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You’ve been walking up the house for a while this loop, looking for more information on wish craft. You have slowly been growing more tired of the constant treks up the house, but you can manage to keep going as long as you have a goal.
You zone back in once you step inside the library on the second floor. You begin to walk towards the brick wall to open up the secret library when you take a glance at the sparkly diary on the bookshelf to your left.
This soul-wrenching feeling in your chest pulls you to the diary; you know why.
(You look at the sparkly diary.)
(The Housemaiden catches you looking.)
“Oh, this one looks fairly recent!” She says, looking toward you. “We could read a little bit... Like, a tiny bit.”
"...Sure." You mumble, gripping your forearm under your cloak tightly.
You zone out of the dull conversation until the Researcher begins to talk. “Ah, the island north of Vaugarde... I remember when it happened.” She considers what she said before rephrasing it. “Well... ‘Remember’ isn't the right word, is it? We all just know something happened.”
The Researcher shifts the into a more smug look, before continuing, “An entire stretch of land disappearing from people's minds doesn't happen often, does it?”
The Kid jumps into the conversation, “I think, I think my village was really close to it!!! My sister said it was all everyone could talk about for weeks!!!”
The Housemaiden anxiously holds her hands together, “That's so frightening... I'm glad that whatever happened, she didn't get caught up in it!”
(Heh, caught up in it. Imagine what would happen to someone caught up in it. To feel it all sift through the folds of your mind. To feel completely isolated from everything… Alone.)
(…)
You listen back into the middle of the Kid’s question, “That country's name... What was its name again?”
(…)
(You know it. You know it. You know it you know it you know it youknowityouknowityouknowit but you just can’t! You can’t! You can still taste the iron in the back of your crushed throat the last time you tried.)
(What kind of person can't even say their own country's name.)
(Why does no one care? Why!? You know why, they’ve been forced not to care! No one has the capacity to care unless they keep it at the forefront of their mind.)
(It was better when you didn’t know. It was better when you couldn’t feel this hole in your chest where it all should be. You can see the outline of where your mind seems to fog up.)
(You just want someone, anyone to see you. To question it. The Researcher researches, right? She isn’t now, so maybe she can start with your country! Your home!)
You know your next line, but you can’t manage to force the air from your lungs. You want them to understand, to feel the constant ache in your heart that you do.
The Fighter looks over to you, and sees the expression on your face. “Sif? Everything all right?”
You jump in surprise. “I’m fine.” You honestly impress yourself by how fast you changed your expression to the Fighter.
He looks concerned. “Okay, let’s try that again. Are you all right?”
(Your acting has been subpar these past couple loops. You are going to get what you need from this loop in the next room, so maybe you can be selfish and go off-script a little here.)
(Screw what the Universe wants. You’re tired of following.)
“…Why can no one say it?”
The Fighter tilts his head before responding. “What? That country’s name? No one really knows, but I guess that’s just how it is?”
The Researcher tries to stop the conversation. “This has been fun, but we really need to-“
You dig your nails into your arm. “What is its name? It has to be spoken. Otherwise it isn’t real!”
She seem surprised that you cut her off before responding. “Do we really need to-“
You focus your thoughts, thinking of each individual syllable in the back of your head. “✦”
You stumble, vomiting a large puddle of blood on the ground. You enter a violent coughing fit.
The Researcher clutches her head in pain. “What the gems was that!?”
Your vision is fuzzy and blurs lightless at the edges. You use done heal on yourself to fix your throat, so you can you continue your monologue. “Are the books that give headaches from the country? Are they written in their language?”
The Fighter hurriedly hovers over you after seeing you expel a nearly fatal amount of blood. “Sif, are you okay?”
“What happened to the people there?”
The Housemaiden looks between the three of you. “Siffrin, do you need-“
“Are they dead? Can they leave? What about the people not in the country when it vanished? What of them?”
The Housemaiden looks shocked. “Oh change! I’ve never even-“
“Can they even remember what their parents looked like? What school they went to? If they had people who loved them?”
The Fighter’s hands hover over your cloak, speckles of blood on the bottom of it. “Sif, how did you-“
You leap forward, gripping the Fighter’s wrists firmly before stumbling onward. “What else is gone? Why does no one care to look up to the sky? To see what’s out there?”
You shake a bit, biting your lip. “Why does no one care?”
The Fighter tries to pulls his hands away from your disgusting body, but you don’t have the thought to let go. “How would it feel to have everything stripped away from you? Everything from your childhood?”
The Researcher tries to get your attention. “Siffrin! You need someone to heal-“
“Your friends, your family, your beliefs, your life, your country, your home?”
