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At a certain point in the loops, you began to cough up flowers.
Well, flower petals, to be more exact. A multitude of shades, all different from each other, spat into your hand out of surprise. You have no idea where they came from. No one’s seen you cough them up yet, luckily—at least, you think so—so it doesn’t matter.
They taste like roses and copper. Not a pleasant combination. Your throat hurts.
…
The first time you felt them, you were watching the stars. Isa. Isa, Isa, Isa, you want this moment to last forever, except you don’t, because it’s not real, and you’re a horrible person.
You can barely hear him talking. You know your cues, you remember your lines, it’s fine, but… you stare at his face, at his hair, at his biceps, at his hands… He’s staring at you with adoration. You couldn’t see it before, but you know. It took dozens of loops for you to pick up on the obvious hints, but you know.
It should make you feel happy. You don’t feel happy. You’re using him, because you’re a fraud. A horrible, despicable, manipulative fraud. You don’t hear anything anymore. You snap back to attention. Isa looks worried. Stars, what line did you miss-
“Oh no, did I step in it?” Isa says, and you calm down. Nothing changes, of course. You zone out again. Follow the script, follow the script, you have to make them all love you, because you’re a selfish piece of shit.
It’s not right to recreate this moment, but you do it anyway, over and over. Because this is the best you’ll get, and far more than you’ll ever deserve. They love you, because you know exactly what to say. They love you, because you’re faking everything that you are. They love one Siffrin, the one you invented, the one you built your role around.
They’ll never love you. It’s obvious. No one would ever love the person you actually are, underneath the role you’ve crafted. You want too much, always, and if you take it…
You remember Isabeau’s horrified face. You know what happens if you take it. It makes you feel sick.
You get through the rest of your lines on the blanket, feeling numb. You watch Bonnie shout about samosas, stars in their eyes, and think about the King crushing them in his fist.
You watch Mira lean forward excitedly as she talks with Isa. You think about the first time the King crushed you all, before she learned how to make the shield.
You watch Odile hmph, smiling softly shortly after. You think about her distrusting gaze, her fury.
If they knew how you’d let them all die, they would hate you. You’ve seen them crushed, mutilated, torn to shreds, frozen in time. Your mistakes did this. Their blood is on your hands, on your feet, on your knife, on your tongue-
You cough. Oh, no, that’s your blood. What? That’s not right. You cough again, into your hand, and you feel a wad of blood and spit come out of your mouth. Eugh. You subtly glance down at the offending substances, and notice a flower petal in the mix. What the…?
You wipe the blood and petal on a napkin, putting your smile back on your face and pretending to listen.
Bonnie gives you a cup of water. You accept it, hiding the way your hands shake.
…
“Sif, are you okay?” Isa asks you, reaching out a hand to- to do something, you don’t know, but you hope he touches you, please, this time- “Are- are you sick?” He frowns, pulling his hand back. Stars. Damn it.
You’d been coughing again. The petals won’t stop. Your throat feels sticky and awful. Another handful of petals clutched in your hand, you give him your best attempt at a smile. You hope it’s convincing. “Yeah, Isa, I’m all good,” you rasp. “Just… something stuck in my throat.” Don’t let him think something’s wrong. He already doesn’t want to touch you, don’t make it worse!
“Boniface, do we have any water?” Odile cuts in, looking at you with concern. Noo, her too? You swallow, ignoring the sting that follows, and try to speak again. Your fist clenches around the petals.
“I’m fine, Odile,” you say, relaxing when the words come out in your usual voice. “It’s nothing.”
She hums in acknowledgement. You notice the entire party staring at you with varying degrees of intensity. Stop that. You feel like they’re dissecting you with their eyes. It makes you feel like a bug. Disgusting. Stop looking, stop it, don’t look.
You whirl around. “Let’s go,” you mumble. You’re freaking them out again. Your family- your- no, don’t think about them like that. You made them happy. That’s it. They might see you as family, but you know it’s only because you played your role. They don’t really love you. They just need you to do your job.
…Good. You feel disgusting tricking them to think otherwise. It’s good to keep reminding yourself that they’ll see through it eventually. You feel a lump in your chest get heavier.
…
You’re distracted, that loop. Slow. You forget the key on the second floor and have to loop all the way back. Blinding embarrassing. When you get to the classroom, you nearly bump into a desk on your way to the diary. Whose diary, again…? You forget. You didn’t even read the title this time.
The petals keep coming. It’s weird. You’re getting really blinding tired of sweet scents, from the burnt sugar of the loops to the sickly sweet smell of the flowers. It’s like the Universe knows, and just wants to make you suffer, because it keeps getting more and more pungent.
A hacking cough rattles your figure as you return to the door of the classroom, and you have to steady yourself on the doorframe. It leaves you wheezing, a bit, and you have to wipe sweat off your brow. You breathe in, then out, shuddering slightly, not bothering to hide the petals this time. Your inhale sounds like a wheeze.
“Siffrin?!” Mira exclaims behind you. “What’s wrong?”
You glance back, wiping your mouth. “Nothing. Let’s keep moving, everyone.”
You walk away before she can comment. A beat passes before you hear their footsteps, and you grimace. They’re whispering.
Well, Bonnie’s not. Ha. You hear something about snacks and a shushing noise.
Whatever. You need to ask Loop about this stupid flower thing right now, so your party won’t remember any of this. It doesn’t matter if the pit in your stomach screams at you and makes your eye sting, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you can feel the petals coming up in your throat again, choking you, filling your head with the awful, cloying scent and stabbing into your brain. You scan the hallway for a tear, ignoring your terrible headache.
