Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You are lying in a meadow in Dormont. 

You are lying in a meadow in Dormont. 

Your heart is pounding in your chest, blood roaring in your ears. 

You are lying in a meadow in Dormont. 

Too familiar clouds pass above you, their shapes etched into your mind. Grass tickles your neck. Your chest is going to collapse inward, a visceral supernova. The inside of your mouth feels like the precursor to the heat death of The Universe. Dry, sticky. You dig your fingers into the dirt beside you, through the leather of your gloves, you can feel the hidden coolness of the earth. 

But it cannot be real. 

You. 

Remember. 

Getting. 

Out. 

So, this can’t be real. You must… Just be having a very lucid dream. You breathe in. 

And out. 

Right, right, just a dream. A really. Scary and vivid dream. You feel the rapid rise and fall of your own chest. Normally, you might try grounding yourself, like Mira taught you. Because she started doing talk therapy whenever you’d all stop in Bambouche, ‘cause Nille knew somebody who could help. You didn’t like talk therapy, you knew that about yourself now. 

You felt crazy enough without someone telling you the loops were some kind of delusion. So Mira let you bum second-hand therapy off her. She told you she didn’t mind, because she used your breathing technique. 

You remember telling her that in that case, you wouldn’t sue her for copyright infringement. You’d call it even. A feelings buddy deal. Her smile sealed it. 

That was real. That was real.  

So, you just had to get through this dream, and when you’d wake up, you’d pretend that you had no idea about the party Isa and Bonnie were planning to celebrate your one-year anniversary out of the loops. Isa was pretty good at keeping it a secret, but Bonnie had been asking you all of your favorite foods for the past week now, and they hadn’t cooked any of it yet. Not to mention the secret errands Mira and Odile have been getting up to. No Siffrins allowed. 

They loved you. 

And when you woke up from this nightmare, you would still be loved. 

Your heart was still hammering against your ribs, but you were okay. Just get through the dream, that’s all you had to do. 

…

Someone was taking a little long on her cue. 

…

You sit up. 

It wasn’t unheard of for your dream family to deviate from the script, but it usually was an omen for a worse than usual dream. As you stand, you notice your hat, still on the ground. You stare at it. It’s been so long since you’ve worn your hat. Since you’ve had your convenient hiding space. Something is caught in your throat. Would the weight on your head feel comfortable or terrifying? The change in your character design delineates a before and an after.

Could the weight be enough to jar you from your dream? Your hands feel numb. You glance toward Dormont. You snatch your hat. 

 I t ‘ s  l i k e  n o t h i n g  h a s  c h a n g e d  a t  a l l   .  .  .  . 

You take your hat off. Too much. Too much even for a dream.   It’s all too much for a dream. 

“Siffrin?”

There she is. You’re not sure you like this director's take on this play. “Hey Mira, have you thought about doing a sleepover tonight?” The words are out of your mouth before you can think about them. 

You’ve caught her off guard, like you usually do– Did. Like you did, in the loops. Mira’s blinking at you. 

“Um… Well… Yes! But-?” She’s grasping for something, thrown off. 

You tilt your head at her, your hands clench around your hat. 

“Is… Something wrong, Siffrin?” She asks. 

Yes. But also no, because this is just a nightmare. She is starting to look more and more anxious. Your cheeks pull apart as you smile at her. Think how proud she’ll be that you were honest with her, even in the confines of your own mind. You have made so much~ progress~. 

“I’m okay, I’m just having a nightmare, Mira.” 

Her face lightens and eyes widen in horror. “W-What makes you say that?” She asks, laughing nervously. Her fingers are tying themselves into knots as she stands in front of you. 

Dream Mira is acting incredibly strange, it’s probably because you’ve gone off script. Maybe it would be better to just go through the motions until you die and wake up. Your cheeks hurt, “I woke up with the taste of croissant in my mouth. Bleh!” You stick your tongue out in disgust. 

Her laughter trembles out of her. “Hahahahahhahahahaha youscaredmethereSiffrinpleasethat’snotfunny.” 

You drop your smile. “Are you okay, Mira?” You can’t help but ask. Whether or not she’s a figure of your subconscious, or an actor in a play, you care about her. You do, you do, you do. 

She takes a breath in and out. “I guess I’m just on edge about tomorrow…” 

“Don’t worry Mira, we’ll save them all tomorrow.” 

You don’t expect the absolutely heartbroken look that she gives you after you speak. Her lightless eyes start to shine from unshed tears and you feel panic build in your chest. 

“M-Mira?” You reach out to her, but she isn’t paying attention, just staring off into the middle distance. When your fingers brush against her hand, she jumps, then shrinks away. You pull back, “Sorry, sorry-!” 

“Ah! No I. Just wasn’t expecting- Ah…. Sorry, sorry you’re right, Siffrin,” She smiles through her tears, and it’s wrong . “Tomorrow, of course. Everyone will be okay… After tomorrow.” She bites her lip and squeezes her eyes tight. Then she looks up at you, her resolve flimsy. “After tomorrow, everything will be okay. And, I will see you tonight! For a sleepover! At the clocktower! Tonight!” 

You wave half-heartedly as Mira shuffles off. You expect her to go east, toward the library, but you catch her going west, instead. 

Loop dreams are always bad, but this particular unease is taking a secure hold on your throat. You rub it idly as you walk further into Dormont. You consider what you should do, if you should try waiting the dream out, or if you should try forcing yourself out of the dream. 

The scent of banana started burning in your nostrils. You gag on it. Choke on nothing but your imagination. Saliva pooled in your mouth, and you forced yourself to swallow it. 

Of all of your mess ups in the house, that was probably the most humiliating way you’ve had to loop. 

… Rather feel humiliated, than think about the cold steel against your hip. 

You decide to walk east to talk to Bonnie. 

You consider stopping to talk to the Blind One on your way to the vegetable field. You think better of it. Wouldn’t matter, talking to him in a dream.  

“Hey Bonnie.” 

“...Heyfrin.” 

Ah, that’s normal. Maybe your brain is just forgetting part of the script. 

Wouldn’t that be something? Forgetting the loops! 

… 

“Clocktower, sleepover!!”

Disappointment makes Bonnie’s face collapse. They mutter to themselves before turning away from you and looking over to the field. 

Hm. “Worried about tomorrow?” 

Bonnie’s face pinches, and you see their little hands clench the wooden fence. They’re wound tight, like a coil. You only are able to blink, before they explode. 

“NO!! I’M NOT WORRIED ABOUT TOMORROW! AND IF I WAS, IT WASN’T LIKE YOU’D EVEN BE ABLE TO REMEMBER! STUPID, FORGETFUL FRIN!!! CRAB!! Can’t you just, go be forgetful somewhere else??? I don’t want to talk to you.” 

Ouch?????? You breathe in and out. 

Even after the loops, Bonnie’s never handled you with gentle hands, giving you the blunt force reality checks that only a kid could. Though, you guess you just forgot how much they had hated you at one point. 

There’s only so many times you’re allowed to forget where you came from, Siffrin, c’mon. You decide to go be forgetful somewhere else. 

Odile isn’t in the shop, for some reason, so you decide to sit up north with the Old One. The house is exactly how you remember it looking. Which would make sense, since that’s how dreams work, isn’t it? Some weird mix of memory and subconscious fears. 

You remember once, after a nightmare, Isa stayed up with you, all night, even though he was really tired. But you couldn’t sleep, and he insisted. Because he loves you, he said. He spent the whole night telling you everything he knew about the mechanics of dreams. Well, he spent at maybe an hour talking about the mechanics of dreams, and the rest was spent dissecting some weird dreams he had. 

You wish your subconscious gave you dreams where you had to take a written exam and bake a cake all while wearing a dog costume. Even though Isa confided in you that he was so stressed the whole time, when he woke up it was so absurd it was funny. He told you that, while he ran his thumb over the back of your hand. 

You mimic the memory, running your own thumb over the back of your hand. It’s not the same, so… That’s good. Because things are going to be different in dreams. And, in stress dreams, of course you would feel your blood bubbling with anxiety right under your skin. Your brain was trying to terrify you, to deal with… Everything. Still. 

Waking up soon would be ideal. Before you forget what being awake felt like. 

You don’t like how much your mind is going to your dagger. It was a horrible way to die. Slow and painful. You hate how a gasp can echo in your ears. After that first time… Loop was right, it’s different. Even in a dream, you don’t think you want to do it again. Well… 

Maybe want isn’t the right word. Can’t, maybe. Your hands are shaking too much for it to be quick anyway. 

Sometimes, when you wake up from a nightmare, it feels like you have been awake for days on end. You wake up disoriented, but you don’t remember your dreams in so much detail, maybe a vague subject and the feeling it created. 

Not even dreams given to you by tears were as vivid as this one. 

… Must have been whatever you ate before bed. 

Maybe you could go to the Favor Tree now. That must have been where Mira was headed earlier; it’s been long enough, she’s probably by the library now. 

You’re a little apprehensive about facing a dream Isa. When he infiltrates your dreams, you often have to contend with your disgusting nature. You constantly feel guilty for how your subconscious chooses to abuse him. One bad touch wasn’t enough for someone like you, wasn’t it? 

You grip your arms tight as you walk down the path toward the favor tree. 

You didn’t wait long enough. Or maybe this encounter was scripted into your dream. Isabeau is next to the same boulder as he’s always been, but Mira’s with him, and, ah. You found Odile too. 

This doesn’t allow you to relax. You’ve gotten better at improv, in the past year, but here in Dormont? You’re nothing without your script. 

You stay at the edge of their vision. Whatever they’re talking about, it’s frantic. Mira’s back is to you as her arms wave about. Isa’s arms are crossed over his chest, like they do when he’s thinking hard. Odile, she’s facing you, but her gaze is fixated on her notebook. She looks tired. More tired than usual. You feel your stomach twist as you see the sallowness of her cheeks, the bags under her eyes. 

