Archive of Our Own ^beta

Loop is being weird again.

Which, to be fair, is hardly anything new. They’re weird most days. But today started to feel like something particularly egregious somewhere around between the second and fifth times they’ve bumped into you, because for some reason they insist on walking just a touch too close, a touch too eager, and when they ultimately miss their cues to actually stop when you pause to pick up pieces of kindling for tonight’s fire, it leaves you stumbling forward near to face-planting directly into the dirt.

So yeah. They’re being weird. And annoying.

It’s probably maybe the seventh time that you actually turn to give them a look, and closer to around the twelfth perhaps that you finally halt in your trek to fully whip around and face them properly.

To literally no one’s surprise, they bump into you again, causing you to drop the piece of wood you’ve just picked up. So there it lies, on the ground, motionless as its knobbly pronged end seems to sneer at you in amusement over your blunder.

You glare in return and imagine a myriad of ways something so spindly could be whittled down into miniature model sets of elaborate cutlery.

Just for funsies, and all that.

“...Are you going to pick that up anytime soon, Stardust, or…?”

You look back up to Loop and find them staring at you in what you’ve internally dubbed as their “crab-eating grin”, what with the way the corners of their eyes practically all but curl around themselves in smug satisfaction.

(Yes, that’s an exaggeration. No, you do not think you’re being unfairly dramatic in your assessments whatsoever.)

“Your hands are empty, aren’t they?” you ask, quirking an eyebrow up just enough to prick.

Loop nods with so much emphasis it sends sparks singeing off their head. “They sure are!”

They make zero moves to reach down and grab the stick.

“...Right,” you swipe the kindling back into your hands and tuck it more securely into the growing load. “So, are you gonna start helping anytime soon or are you just here to supervise my stick-gathering skills?”

With a gasp you know they don’t need, Loop rests their hand oh-so-offendedly against their chest (and idly, you wonder if the lid of your dead eye can still twitch). “Stardust, you wound me! As a matter of fact I have taken it upon my shoulders to do the most important part of this process, all by myself! Thank you very much.”

“And what part is that?” you ask.

“To supervise the quality of your stick-gathering skills!”

For a moment, just a single, fleeting moment, you consider how easily it might be to push them over. And then you’re normal again.

With a patience that even you yourself are surprised to find you have, you breathe, in and out, and turn around to get back to your task at hand.

And Loop immediately begins skipping right back up into your space.

“By the way,” they start up a few scant moments and a handful of more run-ins later. “What’s the inside of your cloak look like?”

“Huh?” you look over your shoulder to give them a sidelong glance, for once finding the expression you’re met with to not be that blinding sneer, but rather something...altogether quieter.

Thoughtful, almost.

“Your cloak,” they repeat, gesturing to you as if you need the reminder of where it is that cloak actually sits. “What’s the lining on the inside look like?”

“Don’t...you know?” you ask, hesitation lacing your words as part of you half expects a misstep here to land yourself into some trap you don’t even realize has been laid.

This has to be a trick question, right?

And yet, the response you’re met with is something...incredibly mild, all things considered. Loop looks off to the side, arms wrapped snugly around their midsection as for the first time all afternoon they actually look like they don’t have full control of the entire situation.

It’s...a more vulnerable pose. Something you’ve grown far more familiar with than feels entirely right or fair. But at least you recognize what it means.

The pretenses are dropped, leaving only room for genuinity.

...How rare of them.

Loop shrugs, raising one of their hands to mime at waving something away. “Don’t remember! Been too long and all that, you know how it is~. An—y—ways, what’s the inside look like, hmm~? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

Right...right, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? You’re halfway to feeling something morose, to feeling the need to...you don’t know, say something? Make apologies half-baked that never feel close enough to anything meaningful or significant, but yet stalled at a loss for knowing how to do anything else better.

Or, you know, you would if Loop’s immediate next set of behaviors weren’t so...them.

Before you get a chance to even consider answering their question, they’ve all but flung themself over you, playfully tugging at your cloak in a way that you know is not at all them actually trying to take a peek but wanting to give off the impression otherwise just to annoy you. So, you play along. You shove at their shoulder and snap out a remark or two amounting to insinuating they should go blind themself and leave you alone, which only prompts them to whine and plead all the further, going so far as to start poking at your cheek relentlessly.