There. Move. Before they can stop you. Go, go, go-
You froze yourself in time.
You feel
a tug
on your stomach.
…
“Hey, stardust! Fancy seeing you here~ Did you find that book ye-” Loop abruptly stops in the middle of their sentence, eyebrows furrowing. You stare at them. You probably look pissed. Because you are. Loop always makes you feel a little bit angry, since their whole ‘making your entire family party die that one loop’ thing.
“What’s with the flowers?” You ask, flatly. You don’t elaborate. They have to know. Don’t they know?
Loop hesitates, looking to the side. “The… flowers. Um…” They’re silent for a moment. You want to shake the answers out of them right now, but you refrain. “I have no idea, stardust. That’s a completely new- Uh. I’ve never seen it before,” They say, making eye contact again.
Are they blinding lying to you right now? “You’re lying. What is it?” You lean forward. You stare at them, making them shrink away. You’re not blinking. You can’t blink. Are you scaring them? Good. Loop’s glow flickers.
“I’m not,” they say, more confidently this time. “This is… the first time I’ve seen something like this. But maybe…” they squint a little.
You say nothing, glaring at them. You won’t say anything until you have answers.
“...You should check the House’s library,” Loop eventually says, brightening again. “There might be something about this in someone’s diary. You can’t be the only one to ever experience this, right, stardust~?”
You get up and leave without a word. Waste of your blinding time.
…
On your way to the library, you realize Done Heal makes the flowers go away, temporarily, if they start getting unbearable. This saves you from looping at least six more times, letting you pass off your coughing as dust in the air.
You’re pretty good at passing things off to your party at this point, so no one seems to suspect a thing. There’s something in the air of the House, maybe an allergy you forgot—they definitely believe that one, considering your useless memory.
Every once in a while, you slip. Say something a little too real. Cough up a few too many flowers in front of them. But you always have the tears. You can always erase the past, erase your mistakes…
It feels like a weight is pushing against your chest, and you find it hard to breathe as you hack up colorful flower petals. It hurts, but you can manage. You can always manage, and you can loop if you can’t. It’s fine. You’re fine. It doesn’t matter; you just need to keep it together for long enough to fix everything, and beat the King for good this time, and make everyone happy again.
Someone in your party asks if you’re alright. “Never better,” you tell them, teeth clenched in a hopefully convincing smile.
…
The Dormont library has nothing. You wasted the entire afternoon combing through every single book in the library, asked the librarian, and there’s nothing. Loop told you to search the House’s library, but surely there’s at least something in Dormont.
You check every house with books, after that. Again, nothing. As much as you hate them, Loop is always right. They always give you good advice.
So do you hate them? Really? …Maybe not. It’s weird. You don’t know how to feel.
You need to get to the House. You drag yourself to the clocktower, spitting out flower petals into the river, and step back on stage. You’re so numb. You laugh with the people around you, knowing they’ll hate you, knowing they’ll leave you, knowing you’re not a family. You can’t taste Bonnie’s food anymore. It doesn’t usually fill your stomach. When it does, it makes you want to hurl.
Today is different. Where usually it tastes like ash on your tongue, you taste something like a sickeningly sweet floral copper, and you know it’s the flowers again. You freeze, and put your food down, quickly excusing yourself to go to the bathroom. As you move, you feel the petals coming up in your throat and just barely make it to the toilet before feeling an unfamiliar tug in your stomach.
It’s not a loop. That feels different. And smells different. You feel it get stronger as you let out hacking coughs, littering the toilet bowl with petals and splotches of blood, and you only have time to take one short breath before you start gagging. You claw at your throat, feeling tears well up in your eye, coughs catching on something, what is it, get it out, you hate this, you feel like you need to throw up but you can’t, something’s stuck and it won’t get out.
You feel the object in your throat move upwards, and you cough it up, accompanied by an assortment of petals like usual. What’s not usual is the object itself, now floating in the muddy sea of petals in the toilet, innocently drifting as your brain stutters to a halt.
A full flower came out. An entire flower. It’s stained with blood like the rest of them, but everything else is intact. You don’t recognize what kind it is. Maybe the florist in Dormont would know.
Never mind that for now—you can’t do anything until the next loop anyway—you need to clean up your mess. You wipe the petals and blood off the seat and the floor with toilet paper, and flush the toilet, trying to keep your breathing under control, ignoring your shaking hands. You’re still trembling as you wash them, frantically scrubbing the blood off. You stare at yourself in the mirror after turning off the water, trying to school your expression into something less terrified.
After regaining your false smile, you leave the bathroom, still shaking. But you can still play your role.
…
You know they’re all suspicious at how much time you’ve spent reading in the library. But you have to know. This could be connected to the loops! It’s only gotten worse every time, which is weird, because everything should reset when you loop. But you keep having to spit full flowers out, and they feel like rocks in your throat, and it happens more and more often, so you know for certain it’s never reset.
Nothing in the theater scripts. Nothing on the librarian. Nothing in the librarian’s pocket. You skip the shelf with The Cursing of Château Castle. You open the sparkly diary. Nothing, nothing, nothing, check the secret library, nothing, what in the stars above was Loop referring to, you want to scream, there’s NOTHING.
You find the book on shields again. Odile’s suspicious that you told Mira about the CARROT method again. Whatever. You don’t care. You’re looking for anything that might give you half a clue as to where these stupid flowers are even coming from, and you have nothing.