She’s almost as bad at taking care of herself emotionally as you are, but… You don’t remember her looking this haggard when you were looping. 

Then, you notice more. Mira’s hair has more flyaways, and she’s holding herself with more anxious energy, you’re worried about what you’ll see when you look closer at her face. Isa’s eyes aren’t as focused as they should be, he’s not looking at Odile or Mira, and there’s a tightness in the lines of his shoulders… 

Maybe you need to pay more attention to your family when you’re awake. You… You can’t remember a reason they might be pushing themselves, but what does that count for anyway? 

Your stomach hurts. 

Odile notices you. She glances up from her book and you lock eyes. Hers widen just for a moment, then she says, “Siffrin,” her voice reassuringly steady. Isa and Mira turn, startled. 

“Hey, Sif! How long have you been standing there, bud?” Isabeau asks. 

You shrug, as you walk closer. They were talking too quietly for you to hear what they had to say before they noticed. “Wishing party at the Favor Tree?” You ask, putting an easy smile on your face. 

Isa looks away, guilty. Weird. Isa is hardly the guilty one in your dreams. “No, no, it’s… I mean if there was a wishing party, we’d definitely invite you-”

“And Bonnie!” Mirabelle interjects. 

“And Bonbon, obviously. We were just…” He glances at Mira. She glances at Odile. Odile sighs. 

“Mirabelle mentioned you said something strange, upon waking up from your nap Siffrin, she is just worried about you.” Oh, stars, you thought your recovery was pretty good. You guess, in your nightmares, they are able to notice things more quickly. 

You stick your tongue out playfully, “Just had a dream that left a bad taste in my mouth,” you lie. If you thought about it too much, you were worried your mind would start making you taste burnt sugar. 

“Oh??” Isa asks. “Do you wanna talk about it?” 

Hah, this Isa must be inspired by Isa after the loops. He was always volunteering to listen to your nightmares. Fondness seeped into your chest. You smile at him, genuinely. “Thanks Isa, but I don’t remember it.” 

His face softens, and his shoulders relax. “Ah, okay.” 

Odile hums. “Isabeau, heads or tails?”

A little early for that, you think. “Already testing your wish out, Odile?” You ask. 

Your three family members immediately stiffen. “Heads,” Isa says immediately. 

You realize that you’ve said something wrong. Sure, the players are off script, but what made you think that you could start making changes? Because you’re in the safety of your own mind? That isn’t a very safe place to be at all. 

“How did you know that was my wish, Siffrin?”

You swallow. You hope you really are imagining your spit tasting sweet. “Lucky guess?” You try. “You’re a researcher, after all… And it’s a weird time for a coin flip, right?” 

“Um, Siffrin, are you sure you don’t remember anything from your dream?” Mira asks. You clutch your hand over your stomach. You’re still in the dream.  You nod your head. 

“Okay, okay okay okay okay,” Isa takes a deep breath in, then out. Like you do. Hah. “Maybe we should all sit down, this one’s weird, so let’s get comfy. Maybe get Bonnie and go to the Clocktower before we start doing this.” 

Is he talking about you? You can’t help but frown. They’re the ones being weird. You don’t like this, this nightmare feels too real and you don’t even have the comfort of everything being the same. You should just go slip on that banana peel and get it over with. You just need to wake up. 

You’ll wake up, and Isa will be next to you, Bonnie and Nille will be in the tent to your right, Mira to the tent to your left, and Odile in the tent across the campfire from you. You decided to camp last night, and you were up late, listening to Nille and Bonnie trading stories about each other growing up. You had caught a fish in a nearby lake that Bonnie cooked for dinner. The smell of fish stew had permeated into the tents, and Isa complained about it, but you didn’t mind at all. You wouldn’t mind smelling fish stew now. 

Wake up. 

Wake up. 

Wake up . 

It

    Is

          What

                     You

                                  Want. 

You’re still in the clearing by the Favor Tree. Isa, Odile, and Mira are all looking at you. Mira’s biting her nails. You have enough awareness to point at her hand. She lowers her hands and knots them together in front of her. 

You breathe in. And out. 

“Okay! Let’s go to the Clocktower, sleepover! Yay!!!!” A smile cracks your face and crinkles your eye. You turn on your heel and start making your way over there. 

You don’t know if you’ve ever made it to the clock tower first, before. There’s something strange, novel, about how the light of the setting sun shines through the window. You’ve seen this sunset over a hundred times, but this one is almost new. 

Sitting at the table, you wait. You didn’t pick up any souvenirs in Dormont, so you only have the silver coin to fiddle with. Just one. Maybe you should have waited, met everyone at the clocktower like normal, just for the chance to check. 

Loop never gets to make it into your dreams. You wish, wherever they are, that they are resting. 

“I don’t want to tell them again,” you hear Bonnie whine as the door to the Clocktower opens. “I’m telling you, they don’t crabbing remember.” 

“This time seems to be different, Boniface.” 

“Yeah, he’s never talked about a nightmare before…” 

They find you, once they open the door to the second room, with your legs pulled up on your chair, shins jammed against the edge of the table. The pressure is bruising. You feel cold. Still, you smile at your family. “Welcome home!” 

“Oh…”

“Thanks, Sif!” Isa jumps in. “Were you waiting long? Haha…” 

Talking about you again. You wonder if they did it within earshot on purpose, or if they’re oblivious. Terrible gossips, the lot of you, really. You shake your head. You roll the coin between your finger and the table, your arm resting on your knee. 

“So, um…” Isa starts again. You send Odile a look that comes off more judgy than you intend to. She scrutinizes you. She really does look tired. They all do. 

“What do you have planned for dinner, Bonnie?” You try instead. 

“Oh! Oh, I wanted to try making curry!” Whatever frustration they held for you melted away. You were stunned. 

“Not… Samosas?” You hear the blood in your ears. You feel three pairs of eyes on you. 

“No? I made them too recently, I don’t wanna start hating my favorite foods…” 

“Bonnie-” Mira starts, just a whisper. You cut her off with a laugh that may be more of a shout, might even be closer to a sob. 

“Frin? …Okay, you’re right, he is being weird.” 

“Yeah, um, Sif, are you okay buddy?” 

“Maybe it has something to do with your… ‘Nightmare?’” Odile’s question permeates through you. 

“Wait, wait,” Mira interjects. “Let’s start with us, first! Interrogating him without context… Well, I just don’t like that! It feels cowardly.” She steels herself, her fists clenched over her chest. Bonnie walked over to the kitchen counter and starts getting to work, a morose look on their face. Isa watches your face intently, his brows pinched together. 

“Alright then, have at it, fearless leader,” Odile says as she sits at the table across from you. 

“Okay, so, this might be hard to believe, Siffrin,” Mirabelle starts. There’s an ease to what she’s saying, like she’s said it before. An actress confident in her lines. But still acting. “But we have been reliving the same two days for… A bit now.” 

You blink. 

Your stomach is hollow. 

Sugar burns the back of your throat. 

They know. They know??? They aren’t supposed to know. Not this early, anyway. Sometimes, you’ll have dreams where Odile figures you out again, but never this early. The edges of your vision fuzz. 

“It sounds crazy, right?” Isabeau adds, standing beside Mira, a hand on her shoulder. “But it’s real! And maybe… You might remember the last loop? You haven’t ever before.”

Huh??? “Huh???”

They… Didn’t notice you were looping? No… They were looping and you weren’t? 

Oh, oh… This is awful, you can cope with your mind tormenting you… But your subconscious putting your family through the loops? You want to rip your skin off. You wish the way your fingers dig into your arms would wake you up. 

“You don’t usually react so strongly, Siffrin,” Odile comments. She’s got her chin in her hands, watching you. “Though you’ve never remembered before. Maybe you never truly believed us.”

You look at her, though you can’t match her tired gaze. Would you really be so dismissive of your friends if they were in your situation? You aren’t as considerate as any of them, so maybe it’s true. 

Maybe this nightmare is just trying to help you. When you wake up, you’ll make sure to check in on your friends, and maybe you won’t take so much of their energy being so… Broken. 

Bonnie’s stopped the cooking they were doing. They’re looking right at you. “You all keep talking like they actually remember, but you haven’t even asked him.” They look so angry, but so hopeful at the same time. Stars, you hope you can figure out how to stop disappointing your family. “So, do you Frin? Do you remember what happened last time?”

Last time? You have no idea what loop this would be. “No,” you say, truthfully. Bonnie’s face falls, and Mira, Isa, and Odile look unconvinced in different ways. 

“But you knew about M’dame’s coin flip wish,” Isa prods. 

“And you’re… Acting different,” Mira adds. 

“ Something is different about you,” Odile finishes. 

Hah, you can’t help but feel so left behind, by how on the same page they are. 

“You’d want me to be honest,” you say to the family that are sleeping in tents around you. You pick at where you know a raised scar should be on your arm. It isn’t, but it will be when you wake up. 

“Yeeeeesss….” Odile prompts. She looks to Isabeau, who shrugs, but smiles at you. Mira is nodding at you in encouragement. You can’t stop the small smile that comes on your face. They are acting normally. If you ignore how tired and ragged they all look. 

“I think I’m having a very lucid nightmare where I’m back in Dormont, and I am stressed because you all shouldn’t have to go through the loops.” 

…

“That’s a weird thing to say, Frin.” 

You laugh, “I know. But it’s true.” 

Mirabelle is covering her mouth, her eyes shining, but Isa speaks first. “That’s… That’s sweet, Sif.” 

“Delusional coping mechanisms aside, yes, that is very sweet of you, Siffrin.” 

“Now you guys are weird, Siffrin’s broken. Maybe we should start the loop over and get the normal one back.” 

Oh, maybe you can use this to end the dream. “Hey Bonnie, do you have any pineapple?” 