So, of course, you are left with no other choice than to throw down your collection of sticks and tackle them ruthlessly to the ground.

By the time Isabeau finally catches up from his own gathering to take stock of your finds, you and Loop are little more than a tussle of limbs and scattered leaves, you with one hand pressed into the side of their face as you do your best to try and keep it pinned into the dirt while they (quite remarkably honestly) somehow manage to get a leg hooked up to try and kick at your shoulder with...middling results.

(You debate for longer than you probably should on how gross it would be to bite them if they don’t actually have skin and all the unhygienic parts that come with that, like sweat and stuff.)

(...Ultimately you decide that no, that’s disgusting. But you will bite their hand instead if an opportunity presents itself.)

But right, Isabeau. He’s here now, and he’s looking down at the both of you with an expression somewhere between perplexion and amusement.

(You see him with that look on his face a lot these days, every time you and Loop are in too close of proximity and the instinct to start throwing rocks at each other gets a bit too strong.)

(The rocks in question are tiny and maybe metaphorical so it’s probably fine. Neither of you have given each other blunt force trauma yet! Besides, a little bit of thrill is good for enrichment. Or, at least that’s what Odile says.)

(...You should probably do it less in front of Bonnie, though. You might start giving them the wrong impression of what is acceptable adult behavior for dealing with your problems.)

(...Anyways.)

“You uh, you guys having fun there?” he asks, hefting his gatherings up in his arms a bit better as he carefully pulls one hand back to scratch at the side of his neck. His eyes always crinkle shut a little bit at the familiar motion, and you realize much too late that...you’re staring a bit too long.

And then Loop kicks you in the face.

And then you’re on the ground.

All you can do is sigh in resignation as they flip up the bottom edge of your cloak, blinding giggle over their triumph, and rush off back towards camp as they lilt farewells to you both.

Stars, they’re insufferable.

“...Sooo,” Isabeau starts, holding out his newly freed hand to help you up. “Normal afternoon?”

...Yeah. All things considered, normal afternoon.

It’s a few nights later that Mirabelle and Odile ask to look at the stars with you.

Which! Isn’t a bad thing! It’s not a bad thing at all!!! But it is kind of a weird thing. Weird though in that same way that you guess is kind of to the left of normal, something harmless but still unexpected that you can’t put a finger on why it happens.

It started because Nille wanted to challenge Isabeau to arm wrestling, and any time that those two get into something like that Bonnie gets all kinds of hyper-excited about it. And when Bonnie gets hyper and excited that directly feeds back into making Nille and Isabeau both more hyper and excited. And then Loop takes it upon themself to find every rhyme and reason for nitpicking apart both of their techniques and how if someone asked them to arm wrestle they would obviously do it so much better than either of them could even dream of. So, of course, Bonnie would then demand that Loop prove it. And then one thing would lead to another and the next thing you’d all know is that there is suddenly a whole lot of shouting and a whole lot of things potentially getting broken.

All of that to say, is it’s a lot of fun! But also kind of...just a lot. So Mirabelle and Odile wanted to get away from the noise, and going off to the nearby field to look at the stars sounded like a better alternative than to just shuffling themselves inside their own tents to try and read or something.

And this way, you get to join them! You get to spend time with them instead of decompressing by yourself in the dark! How could you ever say no to that?

It’s just...unexpected. That they remember to ask you about the stars. That they remember what stars are at all.

...It makes you feel warm.

“Which is your favorite?” Mirabelle asks, her voice reverberating softly through her chest to rise up and tickle at your face where your cheek rests on her shoulder.

You hum, considering the countless lights that you know must all have names, have symbolisms and meanings and histories as vast and great as the sky which holds them. And yet not a single one hangs remembered in your mind. All that remains is the static, echoing behind the thin strain of an ache ever-present when you look up into the Universe’s eternity.

To have a favorite would require knowing them. And you’ve long-since lost every piece of the cosmos that once meant something to you.

You sink deeper into Mirabelle’s side, and look.

