Chapter Text
Most of the time you spent under that Favour Tree was in the dark.
You were grateful for it—with the exception of that awful period on the third floor, your own loops were bright, bright, bright with burning hair or the sparks of Battle Craft or noonday sun shining into your eyes, motes of light and glowing tears and blood and stars and stars and stars-
All that to say: You appreciated a nice spot in the shade. It meant that in the time between Stardust’s visits, you could try to catch up on all of the sleep you missed over a few-thousand-or-so nights staring at the Clocktower ceiling. And it wasn’t like you’d never slept in a tree before. You’d had a nice temperature-regulating cloak the last time you did that, of course, but you had a feeling you’d never feel warm again no matter what you were wearing, so... No point in wishing for something better than what you had.
That’s how you got into this situation to begin with, after all~!
The most sun you’d felt during Stardust’s loops was right at the end. It had been nighttime when you met their party, the darkness had long since enveloped the House, and by the time you got to see the sun again, well—you were a little more focused on your determination to see the light in Stardust’s eyes fade than reveling in the light hitting your back. Then, of course, you didn’t feel it at all, as you evaporated into thin air. It had felt good. Final. Peaceful, maybe.
You were lying to Stardust—of course you were. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.
Stupid.
You knew better than that—and somewhere, you think he knew it too. But the point wasn’t to actually theorize as to what was happening to you, was it? It was to comfort him.
That’s what you were here for, after all. Helpful old Loop. Reaching out to remind the part of you that was still you that he’s real after all. You had your little soliloquy, you stepped out of character for a little bit, but ultimately you knew your lines.
Stardust needed you. And then he didn’t. Your wish is over—and there’s nothing left for you. No reason to stick around. Of course you would disappear.
You just didn’t expect it to hurt so much. You’d sort of hoped it would be like falling asleep. You’d prayed for rest enough times that you felt you were owed it at this point.
You should have known better on that front, too. Stars know that the universe never bothered to give you anything you actually wanted! The initial experience is like falling sleep, sure. But the sleep itself?
You dream of coughing up starlight.
You don’t even have a mouth to cough it out of, but your lungs burn—they scream to be emptied, to take that final misguided gift-punishment from The Universe and pull it clear out of your veins. The starstuff inside of you calls to the starstuff outside of you, weeping, begging for release. Wishing for freedom. There is no ritual—it never needed its own rituals to follow where it was already leading, after all—and the deft hands of The Universe hold your trembling, glowing face in their cold palms. You could almost mistake it for an embrace, or perhaps a reassurance if you were inclined towards complete and utter idiocy.
Then, they take hold of your jaw and wrench your face open, fingernails like knives digging into the space where you once had lips to create a gaping hole. Light spills down your chin as your face hangs open, motes of light spewing out of you unbidden, lungs too full to even begin to scream. It tastes like smoke—blindingly sweet for just a single, white-hot instant—then what little remained of your tongue is melting out of your mouth, or what could have possibly once been called a mouth, blood and starlight floating in the air around you, like oil and water to each other, the dark and the light.
Somewhere behind your eyes, you think you can see red.
Your face is held firm, still, even as you fight with every fiber of your being to pull away. If you still had bones in your face—if you still had a face at all—you think your jaw would be hanging loose, or perhaps you would be missing the lower half of your face entirely. As it stands now, you remain, restrained such that you can hardly even flinch, eyes forced open to stare unblinking into the merciless face of the cosmos.
You reach a point in the outpour—you have no idea when, it feels already like it’s been eons—where you’re able to take a single, half-an-instant breath in, at which point it finally does become coughing rather than simply laminar plasma flow. You think you would be lying face down if you had any control over your body right now, if you weren’t floating in zero gravity, but of course this experience could not be so kind to you. If you were lying face down, of course, you could drown in your own glowing vomit—and we couldn’t have that, now, could we? You’ve already taken the easy way out once before.
You will not be graced with a chance to do so again.