Four, loud and resounding “NO!!!!!!!!!!!!”s shake you. You jump in your seat. 

“FOR CHANGE’S SAKE, SIFFRIN!” Oh no, Mirabelle looks really upset. Fix it, fix it, fix it. 

“Oh… Is pineapple like… Crabs?” 

“What, no stupidfrin, why would pineapple be like crabs?”

You shrug cutely. 

“Siffrin, you are deathly allergic to pineapples.” She says, suspicion fraying her voice like a rope. “But you don’t know this… Right?” 

You tap your chin thoughtfully, “How do you even learn something like that?” You watch as your family members share a grimace. 

You can imagine the spice, the way your throat closed up. It wouldn’t be the worst way to end a dream. 

“Okay, well now you know,” Isa says. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. “So don’t eat it, ever, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay, good. We’re already this far, we might as well just catch Sif up on where we’re at and then go from there.” Isa looks really stressed. Has anyone checked in on him lately? He plays emotional rock so well, but he often uses other people’s emotions as a distraction from his own. 

“Right,” Mirabelle agrees. Bonnie grunts their agreement and gets back to cooking. Odile just continues watching. 

This is weird, you have no idea what anyone is really thinking or feeling right now. Not that you ever do, typically, but in the loops, you thought you always understood everyone’s headspace. If only because it got slammed over your own head over and over and over again until you understood. You curl your fingers in the fabric of your sleeves over and over again. 

“O-okay,” Mirabelle starts. “So um, we still haven’t beaten the king yet, he’s got this horrible attack and I still can’t figure out the shield craft I’ve been working on. I can reverse the curse, boost attack, but I can’t seem to get this down, and I know it’s all my fault we’re stuck here, because I’ve blasphemed-” 

“Hey, Mira no-” Isa interrupts. 

“Isa’s right, Mira. This,” you gesture to the room around you, “definitely isn’t your fault.”

“Do you still think this is a nightmare, Siffrin?” She asks, her voice warbly. 

A very convincing one. “Yes.” 

“Then I don’t really feel better by your reassurance.” 

You frown. Isabeau placed a hand on her shoulder. You wish you were half as comforting as he was. “Oh my… Should we go over strategy again?” 

“Don’t tease me Siffri-” She pauses. Then looks at you. She looks torn, probably because you’re early on your cue. It’s okay, You hope that she has a memory of you trying to comfort her this way. She sits down. Bonnie serves the food. 

“It’s curry,” they announce, “It’s delicious, filling, and nutritious. That’s curry. Also it’s a little bit spicy if you’re Za.” 

“I’m getting better at handling it!”

“And how many loops were wasted by your needless stomach aches because you felt adventurous?” Odile was teasing. Or maybe she was actually annoyed, you know there’s a difference, now, but it’s still so hard to tell sometimes. 

“Like two, max,” Isa says with an airy smile. 

“At least three, Za,” Bonnie says. 

“Well, if there was ever a time to try to change your spice tolerance,” Mira muses. She smiles, for the first time since you woke up. It’s a small, delicate, warbly thing. 

“Exactly!!” Isa drops his fist into his waiting palm. You’ve started eating the curry, it’s delicious, even if the taste is muted by sugar. But your dreams always taste like sugar. “You never know what change will be the thing that breaks the loops and we’re free!” 

“Well, in theory,” Odile starts, “beating the king is what will end the loops. It’s why we’re here, after all.” She looks thoughtfully at her spoonful of curry. “Though if that isn’t the case, I would hate to break free from the loops before we’re able to beat the king.” 

“Not an option,” Bonnie grumbles. 

“I’m glad we’re in agreement.” She looks more like her normal self now as she grins at Bonnie. 

There’s a lull. Mirabelle doesn’t give her speech, she just sits thoughtfully. Isabeau, you notice, is trying really hard to keep everyone’s spirits up, that makes sense, though sometimes his smile is just a little too tight. Odile’s more cold, and Bonnie… Bonnie won’t look at you at all. 

You want to help them. They already had so much on their shoulders, and now your brain decided they needed this on top of it all. Maybe it was just trying to get you to notice, and since you’re so self absorbed, this was the only way it could show you that your family was in pain, because you can relate to it directly. 

You don’t sleep that night, Isa doesn’t try to wake you up. 

One time, you had a nightmare where you were here in the familiar clocktower, and Isa woke you up, the same lines in the beginning, but he confessed. Confessed his disgust with you, his shame in knowing you, how disappointed he was for how stagnant you were. How could he love someone so resistant to change? Someone that would manipulate people they claimed to love into being the same forever, just so they could enjoy a few more moments? 

You still secretly think that, even if you know he’d give you those puppy dog eyes about it. He’s too kind to you. Treats you so gently it drives you mad. 

But you love him, so even if you wish that sometimes he’d hold you so tight your spine snaps in two, you instead let him take you on dinner dates, and you tease him for sweating through your gloves when you hold hands, instead of eating him alive like you want. If you could, you’d tear him apart so you could bury into his chest, and maybe he could use his sewing skills to attach your hearts to each other. 

Ha, then Bonnie would really have a reason to call you gross. When you wake up, you should tell Mira about that thought, though… Not as specific. Maybe she’d like to use the imagery in the short story she’s writing. It’s her new favorite hobby. You like when she lets you act out the scenes, even though you think she’s a little embarrassed. It’s fun, you like playing. You think she likes it when you pull her in on the script read too. Even if the stuff she writes isn’t really meant for the stage. They’re meant for the theater of the mind. 

You love that phrase and hate it in equal measure. 

Because your imagination can always come up with something scarier than anything that can be made real. 

Right now, you think you love it more. 

This dream is too scary to be real. 

********

You start deciding where you’re going to die once you make it to the house. 

The dream is getting long, and you want to wake up. 

You think about the rock trap. If for some reason that doesn’t work, you guess you could wait for a tear, but that’s so far in the house. You’re currently refusing to think that stabbing yourself would be a good idea. You’re not tempted, really. You were able to refrain from doing it more than once in the actual loops, you can refrain in your dream. 

Though, this would matter less, right? Since it would be even less real, since it’s all in your head. 

You’re at that stupid sadness again, and you hand grips your dagger at your hip. Maybe you could just not talk about this part of your dream. If you talk about it at all. 

“I’ve got this one,” Odile says, pulling you out of your head. She crafts Paper α V and the sadness disintegrates. Isabeau and Mirabelle are clapping politely. 

“Nicely done, M’dame, very efficient.” 

“I would hope so, at this point. Siffrin, if you’d please do your best to avoid all the other sadnesses you can, we’re going to be mostly information hunting, no need to level grind.” 

“We should do a loop where you let me fight,” Bonnie. 

“Dunno, Bonbon, you are still literally a preteen.”

“I’m like a whole month older than when we started though!” 

Mirabelle frowns. She looks like she wants to say something, you’ve learned that look well, since you started being feeling buddies. But you also know that look means whatever it is, she probably won’t say anything unless prompted. 

“Mira?” You prompt. “You okay?” She startles and looks at you with wide eyes. 

“Sorry! I was just thinking. But we should get going, I really need to learn this shield.” 

You don’t like it, but you start running, past the sadnesses to the central entrance room. 

“We’ve already checked the crabbing library though! There’s nothing there!” 

“There’s books all over the house though?”

“The librarian wasn’t exactly helpful when I asked either.”

Well, they aren’t the most helpful in your experience, but that’s really weird. “You talked to them, Odile?”

“As I just said, Siffrin, thank you for paying attention.” 

“And they didn’t tell you about the secret library?” 

The pause around you is crushing. There is a beat where you remember you have a hat again, so you hide from their piercing gaze. 

“The what!? ” She hisses. 

“There’s a secret library!?!?!?!” Mirabelle asks. “Where???” 

“And how do you know about it, Sif?” 

Your heart is slamming against your ribs. Why is this so scary? It’s not real, it’s not real . 

“In the real library, there’s a switch on the wall?” You swallow down the taste of sugar as your stomach starts to twist. Your family is encroaching on you, surrounding you. It is terrifying and lovely in equal measure. You want them to stay close and not see you. You’re so far off script, something bad is going to happen soon. You just have to die before that happens. 

“How come you didn’t ever bring this up before?” Bonnie is pointing at you. “What changed this time. How come you didn’t find the switch even if you didn’t know about it?”

Ouch… You suppose, if your family members are the ones looping, they would have picked up on your incompetencies. 

“Hey, it’s… Gotta be a lot of pressure being the one in charge of finding things, and well… The house is…” 

“I think Boniface isn’t wrong to be frustrated. A lot of… Frustration could be avoided if things weren’t missed earlier.” 

“O-Okay, sure, but it’s also not super fair? Like was hard to find some of the stuff that was missed without…” Mirabelle glances at you guiltily, “Any impediments.” 

Bonnie glares at you. You… They’re looping and you’re the impediment. They can remember all they ways you fucked up, can’t they? Hah- This actually is a nightmare. Like, you think they would rather know to the full extent how disgusting and manipulative you are— maybe they have– than the fact that you bring absolutely nothing to the table. 

You can’t hear what they’re saying, they’re arguing, talking around you. Sugar scorches your nostrils and you

Feel

        A

            Tug

                    On

                           Your

                                    Stomach.

Chapter Text

You wake up in a field in Dormont. 

Through your head, loud and blindingly familiar, something rings. 

[You got a MEMORY OF RETURN!]

[You’ll always remember this!]

[You know what to do with these. You know what it means. This memory can be equipped to the Lost One. When this memory is equipped, the Lost One is less likely to wallow in their denial.]

[...]

[There isn’t anyone else to meet, you know this too.]

[It’s just you. Only you.]

You stare up at the sky. Your body feels like static. Like stardust. 

“Ha. Haha. Ha-” You gasp in a desperate breath, then laughter erupts from you, shakes you to your core, rearranges your body as you crack and crush and split. You grip your hair, half expecting to pass through your own body, to touch only light, plasma created by superheated gas. 

