Fanfiction: Life After Looping (In Stars and Time)
Here's my first attempt at In Stars and Time fanfiction!
In canon, Siffrin uses he/they pronouns. From the fact that their friends regularly switch between the two, I've assumed that Siffrin likes to be referred to with a mix of pronouns, and I've used both 'he' and 'they' in the narration of this fic. I've tried to do this as smoothly as possible, switching here and there based on what feels clear or sounds good, so hopefully it's easy to follow!
Title: Life After Looping
Fandom: In Stars and Time
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,200
Summary: It can be hard, sometimes, for Siffrin to remember that the loops are over. Sometimes that's just frustrating. Sometimes it's dangerous.
Warnings: Disordered eating and references to suicide, but not quite as dark as those warnings make this fic sound.
The journey to Bambouche is a long one, and the infrastructure of Vaugarde is, understandably, kind of a mess. A lot of people got frozen across the country, and, now that they can move again, they all have their own priorities. People want to see their loved ones, which means they need to travel.
Siffrin’s already with their loved ones, of course. But what all this means is that, even as the saviours, they don’t have a hope of finding a cart to hire.
That’s fine. They’re all used to travelling on foot by now. And, honestly, Siffrin’s not going to complain about anything that makes this journey last longer.
They flinch at the thought; it feels like they’re inviting Time Craft back into their life.
Okay. There is one specific journey-extending thing they would absolutely complain about.
-
Odile falls into step beside Siffrin as the five of them cross the Toujours Plains. Siffrin glances up at her, wondering if she has something to say. But she’s not looking at him; she’s staying focused on the horizon ahead.
Siffrin just keeps walking, appreciating her silent company.
By the time Siffrin realises his mistake, it’s already too late. Odile has been steering him slowly away from the rest of the group. She very much has something to say, and she wants to say it in private, far enough from the others not to be heard, which automatically makes it terrifying.
Siffrin throws a frantic glance back at the others. Mira and Isa are laughing together as they walk, Bonnie sleeping on Isa’s shoulders. They’re out of earshot. He can’t stop this happening now.
Well, he could dart around Odile and back to everyone else, he guesses. But then he won’t be able to look Odile in the eye for weeks.
When he glances at Odile, he finds her looking at him. His stomach jolts, an experience not improved by how empty it feels.
“You haven’t been eating any of the leftovers,” she says.
Siffrin’s been hoping nobody had noticed. He’ll accept them from Bonnie with a smile. And then he’ll store them away, in the vague hope he’ll be able to stomach them later. “I haven’t been hungry.”
“You should be,” Odile says, raising her eyebrows. “It’s been a while since you last ate, and I know you don’t usually have problems with your appetite. So are you unwell, or are you lying?”
She’s always so direct. Siffrin’s usual tactics - evade, avoid, tell half-truths - are powerless against her.
“I can’t eat the same thing twice,” they admit. “Not so close together.”
Odile frowns. “That’s a new development.”
It doesn’t feel new. It feels like they developed this aversion far too long ago. But there was nothing else to eat, so they didn’t have a choice.
“Ah,” Odile says. “Is this to do with the loops?”
Sometimes Siffrin could swear Odile can read minds.
It always feels dangerous, giving away anything about the loops. Siffrin kept them secret for so long.
They nod. “It was just... the same thing, over and over again. And, yeah, it was all good food. But it was the same.”
They can’t believe this experience made them lose their taste for malanga fritters. That might be the worst part.
Okay, not the worst part. But it’s close.
“I’m not surprised your ordeal put you off,” Odile says. “But you need to eat. You should tell Bonnie.”
Siffrin shakes their head. “I don’t want to give them more work.”
Odile doesn’t look impressed. Siffrin avoids her gaze.
“You have three options,” she says. “You can tell Bonnie you can’t eat leftovers. You can take responsibility for arranging your own meals. Or I will personally force-feed you croissants every time we stop to eat.”
Siffrin is going to have to arrange his own meals, he guesses. He can’t put Bonnie under the pressure of preparing fresh food every time just for him.
But it’ll hurt Bonnie if Siffrin stops eating their snacks and doesn’t explain why.
“I’ll talk to Bonnie,” he mumbles.
“Sensible move,” Odile says. “Is anything else about the loops still bothering you?”
Siffrin shrugs. “They’re over, right?”
-
Being reminded of the loops feels like a loop in itself; it happens twenty times a day. Mira will say something with a particular cadence, or Bonnie will laugh in a particular way. Large buildings, big trees, high places, keys, libraries: they all make Siffrin feel sick.
They can’t eat pains au chocolat any more. They can’t even look at bananas. And then there are the leftovers; Siffrin hasn’t found the right time to talk to Bonnie about that yet.
It helps that they’re not wearing their hat any more. It still feels strange not to have the weight and the shade of it, the option of ducking their head to hide their expression. But, if they start to feel they’re somehow back there, they can raise their hand to check it’s still gone.
It doesn’t work when they wake in a panic in the middle of the night. It’s not like they slept with the hat on in the loops. But it helps, most of the time.
-
“Are we all ready to start moving again?” Odile asks.
Siffrin nods, climbs to their feet, brushing blades of grass from their cloak. They look around to check on the others. Everyone seems prepared, with the exception of Bonnie, who is, predictably, distracted.
“That tree’s really tall,” Bonnie mumbles, staring up at it. They turn to the rest of the group. “Hey, Odile, why are you afraid of heights?”
“Heights are dangerous,” Odile says. “Do I need more of a reason than that?”
