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It’s over.
You’re finally, finally fading, like you should have long ago. Your mirror looks at you with tears in his eyes, as if they don’t want you to disappear despite the fact that not ten minutes ago you were trying to kill them.
“Stay,” he pleads, still holding your face. Their hands are so warm. It’s the most physical contact you’ve had in as long as you can remember. “Please stay.”
“Sorry, stardust,” you say softly, curving your eyes into a smile you hope is reassuring. “Does it help if I say I would if I could?”
You wish – no. You don’t wish anything, never again. You want to be able to give him something more comforting than that, but the Universe has never cared much what you want.
It doesn’t seem like it really helped, if their face is anything to go by, more tears welling up as you speak. Like you’re something to be mourned. Like you matter.
You want to laugh at the thought, just a little. But you don’t. It’d be horribly tasteless, probably, to laugh over your own death. Though it’s not like either of you are new to that.
… Still.
You don’t want that to be his last memory of you.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” they ask, desperate. Still refusing to give up on you, even now. Stubborn as always. You hate that you have to shake your head.
(Well. That’s not entirely true, is it? That there’s nothing they can do. There’s a way you could stick around, if he wanted it badly enough. You both know that.
But there’s no way he’d risk it, not after everything that’s happened. Or maybe they just know you’d never forgive them if they tried.)
You can’t feel much of anything, anymore. Is there anything else you need to say before you go? You already made him promise to talk to his family (not yours, not yours, not yours). And you promised to see them again. A promise that, for the record, you do want to keep. But it’s not really up to you anymore, is it?
And once again, the Universe has never cared what you want.
But it loves your stardust. Siffrin. The better one, the one who broke the loops, the one who won. So maybe, maybe, that’ll be enough to tip the scales, balance out your horrible luck. Maybe it’ll be enough that he can get what he wants, even without Wish Craft, and even if it’s the same thing you want.
Maybe…
Well. It doesn’t matter now. You’re disappearing, and Siffrin will surely move on, leave you in the past where you belong. They don’t need you anymore, not now that their family is actual people again, not repeating the same lines over and over until you can recite them from memory despite only hearing it secondhand.
It’s better this way, you tell yourself. This is the ending you wanted, you tell yourself. You wouldn’t want to be with pale copies of the people you once loved anyway, you tell yourself, and maybe even believe it a little.
And
finally,
you
can
rest.