Chapter Text
You slice the sadness in half in one strike. Just like the rest of the blinding creatures blocking your path.
You stumble, the wall digging into your shoulder as you fall into it, balancing your weight against the cold bricks, cold like the tears, like the wind in your hair when you win. you will win and feel it one last time. The hall ends and you all but collapse into the doorway, the ringing in your ears screeching with the static filling your eyesight, your brain, your body.
The house reeks of sugar. Sugar and blood and ichor and tears. You hate sugar, it sticks to your tongue and coats your throat and stings your lungs with each breath. You can’t breathe. you can do it alone, do it one more time. But you're so aware that the usual encouraging presence around you is absent, and you have to be alone, yes, they all hate you now, but you can't help feeling as though the air around you is heavy, your strained gasps void of oxygen. There's too much of it without your family, your friends, your party.
You feel lightheaded.
You make a sound. Quiet. Wailing. The air is too thick in your throat, and it hurts. You shove yourself through the door. Steps echoing in the hallway. Forever, forever and ever and ever and... and this hallway is too long, too long, too long too long too long too-
Your hand reaches the door.
the king is only steps away, moments away. Air will be shared again. Your almost happy. You’re not alone. Until you kill him, tear him apart, dig your dagger in his mouth, stab his throat and silence his blinding sobs and watch him choke on his blood, dig his heart from his chest to squeeze until it pops. Or maybe there won’t be one. He's a heartless being. The universe should look down on him.
The universe should look down on you.
You suppose that makes you equals.
The thought makes you feel sick.
You push the door open. The sugar scent intensifies. The static in your ears drowned out by the tears that the king sheds. It makes your body buzz, your fingers shake, your heart stutter. Your head is being cracked and opened, and your brain is going to be taken apart and bring you back and you will lose it all- lose them all again, you did it once and you can’t do it again.
Not when they smile so sweet when they don’t know you.
You hate sweetness.
“Hello, bright one,”
There it is. Here you are. This is it.
Your hand twitches around your dagger. You want to smile. You want to cry and laugh and scream and cheer. Your chest hurts. Your head hurts. Your stomach hurts. It all hurts.
Your eye burning, you meet the kings gaze.
“I am surprised to see you alone, facing me…”
You grip your own wrist so tight it hurts, tremors running through your body.
“I was expecting at least that that housemaiden would come.”
Mirabelle.
Happy Mirabelle.
Sweet Mirabelle.
Binding Mirabelle.
It’s her fault. Her fault, her fault, if she just stood back and let you make the hit, if she could play her role right you-
You… you shake. Gentle Mirabelle, no. No no, it’s not her fault, it’s his. It’s his, and it’s yours, and it’s the blinding universes.
“The saviour of vaugarde. And yet, you, bright one, are the only one before me…”
The king studies you. You feel yourself be picked apart under his eyes.
“And… your clothes… aren’t they…”
He trails off. Your skin itches. You want him to stop, stop looking, stop staring, stop judging. The air lessens. You don’t want to share the air anymore. There isn’t enough of it. You pinch your skin as hard as you can.
“Bright one.”
You hate that title.
“Are you sure you want to do this…?”
Your glare hardens. Your hands still shake but you grip your dagger and if your body betrays you and it slips from your grasp you will rip skin with nail.
The king looks disappointed. He has no right to be.
“I can tell young one…” he gasps out, voice so shaky, so undeservingly sorrowful, “I can tell we hail from the same country. I do not want to fight you.”
You nearly scoff. You nearly laugh. Stars you needed a joke after this loop. You would thank the king for the almost humorous words if they didn't bring you back to your body frozen, to screaming, to a hand, squeezing so tight blood starts dripping, to your own tears salty in your mouth as you beg and plead.
“I just want eternity.”
You’ve had enough of eternity.
“Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? What my wish is!?”
You opened your mouth to spit on his claim. How dare he. How dare he think you would ever want this.
“Do you not agree!?” the kings voice bounces around the room. Its all you can hear. Not the sobs, not the tremble, not your own pitiful breaths. You close your mouth before you can speak. You wont waste your words on him.