“That one,” you say, pointing to something high and bright, for no reason beyond that it’s the first one that catches your eye, and the vaguest sense that the shape of it feels like home.

Mirabelle nods, and her curls brush against your face enough to make you shake with giggles daring to bubble up your throat. There’s a scratching off to your left, in the blind spot that you know Odile occupies. Writing, you presume. Probably taking note of your answer, expecting that someday you’ll forget.

...A fair guess, really.

You all point out a few other notable stars, ones that Mirabelle thinks line up to make circles within circles within circles, a handful clustered together that Odile stares at for long enough you almost wonder if there’s a lost part of her that once knew them too. She keeps taking notes in her book, far more than you think would really make sense after a certain point, and it’s only when you eventually sit yourself up straighter and turn your head that you realize she isn’t so much as writing down words as it is she seems to be...taking note of the sky itself? Her head angled upwards more often than not as she scans the great expanse before hurriedly turning back to copy down whatever it is she sees above.

You want to ask her about it.

...You settle back against Mirabelle, and continue to create new patterns with her instead.

Five new constellations are settled on that night.

It’s a good night.

When Isabeau asks to borrow your cloak, you start to think something might be up.

It’s not unusual for him to ask to take your measurements, and he’s borrowed your shirt and pants a couple of times before just to inspect their construction to get an idea of what specific kinds of cut and fit you find most comfortable. There’s a lot of technical jargon about seams and form and complexities of weaves and particular stitching methods that, quite honestly, all kind of goes over your head. But you get the general gist that it has something or other to do with him making clothes for you, and you’ve since seen a few resounding successful results of that!

The cloak thing, though? That’s got you stumped.

He says he needs it for measuring purposes, and your first thought is that maybe he wants to make you another sometime. Or maybe he’s using that as an excuse to actually study the Craft in the stitching that apparently is what makes it temperature regulate and grow with you. But...he’s already done the latter before, hasn’t he? A few weeks after you left Dormont the conversation came up again, and you got to redo that moment with him. A moment that has since grown into him already having studied and practiced attempts at the Craft further, to varying qualities of results. Regardless, if he wanted to study the source material again, why wouldn’t he just...say as much?

You tell him yes, because you trust him. And you don’t see your cloak again until much later that evening.

“This thing is pretty important to you, right?” he asks when he returns it, as he takes a seat at your side by the campfire. “You’ve had it for a really long time?”

You nod, gently shaking it out from how he had it neatly folded and pinning it back into place over your shoulders. “I guess so. Can’t remember ever not having it, but uh. That probably doesn’t say too much, does it?”

Isabeau does his best to hold back a snort at that, but his willingness to be playful about it makes you smile, and you think that settles his worries a bit if the way his shoulders relax is anything to go by. “I meaaan I wasn’t gonna say it like thaaat, but…”

He makes a non-committal gesture with his hand, and okay you do laugh out loud this time.

“But uh, unrelated to that or anything else or anything at all whatsoever,” he scratches at the back of his neck, his eyes doing that squinting crinkle thing that you love so much you have to consciously keep yourself from poking at his cheek. “Do you like...things changing? Not like! Big capital C Changing or anything!!! Just like, uh, little changes? Like teeny little things that wouldn’t, y’know, make a difference in functionality? Or at least, wouldn’t make a difference in reducing functionality? If that makes sense???”

You...stare at him. For a good long moment. Long enough that you have to pretend to not see sweat beginning to bead on his forehead just to spare him his own embarrassment.

“Isa.”

“Y—yeah Sif?”

“...Are you planning something?”

“What?! Who, me?! Pshh, no! Nooo, no not at all wh—what would—why would you—what would make you even think so?” his eyebrows morph into his hairline, the shade of his cheeks darkening enough you’d think him feverish if you didn’t know any better.

“...Isa.”

“I’M NOT PLANNING ANYTHING I SWEAR!” he all but wails, and you’re half a second away from falling out of your seat on the log with how badly you’ve started to shake from attempting to contain your laughter.

“I dunno, you’re sounding kind of suspicious to me~,” you very nearly sing, and you have to remember to let your voice drop a few notes so it doesn’t come out sounding like something too familiar to a certain other member of your party that you don’t need anyone asking any probing questions about right now.

