Chapter Text
"I'm here to kill the King, aren't I?"
In blood and stars. In tears and time. Siffrin would do anything to free themself from this living hell. He would rather give in to any fate except for this. But they’re too weak, too much of a callous, aimless, manipulative coward to do so.
And, most importantly, they have a country to save.
(Is this even about Vaugarde anymore?)
Siffrin was not exactly known for letting things go. He’d rather disembowel himself on that stage of his. Such mutilation may as well be what he’s inflicting on himself now, though they’ve not much of an audience to entertain. A pointless performance, though in the end it’s really just another rehearsal. Another vivisection of himself, done by the Universe, for all those who are left to see.
Siffrin is the only one left. He can still see but cannot look at himself in any mirror without seeing the ghosts of an audience that had long since vacated the theater clamoring around him. He looks down into the abyss and holds in his guts yet continues to spew their terrible contents, lungs hoarse from his self-sabotage and stinging bile and screams he’s heard before but didn’t feel were his body’s. Back to the stage, back to the stage, back to the stars-blinded stage.
It’s not worth mulling over his mistakes now, even though he can do nothing but. This leads them to the conclusion that nothing is worth actually thinking about no matter how tightly it clings to the sides of their mind, like splinters under their nails. Nothing actually matters. Back to the stage.
Wave after wave of Sadnesses left his boots slick and stained with their gummy, gooey remains, leaving the smooth floors precarious with every step. How they would love to slip and break their neck, right about now. Siffrin almost relished in the feeling of cutting through each and every one in a dizzying blur, curving around and around like his dagger’s blade. If he did not have them to cut he would be cutting himself, and even with them around, the feeling of that cold, harsh metal parting his trembling skin and flesh sometimes came as a relief, a punishment he wanted to punish himself again for looking forward to.
The carpets in some of the halls had become dark and sticky. They clung to their boots and the grating tearing of fiber from textile irritated them. The way air blew through the halls and brushed against his skin was irritating. And yet he felt nothing at all. He could snap at the air, he could kick away the carpet, he could pry off his boots and fling them to knock over the nearest fixture on the wall, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was in a tunnel with one way blocked off, the other kilometers away, and a coming storm that would surely freeze and drown them if they didn’t keep walking.
Siffrin thought again about meat thrown onto a cutting board and bloodily cleaved just as quick, juice and gristle soaking into wood fiber, and what it would be like if that were him. There was simply something satisfying about it to them. He hasn’t eaten in forever. Surely, nothing else would have motivated how he felt about it. It meant nothing. His body was just a puppet, moving around a scene! He could replace it if it broke, he could rework the script and repeat it, over and over! It could just never end!
Empty halls gave way to echoing sobs and dull clicks of heels against tile, shuddering breaths and pants. No voices to accompany his lead. No bickering and banter behind them, no giggling to their left, no exasperated sigh to their right. No sound of skipping footsteps, no accessories ding-dinging as their wearers walk.
Maybe it was peaceful, for a second, the mounting pressure so high their ears popped into nothingness. They couldn’t hear themself cry. They couldn’t hear themself scream. Their eyes were lidded so low they barely registered the glimpses of themself infesting the halls and staring towards him with blank judgement.
Maybe he didn’t want it to end. They had been stuck for so long. What would they even do with themself? If this plan didn’t work, if they could never be free? This was their life now, they thought, for tens of dozens of days and dozens of dozens more, for years and counting.
No, this would work. This was the correct plan. Who cares what Loop said, what Loop thought? Who cares how their actors might react? What a silly thing to worry about. None of them will be coming back. None of them will see Siffrin again, and Siffrin will be free. Siffrin will not be coming back.
He steps forward to a door, and the curtains give way to his final act.