Chapter Text
Stardust always knew how to be dramatic. It’s a trait you share. You thought for a while that this entire loop would be destroyed. It would make sense with how badly you failed them. Seeing a building sized copy of yourself, of stardust, was probably the last thing you expected, but at the same time were not wholly surprised. Stardust was even bigger than the King was in that form. Was it because he had stronger Wish Craft? Wish Craft… This was all very new to you. You never knew about it until your stardust brought the idea to you. Now you can see its whole destructive potential.
As the sky is stained a shade too vibrate to be anything short of one of those allusive colours, stardust goes on a rampage. You watch and wait. But the world doesn’t end. You feel it in your bones. It was a sensation similar to sating your hunger. The loops have come to end. The last of the Wish Craft wore away with stardust’s tantrum.
If you had bones, you would feel it in your bones. The little push in your mind telling you to help stardust has disappeared, you feel completed.
You blinding hate it.
This was it then, wasn’t this? You did your job, you made it to the end. You gave stardust whatever it was they needed to make it to the end. You even sent their friends (the ghosts of your companions) after them. Somehow, one of these things did it. But, you really couldn’t attribute it to your actions. It was stardust who made the hard decisions, it was stardust who talked about everything.
Could that have been you? No, of course it couldn’t. You never defeated the King, not really. There was a faint dream in the back of your head, almost a memory, of once getting there, of delivering the final blow with the Housemaiden. But it doesn’t feel real, because it didn’t stick. It was because of this dream that you thought that even if stardust managed to kill the King, the loops would still continue. Maybe that dream was real. You try not to dwell on it.
It could never have been you. You would never have escaped the loops. You have to believe that. If you don’t believe that, then you killed your family companions for nothing. And you can’t believe that. You did what you had to do. You have to believe that. You have to believe you did everything you could, you explored every possibility in front of you.
It’s still a bitter feeling, to know that someone succeeded where you failed. It’s a good thing, the loops are over. You should be celebrating. But this also means the end of your role. The performance is over. You hit all your marks, you said all your lines. The curtains are closing and the cast and crew will be moving on. It’s over, so why do you feel so awful? This is what you wanted. You wanted stardust to make it out of the loops. What was the point of all of this if you aren’t happy in the end?
You’re selfish, wanting to be the one to escape the loops while not even being the one to go into the house. All the reward with none of the risk. You’re vile. You wished it could have been you the one to escape. To know that it was possible and you simply didn’t get to be the one to do it, it would break your heart if you still had one.
But you don’t have a heart, and you never had a chance. You weren’t the lead actor anymore. You were the sponsor, the behind the scenes help, and that’s all there was to it. These weren’t your loops to break. Be happy they’re broken. You try to prepare yourself to smile and congratulate stardust when they come back from the House. Honestly, you never really thought about what would happen when they won. You expected to fade away into nothingness when this all ended. Maybe you would go back to your own world, and take the knowledge of how to resolve this with you so that you too could find a happy ending.
Laughable. As if the Universe would ever be so kind.
You were angry. You were so blindingly angry. You wanted to go home. You wanted to stop existing. You wanted more than to sit under the Favor Tree and congratulate the person who got the ending that you never could. It was like the Universe was laughing at you. You were the Universe’s special little clown.
You decided to hide. To run away from all of this. To hide in the branches of the Favor Tree and stay there until stardust and his family left this town. To run into the woods and live as some kind of beast, as a hermit. To never again see them or grace society with your vile presence. It wasn’t as though even Vaugarde was ready for people who looked like a star condensed into a human form. There was no place for you in this world. This was the only reward you would get, the knowledge that you helped someone. It was so funny you felt like laughing, but not a sound left you. You curled yourself up in the branches of the tree.
Time passes, and eventually you hear the sound of someone coming down the path. You know it’s stardust. Nobody else would come here at this time. At least they’re alone. You think that if they were accompanied by their family, you might actually lose it. If you heard their voices again, you might lose it. You wanted to scream that you were Siffrin all along. But they looked at you like a stranger. They introduced themselves. They told you their names like you were someone they didn’t know. Like you never loved them. So, you’re glad that stardust decided to come here alone. If they didn’t, you don’t know what you would do.
You hear rustling, but stardust doesn’t call for you. Maybe he convinced himself that you faded away when the loops ended. Maybe he thought that you went back home. As if you had anywhere to go back to. Soon enough, he’ll leave and you can keep hiding like the coward you are. It’s lucky you don’t need to breathe anymore, because you’d worry about the sounds of your breath giving you away. But here in the tree-
“Loop.”