What did you do? What did you do? You had everything you wanted, you had a family and with them a future . You didn’t wish. Stars you have been so careful not to wish!!! You didn’t give up, you got your happy ending. You earned it. 

The sky above you turns to static, or maybe you squeeze your eye shut. The pain of the hair being pulled at your scalp is too numb. You want to be crushed by a rock, you want to break your head open because you slipped on a banana peel, you want to be obliterated by a metal hand, or frozen in time, you want to explode into a million tiny motes of light and be free. 

You had rest, you had rest, you had love and your family and you had rest. 

Now you’re here, again. Back on the stage, except it’s all wrong, somehow. This isn’t your script, these aren’t even your players. They’re the understudies of the understudies. And what are you? What are you?

What about your family. The ones you spent the past year with. The ones that love you despite having so many reasons not to. That have seen your ugly parts and cared for you anyway. 

You think of Loop. 

You take a deep breath in, and out. 

Okay, so you’re back in Dormont. That’s one thing. One awful thing, but it’s just one thing. 

This version of your family is looping. That’s another thing. One that doesn’t make sense, but it just is. 

There’s more, there’s more to parse here, but the obvious thing to do is that you have to free them from the loops. 

Okay, there’s your goal. And you even have a really good idea how to do it! You’ve done it before you just? Need to tell them what you wished for, right? You’ve done that before and it worked– 

You’re the guide, this time around. That’s all. You’re the guide. Help them, and you’ll be free and the universe will… Send you back? To your family? 

You should go to the Favor Tree. 

Breathing evenly, you stand from your spot in the meadow. You see the omen at the head of the path toward Dormont. When you make it to the village, your party is gathered by the Change God Statue, looking spooked. 

“Siffrin!” Mirabelle calls to you. Ah, okay, you probably can’t brush them off as easily as you could in your loops. You want to, though, they hurt to look at. 

“Hey, Mira,” you say casually. “Party at the Change God statue?” 

“FRIN, DO YOU REMEMBER?” Bonnie jumps into your field of view. You tilt your head away. 

Lying is really tempting. You’d really rather forget everything that happened right before the loop ended. You’d been a burden for a while now, and you knew this. And you knew you were blindingly awful at your job, but… You wished you were better at hiding it under pressure. 

But, if you do remember, then you have something that makes you super useful. Super duper useful. You’ll have to be, if you don’t want to ruin your chances even more of getting your family out of these loops. You’re doing this timeline’s Siffrin a huge favor. You wonder if you’ll get the chance to tell them just how helpful you were. 

You give Bonnie a nod. Yeah, you remember. 

They narrow their eyes at you, “Are you sure…? Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Loops,” you say. “You’ve all been here before, so have I.”

Four sets of shoulders slump as this version of your family breathes out a collective sigh. 

“Okay, now that we’re all on the same page, what thing should we tackle first? My vote goes to the very ominous voice that beamed directly into our brains,” Isa suggests. 

“I-I actually want to know why we looped last time? No one died! That’s good right? Should we try to… Replicate it?”

Stars, no. You’d rather slip on the banana peel with an audience. 

“I’d be okay with either,” Bonnie says with a shrug. Odile is looking at you intently. 

“Well, Siffrin?” She asks. “Don’t you have any questions?” She seems to not be expecting you to. 

“...” How did you even react to learning you were looping the first time? You can’t seem to remember. You feel like you might have just… Accepted it. But, you aren’t just learning about the loops. You’re here as a guide. 

You think of your guiding star, again. 

“... Can we go to the Favor Tree?” You ask. 

“Why?” Odile seems taken aback, her brows furrow like you said something incomprehensible. Maybe you did. 

“It’s where you talk about loops,” you say. “You sit under the tree, theorize, chat, ask questions, get help… Decompress.” You shrug. If they don’t have Loop, they won’t understand, but you think it would help them. They seem so stressed. 

“... This is unbelievably curious.” 

“Sif you’re so mysterious!!”

You aren’t??? Trying to be?????? You’re being very transparent actually?????????

“Hah, just lead the way Siffrin. But prepare for an interrogation.” You’re as prepared as you can ever be. You’ll be better prepared once the stage is set. 

You lead the way.

It’s still dark, under the cover of the Favor Tree. The air is pleasantly cool, and the outside world feels muffled. You instinctively go toward your old spot, but when you turn to sit and don’t see Loop, the hollow in your chest compels you to choose the seat across from you. You gesture to the other root. 

It’s wide enough for Odile and Bonnie to sit, maybe, and you realize your faux pas of sitting when there wasn’t enough space for everyone. Not that they’re sitting anyway. At least, not until-

“Yeah, I’ll bite. I trust you implicitly, Siffrin,” Isabeau says with an easy smile. He sits on the cool ground, his back against the trunk. Mirabelle sits across from him, at the opening of the canopy. Then Bonnie sits on the root next to Isa, then Odile, next to them, last, most hesitantly. 

For a moment, you close your eye, and feel a sense of purpose wash over you. Here, under the tree, despite being surrounded by these people who may or may not be your family, there is an odd sense of peace. You know exactly what needs to be done, and that is comforting. 

You just need to figure out how to say it. 

“Okay, we’re here, what first?” Bonnie asks, kicking their legs out. Your own legs are swinging. 

“I’m still like. Really concerned over the fact that we’re all having a collective audial hallucination??” Isa offers. 

“What was the voice?” You ask. 

“Uhh, it said something about equipping memories, and a Lost One?”

Ah. So they can hear that now too. Though, is… That your voice? It certainly isn’t Loop’s. Though, wasn’t it just Loop channeling the universe? There was that time… That time where they didn’t seem to have control over what they were telling you. 

“That was real,” you assure. 

Isa doesn’t seem reassured. 

“Memories are like equipment, they can stay with you between loops. They can be beneficial,” you don’t look at Isabeau. “Or not.” 

“How the crab is someone supposed to equip a memory???” Mirabelle looks distressed. “Who is the Lost One? Why?? Are they in denial??”

You grimace. “Well you have to go into the menu and-”

Odile looks extremely unimpressed. How did Loop do it…

“Should I say it another way?” 

“One that makes sense, Frin!”

Ah. Um. 

[You can equip memories by going into the Menu and selecting “Equip”.]

Your family simultaneously groans in pain. You freeze, “Sorry-!”

Odile holds a hand up. “What are you?”

Your heart stops. “I-I’m-” 

“He’s Siffrin!” Mirabelle stands in between you and Odile. “And, that was really weird! And kind of painful! But, but just because he’s um. Changed doesn’t mean they’re not still Siffrin!” 

Your lungs are rattling like a frightened bird in a cage. “I’m here to guide you.” 

“How are you ‘sposed to guide us when you haven’t been here?” Bonnie’s arms are crossed over their chest. “You remember the LAST loop, but we have like, twenty more loops on you!”

“Twenty-three loops, twenty-four, now, actually. Though the last loop was so short I’d rather not count it.”

Mira’s frowning, Isa is staring directly at the ground, stock still. 

Whatever you were doing before you got here…

Ough, that makes your brain hurt. Whatever Siffrin was doing before you got here seems to really have shaken their trust in you. You think you hate them. Hate the fact that if you aren’t able to carefully cover all your weaknesses, exactly what you fear would happen would . 

Of course without the help of the loops, you really are a blinding idiot. 

How can you make them trust you ? How can you be someone worthy of their trust? 

“I… I don’t know how I got here,” You admit. You have an idea, but you aren’t sure. “But I know that helping you is why I’m here.” 

Isa is making a strange noise, when you look over to him, he’s got his mouth covered by his hand. 

“Really? This is what does it for you?” Odile scolds him as she gestures at you. But… That’s not the face he makes when he’s… Romantically flustered. 

You shake the thoughts from your head. This isn’t your Isa, and if the Siffrin that was here first (second???) was so terrible, maybe this Isa lost his crush on you. 

“Gross, Za.”

“What’s wrong, Isabeau?”

“Ha! Got me Odile, just… Can’t control myself.” He looks down, his brow furrowed. You frown. You want to say something, reach out and hold his hand, keep him from trying to make himself so so so small. He’s not yours, maybe, but he’s still Isa. 

Maybe it’s a distraction, but you find yourself swatting beside him, your back resting against the root you were just sitting on and you reach over and just… Tap his knee three times. 

Tap tap tap. 

He startles and his face immediately goes dark. “S-Sif!??” 

Ah… You haven’t felt that rush of power after something so small in a while. 

… You’re so gross. 

“Hey Isa. What’s actually going on in that big brain of yours?” You ask, because you’re disgusting. 

He’s not yours, but you would bet you know how he works. How any of them work. And you’re going to use it to manipulate them. Because you’re disgusting. 

And it is so easy to do, back here in Dormont. 

However many steps you take forward, you’re always taking at least two more steps back, aren’t you? 

Isa hides his face in his hands, he’s making some unintelligible noise. You’re going to get what you want, because you know exactly how to push him to get it. 

When he finally calms down enough to stop hiding, he won’t look at you. Odile muttered something to Bonnie under her breath that made them snicker. Mira has scooted over into the peripheral on your right side. She’s closer to them now. 

“I… Made a wish? And you just said something that? Makes me feel like it came true?”

He looks extremely guilty. Your blood runs cold. Something must happen to your face, because he looks properly flustered now. 

“You don’t know how to make wishes,” you say. You hope. You plead. You beg. 

“Well, I thought it didn’t really matter? Since I don’t really super believe in wishes? Like for me, it was about going to the Favor Tree in case it helped. I always knew I’d have to put in more of the work, right? But, a few loops ago, after you did your Favor Tree thing, I asked you about it? And you told me how you made wishes, and you were like, offended? That I thought clapping would work? It was funny at the time. It wasn’t until we went around town asking everyone how they wished that you believed me and you said-”

“Vaugarde is weird…” Odile muses. “Which I typically agree with, but I remember this venture. I thought it was nice to get some lighthearted fun.” 