And to speak of the irritable quasar themself, the sudden approach of a light is all the warning you get before Loop practically teleports to Isabeau’s side, leaning far closer into his space than you usually ever see them dare to even consider, let alone play out.

“Oh Fighter~! You’re looking awfully flushed there, are you alright?” they ask with so much sweetness you nearly want to gag on it.

As for Isabeau, this seems to only make his complexion veer all the more into a direction outside of its usual state. “Um! I’m! Fine! Doing great, actually! Thanks for checking in on me!!!”

...Okay. So, you know the two of them aren’t...close. Not for lack of Isabeau trying! But...you know how Loop keeps him at a distance. And you can’t even blame them for that! You completely get it! But for all their distance and refusal to ever get too buddy-buddy with him, Isabeau at no point ever...acts too weird about it? If anything he probably tries a little too hard to be calm and unassuming around them because you know he knows he makes them uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t understand, so he tries to be a super soothing and friendly guy!

Which makes it more than a little weird to see him clam up so much at their presence like this.

“Hmm, are you sure about that?” Loop asks, grinning so forcefully their eyes close as their hands clasp together in that pose you’ve come to recognize as irritation thinly veiled as sympathy. “Because to me it looks like you’re one second away from falling over! Maybe you should do yourself a favor and get some sleep before you pass out and crack your skull open on a rock~!”

At their last words, ever-so-slightly do they incline their head in your direction, and wink.

...Yeah, the lid of your dead eye deeefinitely can still twitch. You’re pretty sure. Maybe. Probably.

With a laugh that is at least two parts nervousness and one part an obligatory sound to soften the sheer amount of tension now oozing through the air, Isabeau does push himself up to his feet. “Yeah, uh, probably a good idea! I suppose! I’ll defer to your, uh, expertise, Loop, thanks!”

And before you are given a chance to so much as offer a goodnight, he has all but fled into your tent for the rest of the evening.

You give Loop a glare that you hope conveys an emotion somewhere between metrics of “are you serious right now?” and “why can’t you just be normal!!!”, but they don’t even have the decency to look at you before they go skipping off to bother Mirabelle about her latest book find instead.

When you eventually turn in for the night yourself, Isabeau is valiantly pretending to be asleep, and you don’t really have the heart to tell him he’s doing a bad job of it. So you let him pretend, and you burrow into your sleeping back to get your own shut-eye.

You’ll puzzle out...whatever all that was later. If you remember.

Yeah, if you remember.

Odile wants you to go out with her today.

And that’s fine! That is probably one of the most normal things you can do when staying in a village for a few days! Even with her no longer searching as closely for any more familytales after getting to read through the Paperasse one during your stay in Dormont after the defeat of the King, you both still enjoy the quiet reprieve of a good antique crawl!

But it wasn’t so much of a request as it was...a demand. And this is following along on the coattails of Loop waking you up this morning to full-on wrestle you out of your cloak that you accidentally fell asleep in the night before, pulling out some stars-blinded excuse about how “weeell Stardust it was mine first so it’s only fair I get to borrow it sometimes~!” that you KNOW they knew you couldn’t argue against without feeling really really bad so now you’re CLOAKLESS and on a NON-NEGOTIABLE trip with Odile to peruse some old bookstore while EVERYONE ELSE is off doing some secret quest you aren’t allowed to know about no matter how many times you’ve asked!

So yeah. You’re feeling maybe a little bit suspicious today.

It was weird the first time you mentioned to Odile that you should probably meet up with everyone for lunch and she quietly brushed you off. It was bizarre the second time you suggested maybe heading back to the inn to rendezvous with Isabeau at least because he had mentioned a few days ago wanting to look for some autobiography that you’re pretty sure had an eerily similar title to one of the books you passed by on a shelf while Odile scoured for something or other relating to essays on some historical celebration you didn’t quite catch the name of and she just SMIRKED at you of all things and then proceeded to not ANSWER YOU AT ALL before moving on. And it was downright concerning when you very calmly and relaxedly told her, “Hey Odile, I’m starting to get the impression you might be keeping me in here because of some secret scheme everyone else is plotting back at the inn, and I gotta admit I’m feeling a little left out. Care to maybe loop me in on the big secret here?” and her response was to snort, pat your head, and exit the shop to walk down the street to A DIFFERENT BOOKSTORE.

