition

and on a direct and

unstoppable

collation

course

with

you.

….

………

WHAT THE F – 

Chapter Text

You lay below the Favour Tree, staring up into the dim depths above and think about absolutely nothing at all.

Thinking of nothing doesn’t require effort. The panic has consumed you from the roots of your hair, all the way down to the soles of your feet, leaving nothing of you behind but raw fear. When such is the case, there’s no choice left but to surrender to it, and allow yourself to be swallowed up by blissful calm.

The last loop was not one that you think went…well.

You believe you had what might be referred to as ‘a lover’s tiff’ with the Researcher, one in the vein of the inciting incident in a play that ties together all the petty irritations of those earlier acts which the audience was witness to.

It began with you and her saying some slightly unkind things to each other.

And then…she hung up the call.

You did not know the Researcher could disconnect the (Call ....) skill herself. Since she had figured it, you’d expected to feel the loop rewind for her to escape the consequences of her suicide threats, so she might come and keep yelling at you.

But…she had not.

You spent hours waiting for the loop to reset, with bleeding heart in your throat before the light returning to Vaugarde indicated that the Researcher had indeed just…carried on. All the way through to the King – and when shortly after the world finally reset, you could see nothing but the approaching of the end as there could only be one place for her to go on looping back.

That was two hours ago. Two…hours…since the beginning of loop 218.

And…Researcher still has not come to speak to you.

....

…So, this…is how your life ends.

In blissful peace and quiet.

Quiet.

And…Peace.

This serenity…is this how true (the one you image to be empty as dreamless sleep) death feels?

Maybe it is – or maybe your mind has finally caught up with the reality of the world and accepted what you’ve been all along. Now that you’ve no further purpose, no reason to fight or struggle, no reason to think or worry, no reason to speak or move…what really does separate you from death, if you’re just a rudderless and forgotten echo?

If she never speaks to you again, if the last link to the living and your friends is cut…

That would make properly dead.

Officially dead.

Passed on.

Deceased.

…a….

…body….

….and, ahaha, there really is only one proper thing to do with a corpse in Vaugarde.

Bury that corpse at the foot of a tree.

….

Mm…

Probably not the…healthiest way in the whole world to deal with your feelings, this whole ‘digging a shallow grave and laying down in it’ thing. But that’s a secondary concern, and when considered in the light of how very cathartic the exercise of carving out this shallow grave, along with how it helped burn off enough nervous energy so you can lay here so calmly now.

Besides if you ignore the open grave thing, this really is a nice place to just…lay and stare up into the dark below the favour tree. Basically, meditative this with such a calming view, and only the faint rustling of the breeze passing through the leaves of the Favour Tree above to disturb the still. Honestly, of all the many stresses you suffer being a living corpse and there’s no one who could fault you for this sort of melodramatic behaviour.

Yuuuuuup.

What would this be, but…a really normal way to deal with –

….

Wait….is that –

……….

Stars.

That is the crunching of shoes on dirt. Now…pausing, seeing your place in front of the tree is empty.

Will she take a blinding hint – ?

Ah.

Nope.

She isn’t. That is definitely the sound of the Researcher now walking about the Tree. Her uneven steps approaching steadily until they stop…at the foot of hole in the ground you’re lying in.

“There you are, Loop,” the Researcher says, and the pair of syllables she’s still pretending to believe to be your name rattle between her teeth like bone dice.

You stare up at her blandly, not ready for what must be your final curtain call…but knowing that it’s too late to run.

“Loop, I genuinely cannot believe the utter nonsense Siffrin just put me through – did you see that?! If not for how I’m still in shock, and deeply grateful to HAVE an answer, I would be fighting the urge to kill him for putting me through ALL OF – !?!” the Researcher makes a snarling noise, twisting about to pace a few steps away and back again, “ – Siffrin is an enigma!? Even being stuck in this damned time loop a thousand years I will never understand the workings of that idiot scissor wizard’s mind!!!”

“I…eh – ???” you reply eloquently, hurriedly shuffling to sit up and settle cross legged in your shallow homemade grave, struck by a sense that you might have…missed an important piece of setup to what the Researcher is ranting about here...?

“My sentiment exactly!! What is WRONG with Siffrin that THIS is the first and ONLY thing I’ve ever said or done that got through his skull that I’d like him to put more effort into not dying?!?” the Researcher whirls about again to gesture at the Favour Tree, sky, or maybe entire universe, as she adds, “I am going to submit a complain to whatever useless and stupid – Memory of HUG!? This is the stupidest thing I’ve EVER heard, and that is an EXTREMELY HIGH BAR at THIS point of my life!?!”

“I – excuse me, Memory of what?!” you demand.

“Lovely, at least for once you are innocent of this INCREDIBLE stupidity – I thought you were, but it’s nice to be sure. This even makes for a rare pleasant surprise, discovering that you’re not the cause of this insanity,” the Researcher hisses at you.

“But who but me – if I didn’t give Stardust that, how did they even get that?!”

“You know? I’ve no idea and right now don’t care.”

“But if it wasn’t me, and wasn’t a major event – wait, even beyond that, what did you do to get that memory?! WHO hugged Stardust – hang on, please tell me they didn't they get that memory from you hugging them, followed by shortly after threatening to kill yourself?!”

“No?!? They did not get it from that?!” the Researcher snaps incredulously gesturing violently at you. “It was that damned promise they made AFTER I – didn’t you…see the…? The Memory was made at the point after the King was – this was the fulfilment of that ridiculous promise of Siffrin’s…? Wait, do…do you not know what I’m talking about?”

“No!? I do not?!?”

“HOW?!?”

“I…Look! You are not the only thing going on in my life! I have other interests, no need to think my whole life revolves about you!!!” you reply mostly out of panic because you want to know what the blinding hell happened after she hung up SO BADLY?!?!?

“You…didn’t listen to the…chat afterwards?”

“WHAT chat?!?”

“Are you…really saying I must have this whole painful conversation explaining Expression Craft again!?!”

“What the hell is EXPRESSION CRAFT???”

“You…really didn’t – ?! Loop you infuriating little – why did you have to pick NOW of all times to try and respect my privacy?!?”

“Because I didn’t think you WANTED me listening after you HUNG UP?!?!”

“You think I what?!?! But…I didn’t…?” the Researcher stops, hesitating before adding under her breath, “I…think I didn’t? I don’t remember much…of – Loop, as far as I am aware I did NOT ‘hang up’? I am…nearly positive I…passed out.”

“…You wot – you FAINTED?!?!”

“I didn’t faint – there was confounding factors! Like blood loss!!!”

“You fainted and…so don’t remember anything we were talking about? What…do you remember of our…tiff?”

“I…there are…bits. Pieces and snippets, but…of the whole? I’m afraid that…I don’t remember… most of what was said.” Her wince of uncomfortable embarrassment, the stiffness held tightly in her shoulders and her sudden avoiding of your eyes…tells you everything you wanted to know, even before she adds out of the corner of her mouth. “But from those fragments I seem to get the impression that I might…owe you an apology…?”

“An…apology.”

“…Maybe more than apology?”

….

Stars –

She does NOT remember SHIT – and while it would be SMART to take the high road, it would also be very rude to refuse to tell you exactly what she asked for.