“But Frin’s way doesn’t work right either!” Bonnie said, standing. “‘Cause I wished too!”

“What did you wish for?” You ask, your voice an echo of a time you wanted to be so far behind you. One that makes you feel like you’re belly up, like you could destroy the universe with the flutter of your knife. 

How could you be so. STUPID. You TAUGHT them wishcraft? Are you a BLINDING idiot? You must be. Ha- No wonder Loop wanted to kill you. You want to kill you. Hah, guess your self-hatred can go that deep.

“I wished you would remember the loops,” Bonnie answers. You are staring directly at the ground. 

“I… Wished for a guide? Something, someone that could keep us from just, running around not knowing what to do, doing the same thing over and over again. I didn’t think…” 

Static, on the fringes of your vision. Ah, sure. You could see how the universe thought THIS was the best way to fulfil both of those wishes in the least amount of effort. Taking a page from the Change God’s book on laziness, maybe. You remember the loops, you can guide them to the end because you’ve done it before. And it has to be a Siffrin, they said you but they must have meant Siffrin, so maybe someone like Loop wouldn’t work. Who WAS Siffrin, but isn’t anymore because YOU were Siffrin. 

Your head might crack open at this rate. 

You would welcome it. 

You smile. Your teeth feel like they're splintering by how hard you're grinding them together to keep your joyous grimace up. Your vision is blurry from the squint of your eye. You sit back on the root, as far from your… From them as possible. 

“Okay,” you say. 

“Are you okay, Siffrin?” Mirabelle asks. 

“He's crying, Belle.” 

Are you? You bring a hand to your face, moisture seeps through the leather of your gloves. “Okay,” you say again. 

You're smiling into the middle distance, and you're sure you're being looked at, but you don't see them. The show must go on. 

“Hey Mira, have you heard about the CARROTT method?” 

“What? Huh???” She's thrown off guard. “Siffrin, what's going on?” 

“The CARROTT method is what will make the shield you need to defeat the King click. You could read that in the secret library, but it's faster this way.” 

“Oh change yeah… That does make sense– But Siffrin-!” 

[Mirabelle learned ADORABLE MOVING SHIELD! … Again? For the first time?? Maybe???]

You've started breathing a little harder, you think you're angry. Really really angry. You want to kill yourself. Or, the self that did this to you. By being a hapless idiot. 

STARS , you think you understand Loop better than you ever did before. 

At least they could bully you for being an idiot. You have no one to blame but yourself. 

Your heart beats against its cage, and you press your fingers against your sternum, the give of flesh could be plasma, the brightest star in a constellation. But no, your fingertips hit bone. 

You wish you could break the bone from here. If it splintered, the pain there in would have a purpose. You could imagine the shrapnel implanting in your organs, the blood seeping into the vacuous space between flesh and skin and up your throat. 

“Okay, it’s unfortunate that this is left to me,” Odile speaks up. “Let’s take this step by step, and maybe we’ll all calm down enough to make sense of everything that is happening.”

Slowly, your vision clears, you see now, Mirabelle crying quietly, Isabeau is staring at the ground in front of Odile and Bonnie, who is scowling. Odile snaps her book shut and sets it in her lap. 

“So, Isabeau and Boniface both made wishes that seemed to be the reason that… Siffrin here is able to know things about the loops, what we need to do. However, you don’t remember our -” she gestures to the people around you, “-loops, past the last one? Is that right?”

You nod numbly. 

She nods in return, her shoulders raise like she’s taking in a breath. “But you said you’ve been here before.”

You nod again. 

Odile frowns. “Are you from… The future?” She asks. Her suspicion is dripping from her voice, from the way she looks down at you, her chin up and defiant. 

You remember to breathe. In, and out. In, and out. “I guess??” You croak. 

She narrows her eyes at you, “I’m going to need you to prove it.”

You can’t help the despairing groan that escapes you. Frustration bubbles enough that you throw your body back too far and land on your back on the other side of the root you were sitting on. The air is forced out of your lungs. The burn is refreshing. 

“WOAH!”

“Sif-!”

You just groan again in response and cover your face with your hands. You let your lungs burn for a few more moments, long enough to feel like your chest is going to collapse in on itself. Then you breathe. 

Okay. Okay, this is your chance, you can give them a reason to trust you. 

You right yourself again, and you’re met with four faces of varying concern, even from Odile. You feel like you should bow. Instead, you cross your ankles. 

“Why don’t you ask me something,” you suggest, forcing the tremble out of your voice. “So I don’t accidentally spoil you?” You glance at Mirabelle. Her eyes widen a fraction. 

“Frin, you just fell backward for no reason,” Bonnie points out. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fi-” The automatic response falls flat on your tongue. You don’t want to lie, but you don’t exactly feel like you can tell the truth. “Any other questions?”

Bonnie frowns and snaps their head away from you. 

“The King is going to ask you something, Siffrin,” Odile says. “What does he ask you?” 

You feel the disdain contort your face. “ ‘Bright One, do you remember?’ ” 

“Oh! That’s right! You even got the voice…” Mirabelle perked up. There was a slight edge to her voice, a worried line by her eye. 

“Okay,” Odile appraises you. “What am I researching?” 

Isabeau finally perks up, looking from the ground up at Odile. You can’t help but give her a secret smile. It makes her brow furrow. You shake your head. “I’m not going to ruin the fun,” you say. “But I can tell you where to find what you’re looking for. Boulanger's daughter has it.”

Odile’s inhale is sharp. It makes her nostrils flair. You fold your hands in your lap. Your fingers knot together immediately. “It’s not a specific book,” you say, “But a kind of book.” 

The secret you just shared went unnoticed as realization settles in Odile. “How do you know?” She asked, her voice was steady, but just a little too tight for you to think she wasn’t suspicious of you. You know she doesn’t like when people have secrets that are about her. 

“You told me,” you say. “I was trying to figure out how to leave the loops, I thought helping you would be the way out. I helped you find…”

She looks down at her book. “When you were trying to figure out how to leave the loops? That seems like a weird course of action to take.”

“Helping us? Madame, I think you’re being really hard on Siffrin?”

“No, no, I know Siffrin wants to be helpful-” The edge on her voice makes you shrink. Oh… You’ve stepped in it. You’ve probably stepped in it for every single one of their loops. “I just think it’s weird to go on sidequests that late into the game wouldn’t be something we would agree to use our time on,” She explains. 

Oh, she doesn’t understand. She thinks you’re from the future for this timeline. “Ah, I’m not from the future,” you explain. 

“Then why bother trying to prove it earlier?” Bonnie asks. They kick, disrupting the soil at their feet. 

“Also HOW did you prove it?” Isabeau tacks on. 

Your lips purse as you consider how to say this. 

“...” 

Everyone is quiet for a long time. Quiet as they can be, anyway. 

“When I looped, I was a…” No you weren’t. You could never thank them enough for that. “You weren’t with me. You all reset with every loop, you did the same things, said the same things, you stayed on script unless I did something to change it. Even then, sometimes it would be the same anyway.” You think of pokes going unnoticed, unreciprocated. You clench your fists. You are real. You’re… Here. Breath in, and out. 

“Yeesh…” Odile groans with sympathy. “I am surprised you’re not completely insane.” 

You cackle! You were completely insane!! You still might be!!! 

“Spoke too soon, Dile.” 

You wipe away a fake tear and flick it aside. “Heh, yeah.” 

“Feeling super reassured here, Sif.” You give Isabeau a thumbs up. He frowns at you. 

You sigh, and feel disarmed. “It… Wasn’t good,” you give them. “But, I had a lot of help after.” 

“After?” Mirabelle sounds fragile. You think about reaching out to her. You nod instead. 

“I got out, so I know how to get you out.” Though, suddenly something feels like it isn’t quite right. “I’m pretty sure.” 

“Pretty sure?” Odile is skeptical, of course she is. 

Your face feels hot so you look up into the Favor Tree’s canopy. “This is all happening because of wishcraft.” 

Bonnie makes some kind of awed sound, you can’t look at them, but you imagine their eyes are sparkling. 

“‘Wishcraft’?” Odile parrots. 

“That sounds way OP,” Isabeau agreed. 

An indignant huff escapes you, “But you made a wish? And it came true?”

“He’s right, Isabeau.” In a surprising turn of events, Mirabelle backs you up. 

“I didn’t wish for Siffrin to be our guide,” he responds desperately. 

“Well Bonnie made a wish too.” 

“Yeah, for Frin to remember.”

“So, the wishes worked together to fulfil both of them as efficiently as possible. By making Siffrin remember loops that aren’t ours so that they could guide us to victory.” Odile scribbles a note down in her book. She still seems unconvinced. You don’t like how she said that. You can’t place why. Instead you shrug. 

“I guess. I actually know why the loops worked because of you, Odile.” You can’t take credit for her work. Better to stay believable, if you’re too competent, they’ll think you’re out of character. 

“Is that right?” She smirks wryly. 

You nod. “Lots of freewheeling wish intent plus one ritual backed wish equals loops!” 

“So it was someone that knew how to make a wish that made the loops?” Bonnie asks. 

Oh no. 

“Like you, Frin?”

OH NO. 

Four pairs of eyes are on you. Pinning you where you’re at. Why, why is this still so scary. When your family found out the first time, it was after you had done everything in your power to burn your relationships to the ground and they, even if you really didn’t deserve it, forgave you. Were even blindingly endeared by you. 

But… There was another Siffrin, another player here before you, that didn’t realize he was in a play, that kept messing up his lines and missing their cues. A Siffrin that was impeding the production. 

Had to cut them and bring in an understudy. 

…

“Frin?” 

… 

You don’t know your lines, you don’t have a script for this play. This acting troupe knows each other, and they don’t know you . You’re different. You’re not theirs, are you? 