Stardust is calling for you. You don’t answer.
“Loop, answer me. Or should I call you by your previous name?”
Ah. They knew.
Of course they knew. If you had to interact with a copy of yourself for a hundred or so loops, you would know. It would become obvious, and you were terrible at hiding things. The Researcher always figured you out for this very reason. But, somehow you convinced yourself they wouldn’t realize. You tested them once, asking if they had any idea who you were. They said they thought you were the blinding Head Housemaiden, the very person who became the face of their resets. They must have dreaded you quite a bit to think of you as similar to her. At the end, you knew the resentment the two of you shared towards the woman was completely undeserved. But still, you didn’t exactly like being compared to her. Regardless, you had assumed, at this point, that stardust wouldn’t figure you out. You should know better than to underestimate them.
You can’t find words, but the idea of stardust calling you by your original name makes you feel uneasy. You swing your way down from the tree. They stare at you for a moment, holding somewhere in one hand. With the other, they reach into their pocket and pull something out. They toss it to you, and you catch it without looking. You know what it is. It’s their coin. Your coin. The same one. The one thing that came with you when you looped, the one thing that came with you to this new world. One coin per Siffrin, a part of you that could not be detached.
Your own coin? Did you leave it out when you went to hide? You had been fiddling with it, had been doing so since stardust first showed you their own coin. It had become a habit, to fill the time between important moments of the loop. You needed something to keep you sane. It made you feel more alive, more like you used to be. Even as your body felt like wisps in the wind, a collection of parts only vaguely held together by wishes and stars, it made you feel human. …You left the blinding thing out, did you? Did you forget or did you secretly want stardust to find it? You have always wanted to get caught, haven’t you?
Disgusting.
You roll this new (old) coin between your fingers thoughtlessly. It’s so familiar, the same weight, the same feel. Is this his or yours? It’s one of the two, you know that for sure. It’s the same as every other silver coin in this country, but you know it’s yours. Deep down in your soul, you know what it is. And so you roll it and you try not to look at stardust. You don’t want to talk to them. You know your role. You’re supposed to smile with your eyes and say congratulations, you broke the loops now please please either kill me to give me just a bit of time with your companions. Just a little bit.
You refuse to beg for death or love. Venom drips off your voice.
“Oh, stardust. So, you’ve won, haven’t you? You broke the loops? Defeated the King?” It’s so easy for them. Like breathing. When you struggled so hard, but they do it like it’s nothing and you want to scream! “ Talked to your party?” The easiest blinding thing in the world and apparently you couldn’t do it anymore than them. “ Realized that all along, the reason you were stuck here was because of a stupid blinding wish you made? ”
You made the same wish. You’re both idiots. Both blinding fools who trapped yourselves in time. But one of you succeeded, and the other failed and failed and failed and failed and failed. A hundred times, a thousand times. You were broken when you came here, and you will leave here broken. And dead most likely. A horrible thought enters your mind.
“Awwww, I’m sooooo happy for you. You got your perfect ending, after all. And now, I have nothing left to say to you. So you should go.” You give them the chance to leave, before you do something terrible.
They don’t leave. You grip the coin locked between your fingers harder. You wonder how hard you have to squeeze to crack it. “Why are you still here? What do you want me to say?” Venom boils up once more. “ What else is there to say? You’ve won!”
You hate them, you hate them, you hate them. You keep talking, words keeps coming out but all you can think is how much you want to ring their neck. How if they don’t get out of here, you are going to do something terrible. You are going to make all this pain and misery mean nothing when you snap their cute little neck in two. You rant about your past and the House and the Universe. You tell them about how it was so much easier just being a sponsor, that it was good, that it was restful. That you don’t feel the blood of your companions on your fingertips everytime you move. That you were happy. Happy you weren’t the only fool who trapped themself eternally in time.
You give them the chance to leave, while you’re ranting. They should run. Can’t they see that you’re fraying at the seams. Can’t they see that the power holding you together is fluctuating, and growing stronger and weaker. Can’t they see that you’re breaking. The only thing left for you to do is to break them in return.
“So! Since you won’t leave, here’s what I’m thinking… Let’s fight, you and I! Let’s have a cute, minuscule, old-fashioned little fight like a bonded couple. Okay~?” You put all your force into being the most obnoxious you’ve ever been. It’s that or screaming. Stardust doesn’t look like they want to fight. “Ha… Nothing to say still? Haha… Hahahahahaha!”
