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You’ve had a difficult time eating ever since the loops ended.
At first, it was just because of your Craft exhaustion. It had been bad but manageable until you were forced to fight Loop—after that, even the most rudimentary of tasks were too difficult for you to do on your own.
Bonnie and Isabeau took turns spoon feeding you broth, because you couldn't sit up or use your arms well enough to feed yourself. Even then, half the time, you would throw it back up anyways, and then someone would have to help you into the bathroom to clean up, and it was blinding humiliating.
Even now, weeks out of the loops and (mostly) recovered from your Craft exhaustion, you still struggle to keep food down.
Bonnie has been trying not to take it too hard, but you can tell that they’re upset that they can’t seem to make you anything that you’re excited about.
You’ve tried to reassure them that your difficulty eating isn’t their fault, and while they do seem to understand that they haven’t done anything wrong, per se, they still desperately want to help you—and the way they help you, normally, is by cooking.
Today is your last day in Dormont. The others had wanted to wait until you were fully recovered from your Craft exhaustion, but you need out of this stars-forsaken town, and you need out now. If you had your way, you would have left the same day the loops ended. Unfortunately, the others had some qualms with this concept, and you'd been too sick to argue until now.
Bonnie has been busy all day making a feast for you all before you leave, and they’d chased everyone out of the clock tower and told you not to come back until dinner time.
Odile and Mirabelle had taken the opportunity to browse the local library for a decent novel to start their book club with, and Isabeau had wandered off to the store to look for some sewing supplies. With little else to do, you’d simply sat beneath the favor tree to make daisy chains.
When you deem it to be around dinner time, you leave your finished flower crown on the root that Loop used to sit on and say a brief goodbye before heading back to the clock tower.
When you arrive, everyone else has already returned, Isabeau and Mirabelle setting the table as Odile writes something in her notebook—probably keeping inventory of your supplies. She’d done that before you arrived in Dormont, you remember.
The smell of whatever Bonnie is cooking makes your mouth water, which is exciting news! You don’t think you’ve had a genuinely positive reaction to food smells in recent memory. There’s an undercurrent of something that makes your stomach churn, but it’s largely overpowered by whatever that heavenly smell is.
“Sif, welcome back!” Isabeau shouts as you enter. You smile at him.
“Hey, Isa,” you reply, “Need any help?”
“Nah, Mira and I have it handled,” he says, “go ahead and get settled.”
You do. You’ve discovered recently that insisting on helping is now perceived by your family as a need to be useful rather than a genuine urge to help. You think this is a bit unfair; these things are not mutually exclusive.
When you tried to explain this, though, it made them all look at you sadly, and you don’t like seeing them sad. So you merely sit at the table as Isabeau and Mirabelle work around you and Odile.
Bonnie comes bustling in with a roast of some kind, and sometimes you wonder how they got strong enough to carry that whole thing without help.
“Frin, you’re back!” they say with a grin as they set the roast down on the table, “Lemme finish bringing everything else out first, but I made something for you!”
You can’t help but smile. Even despite the disappointment that’s come with your food struggles, they haven’t stopped trying to take care of you or given up trying to make things you’ll eat. At times it makes you feel guilty for not being able to keep much down, but for the most part, it’s endearing, really. You love Bonnie so much.
“Take your time, Bonbon,” you say with a gentle smile.
They giggle before dashing off to the kitchen to bring out the rest.
“It’s good to see you two getting along again,” Odile says. You turn towards her. “I know things were a bit strained between you both for a while, so I’m glad you’ve made up.”
You tuck your head into your collar a bit, embarrassed, but smile anyways. “Yeah. Me too.”
Bonnie enlists Isabeau to help bring out the rest of dinner as Mirabelle settles down in the chair to your left. She nudges you with her shoulder. You nudge her back. She smiles.
Once everything is brought out, Bonnie has Isabeau carry out the last dish on a covered serving platter, and you wonder who they must have borrowed it from—you doubt something like this was lying around in the clock tower’s kitchen.
“Okay!” Bonnie starts, “So, I know you’ve been struggling with eating, and I planned to make this earlier, but I didn’t want to make it while you were still super sick because if you throwed it up I thought it would make you sad.”
“‘Threw it up,’ Boniface.”
“Threwd it up,” Bonnie tries.
“Close enough,” Isabeau says with a grin. Odile shakes her head good-naturedly.
“Anyways! Um, here you go, Frin!”
Isabeau sets the platter in front of you, and you have just enough time to wonder what it could be before he removes the lid.
Your heart
drops,
and you suddenly understand what that nauseating undertone of the meal was when you'd walked in.
Malanga fritters.