“Siffrin, what are you looking for?” Odile’s voice cuts through the haze. The others are still talking. You give her a side-eye, considering, then relent.
“Something about… flowers,” you say hesitantly. And sickness, you don’t add. Odile looks curious.
“I hadn’t expected that,” she says, her eyes scrunching up in a subtle smile. “That’s rather lovely, actually.”
You want to scream. No, it is not lovely. You’re choking half the time on these blinding flowers and it makes you feel like you’re going to die which doesn’t even matter because you’ll just come back but you want to die for good sometimes and you need to snap back into the conversation like a normal blinding human being now.
“Haha, yeah,” you say, wanting to throw up. “I’ve been curious about them and their language. They’re… pretty.” Horrible lie, but it’ll have to do. You can’t tell her the truth. Can’t tell anyone the truth. They’ll think you’re a freak.
Maybe she’ll be less suspicious now? She clearly likes that you’re interested in flowers. But- your thoughts stop as you see Isabeau staring at you with some kind of strange emotion. His eyes are sparkling. His eyes are beautiful. You look away first. You feel another flower bloom in your throat. You want to cry.
“Here’s one, Frin!” Bonnie says. They were listening, too? You take the book, thanking them. It’s a book on flower language, which is… what you said you wanted to find. It may have been a lie, but maybe this could help, somehow?
You flip through, stopping on a page about zinnias. Absent friends, thinking of you. The words on the page mean nothing to you. They won’t get you out of this. Not the loop, not this sickness.
“...We’re wasting time,” you say, your own voice sounding distant to your ears. You close the book and put it back on the shelf. “Let’s go.”
You walk away, making a beeline for the tear you know is just outside the door.
“It’s okay if you want to linger for a while, Siffrin,” you hear Mira say. You pause. “We all got to look at books that we liked! You just took a while to find the right one. We can wait, if you want-?”
You hear her voice drop at the end. She’s looking at you.
She’s looking at you. She’s looking at you. She’s looking at you. She’s looking at y-
Oh. Your face. You don’t know what kind of face you were making, but she looks terrified. She takes a step back from you as you tilt your head. You scared her. You made her afraid. She hates you. As she should, but she’s not supposed to find out. She shouldn’t see you.
You cough. Everything hurts. Flowers tumble out of you like a waterfall, or maybe a rockslide. Mirabelle gasps, but you’re not looking at her. Your hands come up to your throat, to- you don’t know. Catch the flowers, maybe? Stop them? They’re not getting stuck anymore, which is nice, but you can’t breathe, and they’re still choking you, and you need to get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. The tear. Where’s the tear.
You back into it, sort of falling, still choking, still retching, freezing in time. The rest of the flowers fall out of you as you drift away, letting the sounds of your family’s party’s voices get quieter, and quieter…
It’s quiet when you’re frozen. You’re floating in darkness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, experiencing… nothing. The flowers don’t come to disturb you. You can’t feel anything. You can’t remember anything. Just quiet.
You need to go back to Dormont now. Leave the quiet behind. Even though it’s peaceful. Even though it’s the only time you’re not choking on the smell of flowers or burnt sugar. Loop back.
A small part of you desperately wants to stay. A large part of you desperately wants to stay. You’re tired. But you have to keep going. You feel
a tug
on
your
stomach.
…
“These… well, I don’t know where the stems went, young one, but you’ve brought me quite the variety! Look at these gorgeous shades,” The florist smiles at you. You say nothing. The smile dims. You’ve done something wrong. Stars.
“Just- can you tell me what they all are?” You say in your most calm and unscary voice. The florist’s smile comes back.
“Well, these ones are zinnias,” they point to a flat, circular flower with smaller flowers in the middle. You’ve heard the name before. “And this is a sweetbrier rose.” A flower with five pentagonal petals. Round pentagons, though. You’re not sure how to describe the shape. Stout?
“What do they mean?” You ask them. They laugh.
“Hold your horses, young one! There’s more,” they point to three other flowers. “Virgin’s bower, here, then ambrosia, and finally… daffodils,” they finish. Spiky center and eight long petals, then long pointy, and a cup-shaped center with big petals.
You should look these up in the flower language book. You nod. “Thanks.”
The florist smiles warmly, then frowns. “Of course, but… where did you get these flowers from? Or whom?”
You tense. “Picked them. Somewhere. Does it matter?” You need to go, you have things to do. You’re about to cough up more flowers, for example.
“In that case, it’s fine…” The florist gives you a long, searching look. “Never mind. Have a good day, savior.”
You’re already halfway out the door. No time.
…
Back in the House. Back in this blinding library. Where’s the book? Get to the book before you forget, because you always forget, and you always mess things up.
The passage to the secret library opens with a loud KA-THUNK, and your family party discusses, but you’re already moving. You hear them following you. You keep moving. You find the book.
They find the passage on the CARROT method as you’re flipping through the book, desperately, hungry for answers. Your chest hurts. They’re talking, maybe to you, but you have to find the flowers. You have to know what they mean.
Zinnia. Absent friends, thinking of you. You saw that last time. Move on. Sweetbrier rose. Wound to heal, home. Next, virgin’s bower. Filial affection. Turn the pages, turn the pages. Ambrosia. Love is reciprocated.
You don’t like this.
You flip to the last flower. Daffodil. …Unrequited love. Counterintuitive. But you think you see the picture this makes, and you don’t like it.