“I just think it’s weird,” Bonnie says. “Because you’re tall. So heights should seem normal, right?”
“Thank you, Boniface,” Odile says. “I respect your input, but I might seek another perspective from someone old enough to know where babies come from.”
“I know where babies come from,” Bonnie protests. “But it’s gross! It’s so gross! Why do so many people have babies?”
Odile laughs, quietly. “You’ll feel different about it once you’re older.”
“They might not,” Siffrin says.
Odile raises her eyebrows. “No?”
“I feel like some people just aren’t interested in sex,” Siffrin says. “I mean, I’m not, and Mira’s not, so it seems like there must be other-”
He sees Mira’s expression and freezes. That’s not his thing to talk about; that’s not his thing to know. This isn’t one of the loops where she trusted him enough to tell him about that. And Siffrin just blurted it out in front of everyone.
She looks horrified.
He grabs his dagger and-
“Siffrin!”
That terrified chorus of his name is something he’s heard and ignored before, obviously. But this time something about it blends with the sudden sense that wait, I shouldn’t be doing this, and he freezes with the dagger against his throat.
He looks around at their wide, horrified eyes, and it hits him: he’s not in the House. He’s not in the loop. If he dies now, here, it’s real.
It’s real. They’ll just carry on with their lives. And he’ll have cut his own throat open in front of them. And they’ll never know why.
He’s okay, it’s okay, he stopped himself in time, he didn’t-
But.
But they saw this.
It scares him more than the near-death experience, it scares him more than the first time they faced the King. He can’t undo this! They saw this, they’re seeing it right now! He’s standing here! About to stab himself! And they know!
The energy goes out of his body, suddenly, all the adrenaline, and Siffrin - he knows this feeling, he’s felt it while sparring, it’s Odile using her slowing Craft on him-
Siffrin pitches forward and blacks out.
-
Siffrin wakes looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. They’re in a bed; it must be an inn. There’s the momentary relief every time they wake to something unfamiliar - it’s new, it’s something new, they’re not back in the loops - and then it hits them.
Stars. Stars stars stars.
Siffrin scrambles out of the bed. They don’t even know what they’re planning: some kind of wild dream of running far enough away that they never have to deal with this. Standing up is a mistake, and they have to brace their hand on the wall so they don’t just go straight down again.
“Are you okay?” Isa asks. Because, oh, stars, Isa is in the room. It’s probably too late to pretend they’re still unconscious.
Speaking of which...
“Did I pass out?” Siffrin asks. “I thought Odile was just slowing me down.”
“She said you hadn’t been eating properly,” Isa says. There’s a look in his eye that Siffrin knows and hates, a look that says we’re going to have to talk about this at some point. “Apparently that could’ve amplified the effect of her Craft.” He gestures to a plate on the table next to him. “So how about you eat something, and then we talk about what just happened?”
-
The food turns out to be small galettes, made with spinach and cheese. They’re good. And they’re not something Siffrin’s had recently, so he can eat them. Did Odile tell the others he can’t eat the same thing too close together?
Did Bonnie make these for Siffrin after he passed out? Forced to think about Siffrin lying unconscious the whole time? It doesn’t feel good to picture.
Isa looks relieved to see him eating, and that relief doesn’t feel great either. Siffrin didn’t want to make anyone worry about him. But he guesses that’s what your friends do when you hold a dagger to your throat.
Which reminds him. “Where’s my dagger?”
Isa’s expression immediately makes Siffrin regret asking. Loop back: it’s still their first instinct, and they wince their eye shut.
“Mira has it,” Isa says, after a moment. “If you want it back, you’re going to have to negotiate with her.”
“I need a weapon,” Siffrin says. “What if we have to fight?”
“We’ll protect you,” Isa says.
It makes Siffrin think of the time they left the others to face the King without them, to fight and die while Siffrin was safe back at Dormont. They set down their half-eaten galette, their appetite suddenly gone. “What if I need to protect you?”
“In the unlikely event that the inn staff attack us,” Isa says, “I promise I’ll handle it.”
-
They talk a little while they’re eating. They’re in a small village, apparently, and Isa carried Siffrin here, both of which Siffrin could have deduced from the houses through the window and the fact that Isa is made entirely of muscle. Siffrin tries to pretend they’re just making casual conversation, that this talk isn’t inevitably going to be followed by a talk.
“Okay,” Isa says, once they’re left with a plate of crumbs. “I think we need to have a conversation.”
It doesn’t sound appealing. But it’s hard to see any way out of it. Siffrin doesn’t say anything.
“I’d love to be wrong,” Isa says. “But it looked like you, uh. It looked like you were trying to hurt yourself.”
Siffrin shakes his head. “I was just trying to loop back.”
Isa looks startled. “You...”
“The loops ended when I died,” Siffrin explains. “So I was trying to loop back. I didn’t want to...” He makes a vague gesture that doesn’t really mean anything, in the hope that it’ll somehow get his intentions across.
“You... wanted to get back to the loops?” Isa asks.
The words jolt Siffrin’s insides. “No. Stars, no. I just - I just forgot I wasn’t still in there, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Isa echoes. “You could have died.”
He could have, couldn’t he? He guesses it hadn’t really hit him until this moment; he’s been so caught up in thinking about everyone’s reaction. He could have died. He could be dead right now.
“I know,” Siffrin says at last. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Isa sighs, scrubs his hand through his hair. It’s a moment before he speaks. “Why did you want to loop back?”
This is going to sound so stupid. “I thought I’d upset Mira.”
“So,” Isa says. He pauses, breathes slowly in and out, the way Siffrin does. “So you tried to stab yourself.”
