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That night was the same as every other night – Isabeau’s hushed, botched confession attempt, the thrown pillow and Mira scolding the both of you for keeping everyone up, Odile’s very toothful threat to end all of you if everybody didn’t pipe down – the same lines at the same rhythm at the same pace as always. You tried to close your eyes, just to get some kind of rest, but the image of a fisted gauntlet spattered blooddark kept looping ad nauseum on the backs of your blinding eyelids. No rest for the wicked, you supposed.
So instead, you were staring at the ceiling, tracing the exposed beams back and forth, reminding yourself of all the things you had to do (what were they again? Was it the newspaper articles…no, you did that already, that’s how you got Bonnie blinding – nevermind, nevermind, you needed to talk to the Head Housemaiden again, which meant you needed to defeat the King again, and you could, you would, you would tear his heart out of his chest if you had to) on this loop, when a strangled whimper caught your attention.
You stiffened, and listened closer. Silence. The crickets rubbing their legs outside (did they freeze as well, in those final moments?), chirring, the whisper of wind through the grass and the leaves, an errant branch scraping up the side of the stone wall…
Then, louder, a terrified whine.
You sat up and blinked through the darkness behind you. At your hip, you felt Isabeau stir. “Whassgoinon?” He slurred, still mostly asleep, but you couldn’t pay him any mind. Something New was happening. A heavy pit formed in the base of your chest, right under your beating heart. Your throat constricted, suddenly hot.
Bonnie wheezed in a breath, then screamed.
Everyone was awake immediately. Mira started, almost falling out of bed before recovering and pushing herself up into a sitting position. Odile struck a match and lit the lamp by her bedside, casting that side of the room in gentle warmth and harsh shadow. Isabeau scooted to the side of the bed; you stood.
“Oh no, Bonnie,” Mira said, reaching her arms out and wrapping them up in a hug. “Bonnie, Bonnie, what’s wrong? Nightmare? Bad dream?”
The light caught on what little of their hair you can see, casting a halo about them. They were full on wailing, snotty sobs cut with raw, painful gasping inhales. The sound was only a little muffled where their face was pressed into Mira’s shoulder. You watched their short fingers claw into the fabric of her sleep top. Your thoughts chased each other in confusion.
Something New was Happening. This was different. This was different in a terrible and wholly unpredictable way. Why was it different? What had you done? Why was Bonnie screaming? What made them upset? You blinked, saw the gauntleted fist crushing their little body for a split second, but put it aside. That couldn’t be it. That wasn’t it. That was never a factor – you’d all died to the King before, and nobody had remembered then. You’d failed to save them before, and nobody had remembered then. So what was it?
Nothing about today had been different. The script had been the same, the stage had remained unaltered, the actors had been hitting their poses and lines on-cue.
“Boniface, what’s wrong?” Odile asked, voice rough from sleep. She’d donned her glasses before sitting down on their bed, even reaching a hand out to touch their shoulder lightly. It shuddered under her palm, even in the low light. “Did you see something in your dreams that upset you? Was it a memory?”
You think it over yourself. A memory? You’d gone to make sure Bonnie was alright immediately upon waking up, you remembered. Still addled from the experience, heart screaming in your chest, you went to make sure they were safe next to the vegetable field. That they were themselves still, whole, eyes bright with life, next to the vegetables in the old blind man’s field. That they could still give you the cold shoulder instead of screaming for you in terror, reaching out with one hand to your feeble, frozen ones. That they were themselves. Unchanged.
And thank the Universe, they were, they were, they were. They reacted differently only to the new you that slipped loose for those few, horrified moments you forgot to don the correct mask. The ensuing relief let you wrestle it back under control and slip back into the role of Siffrin, the Traveler, and Bonnie had obliged by reciting the correct lines with all the correct pauses and inflections and tempos. A reliable actor, unlike yourself.
It wasn’t enough to cause this, you reasoned. So what could it have been? What could it have been?
Isabeau moved past you to crawl onto the foot of their bed, the frame creaking under the weight of four bodies. “Hey, Bonbon,” he soothed. You watched Odile’s eyes flick down to catch his, briefly. “Did you have an anxious nightmare, buddy? I have them too, sometimes – even had one the night before my Defender’s test! There was a giant chicken with a featherless head that started chasing me around and bawking exam questions at me. It was terrifying! Woke up in cold sweats.”