If they were so sick of their own Siffrin, why would they want you? 

… 

You aren’t even sure you want them . 

You want your family. You want your Mira, your Isa, your Bonbon, and your Odile. 

This version of your family… Haven’t they already left you behind? They’ve left you behind, and ripped you from what was yours. 

No, no no no no no. That’s not fair, they wanted help, and they deserve help! And you can help them! You can help them, somehow. 

Maybe… Maybe this is just temporary? Just temporary, and once you break the loops for them, and you talk to the Head Housemaiden you’ll be spirited back to your family, who is… In the future probably. Hah, because time is so weird, you’ll probably still wake up in that tent surrounded by them. Maybe Isa will be cold because you stole the blankets again, and he’s still a little too shy to cuddle with you while you sleep. 

You’ll wake up because you hear Mirabelle and Pétronille chatting by the firepit, because it’s well past sun up and you’ve slept in too long for them to care to be quiet anymore. 

Yeah, YEAH! You just have to get through this, that’s all. Help this version of your family, and then yours will be waiting for you. You’re sure. You’re sure. 

As for the Siffrin that was here first… 

They’ll probably be back, just reset like a loop. You decide not to worry about it. 

“-Frin-! SIFFRIN!” 

You are jolted by Mirabelle’s shout. She’s right in front of your face. You jerk back and blink at her. 

“Eeep-! I’m sorry, sorry! You just… We kept calling to you and you seemed… Completed zoned out? Like, you weren’t here with us at all!” 

Oh stars, you really aren’t better than the other you. You smile and your cheeks hurt. “Sorry! I was just thinking about something.” 

“Yeah? What were you thinking about, buddy?”

Ha. No. “I forgot?” You shrug and you feel the frustration radiating off of Odile and Bonnie. 

“Do you at least remember the wish that got us stuck here, Siffrin?” She asks. 

You swallow. Your teeth feel fuzzy, soft, like you’ve eaten too much sugar. You want to puke. “I do, but I can’t tell you yet.”

“What!?”

“Why not!?” 

Well, it wouldn’t count if you told them, would it? Though, maybe it wouldn’t. You got your wish by forcing them to stay with you while you were in the loops, until… Until you were able to tell them, and you decided to stay together, for a while longer. 

But you don’t like forcing them to stay with you. And you’re trying to be less of a disgusting blinding selfish idiot. 

You really have to earn it, this time. 

“Because if I tell you, it won’t come true,” you explain. “If it can’t come true, we’re all stuck here.” You fold your hands together and look down into your lap. “I know you have every reason not to… You know now, that… I’m bad at the one thing you really keep me around for and I’m sure I was driving you crazy but, please, trust me? Let me actually be helpful, this time.” 

“Siffrin…” Mirabelle’s voice is soft, barely a whisper. You think you hear Isabeau sniff and whimper a quiet “... Sif…” 

Bonnie isn’t saying anything, and you’re too scared to look up from your lap to see what face they’re making. 

You do hear Odile sigh, “I think I may have misdirected my frustration earlier,” she says. “The switches and keys were not easy to find, and you were often rushed or we were distracting you, and we certainly weren’t helping at first.” 

“That’s what I was trying to say before we looped back!” Mirabelle rose on her knees, her fists hands clasped in front of her. “Siffrin was unable to change and I don’t think it’s fair to resent them for that! Everytime we found a change-forsaken key it was in the dumbest place possible!” 

“Yeah, I mean we didn’t even find the key in the Head Housemaiden’s office until I literally broke her desk,” Isabeau added. 

“Death corridor,” is all Bonnie says in response. The warm feeling that had settled in your chest from Mirabelle and Isabeau’s defense went ice cold. The chill settled over the group. “The tear on the first floor. The big sadnesses. THE CRABBING KING!!!!” 

They’re standing now and glaring at you. You feel so small. 

“IT’S LIKE ALL YOU WANNA DO IS DIE!! I COULDN’T CRABBING CARE IF YOU SUCK AT FINDING KEYS IF YOU DIDN’T KEEP DYING!!!” You think you’re turning into static. Bonnie has tears falling down their cheeks, snot running from their nose. They wipe it away with their arm. “You think you know better than all of us. When we’d tell you about the loops, you’d always offer to be the one to loop us back if we got stuck, ‘cause you wouldn’t remember dying, so it wouldn’t count.” 

Stars, that sounds exactly like something you’d think. You still think it– anything to keep them from being hurt. You don’t mind getting hurt. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes you feel alive. Like you’re real. 

The only thing that you do feel bad about is the fact that they would remember it this time. 

“Oh, shattering gems!” Odile curses like she’s realized something. 

“What, M’dame?” 

She looks mad, and a little wispy, darkness rimming her eyes as they glisten. “‘How do you even learn something like that?’” She asks pointedly. You don’t get it, but Isabeau’s face lightens with horror and he looks at you, pleading. 

A few beats later and Mirabelle gasps, bringing her hands to her mouth. 

Honestly, you aren’t sure what everyone else has figured out, you’re too confused by how they aren’t trying to comfort Bonnie. 

They are glaring at you, and it makes your chest ache, but you know they aren’t just mad. They’re hurt and scared too. For your part in that, you are so debilitatingly sorry. You take a deep breath. In. And out. You tell yourself you aren’t trying to steal from another Siffrin. 

“You’re right,” you say. “You’re right to be mad at me, Bonnie.” You level your gaze at them, and they look at you with a snotty nose and watery eyes. They make you feel nostalgic, like you’re looking at a memory of Bonnie. Yours is catching up to you in height, aren’t they? This one is still so small. 

“I will always think it’s better if I get hurt over any of you.” You’ve admitted this before, but you know for them, it’s the first time you’ve said it. “And I’m selfish, because even if I know I won’t remember, I’d never want to see you hurt.” And honestly, you’d keep doing it. You would like to think you wouldn’t, but you know you would much rather they have to live without you, than in a world without them.

Without your family. 

“But that’s so stupid! I remember! You’re stupid!” They’re wiping their eyes, the fire in their voice is dimming. 

“I am stupid,” you smile. And you love them. You love your family. You even love this version of them. You can’t help it. They look like people you love, and you’re stupid, and there is no one to stop you from taking everything you can from them like a leech. “I’m smarter now, though. And I’m strong enough to get through the House without dying, too.” You don’t even think you’re suffering from the long term effects of Craft exhaustion anymore. Body has been reset, and the experience is all there. 

“Do you promise?” They ask. 

“Promise what?”

“That you won’t die anymore.” 

You feel your shoulders slump. You look at the grass. “I can’t promise that, while we’re in the loops.” You have no idea how you’re going to deal with the Head Housemaiden. 

So you don’t think about it. 

“How many times have you looped?” You ask. 

“Um… Dile?”

“This is the twenty-fourth loop,” she answers tersely.

“... Did I die every time?” you ask. You’ve died way more than twenty four times, but surely you aren’t the only one that can trigger a loop to end. 

“Sometimes we’d reach a dead end,” Mirabelle started. “And we didn’t tell you every time, especially on loops when we weren’t sure what we needed to do.” 

You nod. 

“And Mira, M’dame, and I would play rock paper scissors to see who would touch the tear to loop us back.” Isabeau looked ashamed, and he wouldn’t look at you. “But y’know Sif… I wonder if us always having you up front has… Messed up your self-preservation skills. We don’t think of you as a meat shield. You know that, right?” 

You frown. Your teeth clench. You don’t even like the idea of them having to use the tears. The dreams turn sour eventually. 

Isabeau makes a soft sound, pitched like a tea kettle. You must be making a scary face. You pull your hat down (did you miss it??? (of course you did)) so you can pinch your face together, tensing all the muscles so they’re forced to relax and you can mold them into a smile. Your eyes crinkle. Your teeth are still clenched. “Of course I know that! But it’s my job, and I’m just trying to-” a few preemptive groans “- meat expectations.” 

Isabeau can’t help it, his shoulders shake as he giggles at your pun. He gathers himself and now he’s giving you a concerned look. “Very funny, but you know, right?” 

Urgh, Isabeau from the loops isn’t supposed to push. “Sure,” you say with a casual shrug. He doesn’t look convinced, but that can be temporary. “But when you looped, how did you do it?” 

“Well! If we just figure out how to loop like we did last time, no one will have to die? Or get frozen?” Mirabelle tries again. 

Your cheeks hurt. Stars, you wouldn’t mind looping away from this conversation if it would even matter. You can imagine Loop laughing at you. In your nightmare scenario, you can’t even take advantage of the one benefit. 

“We would have to start by dissecting what we were doing when we looped,” Odile offered. 

You would really rather not.

“We were talking, weren’t we? Like this? Though… I guess it was a little more heated?” Mira offers. Then she gasps, “Do you think it was the emotion! Or because Siffrin is now in the loop, we can control it?” She looks at you with shining eyes. “Can you try to loop?”

“Wouldn’t we ALL be able to control it then? It doesn’t have to just be Frin,” Bonnie pouts. 

Perfect, an opening. “Why don’t you try it then, Bonnie?” You ask. Determination radiates off them as they squeeze their eyes shut and clench their fists. You don’t know all the rules, but you’re pretty sure this won’t work. 

It doesn’t work. Bonnie huffs. “Lame.” 

Odile is looking at you. “We could use this loop to try to figure out how to loop back,” she suggests. 

Ack! No!! 

“Or, we can beat the King,” you counter, your finger tapping your chin. “Now that Mira has the shield, it should actually be pretty easy. Especially since you all have your experience from previous loops.” 

“Will beating the King end the loops?”

You turn sheepish, “Maybe?” 

“You don’t know!? ” 

You shrink into yourself. “Well, we have to beat the King to get out, Vaugarde needs to be saved.”

“No brainer.”

“It’s one of the wishes.” 