“Oh yes – you owe me several apologies, Researcher!” you chirp, possessed by the energy of a dopamine rush and anxiety attack. “You called me a petty, pathetic, desperate, jealous, vindictive and horribly insecure little god – you also said you…uh…hated me, and directly stated that you wanted to tear out my throat…along with a few more hurtful things too which I’ll do you the mercy of not repeating to you in full.”

The Researcher stares off at nothing, eyes dead such to be nearly unreadable.

“Ah. I think I…almost remember that part. Though…now I do find it coming into focus, I think there are a few things you should apologise for…unless I’m misremembering and you didn’t call me a pathetic, stupid, impulsive, short-temped, cruel, mess of a twit?”

“…I…uhhhh……”

The Researcher raises an impressively unmoved eyebrow, and you huff, accepting that this defeat was basically a self-inflicted one. Just getting to brush it all aside…seems way too good to be true, but if she is just going to do that for both of you…?

HA!

You…are fine with that…but even if you are, that’s no reason to roll over too easily.

“No, no, I can take responsibly for my unpleasant words, if you are able to. Even if you don’t, I will still do the right thing and throw myself to the ground to beg forgiveness, even if you have nothing but snide dismissals for my pathetic efforts – ”

“Gems alive will you shut up,” the Researcher rolls her eyes, and drops to sit, no kneel, at the foot of your grave – ?!?

“Eh?! Wait, Researcher what are you – ?!?”

“It’s it obvious? I’m doing as asked and apologising like an adult,” the Researcher replies evenly, and bows her head ever so slightly towards you. “Even if you this ‘sorry’ is a worthless joke of a word…I’m going to say it anyway, because…from the fragments of memory, I know I was unreasonably cruel.”

“Ahaha, okay, okay! Cool – look Researcher, I really don’t care that much – ”

“ – Shut up, Loop, I’ve something else to say too – and however my words may appear to you, this is not an attempt to excuse myself by claiming I was not in my right mind. This admission is one I’m telling to give my apology any sense of sincerity, as while I’d rather eat broken glass then admit it, if not for how I know I owe you this piece of understanding. Along with how…you’re likely going to notice this soon enough, and this is the less humiliating way to explain this utter mess.”

Is…the Researcher about to say something…actually important? Also, why is the smell burned sugar now all about and growing stronger the longer she continues speaking?

“…Uhhh – what…little mess would that be…?” you reply, wondering if the Researcher might be under the impression you don’t think she’s got emotions or something equally stupid.

Hand rising along with her head, you barely have a moment to notice the everything wrong with her eyes, before she pries up her lip and –

“ – this one.”

There is barely time to see the silhouette of teeth ones that shouldn’t be found in a human’s mouth, before she jerks her hand back down again. There’s a tension now visible in how her lips are pressed tightly together, doing little to hide how the teeth below fit poorly behind them. Eyes rising to meet her glare, you take another moment to process because WOW, yup! That is NOT a shade humans’ eyes should be?!?

Not a shade…ANYTHING could be.

An utterly unnatural one that’s…

…eerily familiar…?

But that last thought is a very distant one though, and not one that you hang onto for long. Not when there is another FAR more burning consideration leaping to the tip of your tongue demanding to be set free.

“Researcher. What the fuck is this.”

“This…is Expression Craft,” she replies, with the most carefully controlled voice you’ve ever heard.

“And that is…?”

“Expression Craft…happens because someone gets very unlucky while performing otherwise benign rituals to honour the gods in Ka Bue. The Craft…destabilise the body, seeing that the desires and core of the soul can be reflected through someone’s…appearance. There is little logic to the elements that are reflected, beyond how it suggests the deepest parts of the living gem in your soul and…often influenced heavily by the…obsessions of youth.”

You look at slitted pupils, inhuman teeth, and indirect and tangled explanation of the Researcher, and grab desperately for the ‘unfortunate and embarrassing’ conclusion the Researcher seems sure you’ll draw from this.

“Wait, does that mean the Kid was right? You did have a cat phase?” you ask, because unfortunately you are stupid.

“Loop, you – gems alive, I am NOT – ”

The shade in the Researcher’s eyes flickers as she blinks, and then blinks again, appearing and disappearing from her eyes like the twinkling of a breaking star, and for one single moment you know yourself to be dead. Not about-to-be dead, but fully already dead, past tense, and only able to be aware of this because time and the universe have yet to catch up and correct the clerical error that left this strange delay of events such that you were able to know yourself dead before it happened.

What could you be but dead, after being so consumed by such raw and primal fear, one that is more inevitability than emotion. Fear that’s distant and everything, devouring and burning up all that’s in you like you’re a bug below a magnifying glass, staring up through warped glass at the sun and feeling it’s light and heat bath you, sinking into the depths of your mind, soul, and body.

“Is it not ENOUGH to see my control creaking to give a glimpse the core that is barely human?! It must NOT be if you STILL – what ELSE is slipping through that people keep asking if I’m – ” her words cut off with a whistling snarl, and she buries a hand into the cloth of her shirt, drawing it tight into a fist.

Leaning back on your hands, you turn over this fear settled into you like a candy you’re rolling over your tongue, as the Researcher’s breath whistles between her teeth as she goes silent again, but for the rasping, gasping breathes hissing in and out of her mouth.

You have no idea what is going on, and even less idea what she’s doing. You’re certainly not sure if it’s bad or really bad that right now you’re wondering what it’s like to have teeth like that sink into your flesh but…you sure are thinking about it. If you make another cat joke, would she – NOPE – AHAHA?!?!! Stars, NO, pretend you did NOT think that?! RESIST and do not make that joke?! If she can resist ripping out your throat (something you’re beginning to suspect was NOT a figure of speech), you can resist making jokes that might make her mad enough to do that!

Just…deep breaths.

Wait just a little more and…let her breath too. Wait as the scent of sugar fades away and the Researcher packs away whatever caused that rage to nearly consume her, until the only sign remaining is the shaking of her shoulders, hinting faintly of all the fury now once again just barely caged below her skin.

You don’t have a blinding clue what’s up with any of this, (not the teeth, the eyes, or the sudden bursts of uncontrolled and vicious fury), but a few little things are clear. The Researcher thinks this is an old problem (unrelated to time loops) and judging by how swiftly she tried to get over the ‘show and tell’ part, it’s probably something she’s ridiculous enough to think an embarrassment.

This…is fascinating.

Does the Researcher she still have those teeth now? You can’t tell since she still hasn’t raised her head, and you want to know so badly – flopping to lounge on your side, elbow propped up on the edge of your grace, you disappointed to see they’re normal again.

Oh well.

Maybe later you’ll get to see it again later? Also…ah, maybe you should…think about maybe…being a little manganous and apologise to her too. Yes, you…probably should do that – should have done it even if she didn’t just bare…potentially her literal soul (you’re shaky on what that was about beyond being ‘big feelings of possibly murderous rage’). Yeah, you’re pretty sure that only a jerk would say you two were even without you saying anything in return.

“Well! That was…quite a show – though I do wonder if you were perhaps a little under selling the…drama of this when you said this was a ‘minor problem’?” you say, stalling for time as you figure out where to start with this apology thing.

“Sssss…that went…less then well. I’d hoped – gems, I knew trying to apologise would going to sound hollow, but……that went…so much worse then I’d expected,” the Researcher wheezes.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I feel quite shamed as I have no dramatic reveal to use as an apology for my part in the little tiff,” you reply a little distantly, staring at her perfectly normal teeth and trying to crush back down the musing of if she could bite through bone if properly motivated.