Bonnie continued sobbing between quick, harsh breaths. Odile looked at you over their head, catching your eye this time. ‘Get in here, idiot, and help Boniface feel better’ was what she was saying with them. Unfortunately for her, you’d been in a similar situation before, and all that happened was you bungled it as you always did and made Bonnie hate you.
You gripped the fabric of your sleeve with one bare hand and shook your head. Sorry, M’dam – you’d learned your lesson about speaking to or touching Bonnie when they were upset.
The glare Odile sent your way curdled all the joints in your spine. ‘NOW’, she mouthed, teeth flashing.
“Bonnie,” Mira said, strained with worry and uncertainty. “You’re okay, you’re okay – look, put your hand on my chest and breathe. See? We’re all here. We’re okay.”
“We are!” Isabeau chimed in. “We’re all in the clocktower, all five of us. You’re here too. We’re going to save your sister, remember? Save the whole country!”
“Yes,” Odile drawled. You sucked in a quick breath through your nose and stared at her. She stared you right back down when she continued, “all five of us. You should see Siffrin right now; he looks scared spineless, and he doesn’t have the excuse of a nightmare.”
Your jaw dropped, disbelieving. EXCUSE ME, you thought. You had a perfectly valid reason to look scared spineless, and Odile herself was half the reason for it.
You were so aghast that it took you a moment to realize that Bonnie had stopped sobbing. In fact, it sounded like they’d stopped even breathing. You blinked at them, then over at Odile and Isabeau who were looking at you like ??????. You had nothing to give them but an equal amount of ?????? back, but with an extra fun dose of dread on the side.
Something New was happening. It felt like a stale lump of sugar in your gut that grew and grew with every passing moment of silence.
“Bonnie?” Mira asked.
Slowly, they dragged their head up just far enough to look up over Mira’s shoulder. You couldn’t seem them well too well, with their face backlit, but you could imagine their swollen, puffy eyes.
Yours locked with theirs. You saw the moment recognition flashed in them, and then something confusing and complicated, and then –
The hair stood up on the back of your neck.
--then they screamed and launched themselves backwards in to Odile.
“Bonniface?!”
“Bonnie?”
“Bonbon??”
Odile’s arms were half raised, Bonnie hidden entirely by her form. You could only tell they were there by the sudden tension in her pajamas, pulled back by their grip.
Mira crept to the edge of her bed and reached out, fingers curled hesitantly. Isabeau shifted to face Odile.
“Bonnie, what’s wrong?” Mira asked, swinging her legs over the bed and kneeling down at the base of Odile’s. “Was your nightmare about Siffrin?”
…was it about your eye? But there had been so many loops before and this hadn’t happened, so what had – what had changed?
“Siffrin, what did you do?!” Odile asked in a hiss, eyes bewildered and arms still half-raised like she didn’t know what to do with them.
“I don’t know!” You said back. How did you mess this all up? It had to have been you, somehow. What blinding idiotic thing had you done now? What had you missed?? How had you missed it? What could have changed to cause this?? Aside from that blinding slip in the script earlier by the vegetable patch, nothing was different! You’d played your role, a dutiful actor, so that shouldn’t have been enough to cause this. That shouldn’t have caused this!!
What did you do????
Bonnie’s breaths rasped in and out. It was the only thing you could make out of them; the rest you had to read from everyone else’s body language – not that you were good at that anyways!
Isabeau knelt down as well, reaching out his own hand with more certainty than Mirabelle. He breathed in deep once, held it, and then breathed out. “Just like that, Bonnie. Breathe with me, okay? Like Sif does, you know?”
Bonnie let out a whine. “No,” you heard, in the smallest voice you’d ever heard Bonnie make. Loud Bonnie, with a big voice and big boots and big clenched fists – it was incongruous. “No, no, no, no, no, not Frin, not Frin, it hurts, it hurts hurts hurts,”
Odile gave you another big Look. All you could be was helpless back, your arms limp at your sides, lost in a way you hadn’t been since before the loops had started. The dread in your gut intensified, bubbling up from your stomach.
“Do you want me to heal you?” Mira asked. “Did you hurt yourself? Was it in the dream, Bonnie?”
They started crying again, louder. “I don’t wanna remember!”
“You don’t gotta,” Isabeau soothed. You couldn’t see his face, cast in Odile’s shadow and leaned in as he was. “You don’t gotta remember if you don’t wanna, Bonbon. I’m sure it was scary, huh? Way scarier than a giant chicken.”