Technically, no. I tried to cut my own throat. The thought comes suddenly to Siffrin’s mind, and they have to suppress an unbelievably inappropriate laugh.
“That’s something you did in the loops?” Isa asks. “If you upset us?”
“I guess so,” Siffrin says, after a pause, because it feels like a better answer than yes. “If I... if I hurt any of you, I could just loop back, and it was fine.” Fine except for the inside of Siffrin’s head, at least. “I think what really scares me is that... I mean, I forgot it was over. Maybe I’ll forget again and hurt you guys, and then I won’t be able to undo it.”
There’s a long silence. It makes Siffrin feel sick to their stomach. Isa is usually so quick with reassurance. But apparently he has to think about this.
And there’s no looping back. Siffrin can’t unsay what they just said; Isa has heard it now.
“Did you hurt us?” Isa asks.
Siffrin flinches. “You remember I said all those terrible things to you, right? I did everything right on so many loops, and the one that’s sticking is the one where I messed everything up.” The words scrape painfully in their throat. “I wish you hadn’t seen that part of me.”
“I’m glad it happened,” Isa says. “I want to see every part of you. Uh, in a metaphorical sense, I mean. You’re someone who matters to me, so I want to know you better.”
It feels like most of Siffrin isn’t worth knowing. But they don’t want to argue about this. “Okay.”
There’s another pause. It makes Siffrin’s hands itch for their dagger.
“So,” Isa says. “In the interests of knowing you better. Did you get into the habit of hurting us? On purpose?”
“Never on purpose,” Siffrin says at once. “I - I mean-” Stars. They haven’t had this thought before, and it suddenly terrifies them. It’s hard to draw in enough breath to express what’s in their head. “I mean, my memory ended up getting... patchier than usual. Everything was just the same, over and over. I don’t really remember a lot of the loops. I - I don’t really know what I did.”
“Well,” Isa says, carefully, “I feel like, if you started hurting us, you’d find that memorable. I know you keep a lot to yourself, but I think I know you well enough to say you’d remember it if you, like, started stabbing me in the face on every loop.” He waves a hand across his own face. “Either you’d ruin these handsome looks or you’d give me a hot scar, and I’m pretty sure you’d find either of those memorable.”
Siffrin shakes his head. “I wouldn’t attack you. I didn’t attack you. I’m scared I might have... said things. But I know I never - I never stabbed anyone.”
Siffrin knows that, right? He knows. He wouldn’t forget that. He knows.
“Except yourself,” Isa says, quietly.
Siffrin hunches over, hiding his hands in his sleeves.
“You can say what you like to me,” Isa says. “But... you really scared us, you know?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Siffrin mumbles down to his hands.
He knew it would scare them, though. He’s seen it in the loops: the drawn-out minutes of horror when he was inexperienced, when he couldn’t make it quick. The frozen glimpse of realisation on their faces when he got more efficient.
Eventually, he started closing his eye when he did it. It wouldn’t change anything to see their reactions, and, whatever they were feeling, it’d only be for a moment.
From Siffrin’s perspective, at least.
He’s been wondering about that, lately. Did he wipe out those timelines completely, rewrite them with something new? Or are those worlds still out there somewhere, another version of Mira and Isa and Odile and Bonnie trying to understand why Siffrin suddenly abandoned them?
Probably not. They probably went on and faced the King and died without him.
Maybe he never cared about not hurting them at all.
Siffrin breathes in and out, slowly. It doesn’t help. He’s shaking.
Isa’s just finished saying something, he realises, and he looks up sharply. He just - he got so into the habit of tuning things out. His mind still hasn’t really grasped the fact that he only has one chance to hear them now.
Isa is looking at him like he expects something. Siffrin stares back.
“You have no idea what I just said, do you?” Isa asks.
Siffrin always tries to keep their reactions guarded. They don’t like people knowing their thoughts. But Isa sees through them like nobody else, his rock to Siffrin’s scissors.
“It’s okay,” Isa says. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. I get it.”
Siffrin’s grateful that Isa can’t see all of it, at least. They’ve never been able to tell the others that particular detail. I just stopped listening to any of you. I’d heard it all before, and I was bored. Of everything Siffrin did in the loops, that feels like one of the most unforgiveable, and it’s worse because they started so early.
They’re filled, suddenly, with the need to apologise for it. But they can’t apologise for something they’ve never confessed to, so all they can do is apologise for losing focus now. “I’m sorry.”
Isa breaks into a smile. “Hey. Like I said, it’s fine.”
It makes Siffrin feel a little better, and then they’re immediately disgusted with themselves for feeling better. They can’t just apologise for something else and pretend they’re forgiven. That’s not how apologies work.
“So... what did you say?” they ask, instead of admitting to any of that.
Isa winces. “I wanted to know if you’d done that a lot in the loops,” he says. “That... dagger thing. It was more than once or twice, right?”
Siffrin can’t say yes. But they don’t say no, and they see Isa’s small intake of breath when he takes that as confirmation.
“You said just loop back,” Isa said. “You said, if you hurt any of us, you could just loop back. I don’t like that you’re talking about it like it’s such a small thing.”
“I didn’t use the dagger every time,” Siffrin says, quickly. “Just when it wasn’t easy to get to a Tear.”
“When it wasn’t-” Isa cuts himself off, just stares for a moment. “You were... freezing yourself in time? You know that’s still kind of terrifying, right?”
