Chapter Text
It’s all over when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.
But not yet! Not yet, right? You can. Talk to your family. Friends. Allies. They probably have some new things to say to you, now that you’re not stuck in the loops. You’re feeling… marginally better, and none of them want to blow up at you. It'll be nice when this is all over (it's going to be over soon) for real (after you talk to the Head Housemaiden) and they'll have new things to say to you, new experiences to have with you.
Bonnie doesn’t understand the whole loops thing yet. But they rationalize it in their own way. It's like neverending school, right? You apologize, again, about the lost eye and the broken promises. They’re acting like they have to make you feel better, and nope! Nope, no, that’s not how this is going to go. Even if you feel awful and sick and like everything’s about to fall out from under you, it’s your job to help them out when they’re having trouble. They figure out you’re fine with being hugged, again, and it seems to help. You are going to be so, so sad when they hit a growth spurt and inevitably become taller than you.
Odile is… guilty. For not figuring it all out. Even when you tell her that once, she found you out, she’s beating herself up for being too mean about it. You know you wouldn’t have listened to her even if she stayed perfectly calm and collected. Not at that point, at least. And, yeah, she did scare you when you went huge and she attacked you, but she was the one who forced you to stay in this loop and confront everything! You wouldn’t be here without her. A little tough love was necessary. She brushes it all off, but you can tell she’s going to be thinking about this for a while.
Mira talks so fast, about everything that’s making her anxious. You envy her, a little bit, for being able to isolate all of those feelings and put names to them. It's not a skill you have, and it's not a skill you developed in the loops either. But she wants to talk feelings with you more. She seems to think she was supposed to ask you more about yourself, and that also you’re too cool and mysterious to approach properly? You… don’t really know what to think about that. Maybe you can talk to her about it later, when you’re on the road traveling with her and everyone else. You - wow, you’re looking forward to it! That’s nice. Nobody is yelling at you and you do feel better.
Isa finally says the very obvious (even if it was only obvious to you after looping the same two days hundreds of times). He’s so… specific about it too, in a way that makes you think that he didn’t just decide to do this because you said all the right things to him in the loops. You try to apologize for that one loop you hate to think about, where you got so frustrated you kissed him without permission, and - stars, why does he seem HAPPY about that. Well, he’s more disappointed that he doesn’t remember, but then you’re making plans with him to practice and your face is so hot and you need a minute to breathe. Again.
And that's everybody!
Your heart feels lighter, but now there’s nobody else to talk to. Except.
…
It’s all over when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.
But.
But you need to go talk to Loop, right? Your very wonderful good friend Loop who you never doubted at all or thought that they were some kind of spy or evil crafted force or someone imprisoning you in the loops.
You get the feeling everyone is humoring you when they take you to Dormont to get that wrapped up. We’re going to go back there after you talk to the Head Housemaiden anyway, Siffrin. Sure, you are, you just. You just need a moment. Before you talk to her. That’s normal. You’re normal! You’re sooo normal, right now. So normal, and not someone who is going to be scared of incredibly mundane and embarrassing things for at least a few months. Years. Decades??
And you really do need to thank Loop! You’re not being obtuse. They did get everyone up to the King. They know exactly how to annoy you, and abuse this power regularly, but they did help.
They thank you back by fighting you to the death? Trying to take your place?? Giving you another thing to worry about when you’re just trying to escape the worst few weeks of your life??? Being generally bitter about your whole shared situation with them? Asking them to kill - no, asking you to kill them, who is you, and do you really hate yourself so much that you’re willing to do that?
Well, maybe you would. If you were still in the loops. You’ve frozen yourself and died on purpose to the King and slipped on the same banana/plantain peel dozens of times just to shave a few minutes off.
Not how you are now. The power of friendship and all that.
You give yourself a pep talk and send them on their way. They’re not too keen on coming with you. You promise yourself you’ll see… yourself, again, in another form. Later. You’re not really sure how that’s going to work, but you do not have the energy to dissect it! That's fine staying as a weird mystery to you, for now.