Your family. Other than the daffodil, it’s all about how you feel about your family, and the daffodil is saying they will never feel the same. Everything is erased after the loop resets, the version that sees you as family left behind, absent. Without the conversation you have with Mirabelle, she’s not herself. You see your family as home. Like the delicious food that Bonnie makes, the conversations in the inbetweens. You look up to them, you’re devoted to them, you want to make them proud. You want to make Odile proud. You…
You know what Isa wants to tell you, every time. You can’t even bring yourself to think the words. But you know.
And you know none of it is real. Because they don’t feel the same. This has to be some kind of cruel joke, worse than this blinding time loop, worse than watching your family die over, and over, and over, and over again.
They will never feel the way you do. They will never care about you the way you care about them. You want to cry. You want to throw up. You want to scream, and tear out your hair, and stab your dagger into your throat to get those blinding flowers out, and-
And you have. You hear a distant scream, feel pain in your throat, in your chest. You look down. Your hands tighten around the dagger. Not so long, now, you’ve done this before. But. The flowers. They’re still making you cough. Leaves and blooms and thorns are coming out of your mouth as you fall to your knees, shaking violently. They ignore the dagger. They rip into your gums. They tear your throat to shreds. It hurts. There are so many flowers. You feel your family touch you, vaguely, through the pain, which is nice, but the rushing in your ears drowns out anything they try to say to you.
It hurts so much. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurtsithurts
You feel
a tug
on your stomach.
…
You’re still gasping for air in the grassy clearing of Dormont. You’re still coughing up flowers. You sit up, choking, flipping yourself over, watching them tumble into the grass, watching your blood drip onto the blades. You can’t breathe.
You reach for your dagger again. Where is it, where, you can’t find it, you have to breathe, you have to-
You lose strength to keep yourself up. Your coughing fit continues. It still hurts. You can’t breathe. The flowers keep coming, and they won’t stop, and all you can see is daffodils. You can’t breathe.
Your vision is spotty. You wheeze into a cough. You’re choking. The horrible, sickly sweet scent and the taste of copper block your senses. You feel tears stream down your face.
You can feel yourself losing touch after what feels like hours of coughing. You can feel the world drift away in a haze of pain.
And yet. You feel
a tug
on your stomach
…
You’re back in the blinding field. Still coughing up flowers. You choke, and you cough, and you cry, and you wheeze, and nothing changes.
You watch yourself fade. And then
you feel
a tug
on your stomach
…
Your eye is burning. Your nostrils are burning. The smell of burning sugar and sickly sweet are merging, fusing, becoming some horrid amalgamation that makes your eye tear up and the pain-
You feel
a tug
…
“Loop,” you gasp.
You feelatug
…
You lose focus.
you
…
You can’t feel a thing.
…
You feel- oh, stars. Y
…
You feel
…
You fee
…
You
…
Y
…
…
It won’t stop. Please, you think. You want this to stop. Make this stop. I want this to stop.
…
.
.
.
[You got Memory of Thorns! You’ll always remember this.]
…
You’re still choking. The flowers are still ripping your throat, but it doesn’t hurt anymore, and-
You come back into reality abruptly as your vision clears. You’re… you’re being healed. Who… who is… it’s Mira…?
“Siffrin, oh my Change, what’s going on, a star person brought me here and said you were hurt, but-!” She’s crying. You made her cry…?
But… she’s here… she… “Mir…a,” you say, or try to say; your throat is torn to shreds. You can’t say a thing. But she’s healing you, and your throat still kind of hurts but the flowers have stopped and you can see her and you’re crying and why are you crying.
Wait, Mira’s crying, you need to make her feel better right now!
“Siffrin, when did you develop hanahaki? I-” She sobs. “Who is it? Who would do this to you?”
You sit up. “You know what’s happening to me?” You stare at her, your gaze urgent and maybe a little bit terrifying. “Tell me, please, I have to know, I just need answers,” you tell her, feeling a little bit dizzy.
“It’s, well. Um, it’s a disease? A sickness,” Mira starts, sounding very nervous. “And it starts when someone thinks. Or knows. But, usually thinks. That they’re not. Well, that the person they love doesn’t… love them back,” she says. You… don’t say anything.
“Siffrin… who is it? Who wouldn’t love you? Or who do you think- No, this isn’t coming out right, but, please, just talk to me!” Mira looks like she’s panicking. You think you are, too.
“Can it be more than one?” you ask her. She thinks for a moment.
“Well, yes, but… I mean, maybe? In theory, probably. I think it can be more than one type of love, at least, like a child whose parent doesn’t love them or, or…” she trails off, staring at you. Oh, you’re making a face again. Joy.
“I-” you can’t say anything. You should tell her, but you can’t, because you can’t bear to hear the truth, that she doesn’t love you back, and you don’t know what to think right now. It’s… that’s what it is? Oh, you’re going to be sick.
Mira looks hesitant. “I won’t… I won’t ask, but Siffrin, can I-?” She reaches a hand towards you. You watch it. You don’t care that it’s not real. You need her to touch you right now or you’re going to explode. Or start coughing up flowers again.
“Please,” you say, “please, Change, I need to feel real right now,” you think you’re crying. She pulls you into a tight hug. Oh, oh, that’s a lot, that’s so much, you feel so happy right now and it’s such a huge switch up and you feel like you’re getting whiplash, you’re shaking and sobbing in Mira’s arms which is really embarrassing, and she’s… She’s… not mad. She’s hugging you tighter.