“There’s more? ”

“Why are we able to know that one but not the one that actually matters?”

“Well, it’s obvious, right?” 

“Why should we bother fighting the King again if we know it won’t matter until this other mysterious wish is fulfilled?” 

“Have you ever talked to the King?”

“ No!? Siffrin why would we talk to that crab?” Mirabelle’s voice is so scandalized, you laugh because you’re so caught off guard. But yeah, they always thought it was weird when you talked to the King. But they let you do it anyway. 

“Oh Change, did the King make the wish?” Isabeau asks, scandal and terror dripping off his words. 

“... It’s related?” 

“The crabbing King stuck us in a crabbing time loop!” Bonnie’s standing now. “We should destroy him!!!!” 

It would be really easy to let the King take the blame for your mistakes. You’d be doing the Siffrin that belongs to these guys a solid. More than they or you deserve. 

Your family’s understudies are all starting to chatter their theories together and you start to blend into the shadows and petal lights of the Favor Tree. 

You’re helping them, they have a chance now. With your guidance they’ll get out of the loops. If you haven’t messed it up. 

How would they react, if you told them that what you wished for was to stay with them? Would they resent you? It wasn’t you being punished for your selfishness this time. You had always roped them into your mess, but… This is different? They got stuck with a you at your most useless. Mirabelle and Isabeau were making excuses for you’re sure, but that’s because they’re nice. They’re probably frustrated too, but trying hard to be kind to you, because that’s the kind of people they are. 

Bonnie and Odile aren’t as tender with their feelings. Odile, her frustration with you is probably the easiest thing for her to process. You’ve hurt Bonnie again. You’ve made them see some terrible things. 

This was always something you worried about. Your family… They are so forgiving. You don’t understand it, not really, how they were able to forgive you for how you hurt them, manipulated them. You worried what their limit would be. How much of a burden you had to be before they decided you weren’t worth the trouble anymore. 

… 

You know that would have made Isa really sad to hear. Mira would tell you that it’s not fair to them, to think that. 

You try to… change … how you think so that you don’t accidentally hurt your family. But, those thoughts aren’t really about them. They’re about you, because you continue to put yourself at the center of the universe. 

Hah, there are so many awful things about yourself. You love your family so much, but you certainly can’t vouch for their taste. 

So, you try to make yourself someone worth keeping around. So they’ll keep you around. 

The other Siffrin has unknowingly been sabotaging their own wish, so you’ll just have to be sure that they want to stay with Siffrin after you all beat the King. 

Then everything will right itself. 

Yeah, that’s all. 

Now, where to start?

Chapter Text

The rest of the day in Dormont was spent strategizing. The long thingy thing was retrieved from the shed by the Blind one, dinner was made and eaten, and you now are listening to the sounds of breathing around you. Isabeau is the only one other than you still awake. You can see him in your peripheral, laying on his back. He might be looking up at the ceiling, like you would be, if you weren’t doing your best to look at him without looking at him. 

You’re as close to the edge of the bed as you can be. Your shoulder kissing the precipice of the mattress, if only to give you more space, lest you feel tempted to reach over to him. 

Isa was weird for a while about sharing a bed after his confession. He would get extra flustered, nervous that he was making you feel weird because you knew about his feelings. You were more worried about being greedy and taking more than you wanted. Isa said he was okay waiting for you to decide how you felt, but you still felt bad, making him wait. 

When you tried to tell him that he shouldn’t feel obligated to wait for you, he just smiled at you and said “Sorry bud, you don’t get to make that decision for me. Right now, I’m perfectly happy. If my feelings change, I’ll let you know.” 

You didn’t get it, but it still made you feel nice. 

You spent a lot of time squeezing into bed with Mira and Bonbon. You think it made him more comfortable, and it was nice being with them. 

When you all finally made it to Bambouche, Bonbon switched over to spending the nights with their sister, and you and Mira were left, just you two. 

It was one of those nights, in an inn in Bambouche, one that had darklesswashed walls that made it seem worlds away from this Clocktower, that you finally talked. She let herself be mad at you and you were terrified, you wanted to run and beg forgiveness all at once. You would grovel, if she let you. 

Instead, she just asked again, if you meant what you said. “No, never,” you said. “I’m just an idiot.” 

She had frowned, “What did you mean, then?” 

But that was spoilers, but saying so would have been a cop out of the difficult conversation, and you owed her. You spent a long time thinking of what to say. 

“In the loops,” you start, and her face melts into tender sympathy. “I needed to be a specific character… A version of myself, so you would love me.” 

“You know we love you no matter what though, right, Siffrin?”

You shrunk in on yourself. “I try to remember,” you replied. “I still worry sometimes. But, um…” You had felt like you knew where you were going with this, but the thought had abandoned you. “I mean… I get… Thinking that you have to act or, um. Be? A certain way to be loved?” 

It was dark, there was no moon, but the starlight twinkled in her eyes. You’ll remember that forever. You hope. Her laugh was like a bell. “Oh, Siffrin? Really? ” 

“Yes?” 

She grabbed your hand in hers. You had flinched, but she held on. “No wonder you messed it up so much then, you’re not really good at this,” she teased. You didn’t mind though, she was right and her hands were warm in yours. “I do think I understand more about what you meant, now. It makes me feel better.” 

“I’m still really sorry for hurting you.”

“I know, Siffrin.” 

You two were up far too late that night. It wasn’t so bad for you, but Mira was so sleepy in the morning, you couldn’t help but feel bad again. But the talking was good, she opened up on her own, about her papers, she teased you about Isa, and you confessed that you were worried you wouldn’t be able to give him the sort of love he wanted. You both agreed that Isa was too nice a guy to stop being your friend over something like that. 

Though neither of you could hide your fears that well. 

What you remember the most from that night, was Mira, her head on your shoulder, fingers intertwined, murmuring as she fell asleep, “No matter what, no matter how far, or how long it’s been, let’s always be there for each other.” 

Your heart had felt so full then. You were so warm. It became less scary to think about Isa and even the future. 

Always. 

Always. 

Always. 

No matter what.

You felt mind numbingly cold in the Clocktower. Your chest was an empty cavity, all your insides pulled out. You wonder where they went. 

Isabeau shifts beside you. The movement makes you instinctively glance his way. For a brief moment, you make eye contact. 

The night before, he didn’t wake you. You were relieved at the time, but it was probably because he hates you now, because he knows how bad at your job he is. He probably regrets ever having a crush on you. 

You kind of hope it’s true. 

“You’re up,” he whispers. You nod at him. He looks away from you, all coiled with nervous energy. “... Can we talk?” 

“You want to tell me something?” But you know. It’s different, but you guess that’s to be expected, that it won’t be like your loops. You still want him to chicken out, though. 

“Um-!” He shrinks into his large shoulders. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

You wait. He looks more guilty than nervous, now. You get ready to turn over to pretend to sleep when he says, “Do you think we could… Go downstairs? So we don’t wake anyone?” 

“… Sure.” 

You find yourself standing awkwardly at the bottom of the staircase while Isabeau leans against the table, his arms crossed. “I know this is kinda inconvenient,” he says. “But they always wake up if we talk up there.” 

So he’s done this a lot, then. You have no right to judge him, so you just shrug. He sighs. 

“Okay, well. I wanted to apologize to you, Sif.” 

…

What? “Huh?” 

“Um! For wishing you here? Or, back here, I guess? You… You’ve seem really stressed?” 

What is he going on about? It’s your fault he even knew how to make wishes. It’s the Universe’s fault for granting the wish like this. 

Though, you think of Loop, having to be a guide again, pulled from wherever they are, pulled from their rest. 

You’re glad at least, it wasn’t them. 

“You didn’t know,” you tell him. “It makes sense to want help.” 

He won’t look at you. “I just wish help didn’t come at this price.”

Oh. 

You see. He wanted help, but not yours . You clutch the front of your sleeping gown. Of course he wouldn’t want your help. You’ve proven to be absolutely useless. You already knew this so why does it feel like a knife to your chest?  

“... I’ll get you out,” you promise. 

“Wha?” He straightens up. “Wait, Sif-” 

“A few more loops at most. That’s all it will take.” You feel desperate. 

He’s looking at you, his eyes soft and wet. “I believe you, Sif,” he says after a long stretch of quiet. His smile is a little strained, you think. 

Stars , you don’t understand why he is still being so kind to you. 

“Um…” He starts again, after another stretch of silence. “Are you doing okay?” 

… 

Are you really going to lie again? 

“Yeah.” 

Isabeau frowns. He’s thinking about something, probably whether to push you. He could always tell you were lying, but just didn’t have the guts to call you out in any meaningful way. Not before you got out, anyway. 

Isa would. Isa would push you, sometimes until you snapped, and you would both apologize after, but he vowed he wouldn’t be the sort of friend that let you ‘force yourself to suffer in silence’ anymore. I’d rather you blow up at me, than keep it all inside. I can take it, he told you. I’m not scared of anything you can throw at me.  

You knock on the railing of the stairs one, two, three times. “What do you think of this woodwork, Isa?” You ask him. 

“Huh?” 

“I think it’s just oaky. ” 

He snorts, then his whole body is shaking with bitten down laughter as he tries not to wake anyone upstairs. He wipes a tear from his eye. “Haaa heheeheee that’s good, Sif.” You smile. “I’m not going to ignore the fact you just lied to me, though.”

You keep smiling serenely. “Well how are you doing, Isabeau?” He’s the rock, the emotionally intelligent one. Those archetypes hardly ever get the support they need in stories, their arcs being more geared to furthering the emotional journey of the main character. You’re sure he’s been putting in a lot of effort to make sure that Mirabelle and Bonnie are okay, maybe even Odile too. He must have noticed her need for control if you know about it now. Who knows how the loops are affecting her. 