Instantly, you push it away from you in a panic, your other hand coming up to cover your mouth and nose. Of course it was malanga fritters, you idiot! Bonnie didn’t make them the day you left the loops, and they haven’t made them since, either. They would’ve had to make it soon, if they didn’t want to waste the ingredients, and Bonnie is very particular about not wasting food.
Stars, why didn’t you say something?
“Siffrin?” Odile says, “What’s the matter?”
You look up, glancing wildly around the table as you process what had just happened, and—
And Bonnie looks blinding devastated.
You have to say something to reassure them, anything, but the words just don’t come to you.
“I… saw you staring at the recipe for them in a book once,” Bonnie says, their shoulders slumped as they look at the floor. “I… guess I thought you were staring because you liked them.”
You want to loop back.
You reach a hand out towards them. “Bonbon, I—“
“I just—“ they start, and oh, oh no, they’re crying, “I wanted to make something you were actually excited to eat, a-and I really thought this would be the one, and it’s not, and I don't know how to help!”
Loop back loop back loop back
“Bonnie,” you start, attempting to salvage the situation, “you’ve helped plenty, it’s—“
“LIAR!” they shout, shoving away from the table to run up the stairs, crying the whole way. The bedroom door slams shut upstairs before silence envelops the room.
Loop back loop backloopbackloopback—
“Um!!”
“Sif?!”
“Gems alive!”
You blink, unsure why they’d all started shouting until you look down and see your dagger in your hand, hovering above the table in its route towards your neck.
Your eyes widen, and the dagger falls from your grasp with a clatter. You grab your wrist with your other hand as though the thing had burned you.
You just tried to force a loop. You almost killed yourself to force a loop. You almost killed yourself to force a loop, and you don’t loop anymore, you know you don’t, because you had tried after Loop beat you, and you couldn’t!
You would have gone through with it on instinct too, if your family wasn’t here to express alarm. Your breathing grows ragged as you stare at the blade in front of you.
“…Odile,” you say, shakily, “Please take my dagger.”
There’s only a brief moment of pause as she processes your request paired with what you were about to do before she reaches out, snatching the weapon from the table and stashing it in her coat somewhere.
“Sif, hey, breathe with me, okay?” Isabeau says from somewhere to your right, taking an exaggerated breath in. You follow along as best you can. It helps, sort of. You still feel like you’re about to shake apart, but at least you aren’t hyperventilating anymore.
“…I’m sure you’re aware that we need some kind of explanation for this, Siffrin,” Odile says once you’ve calmed down.
You take one last deep breath in, then out.
“…Bonnie made malanga fritters for me in the loops,” you start, “They made them for our third snack break, right before we fought the King. The first few times, I was ecstatic, but they started to get kinda stale after a while. I asked for something else once I started to get tired of it, and Bonnie was so blinding sad. So after that, I only ate the malanga fritters, and….”
You squeeze your eyes shut. The last time you had a negative reaction to the fritters, you did force a loop. You drew your dagger across your throat in front of them all, and they watched helplessly as you bled out in Isabeau’s arms, the damage too extensive for Mira to fix on her own.
“It… didn’t go too well,” you finish lamely, unable to put words to the experience.
“Am I correct in assuming that this was your response when it ‘didn’t go too well’?” Odile questions. You merely nod.
“Oh, Siffrin…” Mirabelle says, and you hang your head.
“…You should have told us, Sif,” Isabeau says.
“It slipped my mind,” you respond, “The malanga fritters kinda took a backseat to… everything else.”
“Gems, Siffrin,” Odile shakes her head, “He doesn’t mean the fritters, he means the fact that you used your own dagger on yourself!”
You look up, blinking at her. “I… thought I told you guys that I had to die to loop back, most of the time.”
“You did,” Mirabelle clarifies, “but you didn’t tell us that you killed yourself!”
“Mira, shush,” Isa says, “I don’t think any of us want Bonbon hearing this conversation.”
“Sorry! Sorry,” she says, “But my point still stands.”
“I—I mean, I figured that kinda… went without saying?” You respond, “We got stuck sometimes. What was I supposed to do, sit around and wait for the curse to catch up with us?”
“No, I suppose not,” Odile sighs, “But the clarification would have been preferable to finding out this way.”
You look away in shame. Loop had asked, begged you to talk honestly with your family, and you had promised, and still, you avoided it until there was no other option. Until you'd almost made a mistake you couldn't take back. What is wrong with you?
“It’s okay, Sif,” Isabeau says, “Just, maybe we should have a conversation about any other bad habits you picked up during the loops soon, yeah?”
You nod despite the panic clawing at your rib cage. You shouldn’t put it off much longer, you know. You know. You just… don’t want them to know exactly how broken you are, now.