The Researcher…laughs (just a little huff of a laugh, but still) and finally a little of the tension bleeds out of her enough, so she straightens up.

“Why would you need do something dramatic. Loop, if I cared about everyone that called me names, I’d never get anything done.”

“Excuse me, but you cannot dismiss this as a joke. I’m seriously trying to come up with something and failing here – what am I to do here? Write you a formal letter of apology? Bake a cake? Get a silly hat and do a jig?” you reply, but your heart is not quite in it, for a reason you’re having trouble putting your finger on.

The Researcher’s mouth twists into a wry smile as she glances at you, with a calm that seems more genuinely herself, but you felt no better seeing it. “Really Loop, don’t tie yourself up in knots over this. Your cute little insults might have annoyed me, but gems alive, I’ve been called far worse behind my back then you could ever imagine, and even if I’m wrong…well. You had the decency to scream it at my face, and for that I’ll thank you, even…if…uh…?”

She…trails off, frowning strangely at you.

You are not sure what you’re feeling now but…for that part of it is deep annoyance and…other things too. You don’t like her tone of voice. It’s too genuinely careless – why does the Researcher not think anything you needs an apology?! Is that true or is she just lying to you? That fact you can’t tell – you really hate how the Researcher refuses to ever look directly at her own injuries, no matter how deep or shallow they are.

This makes it…very difficult for you to judge the depth of them…much the same as she can barely judge them either.

Straightening up to sit properly upright you clasp a hand to your chest as you clear your throat loudly to make sure you’ve got her full attention. “Researcher. I’m…sorry for saying mean things. Not…all of them. But like…the ones that were just being mean – those ones I apologise for.”

“How…thoughtful of you to…clear that up,” the Researcher replies, watching you…rather like someone watching a dog get up and start reciting the dictionary, and even when you wait several long seconds she STILL adds nothing else – wait, is she leaving it at that like it’s ALL that needs to be said?!

“Is that…ALL you have to say, Researcher?!”

“I – what? Oh, I – ” she blinks, and then shakes herself. “Sorry, yes, I…thank you…? For…saying that…?”

“…I’m beginning to see now why you don’t often have people apologise to you.”

“Ha…perhaps…that is why – but that is neither here nor there,” she replies slightly more firmly, whirling about a finger as she redirects the conversation like a conductor. “So, let’s move on to something more relevant. Like that thing which caused us to become stuck in this time loop. So let’s talk about Wish Craft, Loop.”

“Is that REALLY all – aren’t you going to even TRY to ease into this conversation a faction less bluntly?!?”

“Would being tactful cause you to suddenly find you have a lot of thoughts to share, or would you just use it to change the subject bluntly to a topic of your choice?” the Researcher asks raising an eyebrow.

You hold up a finger and then very slowly lower it again, disgruntled.

“That’s what I thought. So be quite and listen even if you do nothing else, please – because I’ve been thinking about this, and I very much want to share those thoughts, meaning I require nothing but that you act as sounding board about this…unless you feel inspired to speak, that is. You are willing to listen to me working though my theories about Wish Craft about this, yes?”

“I…if you…wait, you have theories you’d like to think about…?” you reply a little confused at how…deep this is going so quick.

“Yes, I believe that I very much do,” the Researcher replies with just a touch of glee.

“…How? You NEVER had a theory about the stars or universe or – how for WISH CRAFT do you suddenly have THOUGHTS?!”

“Because I’m not thinking about Wish Craft, but something else that is very similar…enough to have rules in common, and therefore a basis for me to pin other thoughts to and extrapolate from them. See, I am very nearly sure of something, because it’s the only thing that could explain this. Expression Craft is not a related to Body or Healing Craft…it’s rather more like Wish Craft.”

“…I…it…is?” you reply weakly, holding up your hands to get a chance to add, “Okay, right, no – you’ve still not explained anything about this ‘Expression Craft’ thing?! How could it POSSIBLY be like Wish Craft?!?”

“Everything about it is like Wish Craft! From the rituals, logic, and rules – even the limits are similar in how they’re half understood, and seemingly unbreakable as other Crafts, and yet there are exceptions showing how those limits CAN be broken in extreme, meaning that the underlaying theory of those crafts is not yet mapped out properly?! And that is the key bit!? See, Loop?!? Do you SEE?!? Because of THAT I can finally tear this MESS to pieces and get us some ANSWERS!!!”

“Isn’t tearing mysterious to pieces just what you…do? Constantly?”

"Of course you’d not – ” Gesturing at you with lively irritation the Researcher snaps, “Loop, isn’t THIS is why you didn’t bother to tell me about this sooner!? Without a proper base line of understanding I cannot make my mind stick to the things you need it to!”

“That is like…a part of it, I guess – ?”

“ –even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter. Whatever your reasons where, that’s certainly why I was didn’t bother pressing you for answers! There wasn’t a point, not if I couldn’t pursue or analysis it without my thoughts fading into mist at the slightest – but that was because all the things about those things you spoke of where lost to me! But this – Expression Craft is a useless, stupid, mystery that’s more folklore then grounded Craft – but I know it, REMEMBER it, and it give me a bedrock to think about all the rest!”

“And…what is ‘the rest’…?”

“The way that Wish Craft can…break things – same as Expression Craft. People’s intent is messy, and when it’s focused through Protection, Creative, and Piercing Craft, or even those others like Healing or Body Craft…Wish Craft’s flaw, like Expression Craft, is that it likely doesn’t end with simple cause and effect.”

“And…what does that mean.”

“Drop a rock in a pond and what happens, Loop?”

“There’s a splash," you say, even thought you think it's a trap.

“Exactly. There is a splash when Craft effects the world – but wish to have a rock drop into a pond and…what happened then?”

“I…don’t know would happen – ?” you say, completely lost at this point.

“Preciously – and neither do I! But there clearly are rules, just as there is clearly reasoning for why a time loop is the result of some shattering fool’s blindly made wish – ” the Researcher cuts herself off, settling back onto her heels, as breathes out shakily before finishing with forceful calm, “And…that’s the key. Who wished. What was in their heart and…how is such intent and desire interpreted by…whatever god was listening, into forming this stupid time loop.”

“You…figured all of that out…from…my one comment and the NAME of the Craft?!”

“I…Not quite? That and…Siffrin. He taught me to wish and…explained it again while I was trying to tell them about Expression Craft. The pieces of this…they’re not complex, but this is likely as far as I can go without far more precises information – ”

“But what did you wish for, Researcher!? Shouldn’t that give you a huge clue as to what the problem is?! What did you WISH FOR, Researcher?!”

The Researcher…hesitates. “I…it might not be even just my wish, even if it likely was a catalyst of sorts – but regardless of that, even if I did tell you what I wished for…that might tell us far less then you hope it will. Until very recently I didn’t believe I’d wished for anything.”

“But…you must have? How ELSE could this have happened?!?”

“I didn’t want to just make it a test when Siffrin was staring at me…so I just…uh. Breathed onto the leaf and folded it over…without forming a complete thought as a wish. I'm not overestimating when I say it might be any of...about a dozen things or...nothing at all, though considering the time loop had to have been caused by something, that's less likely.”

“…Are…are you serious. It might be anything or...nothing?”

“Unfortunately…yes.”