“I don’t wanna remember! It hurts, it hurts it- ” they sobbed, “- it HURTS!!!”
It hurts? It hurts. What hurts? You don’t know. You can’t tell. What don’t they want to remember? It couldn’t be your eye. Bonnie wasn’t hurt then. You made sure of it. So what was it? What was it?
“Siffrin,” Odile said. You tore your gaze away from them, huddled on the opposite end of the room from you. Was it you, or was her expression cold? Were her eyes stern? Was her voice different? “Why don’t you get some water for Boniface?”
“Uh-yeah,” you managed, swallowing down sugar and unease. “Yeah, I’ll go do that.”
You somehow made yourself move, glancing back at them – shadowed – before leaving the room to descend to the little kitchen in the watchtower. The pipes still worked, and there were glasses from earlier, set out to dry.
The stones underfoot are cold against your skin; you danced a little in place as you filled up first one glass for Bonnie, then half-fill another to try to chase down the sickly-sweet taste at the back of your tongue. It only took the edge off; you held Bonnie’s glass of water in both hands as you ascended the stairway again, silent as a ghost.
It meant that when you reached at the doorway, you heard Bonnie say, “It was Frin,” in a watery voice. “He was mad, and I died and it was all Frin’s fault!”
Isabeau said something that you couldn’t hear under the roar of the heart-wrenching suspicion that rises in you. All it did was make Bonnie burst out into angry tears.
“It was all Frin’s fault! They made us trust him! I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him!”
Odile looked at you. You looked past her. The glass of water slipped from your cradled hands and crashed across the floor, cutting, skittering. Isabeau and Mirabelle both jumped and turned their heads to see you there, witless, mindless, empty of anything other than I hate him I hate him I hate him.
“Bonnie?” the voice from your body said, from leagues away.
Bonnie finally looked too. You saw their eyes, filled with rage and tears and fear and knew deep down that th ey wo uld n e v er tr u s t you a gai n –
The sugar boiled over. You felt the dread constrict in your gut, and then –
Odile looked at you over Bonnie’s head, catching your eye. ‘Get in here, idiot, and help Bonniface feel better’ was what she was saying with them.
Unfortunately for her, you were currently on the brink of your own panic attack. You could tell by how numb you felt, fingers tingling with the sensation. Bonnie – Bonnie had said they had died? That you had made them trust him? Who was him? it was him Who was him? it was you Who had you made them trust? you knew exactly what was happening
It hurts, they’d said. It hurts.
You gripped past fabric of your sleeve with one bare hand, fingers digging into the flesh underneath, and stared through her eyes. She narrowed her brows at you and seemed to draw back a little bit, glare faltering. You didn’t need the glower from earlier for all the joints in your spine to have petrified already. The thought of it hurts, I hate him, all Frin’s fault had turned them all to stone already.
It’ll be fine, you told yourself. It was just the once. The once. Coincidence. Everything would be all right. You chanced a look over at Bonnie and—
They were staring at you, eyes wide in the darkness, expression shot straight past recognition and into –
– they screamed and launched themselves past Mira.
“Woah!” Isabeau lunged to intercept. You scrambled backwards onto the bed, Bonnie’s fingers clawing at your bare feet, stubby nails scratching fiery lines along the skin before Isabeau hauled them backwards.
“Boniface?!”
“Bonnie??”
“IT’S YOUR FAULT,” they howled again, tears streaming down their face. “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT ALLYOURFAULT GET BACK HERE I CRABBING HATE YOU SO MUCH!! YOU LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR!!”
“Siffrin, what did you do?!” Odile asked, pitching her voice over Bonnie’s.
Your voice was stuck in your throat as you clutched your own legs, fingers digging into your own arms as you stare at Bonnie’s angry, terrified, crying face. You couldn’t even give her the answer they all deserve. You couldn’t tell anyone that you good as killed Bonnie.
…stars, you killed Bonnie. Watched as the King squeezed one gauntleted fist tight, listened to the horrible crack split the air and heard the screams from around and within you as you all watched the blooddark on their face, trickling down their chin. Their eyes, blank. Yours, frozen wide open.
“…Siffrin?”
“Siffrin, snap out of it!”
“I don’t know what your nightmare was about, Bonbon,” Isabeau tried to say, the sound muffled this time.