You’re bawling. You feel your chest get a little bit lighter. Stars. You feel like a mess.
Mira holds you like you’re something precious. Not like you’ll break, far too tight for that, but something that she doesn’t want to let go. Maybe… maybe… is it your imagination? It must be, it has to be, it-
“Siffrin, if-” Mira doesn’t finish. You don’t want her to. You just want to stay like this forever, because you’ll never feel hurt again when you feel this warm, and everything that matters stops and you feel so nice.
“Mira… don’t stop, please, don’t…” you say, not really knowing how to continue. So you don’t.
“Did you want to be touched all this time…?” Mira whispers worriedly. “Odile… She… We all thought you didn’t, because you’d flinch every time, but I just couldn’t help myself this time because you were hurt and I couldn’t think and I needed you to be okay,” she rambles. You blink.
“Yeah,” you say shortly. You… she wanted to touch you. She wanted… Then maybe? You don’t know what to do right now. Everything’s confusing. You’re kind of overwhelmed.
“Tell me if that happens again. When you have another attack, with the flowers. I can heal you!” Mira says resolutely. “I have to make sure everyone’s okay, especially now, since we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow. I-”
You don’t hear the rest of whatever she said. You feel cold, suddenly.
Oh.
All of this was because. The King. Right. Because you needed to lead them through the House and beat the King. Not because-
You push Mira away. She gapes at you, confused, looking hurt. You stare at her, feeling insane.
“It’s about the King. Every, blinding, time. Stars, I should have known,” you sneer. Mira reaches towards you again. “Don’t touch me!”
She flinches back. You feel numb. The flowers come back up again. You feel like breaking something. You look at Mira, feeling a strange, small sort of rage, and your breaths come up short. Your chest quivers.
“You… you know what?” you say, feeling cruel. “I don’t care anymore. You know why you’re having such a hard time with those bonding proposals?”
Mira gasps. “Wh-what? How did you! Know! About that! What do you-” She puts a hand on her rapier.
“Because you’ve always been destined to be alone, Mira,” you grin wickedly. “You’re always going to be alone, like me, and we’re never beating the King. We never have. Because something’s broken. The King doesn’t matter, Vaugaurde doesn’t matter. We’ll never get out of this! Isn’t that just… wonderful?” Your head hurts. There’s a haze falling over you. Mira… Mira gets up silently.
She stands over you, rapier in hand. She looks furious.
“Are you going to stab me with that? You should. Oh, you should,” you laugh. “Make me go away, like those bonding proposals.” You can’t stop yourself now. “Stab me, and get these flowers out of my chest yourself, because your stupid spell did nothing and-”
You stop, because her rapier is at your throat. Your sentence dies. Would she- really-?
“Don’t you dare, Siffrin,” Mira says quietly. “I don’t know how the crab you knew about my bonding proposals, but you’re out of line.” She looks down at you, like you’re a bug on her shoe. Good. She knows you’re disgusting. She knows now.
“Who are you?” she sniffles. “Not Siffrin. They’d never say that to me. I don’t recognize you right now,” she says angrily, pulling her sword away and sheathing it.
It’s a terrible thing to be right. You knew she’d react like this. Change, it feels awful. You stare at her, saying nothing. What would you say? The damage has been done. You don’t know what face to make.
Mira takes a deep breath. It’s shaky. “I need some time, Siffrin. You’ve made it clear that I’m not the target of the disease, so do whatever you want,” she says. “I really hope they love you back.” She turns around and walks quickly towards Dormont, casting one brief, inscrutable look behind her as she goes.
What? Wait, what? No, she is, but she had to know who you were, first, and know that you’re terrible and she shouldn’t love you, but… but she’s wrong, she is the target of the disease, or one of them, and, Change, why would you say that? You made her say that. What have you done? She should have killed you. Your chest burns. You smell flowers.
You hear rustling in front of you. You look up to see Loop. They’re looking down at you, too.
“Will you stop sabotaging every attempt I make to get you out of this?”
You’re breathing heavily, taking heaving breaths and glaring at them. You cough, weakly, and it tastes like copper. They regard you with a strange look.
You pull out your dagger, and raise it up to your throat-
Loop tackles you to the ground, holding you down. They’re strong. You can’t move. “Don’t you dare run away from your problems this time,” they say. “You’re the one who got this chance, and you’re not messing this up. You’re going to lose them all if you keep up this stupid blinding act of yours.” They look angrier than you’ve ever seen them.
You open your mouth to question them, to argue, to do something-
“I’m not done,” they push you further into the ground. “Go fix this. Don’t play into their insecurities and turn them all against you. The flowers will reach your heart and kill you, over and over, until you can’t remember who you cared about in the first place. You’ll choke, forever, until you can’t feel a thing. I can’t let that happen to you.”
What? “So you knew,” you spit. “You knew this entire time. And said nothing.” You’re shaking. Loop’s grip tightens.
“Obviously,” Loop says. “Because I couldn’t do anything to convince you they care about you, stardust! You’re stubborn, and once you have a stupid idea in your head you keep reinforcing it, and you’re too blind to realize that you’re delusional. Well, half blind, anyway,” they roll their eyes.
You shift uncomfortably. You’re suddenly very aware of the eyepatch on your left eye.
“And the flowers won’t go away if I interfere. They’re not going to suddenly leave you, but they definitely will if you treat them like shit. Okay?” Loop glares at you.
You’re silent. How would you even fix what you’ve done?