(She didn’t find your pun funny either, but ehhh it would’ve landed better with further context that she doesn’t have yet, anyways. You’ll have to save that one for later.)

By the time you FINALLY head back, the sun is hanging low in the sky, and the first sprinkling of stars have begun to make their appearances. You’re tired, hungry, a little bit crabby if you’re being entirely honest, and more than anything at this point wanting nothing else than to collapse in your bed, buried under at least fifteen different layers of blankets (you’ll settle for two if you have to, you aren’t picky).

But does that happen? No, no it does not. Because the moment you and Odile walk back through that inn bedroom door, you find yourself promptly made closely acquainted with the floor as Bonnie all but launches themself at you at such speeds you didn’t think were possible for anything less than a comet.

“FRIN FRIN FRIN YOU’RE BACK ARE YOU READY TO SEE YOUR GIFT DO YOU WANT US TO GIVE YOU YOUR GIFT NOW YOU GOTTA SEE THE GIFT RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW!!!”

You...think there were words in there, somewhere. Maybe. Considering your position is currently a bit more horizontal than typical, and your lungs a bit emptier than helpful, all you manage in response is to give them a tenuously steady thumbs-up.

“Bonnie, we kind of need them...not plastered on the floor? In order to give them the gift? Maybe???” you hear Mirabelle’s voice waver somewhere between wringing itself out in worry and wanting to laugh about the situation anyways.

“UGH, fiiine,” Bonnie oh-so-graciously removes themself from crushing your ribs and scurries back up to their feet before reaching down to very helpfully yank you a little more upwards as well. “Are you co-hare-rent enough to open your gift now???”

“Coherent,” Odile corrects from somewhere behind you, you think.

“Coherent, yeah,” Bonnie nods with utmost seriosity.

You look at them. You look at all of them, from where you are still more or less sitting on the floor, before Isabeau comes over to help pull you all the way back up into standing. Blinking, you’re still trying to process everything that was just said over the past several seconds of which you spent a majority of that time wheezing back a coughing fit from the most severe of Deadly-Preteen-Attacks.

“...My what?”

“Your gift, dummy!” Nille helpfully supplies, still lacking any helpful information to clarify what anyone actually means by that.

“It’s...not my birthday?” You’re pretty sure at least? You’re almost certain you told your party that your birthday was in September, and that was at least four months ago now, if not longer.

The accuracy of that date is...debatable. But it’s what’s always felt right for as long as you can remember, so. Whatever works?

“No, but it’s the Solstice!” Mirabelle chimes, clasping her hands together as you see now that she’s barely keeping herself from bouncing in place. “I know you don’t follow the Change belief so you probably don’t observe the same winter holidays that we do, but Loop says there was a holiday you had back home that you celebrated around this time? And that we should all get you a gift for it?”

A...what?

“Yeah! Something about uh...what did you call it? Some kinda alignment or something?” Isabeau asks, looking between you and Loop as if either of you could possibly have an answer.

And apparently one of you does???

“Oh! Um! Yes! Something like that!” Loop says, tucked further back into the room with their hands conspicuously held behind their back in what you know is not at all one of their more comfortable poses. “But that doesn’t matter right now, an—y—ways~!”

With enough care to keep themself from brushing up against anyone still crowded around by the door to the room, Loop practically dances over towards you before brandishing out from behind their back a carefully wrapped parcel.

You know immediately just from its size what’s inside.

“Did you...just steal my cloak and then wrap it up to give it back to me as a gift?” you ask, taking the offered package and, yes, confirming with how the softness shapes and melds around in your grip that it is, indeed, your cloak.

“You gotta open it and see first!!!” Bonnie insists, not showing nearly as much restraint as Mirabelle and fully jumping up and down with reckless abandon.

Well, you can’t argue with their excitement. It’s awfully infectious, if you’re honest.

You tear into the wrapping to find your cloak inside, but as you give it a good shake to see it hang undone from where it was once neatly folded, a flash of lightlessness catches your eye.