I’m sorry, you thought.
Bonnie screamed, “I DON’T WANNA REMEMBER!! I HATE YOU FRIN, I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!”
You looked at their eyes, filled with rage and tears and knew that they would n ever – never e v er – never, not on ce mo re, n o t a si n g le ti me a g ai n – l oo k u p a t y ou a n d t r u s t
The sugar boiled over into the back of your mouth, choking. You felt the horror and dread in your gut constrict, and then –
Bonnie’s breath hitched mid-sob. Odile looked at you over their head, catching your eye. ‘Get in here, idiot, and help Bonniface feel better’ was what she was saying with them.
Unfortunately for her, you couldn’t do this for a third time. Why were you reliving this? Why was this even happening? Bonnie shouldn’t remember, Stars, you never wanted any of them to remember anything but Bonnie least of all, so why were you looping back to this point over and over and –
An idea sparked. You ran, smacking into the door before wrenching it open and dashing out. Behind you, your party exclaimed in confusion and shock, first at you and then yelling Bonnie’s name. You didn’t stop to listen, all your energy focused on escaping this horrific nightmare of a situation. Not that the loops weren’t a nightmare to begin with – but this was an awful terrible turn for the worse after an already awful terrible turn for what you had naively thought would be the worst.
Thudding down the stairs, you pushed open the main entrance to the clocktower and dashed out. The rough gravel of the yard in front of the tower hurt your bare feet, but that wouldn’t matter for much longer. You almost slipped down the stone steps leading down to the dusty path back to Dormont. Thankfully, it was only a close call. Not with death, but with Mirabelle witnessing it and trying to save you – you could hear her calling out to you from behind.
“Siffrin!” She cried out. “Siffrin, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
She was the right one to send after you, you thought as you neared the bend towards Dormont. Faster than the others in your party – but you cast Make Up the Time on yourself for good measure and leap across the broken bridge before Mirabelle can even fully make it down the steps.
You made your way through the quiet, midnight streets of Dormont – past the Blind One’s house and their vegetable garden beyond, the empty field where the sheep were grazing earlier that day, through the copse of trees into Dormont proper. Your breath misted in front of you, bare feet aching but blood-warmed.
Dormont was different, under moonlight. Darker. Lifeless. You hoped you could find that blinding banana peel, passing by the altar to the Change God along the same path that the Running One trod day after day.
Up the stone steps, crushing blades of grass under the soles of your feet, over to the right as always and – thank the stars, there it was.
Without any hesitation, you hurled yourself onto death’s door. The world spun up as you spun back, the peel disgusting against your bare skin and the stars in the sky shining bright, bright, bright, before your skull cracked against the ground and
you died
waking up as always to the mostly-clear skies the day before, sun shining and birds singing in your ears.
Closing your eyes, you took in a shaking breath. Exhaled, lips pursed. Then again, then a third time, gripping blades of grass under your gloved hands and feeling them tear.
Okay. Okay. This fixed it, right? You looped back. Died. Reset. It would be fine.
…right?
[…Let’s talk, Stardust.]
…You didn’t particularly want to, but. You breathed out one last time before swinging yourself up sitting, and then pushing yourself up standing. Brushing the grass off your cloak, you took a second to look at your shadow, at the spot in the field where you could see your imprint (how long did that last, anyways?), then nodded to yourself and made your way over to the Favor Tree. You stopped just long enough to remind Mira about the carrot method, dodged the Running One’s endless moving then waved Isabeau off with a well-practiced smile and the usual exchange. The predictability of it soothed. It was all the same, in the end. Nothing was broken. Nothing was wrong.
[Something’s wrong,] Loop said as you sat down.
“But I looped,” you argued. “I’ve reset it.”
[I saw,] Loop agreed, drumming their fingers on their knees. [Split your melon right open – always such a messy way to go,]
“Not like I could have grabbed my dagger in time, much less pitched myself off the roof of the clocktower,” you said, huffing. “They were all right there. This way I could make sure they didn’t see me.”
They paused to look at you, really look at you with their oddly uneven eyes. For a heartbeat, you both stared; then, they looked away and said, [Fair enough. Not that they would have remembered, but it’s sweet of you to keep them in mind!]
You didn’t want your death to be witnessed. Not here, not in Dormont. “Anyways, what do you mean something’s wrong?”