The Researcher’s eyes widen, coming to a sudden realization. “Siffrin, are you insinuating-“
You can’t hold back your voice anymore. You yell. “SO WHAT IF I AM!? Does it matter? It’s all gone! Gone! Destroyed. Broken. Failing. Rotting…”
You fall to your knees and let go of the Fighter’s wrists, bunching up the fabric of your cloak, gripping where your heart would be. “No one can understand what it feels like. At least you can see and experience your other half in Vaugarde! I have nothing left! I’m just a mindless husk of a person. A drain that won’t stop till all the blood in it spills out.”
The Fighter kneels down to your level. “Sif, your not-“
“BUT I AM! You don’t know. You don’t understand. Do you ever wonder why I’m so forgetful? Why I have trouble with certain words? Why right now, I can’t remember any of your blinding names!?”
The Fighter seems to startle from that. “But-“
“I can remember the secret library in this room. I can remember every conversation that will happen in this house. But I can’t for the life of me remember anything important…”
The Researcher’s eye narrow. “What do you mean, you remember ‘every conversation?’”
Completely missing what she is asking, you keep spilling all of your thoughts. “All of them! I remember all of your lines!”
You go to the brick to the right of you, and press it. You start mouthing everyone’s reactions.
(What?)
“WHAT?!?”
(What the gems?)
“What the gems--?!”
(Secret passage!)
“…”
You look at the kid. “Weren’t you going to say secret passage?”
They seem stunned.
Everyone else is silent.
The Researcher takes a step toward you. “Siffrin, what was ANY of that!?”
“It doesn’t matter. You won’t remember. No one ever does.” You struggle to breathe. You feel like you’re swimming through a an endless pool of rubble.
You drown out the voices in the room. “Because if you remember, you’ll hate me.”
“If you know what I’ve done, you’ll hate me.”
“It’s because of me we’re trapped here. It has to be.”
“If you knew what I’ve let happen to you, then you’d hate me. I’ll use my dagger so you don’t have to handle this burden.”
That last sentence alarms everyone in the room. You realize that this scene has come to an end.
“Welp, I’ve gone off-script enough, so I’ll let you all no longer be, ‘in the loop’ so to speak, heh.”
You reach under your cloak before you’re tackled to the ground and pinned by Isabeau.
(…)
“It’s Isabeau! Isa! That’s your name! Isa. Isa. Isa.” You repeat it three times, trying to make sure you won’t forget.
You suddenly realize Isa has tackled you. It’s grounding.
Isa’s voice breaks your meltdown. “Sif, we’re gonna need to have a talk about what you just said.”
You snort. “Sure, I’ll tell you after we beat the king. That one always works. Especially for you~”
You keep struggling to reach for your dagger, but Isa puts one hand into your cloak and throws your dagger across the library floor.
You feel real in this moment. Back pressed firmly into the ground by the large man on top of you. He obviously feels uncomfortable holding your sorry excuse for a body, so you’ll make sure he lets go. “You will never confess, will you?”
“Wh-h-huh?!” Isa gets flustered to his ears from that, and puts both of his hands up, giving you the opportunity to sprint up and grab your dagger from your cloak and quickly slash it across the artery on the side of your neck.
(…)
You forgot that Isa tossed it across the room.
(STUPID! You had ONE job! And fitting for you, YOU FORGOT!)
Isa grapples you and holds you into a wall instead of the floor this time. It’s more comfortable, but it also makes it much harder to struggle from this position.
“Grab Sif’s dagger and get it out of here!” Isa yells, prompting Mirabelle to run to the corner of the room and exit the library.
“Mirabelle! Mira. I remember. Her name. Mira. Mira. Mira.” You sigh. At least you can remember some of your allies’ blinding names.
“Why would you ever try to kill yourself Siffrin?” Isa whispers, near tears, or maybe actually crying. You can’t see his face from this angle.
“Oh, the full name drop. Now I know you’re serious~” You snicker, but no one else in the room seems amused.
“Boo, you guys are no fun, Loop would have found that funny.”
The Researcher, trying to calm down from the hectic last 10 seconds, asks: “who’s Loop?”
“Oops.”
“Not my place to tell, teehee!” You stick your tongue out in the goofy way you remember before the loops started, but even you can tell it feels more manic than usual.
(…)
(Now what? You can’t really move, you don’t to risk harming your allies with craft, and you don’t think you have it in you to see that meadow even one more time.)
“While I’m having a great time being pinned to the wall right now, I’d like to know where we’re going from here.”
Isa looks away from you. It’s fun to tease him, and you’re too tired to care about how selfish you are.