You cough hard enough that some of the starstuff splatters against your face—it feels like magma, feels like nerves dying and reforming and dying and reforming all over again, an endless cycle of retribution for squandering not one but two wishes. Your eyes don’t have the capacity to water, now—you think that your tear ducts may have been cauterized from the inside out already (if they ever existed in the first place), but the heat haze of liquid fire against starflesh makes the edges of your vision go just a little darker, as if your very corneas are sizzling. They may well be, even.
You can’t move your head—can't move any of your limbs, can’t close your eyes or look away, can’t do anything other than bleed and spew and cough and die and be reborn, a thousand thousand times over, but somewhere, between the blinding light and the smoke and the fumes of this divine, extraterrestrial body dissolving, you become aware of a presence slowly growing at the left-hand side of your vision, just outside of the perception you retain with only one functional eye.
It feels so achingly familiar, though you cannot begin to piece together what it could possibly be—you can’t see it, only dimly aware of it as it grows larger—and speaking of dim, you can’t be certain due to the light spilling out of you, but the white-hot glow around your eyes you have become accustomed to has been gradually, ever-so-slowly becoming just a little less bright.
You don’t get confirmation for a good, long time, long after your nerves have even bothered to try and tell you where exactly the pain is coming from. It only comes when you realize that the solar winds that you have been seeing at the borders of your perception are not the fuzzy edges of your corona after all, but flaming strands of darkless hair, catching alight and then reforming, floating aimlessly as the heat ripples the space around you.
It is then with an unmitigated and mindless horror that you realize that presence—the blinding growth that has settled in form just to the left of your only working eye—is in fact the nose at the center of your face.
This is when you fully accept it.
You had suspected this, before, perhaps simply as an exclamation or as a bitter aside, but you know it for certain now.
The Universe despises you. You, in particular: Your pathetic, weak, spineless form, your useless role in the play of existence. Barely even a quark in terms of importance compared to the vastness of eternity, daring nonetheless to try and beg for a place you could call your own amidst the fabric of reality, and then going ahead and spitting in its face when you get exactly what you asked for.
You are the universe’s very worst mistake, and it hates you so blindingly much for the audacity of it.
...
The feeling is mutual.
You awaken to the sound of wind rustling through trees, grass prickling against the sides of your face. It isn’t warm—which is the only reason that you are not instantly thrown into a panic at what you are somehow bone-chillingly certain is you waking up in a field just outside of the town of Dormont.
You keep your eyes closed.
It’s almost... well. It isn’t nice. But it’s something different. Something other than searing pain.
If you open your eyes, you’ll find out where you are. If you find out where you are, you will be forced to make some decisions based on that information—and you aren’t fully certain you are capable of doing that.
You aren’t fully certain you’re capable of even existing right now. Your hand twitches in the direction of your dagger.
Until you open your eyes, you exist inside an ambiguous state between realities. You can think about all of the potential realities that exist outside of this state, but for the sake of this thought exercise, you can really only consider three, all based on the assumption that you are, indeed, in that stars-damned field again.
You don’t know what you would possibly do if you were not in that field.
Assumption #1: You are back at the beginning of this entire journey. Stardust—along with his perfect ending—is gone. Mirabelle is going to walk up to you any second now and wake you up. You will stand up, and you will return to the stage—armed with the knowledge of your Stardust’s loops, and perhaps able to break out of your own, assuming (of course) that there was no tangible difference between your loops and Stardust’s, and thus that the cause of the loops are/were the same.
(Considering the alternative makes your blood run cold, but you can’t just not consider it. It would be just like The Universe to put you right back where you started with no experience to draw on whatsoever.)
Alternatively, you could be in Dormont after the defeat of your party, lying in a frozen field—ah, but wait, you can hear the leaves rustling. That strikes you as a relief—you have more information, but not the information. A little closer to the truth, but not so close that you have to do something about it yet.
Assumption #2: You are in a different timeline than your original, and have been brought back to help yet another Siffrin—not your Stardust, but a third Siffrin, newly created just to torture you further.
You don’t think that’s likely—after all, you can feel your hair tickling your face. You should have stayed a star. Well, no, you should have died a long time ago, crushed underneath a boulder in the Death Corridor. But if you were back at the beginning of a different timeline, you would assume that you (Loop) would stay the same.