“Stars,” you sink your face into your hands. “We…are so completely fucked.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic – yes, we might be, but if I got this far without giving into despair despite having no reason for all this, you are certainly not allowed to give up when we have finally started unravelling this mess. Honestly, how is this any different from before? You must have realised the ‘wish’ had gone wrong! Even the Head Housemaiden likely knew this, for all she’s unable to just EXPLAIN it because she’s USELESS.”

“Reseacher??! You didn’t wish for anything?!?! Or maybe you wished  for a dozen things?? And this time loop might continue until we FIGURE OUT WHICH IT IS AND HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?!?! HOW IS THIS ANYTHING BUT REALLY REALLY BAD?!?!?!”

Rolling her eyes like you’re being a dramatic child, the Researcher replies, “Loop, I assume that Wish Craft has the Universe as a focal point, much like Expression Craft has the gods of Ka Bue as the centre of its rituals?”

“What is your blinding point and how does that relate to anything?”

“It relates because both the Expressions, Universe, and the Crafts connected to them would appear to run on technicalities, of the most stupid variety.”

“And this is meant to cheer me up?”

“Oh not at all. There is nothing ‘cheering’ about how a passing thought as a child managed to cause such deep change that I’ve spent the REST OF MY LIFE dealing with the consequences of it. But…I have done that…and I’ve spent it finding loop holes to…cope with it,” the Researcher hisses, hand rising to curl tight about the gem hanging from the right side of her glasses.

Eyes flicking from that to her face again, you wonder if she’s even realised, she did that but remain unsure of that as how anything of that is meant to help.

Rolling her eyes, the Researcher does now realise what she's doing, as she jerks her hand back down and snaps, “Look, my point is that I have lived most of my life with that first curse and lived perfectly well despite it…without ever truly understanding why it happened or the full limits of this curse. We don’t need to understand or know everything about Wish Craft to break this time loop…we just need to learn enough from texts you can read and from the observable limits that we can test through trial and error.”

“You…really think that will be enough.”

“I’ll make it enough. I’m not going to let this ruin my life, not if I didn’t let the first time everything got upended when a passing thought redirected the course of my idiot life. I am not delighted to learn that I’ve had this happen twice…but…life isn’t designed to be fair.”

“Ha – well! That makes two of us. If I can a coin for every time I’ve made a blind wish which led to being trapped in an ironic hell…I’d have two coins! Or would if the Universe wasn’t a cheapskate that only gave me one in return for all the trouble it’s caused, you reply with bitter cheer, pulling free your coin to send spinning through the air.

The Researcher’s eyes snap to follow it through it’s rise and fall again to where you catch it with a flourish, spinning it on a finger. You’re being entirely too careless but what does it matter? Not like anyone in this world has the twin of this coin, and the simple act of having pockets isn’t something that can be suspicious.

“Where…do you…keep that?” the Researcher asks, still staring at the coin.

“I…my pocket?” you reply suddenly uneasy.

“What pockets – you mean you’re…wearing clothes?”

“I…huh?” you reply before your brain catches up what she’s implying with the speed and force of a brick to the back of your skull. “Wait, DO YOU THINK I’M NOT WEARING CLOTHES?!?!”

The Researcher is not meeting your eyes and her face just a little darker as she snaps back, “You kept telling me you’re a star! Stars are not human, so it seemed reasonable if you were now that you’d not have the same modesty standards as – ”

“You thought I was naked, and it didn’t matter because I told you that I’m a star?!?!?”

“I didn’t think of it until later – wouldn’t have been stranger if it hadn’t crossed my mind at some point!?!” the Researcher retorts. “Certainly, I thought it was odd, but there are stranger things about you then – I didn’t realise you were so comfortable walking about like that because you were oblivious as to how it appeared from the outside!”

“Stars – I am WEARING CLOTHES, and I will PROVE IT?!?” Shooting up to your feet, you shove both hands into your pockets and glare at the Researcher. “See?! How could I do THIS if I did not have POCKETS to put my hands in!!!!”

“…That…is…not as convincing as you think it is…though I’ll admit that it makes the case for…something – mostly that it does not look like you should be able to do that?!”

Glancing down you consider how the way it feels and the way it looks…along with the marked contrast between the two.

“Gems, it is extremely…disconcerting – it looks like you’re…like the skin on your hips is being pulled away from the flesh below – ?” the Researcher is climbing to her feet and approaching?! “ – this is fascinating. How can that possibly work? Is it just because your mind is convinced you should have pockets, and warping – but you pulled a coin from it, so there must be something real about them, even if it makes no sense at all?”

…You…not used to being stared at so intently – but also!

This is…basically harmless.

Right?

Ha! Yeah – you’d need to be paranoid to think she could figure out your old identify from you having pockets. But, just to be sure no terrible secret things could be learned from your new flavour of ‘secret pockets’, you rock back on one heel and kicking out your other leg so you can consider it. Thankfully you find nothing terrible, and in fact find something which is nearly cheering.

Pointing down to make sure the Researcher is watching, wait until sure she’s paying attention, and then speak. “Hey, you can see the seam of my pants! Just need to…squint. A bit. See? Just because your eyesight is trash, and imagination vivid, doesn’t mean I’m naked,” you say with relieved mocking.

The Researcher folds her arms and is also staring at your leg, foot tapping rapidly as seemingly the outlet for the repressed of her repressed…what? What is thinking, what is she figuring out, what part of you is the mystery she wants so badly to poke at –

“How does it feel…to…” the Researcher seems to be struggling to find the word she wants, potentially because of translation or because ‘how’s it feel to stuff your hands into your own skin’ is just a LITTLE too weird to say out loud even for her.

“Like I’d expect the inside of pockets to feel,” you reply raising an eyebrow.

She…keeps staring. Very…very…intently.

…Stars, she…wants to touch your skin, doesn’t she – whatever it is she wants to know, she wants to know it very badly. Even if you’re still not sure what that ‘something’ is…that question is beginning to seem less important, when touch might be needed for the investigation. Oh stars, you could absolutely abuse her need to understand everything…hilariously easily – even if she figured out that you’re manipulating her (and really what’s a little casual manipulation between friends), she might let you do it anyway?

There is a very long silence, and you wait, giving her as much opportunity to decide how to approach this normally, before you take matters into your (gleefully, terrified, desperately yearning from a half memory of touch a long time ago now, that you might get just a little more of if you don’t UTTERLY BLOW THIS) hands.

“So! How badly do you want to touch me to see what you can figure out from it?” you ask, with painful casualness, setting both feet firmly back onto the ground before you add, “If you ask…very nicely…and I might be convinced to be extremely generous. I might not even make you buy me dinner first! How’s that for a deal?”

“Asking that…would be…rude,” the Researcher mutters, quite obviously VERY distracted if didn’t tell you to stop flirting and making this weird, “ – how did you just…decide to do that?”

“Do…what?”

“Have pockets.”

“I’ve…always had them. Like I’ve always had clothes.”

“But how did…take you hand out of your…pocket. Please? Just for a moment?”

You do so with a theoretical flourish she barely notices, absolutely aware of her complete utter focus on you as she drops to a knee, hand half reaching out towards you…before stopping dead. Folding your hands behind your back and kick out your foot to rest on the ball of your heel.

“I…can see – huh, please could…put your hand back into the…‘pocket’, please?”

Doing as so politely asked, you rock back and forth on your heels, waiting as the Researcher’s eyes flicker, gathering all information that she can from the slight movement of what she is going to have to admit at some point is the cloth of your pants displaced by your hands.