Siffrin spreads their hands. “What was I supposed to do?” They’re trying to make it sound light, but it comes out with a waver behind it, an echo of all the times they asked themselves the same question back in the loops. “Just hang around in the House until I died of old age?”
Silence. Siffrin wishes they hadn’t said anything.
“Sorry,” Isa says. “I guess you had to make some hard decisions.”
Siffrin shifts on their feet, mumbles an intentionally indistinct noise.
“Can you just... promise me you won’t hurt yourself?” Isa asks. “Like, even to loop back. Even just to loop back.”
“I can’t loop back,” Siffrin points out.
“I know that,” Isa says. “But I figure, if you promise, maybe you won’t go for the dagger even if you forget you’re not in the loops again.”
Siffrin isn’t sure if he can trust himself to remember a promise. It’s not like he can remember anything else.
But he guesses he can try.
You’ll always remember this, he tells himself.
“Okay,” he says. “I promise.”
-
“Siffrin!” Bonnie yelps, the instant Siffrin and Isa step out of the inn. “You’re okay! Are you okay? Did you like the food? What were you doing?”
Siffrin freezes. He can’t believe he made Bonnie see that. They’re so young.
He left so many versions of Bonnie back in the loops, after forcing them to see worse. He can’t let himself contemplate whether those versions still exist somewhere; he’s going to choke on it if he thinks about it for too long.
“I thought you’d learnt to tell us things!” Bonnie snaps. “Stupid!”
It’s not that easy, apparently. Even now, Siffrin asks himself whether he’s going to be an open book from now on, and the answer comes back in an instant: definitely not. “You’re right. I’m stupid.”
“Argh!” Bonnie runs into Siffrin’s side, battering their fists against him with uncharacteristic gentleness. It feels like being pelted with pastries, which honestly seems like a metaphor for several of Siffrin’s experiences.
Siffrin holds them until they calm down, and then Isa leads Bonnie away to explain things. Siffrin’s grateful for it. He really wouldn’t know how to talk about what’s been happening in his head to a kid.
Not that he knows how to talk about it with adults, either.
Mira’s the one Siffrin’s really afraid of talking to. She’s standing a short distance away, in the shade of one of the village houses, watching him with as much anxiety on her face as Siffrin is feeling in his gut.
He braces himself and walks over to her. Glances back at the others, to check he won’t be overheard. Odile meets his eye, and he has to look away.
He turns back to Mira and lowers his voice. “Mira, I’m so sorry I told everyone something private about you.”
Mira stares at him for a long few seconds. “You think that’s what I’m worried about?”
Siffrin had guessed that it probably wouldn’t be her only concern. But it feels like the worst way he’s wronged her specifically. “I mean-”
Mira throws herself into Siffrin’s arms. It startles a kind of squeak out of him. But he closes his eye after a moment, tightens his hold.
This... this feels really nice, actually.
-
Predictably, Siffrin ends up having to have long individual talks with Mira and Odile, covering a lot of the same ground as his talk with Isa. It starts to freak him out before long. He has to focus intently on the person he’s talking to, different person, different conversation, to remind himself that he’s not looping again.
“You... you keep staring at me,” Mira says at one point, frowning a little.
Siffrin drops their gaze. Combs quickly through things they could say in their head: I’m just glad to see you, or I’m not staring, or-
The truth. They could tell the truth. It’s not an option they even considered at first; it kind of scares them to think of it. But they could. They probably should.
“Sorry,” they say, looking up at her. “I had a conversation a lot like this with Isa. I’m just... trying to remember this isn’t the same thing. So I know I’m not looping.”
“Oh,” Mira says, and then, “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. We can stop talking about this if you want.”
Siffrin has never wanted anything more. They grit their teeth, hard.
“No,” they say, “it’s okay. You probably need to know what’s going on with me.”
Besides, they should make Mira the same promise they made to Isa. Don’t hurt yourself, even to loop back. If Siffrin forgets one of the promises, maybe they’ll at least remember the other.
It feels like some kind of progress, maybe.
-
“Okay,” Siffrin says at last. “Are we ready to go?”
The serious conversations are over by now, he thinks. He hopes.
“We’ve actually discussed this,” Odile says, which is always a scary opening. “We thought it might be best to stay another couple of nights here, so you have time to recover. You lost consciousness; it’s probably best not to launch straight into walking long distances.”
Siffrin hesitates. It’s probably not a bad idea. And every extra day added to their journey is another day they spend with the others.
But the idea of spending a couple of nights in the same place is freaking them out.
They force themselves to admit it. “If I keep waking up in the same place, I feel like I’ll start thinking...”
“Oh,” Mira says, her eyes widening. “Oh, I’ll - I’ll ask if the inn can change our room each night, okay? Or we’ll find somewhere else in the village to stay, if that isn’t enough.”
Stars, Siffrin doesn’t deserve to know her.
Siffrin shakes their head. “You guys are way too nice to me.”
“I happen to think we’re exactly as nice as we should be to someone we care about,” Isa says. “Well. Honestly, Bonnie and Odile could stand to be a bit nicer.”
Bonnie makes a grumbling noise. There’s a pause.
“So,” Isa says. “Sif. Are you totally fixed and fine now? Did we talk all your problems into leaving you alone forever?”
It startles Siffrin into laughing, quietly. “Yeah, okay. Absolutely.”
“Great!” Isa says, brightly. “Just so you know, though. Obviously you’re never going to have a problem again. But, if you somehow do, come to us, okay?”
He’d like to promise. But he knows from experience that it’s not that easy. Admitting anything to anyone is still a long, hard battle against himself, and he loses more often than not.
But he can promise himself that he’ll fight it, at least.