“We could get it all back, bright one! We could…”
His voice fades again. The sound still echoes in your head. Stars, you wish you could take his voice for good. You will when you kill him. You smile a little at the thought.
“Ah,” he hums, voice small again. Small as you and your stupid little dreams. “But perhaps the time for talking is long past.”
You finally agree with him. He should shut up.
“So, bright one…. are you ready?”
Yes. Yes, you think. Your so sure, so certain its almost cute. Until you aren’t. doubts a funny thing. Arriving so soon after stardom or confidence. Your body hurts. It hurts and your alone and its so, so cold and you want to cry. Try again, no, no, no you can’t go back you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t-
(Yes.)
You drop into a battle stance. Shaking, swaying, there’s spots in your vision.
The king laughs. Slow, quiet, melancholic. “Let us fight, then.” He says. How simple it sounds. There's no more time to waste. You ignore that there is. That you still have forever. You won’t have forever forever. You promise yourself and hold the hope close, hold it close or you’ll break.
“i… do try to be merciful,” he mumbles, “but… against someone like you…. I’d better not hold back, should i?”
You tense. Your ready.
Your faster.
You strike.
The king takes the hit. You knew he would. He wouldn’t be brought down with a single attack.
He watches you. He’s good at that. Coward, you think. Watching, waiting. Always waiting. You raise your dagger once more.
The king moves. Against the script, he attacks. He hits harder than usual; you were caught off guard. Cursing yourself for your foolishness you try and return the force of the attack. It’s a pathetic attempt at best, hardly hitting if the kings reaction was anything to go by.
Your weak, you seethe. Your so, so weak. He sobs and it hurts. Your body aches, your eye is heavy and blood drips down your cheeks already. You craft a healing spell, the best you can make, and wish for more time.
The king barely flinches at your attack. You pause. You wait. You wait and hope and silently beg for help that you know won’t come. The king doesn’t wait with you, rock craft tumbling onto you.
You and the king trade more blows, he slows you down and cries and you wish and strike.
The king looks down at you through partings in his hair, one hand moving aside. You cannot see his eyes.
He cries. loathe how he cries. How he cries and cries while you can’t get a tear to fall even when you try to.
"Your stronger than i thought, bright one."
He moves. He moves in that way, he’s going to kill you he’s going to kill you he’s going to reset it all, you can’t let him.
"But what about this?"
He speaks it so gently, so quietly, so weak. You’re not fooled. Not again. You’ve learnt. You’ve lived and you will live.
The sound all but suffocates you. Your head hurts, it hurts, you can’t feel your body. You see them. No, no no they’re gone, all of them are gone. You’re stuck. You can’t fall, please, you beg to the universe above, not again, you can’t do this again, you can’t do this forever. You won’t, you refuse, he can’t- you…
You shut your eye. Hands on the floor. When did you fall? You can’t remember. You never remember.
You refuse. Refuse to hear it, see it, think it.
Slowly, the room stops trembling. you’re not fully sure it was shaking but it felt like it was, your arms are shaking, it could have been you. Your eye is still shut. You'll open it and see the lightless nothing again. Floating endlessly till you awake in that blinding field.
Your hands tense. There is floor under your fingers. Slowly, you open your eye. Your world swims and sways dangerously. Everything shakes for a long time. You can’t see right, you think the blurred blob in front of you is the king.
You can’t fall, not now.
The king looks down at you. Your vision slowly refocuses, your head still swims and your arms still shake as you pull yourself back to your feet, panting, but stars be damned, you’re not falling now if you can wish for it.
Your ragged breaths echo around the room.
"Bright one..."
Blinding stars you want to rip his throat out.
"This isn’t the first time you’ve withstood this attack."
He starts his watching act again, silently observing you like some exhibit to examine.
"What do you see, when i attack you like this? What vision do you see that it hurts you this badly."
You won’t think it. He’s trying to trick you, if you think about it, remember it, then the pain will return. It has to or he wouldn’t be asking, and you will not die here. Not now, not after so much, not after so long. You feel so fragile.
You cup your hands and whisper a chant, feeling returning to your body. You almost regret it as pain floods your senses, stunning you for a moment. You feel heavy, your slowed down by the king again, you realize with an agitated huff.