“Fascinating, the more you focus…the more…pocket-like they become? You seem to be wearing exactly as much as you take the effort to imagine onto surface of your…form – and that is why I can see only the bare impression where the line of your…imagined trousers gather at your waist, knees, and boots. That would also explain why before you did not have any visible lines of clothes, or the folds to them before, no matter that when you sit it should be obvious at the joint of your hips and – ”

“Researcher how much have you been staring at my legs to KNOW ALL THIS?!?!”

“Why do you INSIST on phrasing this like it’s something I’m – I – it was rational information to gather!? You are the one who’s mind apparently thinks clothing is OPTIONAL?!”

“You can’t have this BOTH ways!!! Either you’re a weirdo that’s spent WAY too much time staring at my legs, or you AREN’T that sort of weirdo and so CAN’T prove that I’ve not been wearing clothes the whole time and you just didn’t notice!” you retort stabbing a finger at her.

“Ha! No – the difference is extremely obvious and is entirely dependant on if YOU think you’re wearing clothing! As is PROVED by how I can see the point where your focus fails you, and the folds of ‘fabric’ at your knee are those of skin not cloth.”

“I…might be wearing…leather pants…?”

The Researcher rolls her eyes. “Crabshit.”

“HEY!? How do you know I’m lying?!?!”

“Because you’d have started with that if you were.”

You make a disgruntled noise. “I’m a star. Why couldn’t I be wearing leather pants. And shirt.”

“Because at your waist it wrinkles like cloth…just as the gloves on your hands do move like normal leather…and not living human skin.”

Sneering, but running out of arguments against this, you fold your arms and glare, waiting for the Researcher to drop this stupid distraction already and move on back to the Wish Craft thing, which this is not. But she doesn’t do that…instead the Researcher frowns settles to kneel properly on the ground to ease the pressure on her bad knee, as her hand rises slowly so she can run a finger about the place her jaw hinges.

“How does this...feel – in your mind that is, not your body. Do you have a sense of…anything, when you decide to put a hand into your pocket?”

“Uhhh…I feel…like I want a pocket?”

“Is there anything…is this just…how does this feel different from…when you were still human.”

“Eh. My body is a piece of alien meat, tangled up in raw Craft and whatever junk the Universe stuffed into the carcase left after my death to see it get back up onto it’s little footies, ready to be the good little servant I was made to be,” you reply. “So honestly…I’d say I'm about ten percent more disconnected and detached than I was from it before, when I was still a human.”

There is a slight nodding from the Researcher as she processes that.

Shrugging you add out of the corner of your mouth. “Sorry. I’m a bad person to ask that question. Mostly thought of my body as a ‘thing’ that the rest of my brain had to be attached to like…perceive the world. Not really had the time to think about this one yet, so like. I’ll get back to you if I do figure out if this is different from normal? All I can say is that I just…want something, like pockets, and…I do. Maybe you’re right and they’re something that turn up after I decided…but I think not? Think this is more…they’re always there and just flitter in and out of focus when it’s relevant to my needs.”

“Needs like…having pockets.”

“Sure,” you reply and rock forward to beam down at her. “And now I’m bored being poked like a prize dog. Let’s talk about you and your body. Because pockets are normal, meaning I can only imagine how unnatural it can only feel to grow teeth like you just did.”

“…Ha – oh, that is not the unnatural part. Rather the opposite really,” she replies, tonelessly.

“I don’t believe that – not with how much effort it clearly took you.”

“…Effort. It…is that. From a certain point of view. Just one so consonant that by now it’s an effort to notice the vibrating rattling through my every bone. It’s not that unlike the pain in my knee, in a way. Just…another discomfort, but lesser for being so old that I…don’t remember what it’s like not feeling it.”

“And knee that causes you active pain with every step you take?!”

“Not unlike that,” she murmurs.

You…stare.

“That…sounds…really unpleasant?”

“Ha – oh one gets used to unpleasant things, given time. Very very used to things – for a little context…I can still imagine what it is like to walk painlessly. I can’t really say the same for the other one.”

The image of that, of common sense, rational thought, endless obsessions, and mad desires forever tumbling in a mess of clawing fury inside your mind as they rip to pieces your attempts to just think…is a vivid one, even you’ve only moments to recall of feeling that in the Researcher’s detached mind as she screamed at you last loop.

Constantly needing to push back against your own worst self…sounds more familiar than you’d wish it did, even if you’re isn’t visible on the surface.

“How much control do you have when it comes to…what does it feel like, to make yourself as you want to be without even needing to think picture it?” the Researcher asks

and looks

up at

you.

Stars, the dread fueled panic, desperate hope, and furious jealousy bleeding through endless cracks in her mask of calm are so obvious you’d have felt less uncomfortable if she’d been crying.

“Why…does it matter?” you say because you can’t think of anything else to reply with.

“It…doesn’t. I was just…wondering,” she says lying with all the conviction of a child who’s hand is still in the blinding cookie jar.

“You look like it matters,” you reply with calm that is very fake.

“I…I was only…curious about the…mechanics…? You are…not an Expression, and that is…not Expression Craft…but it is not unlike it. You are…Changed, as the Vaugardians would put it. But…how much of your base substance did you keep? How much is still recognisable as yourself? Would…any of your friends recognise you…if you happened to meet them again, wearing that face?” she trails off, eyes dropping to the ground at your feet.

Following her gaze downward, you consider the curve of boots. Trace the rounded curve of their toes, the hint of dirt to match staining your hands, the only sign of the effort put in to carve out your homemade grave.

The grave…you stand at the head of still, as the Researcher is settled at the foot.

“Would…my friends…recognise me,” you say slowly, tasting each word like a delectable poison thickly coating your mouth such that you might savour it like a really tasty soup. “That…is a real good question, Researcher!”

She says nothing.

She still doesn’t blinding even LOOK at you – her eyes are still on the dirt.

Analysing it.

….

….Ha.

“Oh, Researcher, it’s cute you think there’s a chance in hell that my friends would recognise this walking corpse.”

“I…apologise, Loop. That was a thoughtless comment on my part, one that I shouldn’t have – ”

…and now…she’s…apologising.

For…annoying you. Like…you really are some little god – like she thinks you’ve the power to really truly hurt her in offended, without giving warning or chance to defend against it.

“Researcher, hey, you know me a bit by now, right? You have theories. So come on. Who do you think I am – or…what, I suppose. Since that one always seems to…appeal more to you, reminding me that for all I used to be human I certainly am not that anymore.”

She…hesitates, for not for long, just long enough to settle herself to sit…on the edge of your grave more comfortably.

“I…suppose I do,” she says raising an eyebrow. “I am surprised you want to hear them those theories. Didn’t you tell me I ‘wasn’t a very good guesser’?”

“I lied,” you reply easily. “Your guesses can be dreadful…and way too accurate.”

“Ha, fine. Then…I’ll try and find a middle ground then,” the Researcher says before sighing slightly, glancing down at the ground. “The most…reasonable explanation to my ear is that you’re a human who’s been consumed by…the Wild Expression of your soul, and that’s why you think yourself a ‘stagehand’ of a god.”

“Really, Researcher. Is that your best? I’d have thought that by now you’d have even ONE other guess to offer me.”

“If you demand a new guess, then I’ll say a strange sort of Sadness given form by the people of your lost island.”