He looks away from you, his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, it would be weird if any of us were doing great.” Isabeau says eventually. “And after this is all over, I’ll have a good cry and freak out about how messed up it all was, but right now, I’m just trying to help how I can.” 

“Well, that’s what I’m doing.” 

Isabeau’s smile is pinched. “I don’t know if I would call it the same thing, Sif.” 

Stars , okay. You get it. You don’t think the point needs to be hammered in any more deeply. You bring the collar of your night gown over your chin. “It’s late. Showtime tomorrow.” 

“...Right. Um-”

You go upstairs. 

You don’t sleep. And from the sound of his breathing, neither does Isabeau. 

This time, you make it past the first room and to the death corridor. 

“Oh, Siffrin-” Mirabelle starts to tell you, but you already know. The bolder comes crashing down and you stick your tongue out playfully at her. 

“I remember~” 

She has a relieved hand over her heart and Isabeau laughs with only half of his. He hasn’t made eye contact with you since last night. He spends long seconds staring at you, but when you turn to him, he looks away. 

He makes you feel like a predator. 

You think of panthers. 

“And you remember the goal for this loop?” Odile tests you. You all decided on gathering information then you’re going to beat the king. You don’t really get why they need to gather information, you’ve already told them about the CARROTT method, but Odile insisted. 

You hold your first finger up, “Beat the King.” You put up your second finger, “Information.” 

“But information about whaaaat,” Bonnie whines. “We know about wishcraft already. I still vote we wish ourselves out of forever school.”

You bite your tongue until your mouth fills with copper. This has already been discussed. “Sorry Bonbon,” Isabeau says in your stead, his eyes flickering toward you with that same disappointed look he gave you last night. “We’re not going to risk anymore wishes.” 

“And anyway,” Odile interjects. “Since we cannot grant a wish if we don’t know its contents,” she looks at you pointedly. She’s frustrated with you at best, but you can’t tell her, not until you can convince her not to hate you anymore. “We need to see if there is a way to figure out what the King might have wished for to cause this predicament. Or even where he learned this strange craft.” She’s glaring at you now. Other Siffrin taught them wishcraft, so you can’t feign ignorance. 

Mirabelle is hovering by your shoulder, on your blindside, but you can feel her heat radiating toward you. You imagine the way she’s holding her breath, gearing up to speak as you step away from the pillar. 

Whatever she wants to say leaves her with her breath.

There’s something creeping at the edges of your vision once you’re in the main room on the first floor. You decide that it’s ghosts you can ignore, and immediately start leading the party east. 

You’re a shadowbox puppet, following your predetermined tracks to move the story along. The search for information on the King will take you to the writing dorm. To do that, you need the egg key in the kitchen. You have to fight the weird sadness first, to get the star crest. They would want to stop in the storage room. For that book about wishcraft. You dodge sadnesses and tears, the stone ground of the House familiar under your feet. If you lost your other eye, you could still probably navigate this place. 

Is this what people with a home feel like? When they go back? 

You can’t remember anything before the house. Maybe you were born here. At least, the you that was from anywhere else is dead and gone. You stop at the storage room door. 

“I guess the items in here are useful,” Odile says, her voice cutting through the fog around you. “But we can probably skip. We’ve already read the books we could in here.”

“Not the headache one!” Bonnie chimes in. 

“Well, there’s kind of a reason we didn’t read that one, Bonbon.” 

You say the openphrase. The language is yours. You hold onto that memory. You equip it. 

“Did anyone else feel that?” Isabeau asks. 

“Like everything held its breath for a long moment before letting go?” Mira asks.

“Yeah, kind of exactly like that.” 

You feel eyes on you as you make your way to the bookshelf. Like a compass needle to north, you are drawn to the right book. 

Could you wish everything back? You get the sense something terrible would happen if you tried to override Isabeau’s and Bonnie’s wishes. Maybe that’s because you won’t need to. At the end, you’ll be sent home. Your real home. The one you made with your family. 

“Za, Frin picked up the headache book.” 

You didn’t spend much time with the book before, so you have the thumb through it to find the right page. As much as Wish Craft scares you, the intricacies have fallen through your sieve of a mind. You were always more of an instinctual person, than a book-learned person. The universe will lead you home, you’re sure. 

“I can read it,” you tell them. “It’s about Wish Craft.” 

Mirabelle, Isabeau, and Odile jump. “What!?”

“Right here!?” 

“You can read the headache language, Frin?” Bonnie makes their way over to you, pulls the book down so they can look at it. After a few moments, it’s pushed back into you. “Ow… Letters bad.”

You stick your tongue out, “I didn’t say you could read it. People aren’t supposed to read it.” 

Odile’s arms are crossed. “And you can because…?”

You look at Bonnie again, and your face feels tight. Because it was your ill-gotten reward for the worst thing you’ve ever done. “I earned it,” you say. 

“...” She’s suspicious of you. That’s fine. It’s fine. 

You start translating to them. 

“... I’ll leave the thinking to you all,” Mirabelle says. 

“I am a child. I have a lot on my mind. I cannot help.” 

“Understandable,” Isabeau responds, amused. 

He and Odile listen intently, while Mirabelle and Bonnie start playing some kind of game in the corner. 

What a sickening sense of deja vu. You swallow it down and keep translating. 

“Hmm…” Odile hums after a while. “I think I understand more. A lot could have been inferred by what we learned from Siffrin under the Favor Tree. So by Crafting some specific rituals, in conjunction with a powerful will for your wish to come true, people can seemingly make any kind of wish come true…” 

“You used the word "congestion", so now I'm confused.” Bonnie smiles. 

 “‘Conjunction’. It means–”

Isabeau interjects, “The same way we use Craft and certain knowledge and will to make figurines move, there's a way to use Craft to make your wishes come true!” 

“Like when Siffrin showed us how to wish properly at the Favor Tree!” Mirabelle adds. She looks excited to be able to contribute. 

Isabeau’s face falls, and you catch the moment he puts on a mask. 

Bonnie raises their hand. 

“You have a question, Boniface?” Odile is amused. She always seems more at ease after getting some answers. 

“Um, so, um… It can make any wish come true?”

“It seems so, but the way the wish is granted seems more complicated than that. We have our own example of this, don’t we?”

The air around the room feels heavy. Four heads drop, and you feel like a beast on display behind glass. 

“Your wish can be granted directly, or you will be granted the means to answer your wish,” Odile continues. 

“And if two wishes could be granted at once…” Isabeau murmurs. 

“My guess was as a conservation of energy, if two wishes can be fulfilled in fundamentally the same way, they will be.” 

You’re made of static. 

“Frin… You’re from the future, right?”

“Well, not exactly, Bonbon…” 

“Okay, you’re from a future, or whatever?” 

You put on what you hope is an easy smile, “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“Okay, that’s cool. But. Well, um…” They’re looking up at you, their little brows are furrowed. “Are you gonna stay futureFrin forever, or, when we get out of forever school, will we get our Siffrin back?”

Immediately, you are so chilled you’re aflame. The blood pounding in your ears echos the distant vacuum of space and your insides are collapsing into singularity. You want to laugh, you think you might cry, you could rip the bookcase off the wall and tear each and every one of those stupid useless books in half. Your skin creaks as you force a smile into your eyes. “Yeah,” you say. “Once the wishes are granted, you’ll get your Siffrin back, and I’ll go back home. I’m just here to help.” 

You take a step, and you suddenly feel drenched. Bonnie wished for you to remember. If they were so distraught over you losing an eye for them… Wishing for you to remember isn’t a crime. They didn’t want you to leave, maybe be a little more useful , but… The tightly wound coil within you loosened. You turn back to kneel in front of them. They have tears in their eyes. Is that new? Or did you not notice before. 

“The Universe is just borrowing me, for a while,” you assure. Bonnie, and yourself. “There’s a little more that I have to fix than just defeating the King. We might be here a while, but… Everyone is gonna end up where they need to be.” 

They take a deep breath. “Promise?” 

“Promise.” 

“... Super duper promise?”

You don’t have to fake your smile this time. “Super duper promise.” And because you have secret future knowledge, you open your arms out to them. 

“What are you doing?” They ask. You feel more eyes than Bonnie’s on you and it makes you sweat, but you ignore it, for now. They need this, you think. You won’t ever, ever abandon them. 

“... A hug?” You offer. 

Their eyes widen with interest, then narrow. “But… We’re not allowed to touch you.” 

You grimace, “Bonbon, I’m going to let you in on a secret.”

“Yeah?!”

“Adults are wrong. All the time.”

“Well, I knew that! But…” 

“I just, I wasn’t used to it.” 

“Oh, like Nille? I have to make sure I warn her, so I don’t activate her scared brain.” 

“A lot like Nille, yeah,” you say. Pétronille called it hypervigilance. She didn’t share much about her life before she took Bonnie and ran, but you know enough. You don’t think it's the same for you. You just… Weren’t touched ever. You couldn’t remember it happening. You didn’t remember what it felt like. It was strange, uncomfortable, but you still wanted it. Craved it. But like when you haven’t eaten for too long, and your stomach felt too sick to eat, even though food was all you thought about, touch wasn’t something you could do easily. 

But, you have gotten so much better at it. 

Bonnie is smiling at you, “Okay, we can hug. Since I guess you really need it.” Yeah, honestly? They crash against you, squeezing your sides. You hold them firm, but not crushing. They laugh against your chest. “Heh, you do know how to hug” 

“I had a good teacher.” 

There’s a tea kettle sound and a soft whine. You look up, and Mirabelle and Isabeau immediately avert their gazes. Odile is looking at you, eyebrow cocked, not quite fond, but close. 

Bonnie lets go and you stand, renewed. 

Right, you’ll help this party, and when the loops are broken, they’ll get their Siffrin back, and you’ll be back to your family. You just have to work together until then. It won’t be easy, but you didn’t think fighting the King would be easy, you just decided you weren’t going to worry about it. You can do that here too. 

Get to it, Siffrin.