...Huh?

Carefully, you undo the clasps of the safety pins keeping it closed to turn it inside out and find…

an expanse

of the vast

endless

sky.

Soft plush lightless fabric dotted with a map of darkless stars line the entire inside of your cloak, almost shimmering in their contrast. You stretch your arms wide, attempting to see the full picture sewn into its seams, and find sprawling lines connecting from familiar points of brightness knitting together scenes in the dark.

The constellations you made with Mirabelle and Odile a week or so before.

Carefully labeled in handwriting so neat that you immediately recognize as Mirabelle’s own.

…

“Do you know what it is??” Bonnie asks, a touch impatient, but that is eclipsed by far under their elation. “All the pictures and stuff! Belle painted it on the fabric Za picked out, and Dile made the map that Belle used to copy everything off of! I helped with some of the stars and stuff too, but Belle did all the really fancy bits ‘cause she’s better at painting than I am.”

They...all made this for you?

“It was Loop’s idea,” Isabeau explains. “Since finding actual star maps around anywhere is pretty rare, and it’s not like it’s always nighttime or that the sky is always clear, so just looking up isn’t always an option, so this way you can have a map with you at all times that you’re able to look at whenever you want!”

“And also so you won’t forget, of course!” Loop adds, voice all hard edges and syrupy sweet, but...their eyes are soft. They’re relaxed, not pulled up like they do when annoyed or tired or sad or upset or just how they generally are a majority of the time at all.

Like they’re happy. Actually happy.

Or something close to it.

…

“Oh,” is the only intelligible thing you’re able to get out before your voice cracks and your eyes start to sting and your hands start to shake and stars blind it all you’re burying your face in the hand-crafted sliver of the night sky and pretending so very hard that you aren’t turning into a complete wreck right now.

Yeah, no one buys that. Your acting hasn’t been very good for a long time, after all.

But you certainly don’t complain when Bonnie once again launches themself into your side, when Mirabelle holds you both close and rubs her cheek against yours until your hiccups turn into giggles, when Isabeau gathers you all up into a hug so encompassing that even Loop must have gotten sucked in judging by the surprised squawk you hear from their direction, when Nille barrels into your opposite side to Bonnie and rubs at your head roughly in that way you know she likes to do when she’s feeling particularly silly, when Odile’s hand finds a place to rest on your back that is nothing more and nothing less and everything you could ever need from her.

In this moment, you are loved. As you were in every moment leading up to it. As you will be every moment that proceeds after.

“What holiday was the gift for?” you ask, rubbing your thumb up and down across one of the constellations labeled “The Crane”.

Loop sighs, leaning back on their hands as they stare up into the night sky, a perfect mirror to the swathe of fabric nestled against your heart. “I don’t know. There’s...a vague sort of impression of something. I think it came up in a conversation with the Researcher a while back, and she had written it down so that memory didn’t get lost again.”

Instinctively, you feel yourself swallow. “Does...does she know?”

Loop...shrugs. Raises a hand to wave this way and that as their chest rises and falls in a breath taken entirely out of habit. “Maybe. Probably, knowing her. But she hasn’t said anything, so I’d rather not poke that particular hornet’s nest just yet, if you don’t mind.”

You don’t. After everything they’ve done for you, everything they’ve had to give up, the least you can do is return their efforts with patience.

So you nod, and go back to your game of matching the dots on your cloak with the Universe’s eyes.

“...Thank you, by the way,” you say after a moment, before the silence could grow too comfortable that neither of you would want to disturb it. “It means a lot.”

You hear Loop tsk and the faint melody of stardust singeing off a waving hand. “Don’t get sappy on me, you’re going to make me feel something gross like an emotion or two.”

Well, you’re feeling generous tonight, so you spare them anything more theatrical as you obligingly stay silent, save for the rustle of fabric when you rest your head on their shoulder instead.

There’s an instinctive flinch, but it just as easily settles into something quieter and soothed. You don’t need to press the gratitude any further, you think. They probably get it.

After all, who else would know you best?

And so, you breathe. In and out. As the stars above and beside echo their own satisfaction in tandem.

Tonight they shine for you all the brighter.