“Talk to them like a normal person,” Loop states flatly, like it’s that simple, like you can. Like you are. Wouldn’t it be so much simpler to loop back? They’d forget. You could convince them you’re- “And don’t loop back.” Ah. Stars.
You have no idea what to do, but you nod. Just talk. Just talk, and fix it. You want to cry again. Loop regards you with a weird mix of pity and disdain, and lets you up. You notice your dagger is missing. They- right. Okay. They took it.
You walk away.
…
Mira’s avoiding you, which makes sense, and is so fair, and she should hate you right now more than anything. So it’s weird that she keeps looking at you from across the town square.
You know she needs space. You know she hates you. You don’t want to talk to anyone. You want to drive the dagger into your throat right now, because there’s no way this could possibly get better, and a million ways it could get worse.
Is Loop… stopping you, though? You look towards the banana peel. They might have stolen your dagger, but… you could always…
No. No, you shouldn’t. Loop is right, probably, maybe. You let yourself fall into autopilot, and your feet carry you to the general store, to Odile. You don’t want to talk to her.
You’re silent. She notices you. “Quiet today, huh, Siffrin?” You can’t answer. You shrug. She says her usual line, when you can’t say anything, when you can’t even manage to follow the script right, and following her around as she picks up the group’s supplies lets you forget, just a bit, that apparently these flowers are growing towards your heart.
Loop implied that this aspect of yourself didn’t reset with loops. You remember choking, over and over. That sounds about right.
Odile finishes at the register, giving you a long, searching look. “Are you… okay, Siffrin?”
You don’t want to die, like that. You don’t want to choke, perpetually, endlessly, not even knowing if they truly hate you or not. If they do… you… you don’t know what you’d do. So you need to make sure they love you, which you’ve failed at so far.
Odile doesn’t hate you, yet, so it’s. Fine. You can get her the familytale, and make her happy, and then ask if she hates you, and she won’t, and you’re still a fraud but it might be enough to make the Virgin’s bower settle down in your chest.
But you. Can’t get the words out. You can’t tell her, you forget what you needed to say, what were you supposed to- “...familytale?”
Odile’s eyes flash. “Where did you hear about- why do you…” You feel like a bug again.
“Boulangerie,” you mumble. And then you run away. You need to loop. You need to escape- and Odile’s caught you by the back of your cloak.
“Let’s see this familytale of yours, Siffrin,” she grins, but it looks a little unhinged. You need to loop right now, she’s found out about the loops because you’re too suspicious and she can’t know because… because she can’t, you need to get out, and that seems to be clear in your expression because Odile looks lost and hesitates, and then her grip loosens. She moves to say something but you’re already gone, running for the banana peel.
You’re almost there before Isa stops you, and you want to strangle Loop for ruining your script, because now everyone’s out of place and you couldn’t kill yourself. He pulls you back, looking a little shaken at the probably horrifying look on your face, because you can’t regulate for stars right now and look like a crazy person. You feel like a crazy person. It’s these Change-damned flowers.
“Sif, slow down, you’ll make yourself trip,” he says gently, like that wasn’t exactly what you wanted to happen. You’d slip and crack open your skull and he could watch as you bled out, staining the grass with blood, contaminating.
“Oh, thanks,” you say, twisting your face into a smile. It feels crooked. You’re wearing it wrong. Maybe you could drown yourself in the river or throw yourself off this cliff.
“Do you want to- I mean, I don’t know, you’re probably- um… do you need to talk?” Isa looks at you like you’re someone worth looking at, with concern, with affection. You feel the same kind of numb as before, with Mira. You want to wipe his smile away, because you don’t deserve this, and he shouldn’t be treating you like this, because you’re disgusting. You’ve manipulated him into looking at you like this and you need to be bludgeoned to death by a rock. But he sees you, and it makes you feel warm as much as it makes you want to run away.
He shifts, releasing you hastily, and looks to the side. He’s smiling nervously. “I talked to Mira, and she said- well. Um…” he trails off. Right, of course. You feel cold.
Of course it was Mira. She told him. She told him the truth, and now he hates you too. You taste copper and feel the flowers well up in your throat, and you’re about to cough. You know one of them will be ambrosia.
“Did you now?” You feel that horrible haze fall upon you again and you open your mouth into a crooked grin to undoubtedly say something horrible, but before you can even think of the cruelest thing to say he backs away.
“Mira told us to give you space, and she seemed mad,” Isa continued. “And that you’re not acting like yourself, and something’s wrong, and you need help very badly. And she doesn’t trust herself to help you because she’s upset. She didn’t say why, though? But you look… I mean, not awful, you always look great, hahaha, so…”
He trails off, looking at you in horror. Probably because you’ve just started coughing up one, two, three, six, so many zinnias, and you can see them fall to the ground. You’re shaking. You can’t breathe again, and you’re so tired. You’re going to choke again, for more loops, and you don’t want to loop like that, not again. You can’t breathe.
Isabeau yells something that you can’t hear. His eyes are blown wide, panicked, and you can’t think straight over the way the thorns are tearing through your esophagus. You try casting a healing spell while you’re still conscious, but you can’t focus and it’s not working.
You’re choking. You can’t taste anything except these horrible flowers, and you-
You feel
a tug-
No- no, you don’t; you feel hands on your shoulders, warm, grounding. Isabeau is shaking, too, but less than you, and through the pain you can feel a sense of clarity return to you, just a little. You can make out what he’s saying, just barely-
“Who?! Who is it, Sif, please…” he repeats, over and over, like a broken record. “You’re so amazing, and so wonderful, they have to like you back. They would be crazy not to. Siffrin…”
You look at him dumbly. “I don’t know,” you lie, and promptly pass out.