“I…really? but…why on earth would I be helping you with a time loop in Vaugarde?!”

“That’s why I don’t think it’s right…even if I was to argue that you’d been dragged into this by accident…you seem to have little in common with those Sadnesses of a whole people,” her eyes come to linger again on the dirt of your grave, a frown drawing her brow together as she adds quietly. “Honestly…you’re most likely to be a ghost. One from either of someone from the house or just a passing traveller who was buried under this tree from ignorance of your peoples own customs…though…”

“Yes?”

“…It’s…possible…you’re…not from this place…or time. Time is fragmented here and…you were a human. A human that has gaps of knowledge about this land and time…along with specific knowledge of other places, and…who’s body shows that they were Changed by what can only be something like Expression Craft. One that clearly followed the lone traveller of that lost land, Siffrin. I don’t know if you were family to him but…I do think that you knew them. That’s why you still care enough to keep following, hoping to get them free…even if it’s not them that got stuck.”

“How…uninspired. Researcher is ‘lonely ghost’ really the best you can think of?” you say, hoping that the shake isn’t audible in your voice. “How about this – do you have any thoughts about the character of the human I might once have been?”

“I…I am sure of much that I…what could I say that isn’t likely to be taken by you as an insult, Loop.”

Tipping back your head, you stare into the leaves of the Favour Tree, into the gaping maw left where a heart should be and that only burns the embers of a star now. Somehow…you hadn’t expected this to be the moment you accepted the thing you’ve been ignoring, avoiding, dancing about as you fleeing, fighting to not let yourself realise…but then again, what choice is there but to accept this little fact of your new life?

…218 loops to realise the blindingly obvious…ah, if your heart wasn’t breaking, oh, how you’d LAUGH at the sheer irony.

You twist about, leaning in stare into her face closer than you’ve ever goes by choice when she’s not unconscious from Craft exhaustion, and force her to look directly into your eyes.

There is not a speck of recognition.

But there sure are many other flashes that pass by - little things betrayed by the contracting of pupils, rapid little movements, and tension about her eyes, no matter how she tries (and oh, she tries to that, doesn’t she – the Researcher tries so blinding hard) to close off from your sight all those muddy emotions, the flight or fight instincts activating, as her eyes search for anything she can use against you in the incoming fight.

…There…is nothing you can do which would cause the Researcher to recognise you.

This…

isn’t

Odile.

The Researcher can’t ever be Odile – HA!?

How could she be Odile. Your friend is dead, and you killed her.

Mirabelle,

Isabeau,

Odile,

and Boniface –

You killed them all –

“ – Sorry Researcher. Think I just changed my mind. I’m still…just a little…angry.”

The Researcher’s eyes narrow, calculating, distrusting, and not in the slightest bit surprised.

Ha. Why WOULD she be surprised – she’ll never know WHO you are, but she does know what kind of useless trash you REALLY –

You…smile.

“Researcher…I want test something – and HA, trust me when I say I’m not doing this for your benefit, even if you only have things to gain having a opponent willing to hit back. Promise this will be a way fairer fight then those kids are too scared of you to ever do more than just stand there as and let you hurt them.”

There is no shake to the Researcher’s shoulders and no brain-hurty shade in her eyes…nothing at all that signals she feels anything about this. But you know that hit home from the way her eyes are now focused through you, no matter how calm her voice in when she replies.

“I would prefer not to fight you, Loop.”

“Teehee~! That’s so blinding cute, Researcher!? I can hear your control creaking, as you struggle to keep your anger in check!? Come on, say yes – you really want to say yes, don’t you?”

“I will not fight you.”

“…Really?”

The Researcher says nothing, but despite her glare being vicious enough to burn the hairs off your arms, her eyes are still their usual shade

“Oh…well that is a pity,” you say and jerk up to your feet, spinning about to leave your back wide open to her as you gesture out at the invisible audience sitting above in the branches of the Favour Tree. “I’m sorry folks! I did my best but seems there are only cowards here – if I was a kid, she might scream at me but…the Researcher doesn’t seem to like fair fights.”

Behind you there is nothing…but for the faintest hissing of breath.

You don’t need Memory of Eternity to be absolutely sure that she’s likely taking advantage of the lack of eyes on her to try and force control back into place. Impressive that she did hold it together through all that, considering how cracked her control has been today.

…You…

…are a deeply cruel person, and it’s a doubly a shame that knowing that this is cruel doesn’t make the slightest difference to how fast you swing back around, weigh pivoting on your heel, lunging for the Researcher.

Slamming into her, your hand closes about her throat, and you send both of you to the ground. Full body weight behind your hand, and knee against her chest, you put everything you can into making DAMNED sure that she can’t breathe – and are rewarded seeing that nasty shade of colour flickering in and out of sight of her wide eyes as she struggles to change that.

“The betting is now closed folks! The fight’s begun, and now all’s that’s left is to see what wins,” you announce brightly, before adding in a causal tone, “So here’s the DEAL, Researcher, and what we’re going to test – my desire to kill you, verses your desire to live. Now I can’t push your head under water, anymore then you could push Stardust’s into a tepid pond, but I think this is a pretty solid compromise. But enough from me, what do YOU think?!

All she manages in return is a hissing noise, unsurprising when she’s no breath to do otherwise what with your hand literally crushing her windpipe.

STARS, you hate her so blinding much, but most of all that she’s not fighting back properly –

WHY WON’T SHE –

Ah – ?!?

Fingers dig in RIGHT next to your eye, biting in over the cheek. If you were smarter, you’d have listened to the burst of panic and jerked back then, but you didn’t, and that gave her all the opening needed to come a hair’s breadth from gouge out one of your eyes with her thumb.

You do fail and try slam down on her arm to pin it away from you, but now you’re half blind in all new ways than before, and worse you realise nearly too late that she’s got two hands. The second time she tried to grab you, the panic is instant and you instinctively snap at her hand, hoping that the threat of teeth will distract her. But while it did save you losing an eye, the movement meant that you were now easy to shove away from her.

Everything goes wild, so much that it takes a moment to realise the weight pinning your awkwardly to the ground is a human (also the Researcher but like human is the bit your brain is currently screaming so the particular person is a secondary concern right now even if it REALLY SHOULD NOT BE – STARS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR BRAIN) and one arm is stuck behind your back due to back angle caused by the awkward fucking GRAVE YOU DUG YOUSELF –

THIS IS INFURIATING – ?!?

STARS it’s like SHE EXSISTS just to ANNOY YOU, and YOU to make choices DESTINED to SCREW OVER YOURSELF!??!?!

“Loop…you – ,” she wheezes, a hand wrapped distractedly about your wrists, and the weight of her knee against a shoulder frustratingly effective (it is DEEPLY unfair the difference a foot of height can make), “…How…interesting. I…did not know you had teeth.”

“What?! Are you REALLY blind – first clothes and now TEETH?!?! At least the first one is normal enough! Just makes you a weirdo pervert thinking that I’d walk about without clothes! But how the HELL did you come to the rearranged conclusion I didn’t have TEETH?!?!? Did you think the things you could see in my mouth were an optical illusion?!”

“You might as well literally be a walking lamp. How would I have the slightest clue what your face looks like under there,” The Researcher says, voice cold and eyes bright, “But since you did say we should test limits…let’s find out what sort of teeth you’ve got. I’ve seen enough skulls that I think I should be able to identify them from touch alone.”