Siffrin nods. “I’ll try.”
In canon, Siffrin uses he/they pronouns. From the fact that their friends regularly switch between the two, I've assumed that Siffrin likes to be referred to with a mix of pronouns, and I've used both 'he' and 'they' in the narration of this fic. I've tried to do this as smoothly as possible, switching here and there based on what feels clear or sounds good, so hopefully it's easy to follow!
Title: Life After Looping
Fandom: In Stars and Time
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,200
Summary: It can be hard, sometimes, for Siffrin to remember that the loops are over. Sometimes that's just frustrating. Sometimes it's dangerous.
Warnings: Disordered eating and references to suicide, but not quite as dark as those warnings make this fic sound.
The journey to Bambouche is a long one, and the infrastructure of Vaugarde is, understandably, kind of a mess. A lot of people got frozen across the country, and, now that they can move again, they all have their own priorities. People want to see their loved ones, which means they need to travel.
Siffrin’s already with their loved ones, of course. But what all this means is that, even as the saviours, they don’t have a hope of finding a cart to hire.
That’s fine. They’re all used to travelling on foot by now. And, honestly, Siffrin’s not going to complain about anything that makes this journey last longer.
They flinch at the thought; it feels like they’re inviting Time Craft back into their life.
Okay. There is one specific journey-extending thing they would absolutely complain about.
-
Odile falls into step beside Siffrin as the five of them cross the Toujours Plains. Siffrin glances up at her, wondering if she has something to say. But she’s not looking at him; she’s staying focused on the horizon ahead.
Siffrin just keeps walking, appreciating her silent company.
By the time Siffrin realises his mistake, it’s already too late. Odile has been steering him slowly away from the rest of the group. She very much has something to say, and she wants to say it in private, far enough from the others not to be heard, which automatically makes it terrifying.
Siffrin throws a frantic glance back at the others. Mira and Isa are laughing together as they walk, Bonnie sleeping on Isa’s shoulders. They’re out of earshot. He can’t stop this happening now.
Well, he could dart around Odile and back to everyone else, he guesses. But then he won’t be able to look Odile in the eye for weeks.
When he glances at Odile, he finds her looking at him. His stomach jolts, an experience not improved by how empty it feels.
“You haven’t been eating any of the leftovers,” she says.
Siffrin’s been hoping nobody had noticed. He’ll accept them from Bonnie with a smile. And then he’ll store them away, in the vague hope he’ll be able to stomach them later. “I haven’t been hungry.”
“You should be,” Odile says, raising her eyebrows. “It’s been a while since you last ate, and I know you don’t usually have problems with your appetite. So are you unwell, or are you lying?”
She’s always so direct. Siffrin’s usual tactics - evade, avoid, tell half-truths - are powerless against her.
“I can’t eat the same thing twice,” they admit. “Not so close together.”
Odile frowns. “That’s a new development.”
It doesn’t feel new. It feels like they developed this aversion far too long ago. But there was nothing else to eat, so they didn’t have a choice.
“Ah,” Odile says. “Is this to do with the loops?”
Sometimes Siffrin could swear Odile can read minds.
It always feels dangerous, giving away anything about the loops. Siffrin kept them secret for so long.
They nod. “It was just... the same thing, over and over again. And, yeah, it was all good food. But it was the same.”
They can’t believe this experience made them lose their taste for malanga fritters. That might be the worst part.
Okay, not the worst part. But it’s close.
“I’m not surprised your ordeal put you off,” Odile says. “But you need to eat. You should tell Bonnie.”
Siffrin shakes their head. “I don’t want to give them more work.”
Odile doesn’t look impressed. Siffrin avoids her gaze.
“You have three options,” she says. “You can tell Bonnie you can’t eat leftovers. You can take responsibility for arranging your own meals. Or I will personally force-feed you croissants every time we stop to eat.”
Siffrin is going to have to arrange his own meals, he guesses. He can’t put Bonnie under the pressure of preparing fresh food every time just for him.
But it’ll hurt Bonnie if Siffrin stops eating their snacks and doesn’t explain why.
“I’ll talk to Bonnie,” he mumbles.
“Sensible move,” Odile says. “Is anything else about the loops still bothering you?”
Siffrin shrugs. “They’re over, right?”
-
Being reminded of the loops feels like a loop in itself; it happens twenty times a day. Mira will say something with a particular cadence, or Bonnie will laugh in a particular way. Large buildings, big trees, high places, keys, libraries: they all make Siffrin feel sick.
They can’t eat pains au chocolat any more. They can’t even look at bananas. And then there are the leftovers; Siffrin hasn’t found the right time to talk to Bonnie about that yet.
It helps that they’re not wearing their hat any more. It still feels strange not to have the weight and the shade of it, the option of ducking their head to hide their expression. But, if they start to feel they’re somehow back there, they can raise their hand to check it’s still gone.
It doesn’t work when they wake in a panic in the middle of the night. It’s not like they slept with the hat on in the loops. But it helps, most of the time.
-
“Are we all ready to start moving again?” Odile asks.
Siffrin nods, climbs to their feet, brushing blades of grass from their cloak. They look around to check on the others. Everyone seems prepared, with the exception of Bonnie, who is, predictably, distracted.
“That tree’s really tall,” Bonnie mumbles, staring up at it. They turn to the rest of the group. “Hey, Odile, why are you afraid of heights?”
“Heights are dangerous,” Odile says. “Do I need more of a reason than that?”
“I just think it’s weird,” Bonnie says. “Because you’re tall. So heights should seem normal, right?”