…
The clocktower is a familiar sight at this point, with its old, creaking wooden boards and earthy smell, overgrown and rustic. You don’t know how you got here. Maybe you just zoned out, and you have to go into the House again now. But the sun is hanging low in the sky, blanketing the room in a warm, golden light.
You sit up, groaning a little, and reach for your hat. It’s not there. You sit up abruptly. Your hat isn’t on the floor next to you, nor hanging on the coat rack, nor anywhere else. You take in your surroundings, and see Isabeau resting his head on the bed, fast asleep. He takes shuddering breaths, and his eyes are red. Tear tracks stain his face. You scoot closer to him, watching quietly.
You don’t know how long you stay like that, but it feels peaceful. You can’t remember the last time you felt peaceful like this. It crosses your mind that you need to be going somewhere right now, but you can’t remember where. This is new. It’s new, and you feel warm. Isa stayed here, for you.
Why… why did he stay? You don’t…
You jolt, and it comes back to you pretty fast. You passed out in his arms after ruining your relationship with Mira and terrifying Odile, because you were trying to kill yourself with a banana peel.
When you put it like that, it sounds really blinding stupid. Why are you like this, anyway? You still haven’t fixed that flower thing. The door creaks, and Odile walks in with a tray.
“Hello, Siffrin. Or should I say good morning?” she smirks. “Boniface insisted on making you ‘many delicious snacks,’ to help you feel better. I have some tea for you as well.” She sets down the tray on the table near the bed, glancing at you with an emotion you can’t place.
You say nothing, pulling your blanket tighter around yourself. You look at Isabeau, who’s still asleep, now snoring softly.
“We’re all a little worried about you, Siffrin,” Odile says, surprisingly hesitant for her. “I had no idea you were developing hanahaki. From what I saw earlier, it’s far along, and I’m sorry we didn’t notice any earlier.”
You frown. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. We need to focus on fixing Vaugarde, and reverse the King’s curse. This is something I can manage on my own,” you say. Sure, you had a few moments, but you can always push through. You deserve the pain anyway, for thinking that someone as disgusting as you could have a family.
The sound of a crack resounds throughout the room. You look up in alarm, and see Odile glaring at you, the handle on the mug she’s holding snapped clean off with how tightly she’s gripping it. Oh, stars, you said the wrong thing, idiot-
“Siffrin,” Odile’s voice is deceptively calm. “You do know hanahaki can kill you, right?” Her eyes are wide.
Well, you knew that. It killed you a lot, actually. But it ebbs and flows, and you can handle it for now. You don’t know how to tell her that without her finding out about the loops.
“Hanahaki grows in your chest towards your heart, twisting around it and cutting off your circulation once it reaches its final stage. You can slow it with healing craft, but it will inevitably kill you,” Odile says flatly. “There are two ways to stop this: speak with the person or people who triggered it, and discover they love you back, or surgically remove the flowers from your chest.”
You didn’t know you could do that. Was that really the solution this entire time? You feel winded. “Do we have time to go through with the procedure before going into the House?” You sound a little too desperate, but you don’t care. It has to work.
Odile shakes her head, alarmed. “No- I, well. I… suppose we do, but… Siffrin, you’ll never be able to feel affection for whoever triggered it ever again. That’s the price of the surgery. You can’t-” She looks more distraught than you’ve ever seen before.
You stare blankly. “If they don’t love me back, isn’t that the best option?” You’ve already accepted that you deserve to be alone forever. What difference would it make?
Odile takes a short breath, folding her hands. After a pregnant pause, she speaks again, slightly hesitantly. “Not if I’m correct about who it is,” she says, pointedly glancing at Isabeau. “Do you… know?”
You sigh. “I have an inkling,” you say bitterly, “but you don’t understand. He doesn’t know what kind of person I am, he- it doesn’t matter. The surgery is the best option. It’s not just hi-” You stop yourself, snapping your jaw shut. If it will stop this stupid thing from getting in the way of fixing Vaugarde, it’s worth losing. Odile doesn’t have to know it’s from her, too.
“Will you at least try speaking with him?” Odile stresses. “I don’t think you realize how much of yourself you’d be losing.”
How much of yourself do you have left?
You’re silent. Odile groans in frustration. “Siffrin, just talk to him, please, damn it, why are you always so stubborn?!” You look at her, feeling some sort of haze come over you.
“I’ll ruin him,” you stare at her. “I know what he keeps trying to say to me. He doesn’t understand that I’ll ruin him. This isn’t just to keep moving, it’s a safety measure. I’ll ruin all of you if I don’t go through with this. None of you understand. None of you see,” you can’t stop yourself now, “I’m a parasite. And you all are too stupidly optimistic to realize that.”
Odile stares at you, genuinely speechless. She gapes a little, furrowing her brow. A long moment passes in silence, the two of you at a stalemate. …Have you ruined things with her too?
Eventually, she stands, walking towards the doorway. You feel a little numb. She looks back at you, but you avoid her gaze, tightening your grip on your blanket. It feels colder in the room when she disappears through the frame.
Once she’s gone, you slump, leaning against your pillow and staring at the rafters. You need to find out where to get the surgery, now. You can’t continue like this, not when the flowers choke you out by the day’s midpoint at the latest. Your feelings aside, it’s about practicality. (And there’s no point hoping to fix what you’ve just burned to the ground. Stupid.)