“Put a your hand anywhere NEAR my mouth and I’ll bite your damned finger off!!??”

“AHAHA – please. Why would I give a damn about that?” she says

and

she

shoves –

You do not like how having something in your mouth feels.

Don’t like it AT ALL. Makes you feel like an animal. Like a THING. Inhuman and alien – or like raw or rotting meat.

Like you’re an object.

Is there anything you can do to defend from – what do you need to DO to get out of this grave? Out of this FIGHT? Out of this blinding mess you made trying to throttle someone who’s for SOME reason willing and able to do JUST as bad to you in return – how do you make her stop?!?!

Brain sparkling lit up by the panic, fear, and disgust all that’s left is raw instinct. You grab it, reacting without thought,

and

BITE

with all the force you can put into that snap motion. There is the sound of wet compression, of a breathy cry of pain punched from wounded lungs, CRACKING, and then it’s all over, ending with jarring disorientation as your teeth meet together once more like a long separated bonded couple throwing themselves into the other’s arms.

…and then stillness.

Disconnected from your brain and body, you struggle to remember what way is up, you take a while to reorientate, like a rock thrown down from a cliff and made to tumble down to a stop a thousand miles below.

Slowly you again begin processing information sent by your senses, and realise the smell of burned sugar is gone now. In the quiet too there fades in the thundering of your heart and the Researcher’s wheezing breath.

And…you remember that the Researcher is currently pinning you to the ground, but no longer hanging onto your wrists, not when she’s…focused on…cradling her bloody hand.

…There…is also…a dark and BITTERLY metallic taste in your mouth.

And…

something IN IT ohshitohfuckohstarsabovedid you JUST –

Flailing about you spit, and when you do, both your attention and the Researcher's eyes shift from her injured hand to look to the thing.

On the ground.

Not…attached to her hand.

The thing not even a little attached to her hand (stars that's two joints worth of her pointer finger) and NOT in the PLACE THAT FINGER SHOULD BE!!!

Stars above, that's HALF of one of the Researcher FINGERS!!! That you BIT OFF!!!!

YOU  

WANT

TO

DIE –???

[The Researcher receives Memory of Teeth. She will always remember this.]

[When Equipped, Memory of Teeth will lower the Researcher’s defence by 50, along with leaving her far more likely to consider biting back.]

You and the Researcher consider the sky a moment, and slowly you let your head thunk back into the loose packed earth below you and wait for sweet death.

There…is no way, that she can possibly forgive you for this –

“ – Well, that’s a Memory to get. Lovely. It looks completely useless. Anyway, Loop? I believe that while your teeth are still human, though I’m less sure about your bite strength as you bit through the bone, not even the joint. Look here, you can see where you – ” the Researcher says and begins trying to show you the BLOODY STUMP.

“RESEARCHER STOP TRYING TO OUT WEIRD ME?!?!? I’M AN IDIOT REINCARNATED INTO A STAR! I DO NOT NEED THIS SORT OF COMPETITION!!!”

“You were the one that bit off my finger…thought that was honestly not that unjustified, now I’m thinking on it a little clearer?” The Researcher makes a face that might be pained because of her DISMEMBERED FINGER, but somehow also looks embarrassed because she’s insane. “I did put my finger into your mouth after you warned me not to.”

“Why are you not just MURDERING me for ALL of this – ?!? See?!? Don’t worry!!! There’s no one who’ll miss me, and look! I already dug you this nice grave and everything!”

“You…I was wondering about why you were laying in a hole in the ground. Suppose that answers that…burning question.”

“Yes. See? I can be very helpful – now please kill me, bury me in this hole, and leave me to rot?!?”

“Why would I do that you idiot – if I’d listened, I’d probably not have just…uh…by the way, do you know any…Healing Craft? I…do not and am currently considering the sheer raw embarrassment of telling Mirabelle a sheep bit off my finger – also, I have to say losing 50 defence for such a benign memory is a bit much. Rediculous when even your joke memories manage to serve some purpose…huh. Who is giving these ones to me, since it's rather strange you heard the voice this time, but didn't for Memory of Hug.”

“I mean, yeah, wasn’t me and I did hear it, which is kinda weird, but also completely and totally not relevant? Please, can we go back to discussing the best way to mercy kill me? Pretty please my lovely Researcher ~ ?”

“Oh, be quiet – why are you being so melodramatic?”

“WHY ARE YOU REFUSING TO USE THE NICE GRAVE I DUG YOU?!?!?!”

“Because I don’t want you DEAD! Even if sometimes I might want to bite you, I assure you that MURDER is NOT the thing that I want!!!”

“You can then bite me! I give you FULL permission! In fact, I endorse and vote for it!” you babble, jerking up a hand and waving it about. “Please do it?!?!”

“NO?!?! Gems you are being so weird about this?!?”

“EXCUSE ME?!?! I’M THE WEIRD ONE!? “YOU ARE – you…really really…are – just – stars, there’s honestly something wrong with – ”

You cut off, the same realisation you had several times now hitting you anew from a new direction – this…really isn’t Odile because she’s too blinding weird by FAR. She’s so different that…you can nearly think of the Reseacher…as her own person. Not just…a copy.

And that…is a super odd thing to think about a person with…such affection.

Or…relief.

Does that make you a bad person…?

But it’s not replacing either of them – they’re not the same person, same as Stardust isn’t you, same as the world has been rearranged such the spiralling pieces of eternity are an all new pattern…and…even knowing you will mourn those you killed forever…in a way the crushing of your heart is…freeing? The weight of grief you see overlaid on the Researcher’s face means you won’t ever forget your friends, and…just as much means the Researcher would ever recognise you.

How could she, when you’re nothing like the Siffrin she knows.  

“ – I’d prefer not to lose two fingers, but since we’re come this far…was it the raw emotion that let you do that, or do you think you could bite through a finger even without being made so…uncomfortable first?” the Researcher muses.

Odile…would NOT have asked that. But the Researcher would…and just did.

…Would Odile have cared so stupidly much; she’d break herself down to nothing but rage and teeth and fury at the thousands of times you died? You have no idea, and nor will you ever find out. Not like you could ask Odile. This all makes complete sense, in a sick way. You wished this would be ‘someone else’s problem’ and with the curling of the monkey’s paw there came this Change, which rewrote Stardust to be just different enough to avoid your fate…just as it rewrote her life, so this has now become the Researcher’s fate instead –

....

You...don't know what to do with any of this...but maybe for the growing ache in your shoulder.

“…Researcher could I possibly ask you to consider…getting off me. You're...kinda heavy.”

“I’lll thinking about it,” she replies a little flatly, still absently cradling her hand to her chest. “Because while I will admit in hindsight that while absolutely did deserve you biting off my finger, I do still believe that your attempt to crush my throat was…uncalled for.”

“…I…Sorry. Think I…might have over…re…acted…?”

She stares down at you, and the weight of judgement is crushing.

“Well, I certainly buy that you’re an as ever impulsive idiot,” the Researcher sighs and…moves back and away as she adds, “But suppose I can’t judge overreactions without being a massive hypocrite. Anyway, is there anything else you wanted to ask or try out about the limits here, or was that it?”

“I…yeah. I’m…good. Nothing else I want to do. Sorry for…trying to suffocate you. I…shouldn’t have done that,” you say quietly, slowly pull yourself up to sit too.

“It’s fine, not like killing me what have had any real consequences even if you had managed to do it,” the Researcher says, as she scoops up her dismembered finger from the grass and set it against the stump.

