Work Text:
Siffrin guided the party to the room with the orange poem again, stuck in their mind and following the wrong script. The blinding poem had been stuck in their head for dozens of loops by now, trying to figure out its ending, what would come after its peeling, what would be underneath the skin of the orange.
Would the orange be rotten, have worms and flies and mold lurking just underneath a hollow shell of a surface? Would the orange have what all oranges should there instead, glistening and inviting and correct? How would the one peeling react if it is rotten?
Surely they would leave the orange, abandon its disgusting body to go home, to be with the ones they love. And even if the fruit was right and correct, would something as boring as an orange be worth changing your plans over? Would you stay with the orange if it begged you? Pleaded? Bowed its blinding flesh and prayed to you to spend just one moment longer with it despite its triviality?!?
The figh- Iseabeau. Isabeau is saying something, and you tune back in just long enough to hear Mira say the poem again. Stars, you wish that this poem had been complete so you could get on to more important matters already. The discussion has happened around you and now its time to find a tear to get back to finding a way out of the loops.
Any second now you are going to turn around, walk out of this room, and get back to being productive.
Any second now.
Stop staring at the paper.
Go. Hurry up and leave before someone notices you fai-
“Siffrin?” Blind it!
“Siffrin, if you have an interpretation of the poem you wish to share, its best to say it before Isabeau withers away.” Odile states teasingly.
“M’dame!?”
“Hehe yeah, hurry up Frin, before Za wi-ther-s away!”
“Y-you don’t have to hurry too much! Just! Please think of the poor Isabeau.”
After a bit more ribbing of the poor Fighter, your queue to say your line comes up. Problem is, you dont have any line here.
Ok, c’mon Siffrin, you cannot disappoint them, just come up with something to say about the blinding poem that doesn’t make you sound even dumber than you are.
“Nah, just think comparing yourself to a fruit seems cherry cliche”
“So, they want the other person to take their skin?”
> (say one of your older theories.)
“It sounds like they think they are are soft, and that they want the other person to peel back what makes them safe from the outside. To see what lurks underneath the oranges skin. To know them wholly and truly. So, “peel an orange open, and see the slices inside.””
… …well they seem so disgusted that they cant even think of something to say so its time to go and-
“Well, that is certainly an interesting take on the poem siffrin, good job.”
“ WOAH Sif, amazing!” Isa seems to be flushed.
“How romantic!”
“ thats stupid, people dont have slices in them.”
…oh. They liked it.
As you guide the fam party to the nearest tear, you let hot shame curl in your gut. The idea you told them is from so long ago thats it bears very little similarity with your current thoughts.
Back then, you hadn’t even considered what fruit is used for. Just took the word skin and ran with it. It isn’t your theory, not really, it’s the theory of the Siffrin from many loops ago. A Siffrin that hasn’t had as much time to rot. As you think through your lie, you feel like you understand the orange poem better than anyone should.
(You dont want my skin, its bitter and thick so its best just to peel it off (please dont peel me off). Be careful its attached to the rest please be gentle. See whats underneath segmented barely there walls keeping my sweet innards from you peel me apart and watch as you squeeze what remains watch me explode in your grasp and trickle through your fingers and along your arm. Eat what remains please dont throw it away (please dont throw me away). Grind my walls into paste and taste what makes me sweet while what remains over your hands dries into place and sticks to you and clings and stays until you no longer want me there and you wash me down the drain (let me stay). Let me be a sweet memory in your mind and texture on your toungue and smell in your breath. Let me be digested and consumed and used to keep you going. And let the unappetizing skin left behind fall into the trash and be forgotten within the hour.)
(Peel an orange, and throw away my skin)