[I can feel it,] they said. [What happened with the Kid last night should never have happened – much less in such different ways,]
“It was weird,” you acknowledged, leaning forward. “But it should be fine – I’ve looped, so I won’t have the same conversation with them again. I’ll follow the script, and it’ll flow as normal.”
Loop looked at you with raised eyebrows. [Your celestial guide is telling you that they can feel that something’s wrong, and you’re disregarding it? How bold. Thickheadedly so!]
“I just don’t see how anything could have changed so drastically for good. Any changes have been because I didn’t follow the script well enough. So it follows that as long as I don’t try to play it by ear, or adlib…”
If they had a mouth, or lungs, they probably would have sighed. They slumped forward to one side, cradling the shifting star of their head in one cosmic palm. [Hey, if you come back to me crying then I don’t want you to complain about me saying ‘told you so, Stardust!’. You should really be careful around the Kid, you know – it was crazy to see them go from weepy and scared witless the first time to ferocious feral beast the second. Who knows what happened the third time!]
“I don’t need to be careful,” you retorted, looking down at your gloved hands between your spread knees. “I just need to be reliable.”
[You, reliable?] Loop let out a sounds like a laugh. It echoed curiously in your head. [Silly Stardust; if you were reliable, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.]
You scrunched your nose at them. “Rude.”
[Not rude if it’s truuuueee ~✧˖°Teehee!] Loop winked and put their hand in front of their mouth, coquettish. [It’s one more thing to add to the list – find out what’s happening with your dear sweet Bonbon and make sure you don’t fuck up again!]
You nodded. That was true; what happened last night – last loop? – couldn’t again. One, it was bad for your heart. Two, you didn’t think you could handle it if Bonnie hated you for real (for ever). Three…
I don’t want to remember, they’d said. And no. No, as somebody who’d died more times than you could count at this point, Bonnie was the very last person in your party that you wanted to remember death. Especially a death like that.
“Okay,” you said, straightening with a sharp nod at Loop. “I’ll do that. I’ll make sure nothing happens with Bonnie.”
Loop mirrored you, but eased past straight into half-reclined, pose uneven as they rested their weight on one curved shoulder. [I’ll be watching as always, Stardust! So even if you do mess up, I’ll be there to tell you how. Anyways – is there anything else you’d like to talk about?]
“Not this time,” you stood. “I should make sure that Bonnie’s okay, this loop. That’s the most important thing to do.”
Shrugging, Loop responded, [Suit yourself, Stardust. I’ll be here if you change your mind.]
You waved goodbye to them and step out from the shadow of the Favor Tree. After a deep breath, you recalled the script and eased back into the role of Siffrin, the Traveler.
It all went as usual. You stopped by the bakery for the delicious pain au chocolat, even though it did nothing to sate the gnawing ache in your stomach. You had the same, quick, careful chats with your family, went through the usual conversations with the Dormont residents just to make sure nothing had changed with them either, then stopped by the vegetable field to speak with Bonnie.
Same as always. Same as always. Reluctant to speak to you, but not in any different way or for any loop-related reason. Excited about the giant bee and gazing longingly at the vegetables. You felt the stress melt from you, bit by bit, line by line. Same, same, same. Safe.
Even dinner went by same as usual. You kept an eye on Bonnie, but not so close of an eye that anyone noticed or called you out for it. Then it was time to get ready for bed, and then into bed, and then Isabeau botched his confession as always and Mira and Bonnie yelled at him for keeping them awake and then Odile laid down The Law. You drifted through it all, paying a little more attention than usual but generally just going through the motions. Nothing new. You kept it all the same.
Success!!
You could be reliable. You could be careful. See, Loop? See? You played Siffrin, the Traveler very well. You’re the star of this role for a reason; the reason was practice.
But it wasn’t quite over yet. Just to make sure, just to see, you waited. Staring at the ceiling, tracing the exposed beams back and forth, reminding yourself of all of the things you had to do on this loop. (make sure that another Incident with Bonnie wasn’t going to happen, first and foremost – then once that was confirmed, you could follow up on the newspaper articles…but wait, hadn’t you done that already? That’s how you got Bonnie blinding…nevermind, nevermind, no, no, it was all going to be fine this time, you fixed it, Siffrin, you looped back and fixed it so it’s fine – instead, what you needed to do was, what was it, what was it Siffrin, think…it was….you had to talk to someone, who was it again…
…
…
The Head Housemaiden! Yes, you needed to speak with her again. Which meant you needed to defeat the King, again, and yes, you could, you could, you would you would make yourself, you would tear his heart out of his chest with your bare, tattered hands if you had to.)