You close your eye. Next loop, you’ll find a place to do it. You’ll rip the damn flowers out of your chest yourself if you have to. You drift off, smiling.
…
When you wake up, Loop’s face greets you. There’s an almost wild look on it, their eyes wide with… something.
“Are you insane,” Loop hisses, horrified. They shake you by the shoulders, and your head spins. The contact feels… nice. But you stare at them, saying nothing. “Your attempts at self-sabotage are like none I’ve ever seen! What does it take to convince you that you have a chance at fixing this?!”
You tilt your head, squinting. “Can’t be fixed if I’m the problem,” you say sulkily. Loop groans in frustration, their grip tightening, but they release you with a shaky sigh.
“I just can’t understand how you don’t see it,” Loop says. “They brought you to the old clocktower and tucked you into bed, brought you tea, stayed with you despite their fear and concern at what you just tried to do… How else can you explain that, stardust? What else, if not love?” Their eyes are narrowed.
You take in their words, feeling a lump in your throat and a sting in your eye. When you speak again, the words are hard to get out. “Even so, they shouldn’t. They love someone who isn’t there anymore and will never be. They love who they think Siffrin is, someone I made up when I first met them in that forest. They don’t deserve what I actually am. I…” You start talking faster as you continue. “I just need to get rid of the flowers so I stop dying every other second, and then I can keep pretending, keep following the script, keep making them happy. They just need to be happy.”
A beat passes. Loop is staring at you, an unreadable expression on their face.
“I fucking hate you,” they eventually say, disbelief evident in their tone.
You laugh, “And you’re the only sensible one here for it-” But the moment you finish, their hands are on your throat, for the second time. You choke, eye widening in fear. You look up at them.
“You’re a fool, pretending you understand how love works. Pretending that you’ll know how it feels when it’s gone. Do you understand what it means to erase an entire feeling from your chest? Because I do!” Loop snarls in your face. Your view of them goes spotty as they press down on your windpipe. “You take what you have for granted, talking about it like it’s dispensable, like you’ll feel the same right after. You don’t know what it’s like to reach for something out of habit and find it gone, what it’s like to feel the weight of emptiness in your chest, what it’s like to see them, your family, people you held like a lifeline for months, years, all through the loops, and feel nothing. They were mine, and now they’re nothing. You-!”
They’re crying, fat tears rolling down their glowing face. Their grip loosens, and your vision clears. You gasp a few breaths, processing their words. Loop… had the procedure done. Loop knew about hanahaki. They knew what this would be like, they knew what would happen after—you feel your blood run cold.
You stare at them in disbelief, putting the pieces together. “Loop… you’re… you’re me.”
They roll their eyes angrily, huffing a laugh, but it still sounds a little wet. “Not anymore. Sue me if I didn’t want you repeating my mistakes. Yet, here we are. Almost funny, isn’t it, stardust?” They cast you a disdainful look. You stand, shakily, stumbling like a newborn fawn. Loop is saying something else, but you can’t hear it over the rush in your ears and the pit in your stomach.
“Go away,” You grit out eventually. Loop laughs, mockingly.
“I will, stardust. But if you’re going to fuck this up, you’ll be seeing me again before you know it,” they sneer. “Until next loop!”
You watch them disappear into nothingness, feeling the numbness overtake you once more.
…
It’s funny how fate seems to spin in circles, forever staying true to its path, uncaring as you drown in its wake. As you spit out rehearsed lines yet again, you wonder if Loop knew they wouldn’t be able to change a thing.
How did they become what they are, after they went through everything you had and more? You wonder if it’ll happen to you, too; you can’t imagine having a ball of light for a head is all that pleasant, but you suppose it must happen eventually.
In your dreadful haze, you run through loop after loop, repeating the same events time after time. Each time, you cough up flowers; each time, you’re confronted; each time, you get them to hate you just like before. You learn the perfect words to say to shatter their perception of you, making sure they won’t miss you, burning bridges with flames so hot it feels almost like the warmth you yearned for before. (Bonnie is always the hardest to say it to. But it’s necessary.)
Loop doesn’t say much, now. They glare, giving you advice in a flat tone, making sure you’re still looking for something. Despite the flowers often cutting your loops short, you follow their halfhearted clues to the locked door, to the observatory, to the storage room…
And when you find out you’re the reason it all started, it only feels right. Of course it was you, covetous, yearning for something you’ve never deserved. You laugh so hard you feel the flowers’ thorns scratching your esophagus, pouring out of your mouth like a never-ending fountain. You die again, again, laughing as they rip you apart.
You’re still laughing when you realize you can’t feel the pain anymore.
You smile through the House, sticking to your lines, a sickly sweet smile plastered on your face the whole time as you zone out. You don’t feel anything during snack times, nor the mirror photo, nor the final strike against the King. You watch Mira burst into tears at the Head Housemaiden’s praise, Odile smiling gently and Isabeau and Bonnie offering her a comforting hug. You feel alien, numb, elated, manic, blank. Isabeau doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t even make it through his confession.
You feel empty when you hear the Head Housemaiden finish her speech.
Was that… all it took? All of this, everything you’ve done, over in an instant. You didn’t even need to do the procedure. Somehow, you feel lighter than ever, floating above it all. You can’t even bring yourself to frown when the party decides to go their separate ways.
What a stupid, sentimental person you were, trapping them with you for a fleeting feeling. You can’t imagine why you felt it at all.