You attack once, the king attacks twice.
You inhale deeply. In and out, just as you always do. You strike and you heal all before the king can move in time with your regained speed, it might be your one good quality right now, you think bitterly.
You are proven wrong rather swiftly. Too slow. The king crushes you, rock craft glittering over his armoured fists. You refuse.
The world warps and sound stills, spasms and continues. You stand again. Back on the stage, the curtains haven’t closed yet. The king doesn’t seem to notice the jump in time.
Perfect, you think, a newfound energy building in you. Throw paper craft at the king, this is taking so long. This would go so much faster before.
…You miss your family.
You strike.
Craft hits against the kings armour. You feel a rising irritation in your throat when he doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even move. Instead, he rises taller above you, still on his knees but less hunched now, and speaks.
“Bright one…” his voice keeps the wavering fragility he always holds. “I am curious about something.” You resist the urge to sigh at his words.
“The country, the knowledge we both share… Why you’re the only one facing me, without even flinching… This cloying, overpowering scent of cane sugar…”
He pauses. You can taste the sweetness at the back of your throat, like you’d downed a bottle of honey.
“Yes. I can tell. You’ve trapped this country in time even more surely than I have.”
His words make you freeze.
“Even if I manage to beat you now… my victory will always be temporary, will it not? Perhaps my wish has come true already and I don’t even know it.”
Blinding stars, no. whatever this is, why this is happening, how this is happening, it is not for him. You will end this today and break his stupid curse. He sobs and you seethe.
“Why didn’t I think of it…?” He moans, “with this power, there is no one to stop you, is there… But I do not mind. As long as this country exists forever. As long as we exist forever, there is proof! Proof that our country was real!”
Your really getting tired of the kings monologing. He looks at you expectantly.
“Doesn’t a part of you agree with me? Doesn’t a part of you want to restart this battle, again, and again, and again?”
He takes a deep breath, hand twitching, looping his hair around his finger.
“Because… even if you defeat me… what else is there?”
The future, you hope.
The king is finished talking again it seems. Thank the stars he remembered how to shut his mouth. Your nerves feel hot from emotion, an unstable energy coursing through veins, whether it was anger, adrenalin, fear, or all of those you aren’t sure, but you relish the feeling.
Your faster. You strike first.
The king strikes harder.
You wince, your palms were numbing from the sparks of healing craft you’d summoned, you could feel them trembling slightly every time you crafted anything now. You breathe when the chance comes. Focus, Siffrin, you scold yourself, this is the final scenes of the show, you’ve got to make them count.
You’re winning. You can see the king react to your attacks, subtle flinches and twitches, barely noticeable had you not stood here, fought this very fight, so many times now. Picking out the small things became your lifeline when you couldn’t zone out, you could find something new you hadn’t noticed before in the loops and stars above did you cling to that. Odile would be proud of how observant you’ve become if she didn’t hate you now.
You don’t slow your attacks. You hear the king grunt as a flash of paper craft hits him.
“My wish…” he mumbles out, voice slightly ragged, “you can guess what it was, can’t you?”
You still firmly believe he should stop delaying his death with this senseless chatter.
“Or maybe, you have heard it from my own mouth. But what about you, Bright one?”
You almost laugh in his face. As if you’d speak of that to him of all people.
“Why are you here? What trapped you in this eternal place? What does the star beating in your chest hunger for?” He leans towards you, “what was your wish?”
Demanding, you think. He leans back again, hands clenching at your lack of response.
“WHAT DID YOU WISH FOR?”
You refuse to answer. Though even if you wanted to, you weren’t sure you could. Your tongue was heavy in your mouth, and if you dared breath through it to speak, you’d choke on the burning sugar. There was a subtle tremble to your body.
“Ah… I suppose it does not matter,” the king concludes, “…I will win this battle soon, after all, for a time.” He sighs, armour glinting in the dull room as he shifts away from you. “And… maybe… when everything is perfectly frozen… I will finally remember it all.”
Its wishful thinking, but you suppose that’s what the king relies on.
The king… looks at you. Hair parting just enough to see one eye, shining with tears. He looks at you. And you feel yourself slow down.