In fact, you thought about it so hard that you didn’t catch anything until you heard a louder, terrified whine, and your breath caught in your chest.
No. No. You’d fixed it. Not again.
Heart rising up into your throat, you listened closer. At your hip, you felt Isabeau stir. “Whassgoinon?” He slurred, still mostly asleep. But now, even more so, you couldn’t pay him any mind. It Was Happening Again. You knew it. You didn’t want it, you didn’t want it, you didn’t want it.
You stayed laying down, stiff. The heavy pit coalesced in the bottom of your ribcage, just above the gnawing hunger and dread in your gut. Your throat constricted, suddenly hot.
Bonnie wheezed in a breath, then yelled.
Everyone was awake immediately. Mira started, almost falling out of bed before recovering and pushing herself up into a sitting position. Odile struck a match and lit the lamp by her bedside, casting that side of the room in gentle warmth and harsh shadow. Isabeau scooted to the opposite side of the bed, around you; you stayed there, frozen under the covers.
No, you thought. No, no, no, please why, no, why Bonnie, not Bonnie, why, why, I did everything right! I stuck to the script!! I WAS GOOD!! I was RELIABLE!
What had you done???
“Oh no, Bonnie,” Mira said, reaching her arms out and wrapping them up in a hug. “Bonnie, Bonnie, what’s wrong? Nightmare? Bad dream?”
“Sif, buddy, wake up,” Isabeau murmured to you. “Bonbon’s in a bad…Sif?”
You stared up at the ceiling. The shadows were all different like this, with the dim light from Odile’s lamp catching on the grooves and whorls of the woodgrain. Bonnie was quietly sobbing, inhales raw and ragged sounding.
Isabeau’s face filled your vision, worried. “Sif, what’s wrong?”
Oh, no. Oh no, you’d messed it up already. Where’s your dagger? You needed to go talk to Loop. You needed everything to be right again.
“I’m fine,” you dragged out of your withered chest, blinking away tears. “Go make sure Bonnie’s okay.”
“Isabeau?” Odile asked, voice rough from sleep, even as Isabeau’s eyebrows contorted into deeper concern.
“You guys take care of Bonbon,” he replied. “Something’s up with Sif.”
A hiccup. Silence. You closed your eye.
Something New. You fucked up after all, just like Loop warned you not to. You weren’t the star you’d congratulated yourself to be. Too bad there wasn’t an understudy to replace you.
“Bonniface, what’s wrong?” Odile asked.
“Frin,” you heard, wet and scared and angry.
“Sif?” Isabeau asked. You didn’t know to who, you or Bonnie.
There was a shuddering sniffle. “What’s Frin doing?”
“I don’t know,” Odile answered. “Laying there, for some reason. Isabeau? Any explanation?”
“I don’t know why!” Isabeau said, panicked. “They’ve just been like that, since before Bonbon started…”
“I don’t wanna remember,” Bonnie snapped, pitch just short of a whine. “I wanna know why they’re – why they’re just – crabbing laying there. That’s different. They weren’t last time.”
Blinding stars above. Was this worse or better? Worse than just remembering their death, fresh like yesterday, or better for the memories they could place between them and it?
Would they forget? Would it help? Or would they be like you, all the important precious details of your life melting through the gaps in your fingers?
“Last time?” Mira echoed. “What do you mean, last time?”
There was rustling, of bedsheets and cloth. “Last time. Well, last time they ran away and then I woke up now, but last time and last time and last time he’s been standing when I…nevermind. Why’s he laying down?”
You wanted your dagger. You wanted your dagger. You wanted to run away and slit your throat and have another chance to keep things right, but you fucked up and now Isabeau was right in front of you. He’d catch you if you tried to run, you knew it. He was too close for you to get around. Stars, you’d done it this time.
There was a pause. “I…confess, Boniface, that I’m uncertain as to what you mean by…last time. Can you elaborate?”
“You don’t remember?” Boniface asked, sniffling. “The last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the…the…”
Don’t, you thought at them. Don’t remember that. Don’t remember anything.
“The what, Bonnie?” Mira asked. “Did you have a bad dream? Was it a nightmare?”