The Kid has been silent since your little tantrum, fiddling their thumbs while looking worriedly over everyone. “F-Frin? Why would-“
Mira enters the library in a hurry. “Is Siffrin okay?”
Isa shakes his head out of his trance. “Mira, everything’s okay.” He turns to look at you. “Sif, I’m going to pack away the ‘you’re from the forgotten island’ problem for another day. But we’re going to need you to elaborate on the ‘you’re trapped here’ part.”
You look away, ashamed. “Just drop it.”
Isa, for you think the very first time you seen in your many lifetimes, looks annoyed at you. “Sif! You can’t just ignore this!”
“I’m fine!”
“Siffrin.” Odile’s voice makes you jump. Wait…
“Odile. That’s your name. Odile. Odile. Odile.” You mutter under your breath. You know Isa heard.
Odile continues, unaware of what you said. “You are going to elaborate.” She sharpens(?) her eyes at you.
You slouch your shoulders. You can feel your stomach trying to fold into itself like a black hole. You can feel yourself teetering over the edge.
(They already hate you. Might as well reveal the rot beneath your skin. Let them see how rotten you are, and finally dispose of you.)
“Fine.” you spit out begrudgingly.
“Gems, Siffrin. Asking you to talk is like pulling teeth.” Odiles sighs.
She adjusts her glasses before waving a hand forward. “What do you mean you’re trapped?”
(THEY’LLHATEYOUTHEY’LLHATEYOUTHEY’LLHATEYOU!!!)
“I’m… I- I’m stuck in time?”
The kid pipes up. “Your FROZEN!? But you’re still talking and moving! I don’t get it.”
“I’m not frozen, I mean I’m repeating the same events.”
(Welp, the cat’s out of the bag. They’ll hate you more now.)
“So what? You mean you’re in a sort of time loop? That isn’t possible.” Odile states.
“And so is freezing Vaugarde in time?”
Odile sighs. “Are you in danger? And more importantly, are you okay?”
(What.)
“Aren’t you going to yell at me?”
Odile looks up, completely befuddled. “Yell? For what?”
(Why doesn’t she get it?)
“I’ve trapped you all in time for over a year! I’ve manipulated every conversation, pulling the strings to get what I need from you all. Don’t you hate, loathe me!?”
Odile is stunned. “A year!?”
Odile continues before you can respond. “A-Anyway, no, I don’t hate you. I’m concerned for you.”
(Oh.)
She continues. “How do these time loops work?”
(But you don’t want to tell! They shouldn’t know…)
(But you can just loop back if you really need to.)
“…It starts when I wake up in the meadow. And ends when I talk to the Head Housemaiden.” You say, resigned.
“We’ve beaten the king!?” Mira asks. Hope you saw in yourself months ago.
“Mira, we’ve beaten the king hundreds of times.” You wave her off.
Apparently saying a triple digit number had the opposite effect you were going for, because she looks at you very worriedly. “Are you okay?”
(Of course.)
“I’m fine!” You exclaim, smile aching your jaw.
“Buddy, ‘fine people’ don’t try to slit their throat!” Isa despairingly says. Why?
“Do you see some gaping wound on my neck or something, Isa? When I die, everything gets reset!”
Isa tenses. “You’ve d-died!?”
“Not everything is reset.” Odile corrects.
You look at her in a way to ask her to elaborate. “Siffrin, you’re the one experiencing change in these loops. Do you seriously expect me to believe you behaved like this your first time here?”
(You have changed, haven’t you? Can you even say you’re the same person you were when this all started?)
“Don’t you all like change?”
That was the wrong thing to ask apparently, because Mirabelle looks at you in unfiltered appall. “Siffrin, this isn’t what change stands for! Not like this! Not against your will…”
“Are you sure my change isn’t part of your belief?”
Mirabelle looks at you defiantly. “I don’t really get what your point is, b-but yes! I don’t believe in change like this, not one where it hurts you.”
“HAH! Then you might need to ask your god about that one, because I’ve been told what they think! Did you know that Change God is entertained by this? They can’t wait to see what happens next! What a wonderful audience member, here to view another actor on stage!”
Mira goes through many different emotions from that line. “You’ve met- wait, entertained!?” You’d think she almost sounds mad for your sake, but she’s probably just rightfully mad at you.
“They enjoy my deaths, whether it be from a tear, a boulder, a fist, or a dagger! Not like the deaths mean anything.”
Isa seems to sag a bit at that. His grapple on you is slowly morphing into a pinned hug. “S-Sif, dying isn’t nothing!”
You want to cry. Do they really think THAT’S your problem? “Death is the easy part!”