“Thank you, Boniface,” Odile says. “I respect your input, but I might seek another perspective from someone old enough to know where babies come from.”
“I know where babies come from,” Bonnie protests. “But it’s gross! It’s so gross! Why do so many people have babies?”
Odile laughs, quietly. “You’ll feel different about it once you’re older.”
“They might not,” Siffrin says.
Odile raises her eyebrows. “No?”
“I feel like some people just aren’t interested in sex,” Siffrin says. “I mean, I’m not, and Mira’s not, so it seems like there must be other-”
He sees Mira’s expression and freezes. That’s not his thing to talk about; that’s not his thing to know. This isn’t one of the loops where she trusted him enough to tell him about that. And Siffrin just blurted it out in front of everyone.
She looks horrified.
He grabs his dagger and-
“Siffrin!”
That terrified chorus of his name is something he’s heard and ignored before, obviously. But this time something about it blends with the sudden sense that wait, I shouldn’t be doing this, and he freezes with the dagger against his throat.
He looks around at their wide, horrified eyes, and it hits him: he’s not in the House. He’s not in the loop. If he dies now, here, it’s real.
It’s real. They’ll just carry on with their lives. And he’ll have cut his own throat open in front of them. And they’ll never know why.
He’s okay, it’s okay, he stopped himself in time, he didn’t-
But.
But they saw this.
It scares him more than the near-death experience, it scares him more than the first time they faced the King. He can’t undo this! They saw this, they’re seeing it right now! He’s standing here! About to stab himself! And they know!
The energy goes out of his body, suddenly, all the adrenaline, and Siffrin - he knows this feeling, he’s felt it while sparring, it’s Odile using her slowing Craft on him-
Siffrin pitches forward and blacks out.
-
Siffrin wakes looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. They’re in a bed; it must be an inn. There’s the momentary relief every time they wake to something unfamiliar - it’s new, it’s something new, they’re not back in the loops - and then it hits them.
Stars. Stars stars stars.
Siffrin scrambles out of the bed. They don’t even know what they’re planning: some kind of wild dream of running far enough away that they never have to deal with this. Standing up is a mistake, and they have to brace their hand on the wall so they don’t just go straight down again.
“Are you okay?” Isa asks. Because, oh, stars, Isa is in the room. It’s probably too late to pretend they’re still unconscious.
Speaking of which...
“Did I pass out?” Siffrin asks. “I thought Odile was just slowing me down.”
“She said you hadn’t been eating properly,” Isa says. There’s a look in his eye that Siffrin knows and hates, a look that says we’re going to have to talk about this at some point. “Apparently that could’ve amplified the effect of her Craft.” He gestures to a plate on the table next to him. “So how about you eat something, and then we talk about what just happened?”
-
The food turns out to be small galettes, made with spinach and cheese. They’re good. And they’re not something Siffrin’s had recently, so he can eat them. Did Odile tell the others he can’t eat the same thing too close together?
Did Bonnie make these for Siffrin after he passed out? Forced to think about Siffrin lying unconscious the whole time? It doesn’t feel good to picture.
Isa looks relieved to see him eating, and that relief doesn’t feel great either. Siffrin didn’t want to make anyone worry about him. But he guesses that’s what your friends do when you hold a dagger to your throat.
Which reminds him. “Where’s my dagger?”
Isa’s expression immediately makes Siffrin regret asking. Loop back: it’s still their first instinct, and they wince their eye shut.
“Mira has it,” Isa says, after a moment. “If you want it back, you’re going to have to negotiate with her.”
“I need a weapon,” Siffrin says. “What if we have to fight?”
“We’ll protect you,” Isa says.
It makes Siffrin think of the time they left the others to face the King without them, to fight and die while Siffrin was safe back at Dormont. They set down their half-eaten galette, their appetite suddenly gone. “What if I need to protect you?”
“In the unlikely event that the inn staff attack us,” Isa says, “I promise I’ll handle it.”
-
They talk a little while they’re eating. They’re in a small village, apparently, and Isa carried Siffrin here, both of which Siffrin could have deduced from the houses through the window and the fact that Isa is made entirely of muscle. Siffrin tries to pretend they’re just making casual conversation, that this talk isn’t inevitably going to be followed by a talk.
“Okay,” Isa says, once they’re left with a plate of crumbs. “I think we need to have a conversation.”
It doesn’t sound appealing. But it’s hard to see any way out of it. Siffrin doesn’t say anything.
“I’d love to be wrong,” Isa says. “But it looked like you, uh. It looked like you were trying to hurt yourself.”
Siffrin shakes his head. “I was just trying to loop back.”
Isa looks startled. “You...”
“The loops ended when I died,” Siffrin explains. “So I was trying to loop back. I didn’t want to...” He makes a vague gesture that doesn’t really mean anything, in the hope that it’ll somehow get his intentions across.
“You... wanted to get back to the loops?” Isa asks.
The words jolt Siffrin’s insides. “No. Stars, no. I just - I just forgot I wasn’t still in there, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Isa echoes. “You could have died.”
He could have, couldn’t he? He guesses it hadn’t really hit him until this moment; he’s been so caught up in thinking about everyone’s reaction. He could have died. He could be dead right now.
“I know,” Siffrin says at last. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Isa sighs, scrubs his hand through his hair. It’s a moment before he speaks. “Why did you want to loop back?”
This is going to sound so stupid. “I thought I’d upset Mira.”
“So,” Isa says. He pauses, breathes slowly in and out, the way Siffrin does. “So you tried to stab yourself.”