You hate them, you hate them… You want to- You want to-
“ Stars , killing you will make me so happy. ” You want to- “Are you ready?”
You made the mistake in giving them time to speak. You should not have given them time to speak. They were so silent until now. You just assumed he would continue to be. But you should have known that stardust really doesn’t want to fight you. So, instead he says…
“You can come with me.”
You blinding hate him! You wish you had lungs with which to breathe. You have no mouth to scream, but words still pour out of you.
“ I don’t want you pity! ”
Stardust takes a step back. They’ve always hated conflict. When someone is upset, even if it’s over something minor, it makes his stomach twist for hours. You wonder if it would still do the same for you. You don’t want to find out.
“Wait, no, Loop- Siff-”
“Don’t call me that!”
“ Loop , you can come with me. I mean it. You can come back to our friends. We can explain who you are, help them get to know you again. You could live with us, travel with us. We could share.”
The rage is so much that you’re about ready to pass out. Your vision is darkening around the edges. You want to kill them. You want to snap their little neck. You want to take it between your hands and choak, and choak, and choke until there’s no life left, and when you’re done that-
“Oh, I bet your little family would love it if they heard you say that you want to share them. Like your toys, like your little dolls.”
“That’s not-”
“No, shut up, it’s my turn. You get your happy ending, and you think you can just throw it in my face like that. Make me live with you as the wrong Siffrin, the Siffrin who couldn’t make it. You think I would be okay with that? Do you think I would agree? That I would come to you begging for scraps?!”
But you do want it. Even as you reject it with all the venom in your heart. You want to go back to them. Even if they’re just ghosts, just shadows of the people you knew and loved. Even if they’re just one step to the left of who you once knew. You want to be with them, you want to bask in their light and their love. But you’re selfish. You want all their love. You can’t imagine sharing it with another Siffrin. You want them to love you, and treat you like their companion, their family, and not like an extra add on. You know you’d never be okay with that. You can hardly imagine why stardust would even try.
“We don’t have to fight,” he begs. And you-
You want-
You want-
You want to tear the skin from his bones and wear it over your own. You want to tan his flesh like a rabbit and make it into a meat suit. You want to cover up your disgusting star body with it, and wander back to your friends. You want it to fit you. You want to be Siffrin. You want to be Siffrin, you want to be Siffrin!
You strike.
You tear into him, and he tries his best not to hurt you. He focuses on healing. You know for a fact he must be feeling weak and sore after using all the Craft before. Even before facing the King, you could see the way it was wearing on him. But instead he heals. Instead he makes sure that his body can regenerate from your attacks. You do him no such kindness. You tear away at him.
You wish you could say you wanted to kill him, but you think he knows that your blows are half hearted. You could hit harder than this if you wanted. You had looped so many times. You’re powerful. But you don’t hit him hard. You rip and tear, you pierce his skin, but it’s never deep. Because you aren’t trying to kill him. You’re trying to trick him into killing you. Over, and over again. To lock the two of you once more into loops, because there’s no way that you’ll stay dead if he kills you. Maybe after a dozen or so times. This was the power you got at the end, when you gave everything up. The ability to loop in an instant, but the inability to go back and change anything. It forces you to fight and fight and fight forever.
“Fight like you mean it stardust!” Why won’t he attack you? Even as you spit and growl, and scream at him, he won’t attack you. You are breaking. Every part of you is shutting down. Your wispy body is falling apart. Your starlight head is shining too bright. Your mind is going. You feel that this is the end, so why won’t they end it? Why won’t they attack?
You hate them, you hate them, you hate them. But you can’t bring yourself to kill them. If they weren’t keeping up the healing, you would have them on the ground by now.
“Just stop. I really don’t want to fight you!” They plead for you, it only makes the pressure behind your eyes worse.
“But I want! To! Fight! You!” You time each word with another blow.
“Loop!” Finally, they leap at you. You ready yourself for a heavy blow. Just Attack, or Rock Bottom, or maybe Knife to Meet You. You are met with none of these.
Warm arms wrap around you. When was the last time you felt warmth?
…
…
Ah.
Ah!
AH!