Now, you’re sore and tired and want to end this timeloop once and for all. No more stalling. You’re not going to let yourself be afraid of the Head Housemaiden. So you leave the Favor Tree and walk so very slowly back to the north of town where everyone else waited for you.
Except, you’re barely ten paces into the trip when you see your family turn the corner. You thought they were going to wait for you to reconnect with them…?
Maybe they’re not willing to leave you fully alone right now.
Thank the stars.
“We!! Wanted to thank the star in person!” Bonnie hops up next to you with an amount of energy you’ve suddenly become too old for. “And also I want to ask them what it’s like to glow.”
“They really, really were a huge help.” Mirabelle worries at her lip. “I just hope we didn’t… offend them? They were very shy.”
Odile watches all of you judgmentally. It seems like she was dragged here. “And, us all bombarding them with attention is a great way to… help with that?”
“It’s exposure therapy, m’dame!” If only Isa knew how much that wouldn’t be a joke, if they did have the chance to say goodbye to Loop.
“Sorry, they’re gone.” You gesture to the tree. “They…”
Mirabelle nods solemnly. “Oh. Okay. One way or another they’re… not here, right?”
You don’t bother answering. She knows she’s right. The clearing is awkwardly silent for a moment, and you have the urge to squeak out a pun, a joke, something to fill the silence, when -
“Do you think it’s silly if I go make a wish right now?” Mirabelle asks.
You can’t help but feel queasy. “Isn’t that what got us into this mess?”
“Well. When you wished it did.” She stifles a laugh. “And I’m not going to wish for anything that gets us into more trouble!”
Ha. Right.
“We don’t have to wish for Vaugarde’s safety anymore,” Isa says, meant more as a question to himself than for the whole group, “what’s there to wish for now?”
Bonnie pumps their fists in the air. “We could wish that Frin wouldn’t get stuck again!!”
Your first instinct is to shut the idea down immediately. But it’s Bonnie, and they’re so excited they’ve got stars in their eyes, so you really buckle down and consider it. Would it make any of this worse? Is it worth taking the risk to make sure you don’t end up like Loop? They traded your original wish for… whatever situation they were in, you’re still not totally sure what they even got out of it except for some self-torture. And if you make a new wish, maybe it’ll override the one you made at the beginning of all this. The thing that's trapping you here. Because as much as you think your family isn't going to abandon you, there's that little voice in the back of your head that says that they will. Having that active wish up around them could force you back into a loop even if you don't want to.
Wish Craft got you into this mess. Nothing says it couldn’t get you out of it!
It feels worth it.
“I… wouldn’t hate that,” you admit, “I’m still nervous thinking about talking to the Head Housemaiden.”
One by one, your family approaches the tree. They look at each other, thinking about their wishes - or, really, their one wish that they’re deciding to share. Mira is the first to act, taking a long, deep breath. Her arms extend far out from her body, like she’s about to clang a pair of cymbals together, and -
“Wait!”
Mirabelle’s hands twitch in the air, like she wasn’t immune to the King’s tears and froze in place. Everyone slowly swivels their heads to look at you. The attention makes you feel smaller.
“You… don’t do it like that.” Right, right, this loop nobody learned that Wish Craft has a specific set of rituals. All of your time was spent being awful awful awful to them and running away. You walk forward, and explain how to choose a leaf that represents yourself, how to whisper your wish into it, fold it, blow on it, send it back into the tree…
Sure, it ends with everyone looking at you like you grew a second head, but they oblige anyway. They all assume you know more than you’re supposed to and follow suit. You sneakily try and hear how many times they’re saying their wishes into their leaves. Bonnie does it more than ten times, Mira does it seven, Isa does three just like you do, and Odile only says it twice. The back of your head thrums; you’re remembering a teacher or some other trusted adult telling you that the number of times you whisper your wish says a lot about your personality. You don’t know what three says about you. It feels important.