Technically, no. I tried to cut my own throat. The thought comes suddenly to Siffrin’s mind, and they have to suppress an unbelievably inappropriate laugh.
“That’s something you did in the loops?” Isa asks. “If you upset us?”
“I guess so,” Siffrin says, after a pause, because it feels like a better answer than yes. “If I... if I hurt any of you, I could just loop back, and it was fine.” Fine except for the inside of Siffrin’s head, at least. “I think what really scares me is that... I mean, I forgot it was over. Maybe I’ll forget again and hurt you guys, and then I won’t be able to undo it.”
There’s a long silence. It makes Siffrin feel sick to their stomach. Isa is usually so quick with reassurance. But apparently he has to think about this.
And there’s no looping back. Siffrin can’t unsay what they just said; Isa has heard it now.
“Did you hurt us?” Isa asks.
Siffrin flinches. “You remember I said all those terrible things to you, right? I did everything right on so many loops, and the one that’s sticking is the one where I messed everything up.” The words scrape painfully in their throat. “I wish you hadn’t seen that part of me.”
“I’m glad it happened,” Isa says. “I want to see every part of you. Uh, in a metaphorical sense, I mean. You’re someone who matters to me, so I want to know you better.”
It feels like most of Siffrin isn’t worth knowing. But they don’t want to argue about this. “Okay.”
There’s another pause. It makes Siffrin’s hands itch for their dagger.
“So,” Isa says. “In the interests of knowing you better. Did you get into the habit of hurting us? On purpose?”
“Never on purpose,” Siffrin says at once. “I - I mean-” Stars. They haven’t had this thought before, and it suddenly terrifies them. It’s hard to draw in enough breath to express what’s in their head. “I mean, my memory ended up getting... patchier than usual. Everything was just the same, over and over. I don’t really remember a lot of the loops. I - I don’t really know what I did.”
“Well,” Isa says, carefully, “I feel like, if you started hurting us, you’d find that memorable. I know you keep a lot to yourself, but I think I know you well enough to say you’d remember it if you, like, started stabbing me in the face on every loop.” He waves a hand across his own face. “Either you’d ruin these handsome looks or you’d give me a hot scar, and I’m pretty sure you’d find either of those memorable.”
Siffrin shakes his head. “I wouldn’t attack you. I didn’t attack you. I’m scared I might have... said things. But I know I never - I never stabbed anyone.”
Siffrin knows that, right? He knows. He wouldn’t forget that. He knows.
“Except yourself,” Isa says, quietly.
Siffrin hunches over, hiding his hands in his sleeves.
“You can say what you like to me,” Isa says. “But... you really scared us, you know?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Siffrin mumbles down to his hands.
He knew it would scare them, though. He’s seen it in the loops: the drawn-out minutes of horror when he was inexperienced, when he couldn’t make it quick. The frozen glimpse of realisation on their faces when he got more efficient.
Eventually, he started closing his eye when he did it. It wouldn’t change anything to see their reactions, and, whatever they were feeling, it’d only be for a moment.
From Siffrin’s perspective, at least.
He’s been wondering about that, lately. Did he wipe out those timelines completely, rewrite them with something new? Or are those worlds still out there somewhere, another version of Mira and Isa and Odile and Bonnie trying to understand why Siffrin suddenly abandoned them?
Probably not. They probably went on and faced the King and died without him.
Maybe he never cared about not hurting them at all.
Siffrin breathes in and out, slowly. It doesn’t help. He’s shaking.
Isa’s just finished saying something, he realises, and he looks up sharply. He just - he got so into the habit of tuning things out. His mind still hasn’t really grasped the fact that he only has one chance to hear them now.
Isa is looking at him like he expects something. Siffrin stares back.
“You have no idea what I just said, do you?” Isa asks.
Siffrin always tries to keep their reactions guarded. They don’t like people knowing their thoughts. But Isa sees through them like nobody else, his rock to Siffrin’s scissors.
“It’s okay,” Isa says. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. I get it.”
Siffrin’s grateful that Isa can’t see all of it, at least. They’ve never been able to tell the others that particular detail. I just stopped listening to any of you. I’d heard it all before, and I was bored. Of everything Siffrin did in the loops, that feels like one of the most unforgiveable, and it’s worse because they started so early.
They’re filled, suddenly, with the need to apologise for it. But they can’t apologise for something they’ve never confessed to, so all they can do is apologise for losing focus now. “I’m sorry.”
Isa breaks into a smile. “Hey. Like I said, it’s fine.”
It makes Siffrin feel a little better, and then they’re immediately disgusted with themselves for feeling better. They can’t just apologise for something else and pretend they’re forgiven. That’s not how apologies work.
“So... what did you say?” they ask, instead of admitting to any of that.
Isa winces. “I wanted to know if you’d done that a lot in the loops,” he says. “That... dagger thing. It was more than once or twice, right?”
Siffrin can’t say yes. But they don’t say no, and they see Isa’s small intake of breath when he takes that as confirmation.
“You said just loop back,” Isa said. “You said, if you hurt any of us, you could just loop back. I don’t like that you’re talking about it like it’s such a small thing.”
“I didn’t use the dagger every time,” Siffrin says, quickly. “Just when it wasn’t easy to get to a Tear.”
“When it wasn’t-” Isa cuts himself off, just stares for a moment. “You were... freezing yourself in time? You know that’s still kind of terrifying, right?”
Siffrin spreads their hands. “What was I supposed to do?” They’re trying to make it sound light, but it comes out with a waver behind it, an echo of all the times they asked themselves the same question back in the loops. “Just hang around in the House until I died of old age?”