“How should we handle the situation with Boniface?” Odile questions.
“Mmm… I know they mean well,” Mirabelle says, “And I get that they want to help, but… well, if I was in Siffrin’s shoes, I’d feel really guilty for upsetting them, which would probably just make the nausea worse.”
“That sound accurate, Sif?”
You think for a moment before nodding. “It’s… I don’t want to feel like anyone is going to be upset if I can't stomach something.”
“Yes, I can see how that might add perceived pressure to eat something you don’t feel capable of eating,” Odile nods, “Isabeau, would you mind…?”
“Yeah, I’ll go talk to them. You guys can start eating, if you want to.”
You don’t. Your appetite has been summarily ruined. Still, you know you should.
Mira and Odile go about fixing their plates from the feast before you as Isa heads upstairs. Anything heavy seems like too much right now, but… you take a bit of rice. You can start there, you think, and see where it gets you.
Some ten or so minutes pass before Isabeau and Bonnie return to the table.
“Welcome back, Boniface,” Odile says.
“Thanks,” Bonnie murmurs. “Um, I’m sorry for freaking out, Frin,” they say, looking at the ground. “Za told me what happened, and I guess it makes sense, because if the whole thing with the House and the King had gone normally, I was planning on making the fritters for you then, so I probably should have figured that you would have eaten it a lot.”
“It’s okay, Bonbon,” you say with a small smile, “It’s not your fault. I should have said something, since I knew you had the ingredients. And for what it’s worth, I do love malanga fritters, and they were amazing until about the 6th time I ate them in a row.”
“I'm glad I wasn’t wrong, at least…” they reply. “I’m also… sorry if you felt like you had to eat anything you didn’t wanna so you didn’t disappoint me.”
“I know you just wanted to help,” you reply, “I can’t be mad at you for that.” You reach out to ruffle their hair, and they let out a small giggle, smacking your hand away before they climb into the chair to your right.
“Can you… tell me everything I made during the loops? I don’t want to make you something that’s gonna upset you again.”
You list off the foods that Bonnie had prepared, both for dinner and for the snack breaks.They get a little furrow in their brow when you mention the samosas, and you panic and try to back track.
“A-actually, don’t worry about it, the samosas I didn’t eat as often, since they were one of the things you offered at the same time as the fritters, I know you really like the samosas, and—”
“Frin, relax! I just won’t make that stuff for you, I can still make it for myself!” Bonnie says, waving their arms around to try and get your attention before you can spiral any more.
“Oh… okay, good. That’s good,” you say with no small amount of relief. You don’t want them to have to stop eating all their favorites because of you. Although, that does remind you… “Oh yeah, I’m apparently allergic to pineapple.”
Odile narrows her eyes at you from across the table. “What do you mean by, ‘apparently,’ Siffrin?”
You press your lips together. Maybe you shouldn’t have said it like that.
“My pineapple KILLED YOU?!” Bonnie exclaims, and you can’t help it—you burst out laughing.
“It was good while I could taste it, though!” you say in between fits of laughter.
“...Maaaaaaybe we take the pineapples out of the lineup altogether, Bonbon,” Isabeau says, trying to cover his own laughter.
“None of us should be laughing about this,” Mirabelle says, as she attempts to stifle her giggles.
“I will admit that it is rather humorous, if a bit morbid,” Odile says with a smirk.
“I can’t believe Frin got his ass kicked by a fruit,” Bonnie mutters, which only serves to reignite the manic laughter around the table.
“Hey, some people would pay good money to get their ass kicked by a fruit,” you say with a grin, “I got mine without paying a single coin!”
“Stop lying! Nobody would pay to get beat up by a fruit!!!” Bonnie shouts, waving their arms in the air as the rest of the group descends into more laughter.
“Siffrin certainly wouldn’t,” Odile counters with a sly grin, “All they have to do is ask Isabeau nicely.”
Isabeau practically chokes on his own spit. You bat your eyelashes at him innocently.
“Isaaaaa~” you sing-song, and Mirabelle wheezes.
“WE ARE NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION IN FRONT OF BONNIE!!” Isabeau replies.
“But you are open to having it~?” you question, raising an eyebrow.
“SIF!!!”
Dinner continues much like this. You aren’t able to eat much, but what you do eat, you are able to keep down, and you consider that a win.
The medics at the House said that recovery would be a long process, both physically and mentally, and you have only just begun on the road to said recovery.
Still—you think as you look about the table, everyone still occasionally catching the giggles, your cheeks sore from smiling—you think you could accomplish anything with your family at your side; even something as terrifying as recovery.