You can’t stop yourself. Years of fighting, even if they’re just years spent in the loops, have made you a monster. You release a deep line of Piercing Craft down their back. It slices from his shoulder to his hip, cutting clean through his cloak and the clothing underneath. It’s not a shallow cut either. The clothes did nothing to protect them. They were completely open. Dark blood wells up and flows from the wound. Stardust’s grip goes loose.
“W… Why did you…?” You can’t speak. Why? Why would they do this? Didn’t they have an important family to go back to?!
“Why not?” They sound weak, but their words are strong.
“You blinding idiot!” You find words once more. “You can’t loop anymore! Even if I died, I could still come back!”
“You, could?”
“Yes! Of course I could!” Stardust is leaning on you now, and you carefully support their weight. The need to fight bleeds out of you like their wound.
“Oh. I didn’t know.” There’s a weak laugh. “But, I couldn’t fight you.”
“You very well could! I know you’re strong enough.” They wouldn’t be able to keep up with you with their healing otherwise.
“Maybe. But, Loop… How could I fight you when I owe you so much?”
…
One arm raises, and pulls around front. It goes to your cheek. Or where your cheek would be. It pushes through the front bit of light until it reaches a point it can’t pass. You don’t feel it, but you think it would be warm. You do notice that the hand gets a bit wet. …Were you crying? Why were you crying? Isn’t this the ending that you wanted? Stardust dead, their role for the taking.
…
No, you didn’t want that.
“Without you, my friends would have never come looking for me. Without you, Loop, I would have been lost. So, I couldn’t hurt you.” Stardust smiles at you. Their eye is starting to lose focus.
“You’re an idiot!” You don’t think. You call Craft energy into your hand and press it to their back, using Healy Bealy. …Done Heal. They called theirs Done Heal. It was the same. You think yours is a little stronger. Another difference you don’t want to look at. But you are grateful for the difference in strength as the bleeding slows considerably.
They laugh a little against your chest. “You don’t want me dead.”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“Then why are you healing me?”
“Because you’re stupid and can’t take care of yourself. Honestly, stardust, I would think you didn’t have a sense of self preservation if I didn’t already know you don’t.”
“And yet, you’re healing me.”
You simmer for a moment. You need a minute to recharge. Unlike stardust, you never did learn to force yourself to use Craft without any cool down. Not that they could do it with healing Craft, but sometimes you just want to complain. You stand with their body against yours, waiting for your Craft cooldown to settle.
“So I am…” Your voice becomes cold. You drop the act. “You know you were supposed to kill me.”
“I could tell. As many times as I took, I’m guessing, since you can loop still.”
“Probably. I’ve never exactly tested that.” You heave a sigh, which must look strange when you have no mouth to shy with. “I really would have killed you if it came down to it, stardust. I really would have.”
“I have solid evidence you wouldn’t.” You think they’re smiling at you. You hate their stupid smile. You can’t tell for sure, though, with their face pressed to your shoulder.
“Yes, yes, celebrate while you can. Once I finish healing you, I’m going to go back to killing you.” You press one more Healy Bealy to their back.
They shift a little. “I really don’t want to fight you.”
“Who said you get a choice in the matter.”
“It takes two people to fight.” Otherwise it’s just assault. “And I’m too tired to fight. So, Loop, can we just not?”
You shift your gaze from their bloody but healing back. “Then, will you kill me? Will you do it if I ask?”
“Of course not.”
“Then stardust, we have to fight.”
The hand still against your cheek moves back down to embrace you once more. “It doesn’t have to be like this. I really meant it when I said that you could come back with me.”
“And I really meant it when I said it wasn’t a good idea for you to make decisions for your group. Why would they want a second Siffrin around? One is difficult enough to handle.” You laugh a little to yourself. It’s not a good laugh. “And even if I did come with you, even if we told them the truth about me, who is to say they’ll believe you. This suspicious star person claiming to be their friend? They already know me stardust, and they didn’t like what they saw.”
“Of course they did. Mira sends her thanks.” What? “They all do.”
You find yourself wavering. “Thanks? …To me?”
Stardust laughs against your chest. “Who else helped them get all the way to the King? They told me to say thank you, for bringing them to me. For saving me.”
You feel what fight is left in you fading. Before, they had looked at you like a stranger, like some weird suspicious person that knew way too much about their friend. Odile, the Researcher had even threatened you, that if you were misleading them about what had happened to stardust, she would make sure you paid for it. Despite yourself, tears continued to gather in your eyes. It’s been years since you cried out of your blind eye. It seems that’s the one thing this form has over your old one.