You put a pin in this assumption, but consider it to be lower on the list of likelihoods.
Assumption #3: You are still in Stardust’s timeline, returned to your old body. You have woken up in the same field that you always did, albeit at a different day or time—maybe it’s nighttime? Maybe it’s too early in the morning for the sun to hit you full in the face?
You wonder if Stardust and their party have left Dormont yet.
You wonder if Stardust ever wants to see you again.
You imagine likely so—he was always kinder than you, or at least, than you are now— though it doesn’t necessarily grant you any comfort.
Your throat aches from a lifetime of coughing.
You have narrowed down your assumptions to two most likely scenarios.
You still have not opened your eyes.
Your body is trembling.
Mirabelle has not come to wake you up. Does that mean anything? Has time slowed down while your breath has gotten faster?
You don’t know what to do.
You don’t know what to do.
You had never been able to pick up the call once Stardust and their party had gotten to the King. You had a few theories—it could have been that the Call Craft had a distance limit. It could have been that the concentration of Wish Craft on the top floor caused too much interference for the call to go through.
You technically could see and hear a bit of the fight with the King, albeit only in flashes, but it was difficult, and...
Well, mostly it was that you didn’t want to hear your family die over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again.
You could call someone. You could try to call your Stardust, see if they pick up. Maybe they won’t, because your assumption is wrong, and they’re too far away for the call to go through. Or maybe they won’t because you tried to kill them, and it would make sense if he didn’t want to see your face again, so you’ll just be giving him a heads up that there’s someone out there wandering around with his face he should track down and get rid of.
It’s a very recognizable face, and you can’t exactly guarantee that you’ll only be doing things they would approve of with it. You’re not sure you want to give him a reason to come looking for you yet.
He granted you mercy once. You don’t want to risk the possibility that he won’t grant it again.
Not because you don’t want this play to end already. But because seeing Stardust change their mind and put an end to you might hurt worse than anything else you’ve experienced so far.
You need more information. You can’t open your eyes. You can’t look around you. You can’t know yet, you can’t, you can’t, you’re going to throw up again.
You make a fist. Your thumb and little finger extend, and you bring the hand sign up to your ear.
You pray for wisdom. You pray for guidance.
The line is buzzing—a crackling noise that signifies the time between your call searching for the recipient and the recipient trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
You bite your lip. It hurts. You bite harder.
The call connects.
“...Hello?”
Your mouth runs dry.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“It’s-” Your throat closes around the words, and you cough, deep and guttural, your other hand coming up to your burning throat. You wince, easing up into a sitting position, careful to keep your eyes squeezed shut. “Stars. That sounded awful.”
“...Siffrin?”
You swallow thickly. Your voice rasps, but it... Yeah, you do sound like him again, don’t you? You’d been lucky (unfortunate) enough to have your voice stolen from you too, back then, replaced with something a bit deeper, a bit more hollow. This doesn’t clarify anything to you.
“Hi, R- Odile .”
“Is everything alright? Do you need to come to my room?”
“No, I-” You hesitate. Room. Odile is staying somewhere with a room. Not a tent. Did your party have separate rooms before Mirabelle decided that you were all having a sleepover?
She doesn’t sound surprised to hear from you, though. And wasn’t she in the shop when you woke up?
...You don’t think she sounds surprised.
Your lip begins to bleed.
“...Can you tell me where we are right now?”
You can’t see her expression, but in your mind’s eye, it softens just a bit. “We’re in a little village called Anients, about three day’s ride away from Dormont. We’re taking Boniface back to Bambouche to return them to their sister.”
Oh.
Okay.
Okay.
“Siffrin, it isn’t any trouble for me to come and talk with you in p-”
“ No,” you gasp, clamping your free hand over your mouth to try and tamp down some of the evident panic. “Nope! No need for that. Just, uh, just a little disoriented after... uh...”
“...After...?” Oh, stars. She’s going to make you say it, isn’t she?
“The. The, uh. The...” You wince. “The time loops...?”
“Did you forget about them?”
You bite back a sharp, startled laugh. “I wi-” You pause. You move some words around. “If only I could be so lucky.”