Isa straight up hugs you at this point, one of his hands rubbing circles on your back. This is the most touch you think you’ve ever gotten. It’s warm.
Isa looks at you with clear dread on his face. “What could possibly be worse than death?”
(HAH! Really? EVERYTHING was worse!)
Any hesitance vanishes. “You wanna know what was worse!? The king freezing us all in time, and crushing Bonnie in front of my eyes!”
You could hear a pin drop. But you keep going. “Seeing you all look at me like a monster when I kill sadnesses with all my strength!”
Your allies are clearly not recovering from what the king did to Bonnie, but you keep going. “Holding back vomit eating any of Bonnie’s food because all it tastes like now is sugar and ash!”
You’re gasping for air, needing to take a breath, but you CAN’T. They need to understand. “Abandoning you all, seeing the king’s attack from the favor tree, knowing that you’re gone.”
You’re shaking. Your vision blurs, burnt sugar begins to seep into the room, but you push it back. “Failing to beat the king, and having to hear Bonnie’s footstep run away because I failed you all.”
Oh. You’re hyperventilating. Neat. “S-seeing you all run to me in panic at the rooftop, knowing that in mere moments, it will all reset to that bl-blinding meadow.”
You’re numb. “A-and, -and, knowing that you all avoid touching me because I’m disgusting. It takes ha-having to threaten my own life for anyone to even consider.”
Can you die just from talking? Because it feels like you’re dying. “Having to act like nothing’s wrong, when- wh-when, every time I close my eyes, I can still see a ha-hand, squeezing.”
Are you drowning? You must be. Your tongue is lead on your mouth. “T-the- The sound of b-bones splintering… I. I can’t… I can’t forget it!”
Your dead. There’s nothing left of you at all. “Kn-knowing th- that. That e-even if… Hah! I-if I escape this p-prison… I ha-have nothing left be-because you a-al-ll ha-have homes to re-return to…”
You gasp, finally take a very needed breath in, and return to the waking world. Isa is crying, kneeling to hold you. You see Mira hiccuping, with tears streaming down her face. You glance at Bonnie, they are scared of you. Odile, while most composed, is still the most emotional you’ve ever seen her.
“…”
“I don’t remember almost anything from before the meadow in Dormont.”
You breathe in, and out. “There‘s nothing left of me. Death is a comfort, a nice break from following my stage directions. A place where I can briefly rest.”
You look down, and see droplets of liquid on the ground. Oh, you’re crying.
“…”
You have nothing left to say. You know that when you look up, you will see looks of disdain burrowing down on you.
Before having the chance to, you feel the rest of your allies join Isa in hugging you.
(W-what? But you told them everything! Why don’t they hate you? Are they lying to make you feel better?)
“Don’t you hate me? N-never want to see me again? You have to hate me. Please, just hate me, I can’t handle waiting anymore…”
Mira sobs into your shoulder. “We could never hate you Siffrin, is that really what you thought of us?”
Isa grips you so tightly, like you’ll vanish forever if he lets go. “Sif, oh Sif, I’m so sorry…”
Bonbon snags the back of your cloak. “How could you? How could you ever leave us behind! I don’t want to hear about you dying! Do you not even care!?”
Odile, the women who could probably kill you with her looks if you touched her, is kneeling down and petting your hair. (Where did your hat go?) “Siffrin, I need you to promise me that you’ll talk. What your doing now will break you.”
You sob. You wail. “But, you shouldn’t have to deal with it! It was already selfish of me to tell you any of this…”
Isa pulls back from the hug to look you in the eyes. “We want to help deal with your problems.”
“But I! I… I promise.” After a couple of minutes of calming down, you all stand up.
Odile looks toward you and opens back up her notebook. “While you definitely needed that, we should start talking about what you know of why you’re stuck in time.”
You wipe a tear from your eye. “We’re, um, stuck here because of a wish, most likely.”
Isa furrows his brow. “You mean that wish craft book? It makes a lot more sense on why you were able to read it in retrospect.”
You release a hollow chuckle, “If only I could’ve been able to read my own blinding language before this all started.”
Mira looks at you in confusion. “You couldn’t before? Wait, never mind that, how can you even manage to read it now?”
(You don’t want them to know about that loop, but you already promised. You already broke your last one, so you should try harder to keep this one.)
“Do you remember when I spat up a bunch of blood on the ground?” Your head turns toward the floor, not wanting to see their concern.
Isa looks at the puddle. “Do you need healing from Mira for that actually? That’s enough blood to make you pass out…”
You wave your hand at him. “I’ve dealt with much worse, and I already used craft to heal myself.”