“Stardust.” Your voice cracks as you speak. Even without a throat, it’s hard to speak and cry. “Why couldn’t it be me?”
“I don’t know.” An honest answer, though not the one that you wanted. You almost hate him for being so honest right now. …You’ve lost the energy to hate him. “Maybe it was in the script. Maybe it was what the Universe wanted. Or maybe it’s no one’s fault.”
You wish that it was someone’s fault. You blame the Universe, you blame the King. You blame the Head Housemaiden. You blame stardust. You blame them all for putting you in this unfair circumstance. It was cruel for you to exist as only a stepping stone for another Siffrin. To watch someone who was the same as you in every way, but also better than you, succeed at everything you failed at. Maybe you had some influence. Maybe you being here helped. Stardust sure seems to think so, but, at the end of the day, your existence is cruelty. But it’s a cruelty you hope to soon end.
“I’m sorry Siffrin.” It was weird to be acknowledged by your name again. “And thank you, Loop. Without you, I would have given up a long time ago. Thank you for helping me, this whole time.”
You can’t bring yourself to say anything. It was so cruel, that the Siffrin that was better than you was also kinder. More generous. Willing to give up part of their friend’s love to squeeze you in. They really are too kind for you. It’s unfair. But then again, when has anything been. You feel tears drop from your eyes onto the feelingless void of your star face.
“Loop, can we-”
You stop them. “Siffrin. You’re going to have to talk to them, from now on. I won’t be there to help you next time. No more keeping how you feel from them. We both know where this leads. And if one day, not matter what you do, everyone’s paths and your diverge… You’ll have to learn to be okay with it.”
They’ve moved from your shoulder now, so you can look them in the eye. He’s crying too. Good, you would feel silly if it was just you. Seeing that they’ve seen you and understand you, you continue.
“We can’t… We can’t do this again. Hold them hostage, against their knowledge, against their will, just because we’re lonely. Learning to talk to them… Learning to let go…” You look at them seriously. “It’ll be hard. It’ll feel impossible. You might think you’d rather die than share how you feel. After all, isn’t bottling things up the reason you managed to break the loops? You didn’t have to tell them anything until the very end, and it turned out fine, didn’t it?”
Because you were here. It was so funny. It turned out the reason you were here was to be willing to talk to their friends for them. To talk to their family. Something you never did in your lifetime.
“But… But if I had talked to them earlier, then maybe…”
You almost laugh. “Yeah dummy. If only you had been strong enough to talk to them, maybe this story wouldn’t have happened at all. If only…” You dream of a better world, where stardust thinks of the loops as a helpful thing that only lasted until the King was killed. If only. “Oh well. It doesn’t matter now.”
You feel stardust’s arms start to go through you. You guess this wispy feeling was more than anxiety then.
“Loop, you’re…”
You laugh. “Teehee, seems like this whole fighting thing was pointless.” You don’t actually think it was funny.
He tries to grip you tighter, and your dissolving body goes through his arms. You step away.
“Looks like, no matter what, there’s no place for me here. Oh well, it wasn’t as if I wanted to stick around anyway.” But you did. You would have loved to take him up on his offer. For all your brave words a moment ago, you are the coward you’ve always been. They offered you a hand, and you were simply too scared to take it. You laugh and laugh.
“Loop!” He really does want you to say. “Please don’t go!”
“Oh, don’t worry about me stardust. There was never room for the both of us. So… Love that family of yours enough for me.” Soon enough, you would be the one who was nothing but stardust on the wind.
Tears in their eye, they nod. “I will!”
“And tell them I said they’re welcome!” You wanted to tell them yourself. You wanted to say it in person. But, you’re going somewhere that you can never come back from. You fulfilled your purpose here. You were a good sponsor. A good little joke that the Universe wove into being. In the end, all you had to do was wait. No fighting, no emotional moments. If you just kept hiding, none of this would have happened. But, you don’t regret it.
Your body turns to dust, the glow of your star growing brighter and brighter…
You wanted to stay with them. Even in this reality, your nature never changes. Even if they weren’t the versions of them that you knew, you wanted to stay with them until the end. You wished they could have been here. You wished you could have told them in person yourself. You wished for a lot of them, but mostly you wished you had another chance to be with them. One last tear falls from your eyes before the brightness becomes so great that you lose yourself. And in that moment…
You feel human.
And so the light dies, and instead of nothingness, there you stand.
Two Siffrins stand under the Favor Tree.