Silence. Siffrin wishes they hadn’t said anything.
“Sorry,” Isa says. “I guess you had to make some hard decisions.”
Siffrin shifts on their feet, mumbles an intentionally indistinct noise.
“Can you just... promise me you won’t hurt yourself?” Isa asks. “Like, even to loop back. Even just to loop back.”
“I can’t loop back,” Siffrin points out.
“I know that,” Isa says. “But I figure, if you promise, maybe you won’t go for the dagger even if you forget you’re not in the loops again.”
Siffrin isn’t sure if he can trust himself to remember a promise. It’s not like he can remember anything else.
But he guesses he can try.
You’ll always remember this, he tells himself.
“Okay,” he says. “I promise.”
-
“Siffrin!” Bonnie yelps, the instant Siffrin and Isa step out of the inn. “You’re okay! Are you okay? Did you like the food? What were you doing?”
Siffrin freezes. He can’t believe he made Bonnie see that. They’re so young.
He left so many versions of Bonnie back in the loops, after forcing them to see worse. He can’t let himself contemplate whether those versions still exist somewhere; he’s going to choke on it if he thinks about it for too long.
“I thought you’d learnt to tell us things!” Bonnie snaps. “Stupid!”
It’s not that easy, apparently. Even now, Siffrin asks himself whether he’s going to be an open book from now on, and the answer comes back in an instant: definitely not. “You’re right. I’m stupid.”
“Argh!” Bonnie runs into Siffrin’s side, battering their fists against him with uncharacteristic gentleness. It feels like being pelted with pastries, which honestly seems like a metaphor for several of Siffrin’s experiences.
Siffrin holds them until they calm down, and then Isa leads Bonnie away to explain things. Siffrin’s grateful for it. He really wouldn’t know how to talk about what’s been happening in his head to a kid.
Not that he knows how to talk about it with adults, either.
Mira’s the one Siffrin’s really afraid of talking to. She’s standing a short distance away, in the shade of one of the village houses, watching him with as much anxiety on her face as Siffrin is feeling in his gut.
He braces himself and walks over to her. Glances back at the others, to check he won’t be overheard. Odile meets his eye, and he has to look away.
He turns back to Mira and lowers his voice. “Mira, I’m so sorry I told everyone something private about you.”
Mira stares at him for a long few seconds. “You think that’s what I’m worried about?”
Siffrin had guessed that it probably wouldn’t be her only concern. But it feels like the worst way he’s wronged her specifically. “I mean-”
Mira throws herself into Siffrin’s arms. It startles a kind of squeak out of him. But he closes his eye after a moment, tightens his hold.
This... this feels really nice, actually.
-
Predictably, Siffrin ends up having to have long individual talks with Mira and Odile, covering a lot of the same ground as his talk with Isa. It starts to freak him out before long. He has to focus intently on the person he’s talking to, different person, different conversation, to remind himself that he’s not looping again.
“You... you keep staring at me,” Mira says at one point, frowning a little.
Siffrin drops their gaze. Combs quickly through things they could say in their head: I’m just glad to see you, or I’m not staring, or-
The truth. They could tell the truth. It’s not an option they even considered at first; it kind of scares them to think of it. But they could. They probably should.
“Sorry,” they say, looking up at her. “I had a conversation a lot like this with Isa. I’m just... trying to remember this isn’t the same thing. So I know I’m not looping.”
“Oh,” Mira says, and then, “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. We can stop talking about this if you want.”
Siffrin has never wanted anything more. They grit their teeth, hard.
“No,” they say, “it’s okay. You probably need to know what’s going on with me.”
Besides, they should make Mira the same promise they made to Isa. Don’t hurt yourself, even to loop back. If Siffrin forgets one of the promises, maybe they’ll at least remember the other.
It feels like some kind of progress, maybe.
-
“Okay,” Siffrin says at last. “Are we ready to go?”
The serious conversations are over by now, he thinks. He hopes.
“We’ve actually discussed this,” Odile says, which is always a scary opening. “We thought it might be best to stay another couple of nights here, so you have time to recover. You lost consciousness; it’s probably best not to launch straight into walking long distances.”
Siffrin hesitates. It’s probably not a bad idea. And every extra day added to their journey is another day they spend with the others.
But the idea of spending a couple of nights in the same place is freaking them out.
They force themselves to admit it. “If I keep waking up in the same place, I feel like I’ll start thinking...”
“Oh,” Mira says, her eyes widening. “Oh, I’ll - I’ll ask if the inn can change our room each night, okay? Or we’ll find somewhere else in the village to stay, if that isn’t enough.”
Stars, Siffrin doesn’t deserve to know her.
Siffrin shakes their head. “You guys are way too nice to me.”
“I happen to think we’re exactly as nice as we should be to someone we care about,” Isa says. “Well. Honestly, Bonnie and Odile could stand to be a bit nicer.”
Bonnie makes a grumbling noise. There’s a pause.
“So,” Isa says. “Sif. Are you totally fixed and fine now? Did we talk all your problems into leaving you alone forever?”
It startles Siffrin into laughing, quietly. “Yeah, okay. Absolutely.”
“Great!” Isa says, brightly. “Just so you know, though. Obviously you’re never going to have a problem again. But, if you somehow do, come to us, okay?”
He’d like to promise. But he knows from experience that it’s not that easy. Admitting anything to anyone is still a long, hard battle against himself, and he loses more often than not.
But he can promise himself that he’ll fight it, at least.
Siffrin nods. “I’ll try.”