“I hate him,” Bonnie said, wet again. “I don’t wanna remember. It’s all Frin’s fault. They made us trust him, and it’s all…Frin’s…” they trailed off.
It was all your fault. You’d killed Bonnie. You dig your fingers into your legs under the covers. You could make it right if only you had your dagger. You could go back if only you had your dagger.
More shuffling, then the thump of bare feet on the ground. Then, suddenly, there was a bony little knee digging into the bed right at your hip, and then another at your other hip, and Isabeau said, “Bonbon?! Sif might be sensitive right now, you shouldn’t–”
Your eyes flew open as Bonnie’s palms slammed onto your shoulders. You stared up at them, the rims puffy and half-dark from their crying. They were still suspiciously shiny.
“Frin,” they said, lowly. “Why’re you still laying down? Why’re you crying? Why did you run away last time?”
You kept staring up at them, voiceless. Boiling sugar bubbled up the back of your throat. Don’t remember, don’t remember, don’t remember.
Bonnie’s hands fisted in the top of your pajama shirt, and they shook you a little.
“Bonbon, no – ” Isabeau reached for their shoulder.
“Bonnie, I don’t think that – ”
“SHUT UP!” Bonnie yelled, still staring down at you. You winced at the volume. “SHUT UP! FRIN, do you REMEMBER? Do you CRABBING REMEMBER or NOT??”
You swallowed, but the sugar boiled over at the look on their face, distorted through your tears –
“YOU DO, DON’T YOU?!” Bonnie screamed and pushed up and away from you, their eyes narrowed and fresh tears spilling out. “ Stop CRYING you IDIOT!! I HATE YOU I CRABBING HATE – ”
The scene stuttered as you felt a t u g a n d —
Bonnie wheezed in a breath, then gasped.
You threw yourself up and out of bed. No time for dagger, you had to go for the banana. Loop back, loop back, loop back, you had to loop back.
“Wha – Sif? Sif?!”
Too late, Isabeau. You were already down the stairs and out the door, your family’s confused yelling behind you. Bare feet on gravel, leaping across the bridge (what would it be like to drown?), cutting through the empty streets of Dormont before you got to the banana and slipped, the world spinning before –
[…well, Stardust,] Loop said, once you’d woken up in the field and made your way back to them. [You’re well and truly fucked now, aren’t you!]
You stared down at your open hands between your spread knees. Specks of sunlight filtered through the leaves danced and shimmered across the leather of your gloves. “I must’ve done something wrong,” you murmured, half-heartedly. “I don’t know why I can’t fix it. The only good thing about the loops is that I could fix things.”
[I wonder what you did that caused this,] Loop mused. [Or if it was the King’s wish after all.]
“…the King? What could he have done? He’s not…” you paused. Dipped your nose into your collar and watched the world narrow to that little slice between it and the brim of your hat. “Well, he realized last time. But he doesn’t remember all the time.”
[But could he have done something this time? When you slipped up and let him grab the Kid, what did he say?]
Your mouth was dry. You didn’t want to remember. You made yourself.
“That…he wanted me to learn my lesson. That I should remember when I came back next time. It was to me. It was my fault. Not Bonnie’s.”
Loop hummed and tilted their head to the side, eyes narrowed in thought and looking upwards. [Not to the Kid?]
“Not to Bonnie,” you said, miserably. “Loop, what do I do about this? I don’t want them to have to remember. Not that. Never that.”
Loop’s eyes slid back down to meet yours. [I don’t think you have a choice there, Stardust,] they said with something like gentleness. [I…don’t know if you could loop over this.]
“You’re the omniscient celestial being,” You said, leaning forward. “Please, if anyone would know how to fix it, it would be you!!”
A sound like a snort echoed between you. That coquettish hand came back up to cover Loop’s imaginary mouth, and they smirked at you with their eyes. [Awwwww~ that’s so sweet of you Stardust! Little ol me, have that much power? I hate to disappoint you sweetheart, but while I have ~a lot~ of knowledge, I’m certainly not omniscient!]
You slump and look away.
[…Best you can do right now, Stardust, is roll with the punches. How are you going to work around the Kid looping with you now, without alerting the rest of your party to the fact that something is wrong? How are you going to switch up the script?]
Switch up the script? You swallowed, turned your gaze back towards them, their expression oddly serious. “You mean…change things?”
[The prologue has already changed,] Loop pointed out. [There’s a new actor on the stage, and they’re there to stay. How well has keeping everything the same worked so far?]