…
So what are you going to wish for?
You don’t really want to. If you had any say in it, you wouldn’t wish for anything else for the rest of your life. But everyone finishes their wishes and watch you, expectant. You have a feeling if you stand here for too long, they’ll all cry out that you don’t have to, Siffrin, we know you have trauma about that, Siffrin. You’re going to hear too much of that soon enough. It’s going to get on your nerves. Might as well skip them doing it this time.
Hesitantly, you walk forward, and pick a leaf with curled edges. Everyone is wishing for the loops to stop, so you’re covered there…
What else do you want?
Nobody’s mad at you, you’re going to travel with them, still. Mira and you are still friends. Bonnie’s not enraged over your existence anymore. Odile and you have new things to bond over. There’s a nice, budding whatever surrounding you and Isa. The loops are gone!
There’s nothing to wish for.
But, maybe… just in case.
You wish that any wishes affecting you made before you were stuck would disappear. To cover your bases. That way, if someone secretly wished for you to be stuck here, that would get canceled out. And it wouldn’t undo the wishes everyone made just now. Right? Is that how it works?
It feels like that’s how it works.
After you’re done, everyone claps politely. It comes off as condescending, but… it feels like the performance is over, finally. Your actors coming to the front of the stage to announce yes, it’s over, we’re not playing our roles anymore, signaling that it’s appropriate to shower them with praise and flowers. It’s going to be… weird, you think. You’ve only half-listened to everyone for days, weeks, months. New pieces of the script are hard to come by.
But now everything’s new. It’s not a script. It’s improv.
Part of that is exciting, and part of it scares you.
You’re not going to let that fear take you over. You’ve seen what that does to someone like you, and you’d like to put that part of yourself away. As much as you can. Mira claims it’s part of the Change belief (even though you have met the Change God and they don’t seem to care so much), and Isa’s crafted his own personality, so why can’t you? Even if you weren’t raised on the practice, and you don’t want to completely Change yourself, you can learn something new.
There’s a swish, swish in your stomach as you mourn the lack of… whatever you grew up with. It’s nice to know that there’s a reason for the holes in your memory, but that doesn’t make you miss them any less. The loops forced you to fix some of your communication issues, but didn’t resolve any of your homesickness. It’s a big, unsolved problem.
… Hopefully you can dig into that later. For now, it’s time to sleep and do literally anything else for a while.
Your family guides you back to the House, everyone taking turns holding you up while you limp back. Stars, you would have recovered by now if Loop wasn’t out for your blood. It’s a little surprising nobody’s asked why you’re back to being a puddle on the floor. You don’t have the energy to prod at that mystery.
The five of you are greeted by the Head Housemaiden cheerily. It takes you another ten minutes to cross the giant hallway down to her. You have time to ready yourself, but you still need assistance. The Head Housemaiden gently tells you a story as you close your eyes, to calm your nerves. All of your hands are linked together. Even if this doesn’t work, you have a backup now. Previous wishes against you are canceled out. The thousands of wishes to save Vaugarde aren’t trapping you here. And you know your journey with your family will continue after this, so of course you’re not worried about that.
Of course you aren’t.
...
There’s nothing else to be anxious about! What is wrong with you, Siffrin!! You can breathe in, and out, and relax, and then you can go on another adventure! It’s fine, it’s all fine, you’re overreacting. This hitch in your breath is just because you’ve been here so many times, isn’t it? You’re nervous? It’ll go away when the Head Housemaiden is done speaking and you all walk out of the House together?
Except.
There’s still a tingle in your mouth, of burnt sugar. Are you imagining that? You keep your eye so tightly closed you think your skull is going to crush it. Is the Head Housemaiden still talking? You can’t tell anymore. If you open your eyes to check, that’s just giving into your own superstition. You’ll have faith. You’ll force yourself to. Because if you don’t, you’re not going to make it out of this.
You’re imagining it you’re nervous you’re hallucinating you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re
You feel
a tug on your stomach.