The line is silent for a moment. You hear muffled footsteps and the sound of metal squeaking.
“I... Greatly regret that the memory is not easier for you to bear. In the absence of that possibility, you have the option to share the burden.”
You can’t pretend like you don’t know where you are anymore. Not just because the loops are over, but because... Well. Your Odile never would have said that, would she? Not that she wouldn’t have thought it. But she wouldn’t have made herself available for that. Not to you.
You let out a long breath, then take another.
In, and then out. In, and then out.
Just like Siffrin does.
You sit up, and you let your eyes fall open.
Only one of them is functional—same as it was back at the tree, though you can feel something in the socket that wasn’t there before in your old body—your first body. It feels right. From your only functional eye, you can see that you are sitting beneath the stars. You avert your gaze.
Night has fallen in Dormont.
You hear the squeaky creak of metal again. What is she doing?
“...Siffrin?”
“Yes?”
The line is quiet for a moment, then you hear more footsteps. Odile’s voice is just a bit fainter.
“I, ah... I had thought I’d lost you, for a second.”
“No, just...” You reach up and wipe at your eyes, squeezing them shut to try and minimize the way they burn. “Just coming back to myself. I, uh...”
“Nightmare?”
“...Yes,” you mumble, pulling your cloak tighter to yourself. “I should be able to get back to sleep soon, though, really. I... Thank you for talking to me.”
“It’s really not a problem, Siffrin. Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”
You flinch a bit. Blind it. You could say you don’t, but... Well, that might make her suspicious, and then she might come to Siffrin’s room, and then-
Just make something up.
“I... Uh...” You swallow. Something that wouldn’t give the Researcher more information than she already had. You couldn’t risk her talking to Stardust about it later and putting two and two together. “I dreamed about...”
You look up.
“I dreamed about the stars.”
“Oh?” You hear the click of a door.
“Y- Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, Siffrin. I’m just shutting my door so prying ears can’t hear.”
That makes sense. Blinding idiot, that was suspicious of you.
“Keep talking—I'm listening.”
You take a shaky breath in and then out again. Okay. Okay. You can do this.
It’s just the Researcher. You’ve spoken to the Researcher thousands of times. It’ll be fine.
“I was floating in space. I couldn’t breathe, and it felt like...” It felt like burning. It felt like eternity. “Like the Universe was trying to hollow me out. Like there was already nothing left of me, and it still wanted more.”
“...Do you want to talk about the Universe? You’ve mentioned it a few times now, and I’m not any closer to parsing what you mean by it myself.”
Hm.
You open your mouth and shut it again. Can you? Should you?
...Do you want to?
“It’s... Well, it’s everything.”
“Ah--as in, the spirit of it lives in everything?”
“No, I mean—it's everything. It refers to the expanse of every thing that is in existence. It...” You shift on the grass, getting into a more comfortable position. “The Universe—the set of every thing in existence—is so much larger than the visible world. The expanse of space, the stars, each containing its own solar system... It’s immense. It’s everything.”
“Understood. And are people a part of the Universe?”
“Uh, yes. It’s the set of everything.”
“Are you using mathematical terminology?”
You blink. “Huh.” Are you? “I guess I am. Astronomy requires a lot of math.”
“Fascinating. How does astronomy play into it?”
“Well, the vast majority of the physical area that makes up the Universe is taken up by the vacuum of space—as well as stars and solar systems and such. It’s sort of... kind of a dual-purpose thing? It’s trying to understand the nature of everything on a big picture level, but stars themselves are a pretty big symbol for the vastness of the Universe, also.”
“I’d have to guess that a religion focused so heavily on the nature of the Universe’s physical reality would involve a lot of scientific pursuit.”
“Yes, but... I don’t know how much of that someone like me would have done? I think most of that was done by- Ah-” You hiss with pain, clutching your head with your free hand. “Sorry, I think that’s off-limits.”
“That’s quite alright, Siffrin. You can just talk about what it means to you, if that’s easier.”