Isa looks surprised for a moment. “How do you- oh right, time loop…“
“The reason that I vomited blood was because I said the name of my country.”
Isa chokes up at that. “Just…” he swallows heavily. “…From a word?”
(…HAH. Who can’t even say the name of their own blinding country. Pathetic.)
“Yeah… I had a loop where I died trying to say the name.”
You look back up to see your allies faces look shocked. Mira speaks. “Change! That’s awful. I can’t even imagine how crabbing horrible that is…”
Mira clutches her arms together. “You’ve dealt with pain like that for months… And I just never did anything?”
Isa lets go of you and grabs one of her hands. “Mira, none of us did. It’s not your fault.”
(Making your allies feel guilty for your sake. You shouldn’t have told them at all.)
You look to Mira. “It’s fine Mira, I don’t want you to know.”
Odile perks up at that. “Don’t? Siffrin, you can’t keep this to yourself anymore, you promised.”
“…I won’t.”
(It’s not even been one loop since you made that promise, and you already almost broke it.)
“Uh, after that death, I finally managed a way to hold the words and read them before they fall out of my head. I’ve been using that memory to decipher all of the headache books in the house.”
Mirabelle looks at you. “And that’s where wish craft is mentioned?”
“Yeah. Um, specific rituals and intent are needed for wish craft. I’m confident that the reason I’m looping is somehow connected to everyone’s wishes to save Vaugarde at the favor tree.”
Isa begins to yell out: “THE FAVOR TREE CAN-“
You glare at him. “Stop.”
Everyone shuts up at that. Isa awkwardly covers his mouth to muffle the squeaking sound he makes, waiting for you to continue. “What I’m having trouble understanding is why? Why am I the one stuck here?”
“Loop guesses that my loops reset when I view something as the end, since a couple of my loops reset for… Emotional reasons.”
Odile thinks hard about what you said, before giving her input. “If this wish craft is centered on you, then isn’t the condition for looping something YOU wished for?”
(But… what does wishing to wear clothes made by Isa have anything to do with the Head Housemaiden?)
“But my wish really doesn’t seem to have any correlation to what is happening to me.”
Isa leans against the wall next to him. “But that has to be it right? What did you wish for, Sif?”
(But that’s embarrassing!!!)
“I wished…”
“…”
“I don’t want to say it.”
Mirabelle walks up to you, indignantly. “Siffrin! You need to tell us to save yourself!”
“…”
You cover your face in your cloak. “I wished… To wear clothes made by Isa.”
Isa flusters immediately to that. “How do you- RIGHT! Time loop! Sorry! Sif, that’s really sweet.”
Odile smirks at Isa. “Uh huh.”
Isa covers his face. “Don’t look at me like that, Madam!!!”
Odile turns back to you. “Siffrin, was that all you wished for?”
(…That wasn’t all of it, was it? You loved hearing about Isa’s passion to be a fashion designer. You loved to be around him and wanted to watch him grow with you and your allies. You wanted… You…)
Tears lightly stain your face. “I wanted to stay with you all.”
“I know you all have homes to go back to! But I have nowhere! I have nothing! I know this journey mattered more to me than any of you, but I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to be forgotten…”
Mira pulls your hands into hers. “Siffrin, did you really think that we’d forget you after this? I don’t know about everyone else but, um…”
She looks away. “I was wondering if everyone wanted to… Keep traveling? After we save Vaugarde?”
Isa lights up at that, laughing heartily. “I thought I was the only one!”
Bonbon responds. “You all are a bunch of crabs! I assumed we already were going to go to see my sister!”
Odile looks embarrassed??? “Ah, I didn’t have any plans to return to Ka Bue this soon, so I was planning to ask at dinner tomorrow.”
(They… Want to stay after this?)
“But I thought. But-“
You begin sobbing. One hand going to cover your mouth as you heave.
Isa kneels down to rub your back. “Bud, we never were planning on leaving you behind. I shouldn’t have assumed that you were fine to just travel on your own, I’m so sorry.”
After an embarrassing amount of time, sobs fading to just the occasional hiccups, you let Isa pick you back up.
“So does this mean I’m… Free?”
Odile interrupts you. “We still have the King to beat. In fact, we have long overstayed our welcome in the library.” She smirks
(You’ve fought in the house for longer.)
“We’re fine, I was taking the fastest routes through the house before we made it to the library. I’d say we have about an hour before the curse makes its way to the second floor.”
Odile seems satisfied by that. “Now with all that baggage out of the way, I’d say we start moving. We have a lot to talk about once we’re back at the clock tower.”
You all step out of the library.
“…Wait, where’s my hat and dagger?”