There follows a flash of broken light and as she summons energy to…scar back together her finger and the rest of her hand. Breathing out harshly, she considers her work, turning her hand over to grimly glare at it, and you look to, slowly rubbing your shoulder more to try and burn the feeling of the bruises there into your memory.

You…feel somewhat calmer again. But then again…why shouldn’t you be calm – Odile was not endlessly forgiving, not trusting, not kind or patient – but she was more so than the Researcher, who might to able put on a show of some of them…and for the others she simply ignores the discomfort they might cause her. And yet…she just keeps forgiving you. She is not like that…not if you’re not her friends.

Despite all you’ve done…she keeps making exceptions…for you as she does them.

….

That….

Should you…ask this question?

You’d not before this loop. You not have asked her even five minutes ago. But if SHE was allowed to yell all those things at her friends and they forgave her? If she was able to look at all you screamed at you and not think ANY of it was bad enough to need ACKNOWLEDGING? If there seems to be no limit on what you do CAN say, as long as it’s too her face – no! She thinks that you’re a coward if you don’t do that, doesn’t she?

Even trying to throttle her and or biting off her damned FINGER wasn’t enough for her to hate you! You rather suspect that if she did hate you genuinely, deeply, and irredeemably…she’s told you. That is reason enough to do this. Stop being a blinding coward. Follow Stardust’s example, open your mouth, and ask –

“ – Researcher, are we…friends?”

The Researcher’s eyes drop to her hand, and the finger she’d knitted back onto her hand with scar tissue and scabs. Flexing her hand, stretching out the joints about it, there is visible tension, enough for new blood to bubble up slightly about the scabbing, something that only sees her frown like it’s a mild irritation.

“You tell me, Loop.”

“I…n-no, I think I asked first.”

“But I’m afraid I can’t answer. Because I don’t know. About…anything. Loop, why would you consider us friends, when… Loop, gems – you dug a grave for me to bury you in because you thought you’d annoyed me – ?” and there’s that odd catch to her voice, the one that sounds pained as she adds harsh, “— HA! And that was before you knew of my failing control!”

You wince, glancing away as your hands rise, spinning about as they try and grab the answer to that out of the air…only to fail to find anything to add to that. You KNEW the grave thing was going to come back to bite you at some point –

Sighing the Researcher’s softer voice cuts through your thoughts as she asks, “Loop, tell me honestly, without the time loops would you have ever had reason to even consider us friends, or even have reason to do more than glance at me, with maybe a passing thought for how I was clearly another traveller in this land, like you?”

You laugh – you’re offending her, but you can’t help it.

What else could you possibly do BUT laugh.

“Researcher, you are adorable – ” you choak out. “Yes, STARS, you are one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met, who even worse, is cursed such that even your face reminds me HORRIBLY of a friend who’s long dead! But despite that, and beyond seeing a ghost in you, I will honestly say that you personality is all your own and that it’s for that alone I like you! Possibly I even like you because you’re a weirdo, obsessive, know-nothing know-it-all, who’ll threaten to kill me, AND listen to me do the same, only to decide that makes us EVEN and therefore FINE to just move on!”

“That is – all of that just makes your rational for thinking us friends sound even worse – ”

“Oh, not disputing that – you ARE the worst, but unfortunately for you, sometimes hate crushes CAN be friendship things!!!”

“No?! That is NOT how ANYTHING – ”

Climbing to your feet unsteadily and finding that even when you take a step forward towards the Researcher, she doesn’t flinch this time, as she’s too busy glaring. There’s not even anything but a slight sneer at you grab her shirt, for all you are absolutely sure she’s ready to begin trying to gouge out eyes or to sink teeth into flesh if you give her the slightest reason to.

“Really, do you think you can prove something THAT stupid wrong by arguing?! Teehee ~ ! That’s even cuter?!” you grin at her, and add with all the energy or a challenge or insult, “Well then, go on, Researcher! Prove! Me! WRONG!”

“HA, that is CHILDISHLY easy, Loop!?” she hisses back, eyes sparking as she smiles at you with her so very sharp teeth. “See I was also thinking earlier that I would very much like a little more time to read and…that to make REAL progress I’d need a translator. But i really cannot see that you would ever agree to leave the Favour Tree after dark….just to meet me at the doors to the House.”

Oh, the Researcher really IS the worst, and right now she thinks is calling your bluff – but this isn’t really a bluff, even if sudden dropping of fear in your gut makes it feels like that. But HA, what does a little fear matter when you’ve the high of knowing you’re going to prove this idiot wrong?

Besides the fear makes this feel like a bitter medicine going down, and that somehow that makes this all so much easier to believe.

“F-fine! I’ll do it!”

“You…will.”

“I. Will.”

“…Huh.”

“T-there! Are you satisfied?!”

“I…am. I suppose,” she mutters, and glances down at where you’re still hanging onto her shirt.

You let go and jerk backward, settling yourself firmly onto your feet to bow deeply towards the Researcher. “Then that’s all I could ask of you. Thank you for…uh…believing the words coming out of my mouth.”

The Researcher raises an eyebrow, smoothing out her shirt as she responds, “Don’t thank me yet. I’ll not believe this until I see you standing at the doorway of the house.”

“Okay, then I’ll make you believe – if only out of spite. How’s that sound, Researcher?”

“Sounds…very, very, like you, Loop. You know…I look forward to seeing you prove me wrong.”

****

Many hours later, prove you wrong you do.

Standing before the house once more, this time with an orb in hand, you stare at the thing that you know you once helped collect, and wonder…how it was you helped find in the other world. The Researcher couldn’t tell you…not when it’s likely Stardust’s story went another way to yours.

But what’s it matter if neither you nor anyone else know how that story went? Time to make use of your useless memory and hammer home that there are two things that matter to you; your friends, those living and those dead and gone, with the former making sure you never forget the latter…or that them being gone is your fault.

But these ones that are living are yours too...if in a different way. The Researcher isn’t Odile, nor has she called you friend…but as long as she doesn’t guess who you were, and lets you stay at her side…ha, you’ve fought to the death without hope at all. You can do it again, and continue on for at least as many times as she can.

“You prepared for this, Loop?” the Researcher asks.

“Nope, but well, worse case we can try again – there’s always another loop to try, and try again ~ !” you say, tightening your fingers about the orb, you glance up at the looming door, and then at her out of the corner of her eye. “Are you ready, friend Researcher?”

“I refuse to spend eternity in a House of Change looping through the same unchanging span of time – this being an ironic hell doesn’t make it any less stupid or annoying,” she muttered, glaring at the doorway like it personally offended her.

You laugh and pull up your ‘borrowed’ cloak a little more over your head (trying to sneak about while glowing at night through Dormont requires extreme measures to prevent uncomfortable conversations with towns folk you’ve discovered) as you lift the orb in your hand towards the door, and the Researcher does the same. One by one they float up, the other’s being added as it comes to their turn, until at last the doors to the House swing open.

“Let’s see if we can kick fate in the teeth – or bite it in the butt! Regardless, I think us getting a turn at screwing inevitable fate that sounds fair – even if only to take its lunch money so I get the second blinding coin it owes me.”

Never have you been less happy to enter the House (and the Universe knows how VERY unhappy you’ve been in the past), but with the Researcher’s sharp laughter at your side, you also have never been more willing to do it regardless.