“Sure. It’s... been a while since I’ve talked about it. I don’t know if I ever have, since... you know.” Your hand comes away from your head, and you roll your shoulders. “From a more theological perspective, uh... I guess it has a lot to do with walking in step with the way the Universe is leading you?”
“What does that mean, exactly? Are you referring to the whims of Fate?”
“Sort of? It’s more of a, like... Everything is moving, you know? Earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves around Earth, all of that is moving along a path that the sun is taking around the center of the galaxy, which is itself moving around the center of its local group, which orbits... Something? Nothing? I’m not sure. The Universe is traveling along a set path, and it’s all headed towards something.”
“So your job as a follower of the Universe is to help it along that path?”
“Not quite? It’s more that the Universe—and the natural forces of it—are going to happen no matter what. We don’t exactly have a choice in the matter. The only thing we can do is to follow. We’re sort of all followers of the Universe in that way, even if we don’t all follow the Universe religion.”
“Understood. This is all very interesting. How does Wish Craft enter into it if the whole point is that you can’t affect the Universe?”
“I’m not sure?” You try not to think about it—you've found that you tend to say things with more ease if you’re just letting your mouth move. “If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that it’s probably more like... We can’t affect the overall course of the Universe, but by understanding it, we can harness some of its latent energy? But that’s just... Uh.” You suddenly feel self conscious.
“You don’t have to have all of the answers. That’s more than enough.”
“Sorry I couldn’t give you more, but I appreciate you asking.”
“No need to apologize. Do...” Her voice wavers a bit with uncertainty. “Do you feel any better, Siffrin?”
...It’s bizarre—or maybe it’s not, but you feel like it should be—but you do feel quite a bit better. Your heart has slowed to a normal rate. Your body isn’t shaking. Your hands and breathing are steady. You don’t feel warm, per se, but you aren’t trembling with a cold that isn’t actually there. “...Yes, actually.”
“I’m glad.” Her voice is warm, clearly pleased that her gambit had paid off. “I was hoping that distracting you would get you out of your head for a moment—though I will admit that some of my motives were not quite so selfless. My questions were legitimate, and I had intended to ask them of you anyways.”
You smile just a bit in spite of yourself. That sounds about right. “I’d be happy to answer any more you have—even if you’re not talking me down from anything.”
“I only have a couple more for tonight, then I’ll let you get back to sleep. Can you think of any specific rituals or practices of it outside of the Favor Tree?”
You shrug. “I can’t come up with a fully comprehensive list, but just off the top of my head... Wishing wells, four leafed clovers... Wishing on a star is a big one, especially if it’s a shooting star, or significant in some way to your wish.”
“What makes a star significant to your wish?”
“Well, some of them are parts of constellations. The constellations mean different things, and they can have different attributes, not to mention family constellations, but...” You look up. “Looking at them now, I can tell what stars make constellations, and I might even be able to identify the shapes of them, but trying to think about their names or significance hurts.”
“Hold on, let me write this down. Oh—do you think that that’s why your friend Loop took the form of a star?”
Your body locks up. Your mouth opens and then closes.
You...
You suddenly remember where you are.
You suddenly remember who you are.
You are not Siffrin.
You... had forgotten.
Your throat feels tight.
“... Siffrin?”
She’s concerned about Siffrin. She’s going to realize something is up. Say something.
“I don’t know,” you say suddenly, swallowing thickly. “I, uh... Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Hm. I only have one more question, if you’ll indulge me.”
“Go for it.”
“Alright. You said that looking at the stars right now, you can make out the shapes of constellations, even if you can’t tell what they mean.”
“That’s right.”
“...Siffrin, my room is right next to the hallway exit. My door is open, and none of our rooms have windows.”
Your heart stops.
“You were in bed when I checked a few minutes ago. How are you looking at the stars right now?”
Your mouth is dry. Your hand is shaking again. “I, uh... Are you- are you sure these rooms don’t have windows? I could have sworn-”
“I’m not talking to my Siffrin right now, am I? Who-”
You dismiss the craft before she can finish her sentence.
You take a deep breath in.
You let it out.
Blind it.
You dream of your ribcage being cracked open like the shell of a crustacean and someone examining your insides on an operating table. There is nothing there.