“But if I switch things up, then something else might go wrong.”
[And they’ll continue to go wrong if you do nothing different. So, Stardust, what’ll it be? Are you going to take charge? Or are you going to let it all happen to you again, and again, and again? And have the Kid remember every time you choose not to act?]
Birdsong overhead, in the shade of the Favor Tree, you sat with the knowledge that you were going to have to make a choice with consequence again. Consequences that not only you would remember, for once. Consequences that Bonnie could hold against you, in the future.
“…Okay,” you finally said, after a very long, long silence that Loop ruthlessly let the both of you just steep in. “Okay. I’ll figure something out.”
[You always have to,] Loop said, with something like a smile. [But don’t worry! Your super helpful neighborhood Star is here to help you figure out what and how and where and when!! So – what do you think of this?]
And you figured out a plan, together. You and your guide.
That night, you pulled Mira aside for a small and, quite frankly, embarrassingly emotional talk. She carefully took your hands in hers and agreed with a kind, understanding smile and a wet sheen in her big, dark eyes. It’s the first of these nights that unfold differently – Isabeau bemoaned his fate with a big wink sent your way, and Odile simply raised an eyebrow at you like you should have done this ages ago – even though she doesn’t know the extent of ages, to you. Bonnie sulked a bit (a lot, and quite loudly), but acquiesced after Mira waxed on about wanting to ‘finish it like how it started’, which wasn’t quite true because how she’d started was completely alone, but Isabeau came in and they double-teamed Bonnie until the Kid finally threw up their hands and said “FINE!!! Stupid Frin, you’re sleeping with ME! I hope you like FISTS IN THE FACE and KNEES IN YOUR STOMACH!!”
So there you were, on a night that wasn’t the same as every other – no hushed not-confession from Isabeau, no thrown pillow or scolding from Mira, and no threat from Odile to end all of you. The others fell asleep pretty quickly, and Bonnie made good on their promise by splaying out with one warm knee in your gut, despite every effort you made to accommodate and spare your innards the abuse. You couldn’t fall asleep, though – not just because of the image of a fisted gauntlet spattered blooddark, looping ad nauseum on the backs of your eyelids. No, you were waiting for Bonnie to wake up.
You were tracing the exposed beams of the ceiling back and forth as always when you felt Bonnie shift. They flopped onto their side towards you; you had to turn your head to see their scrunched expression, barely visible in the low light of the room. They breathed in, then out, then in, then whimpered.
You closed your eye. The crickets rubbing their legs outside chirred, the whisper of the wind through the grass and the leaves were loud in the silence, and an errant branch scraped up the side of the stone wall.
Turning, you reached out and hesitantly pulled them closer, hand resting on their back. Their terrified whine was muffled in your chest; you listened for Isabeau to stir, but there was nothing but a shift and a grunt from the other bed. How strange, to not feel him to that. How relieving, that this was just enough to prevent him from waking.
The pit at the base of your chest, right under your beating heart, had formed again. Please go right, you thought to yourself. Please work. Please work. Please work.
Bonnie wheezed in a breath, then froze. Their fingers curled into the front of your nightshirt, reflexively.
…were they awake after all?
You both laid there, you curled around Bonnie, Bonnie curled into the space of your chest, and breathed. Bonnie’s heart beat rabbit-quick under your palm.
Then, in a quiet whisper, “…Frin?”
You pulled back a little. Bonnie looked up, scared, tired, angry tears in their eyes. They were wide with something else you didn’t know the name of. You blinked back at them, and nodded.
“…you remember too?” they asked.
You paused. The words didn’t want to come out of your throat, let alone your mouth.
“You better not say no because I’m gonna crabbing hate you. I hate you already, but I’m gonna hate you more.”
A terrifying threat, to be sure. The skin on your foot burns in memory of their feral clawing.
“…Yeah,” you murmured back. “Yeah. And so do you, now.”
“Now?”
“Now,” you confirmed. Hesitated, then offered, “I know you…crabbing hate me…but, do you wanna go sneak downstairs and have a midnight snack about it?”
Their hands fist in your nightshirt. Their eyes go a little wild for a second, before they close and Bonnie takes in a deep breath. “Okay. But only because we’re havin a midnight snack about it. And you got alotta splainin to do!”
“I do,” you agreed. You sat up and put one index finger against your lips. “But we have to be quiet about it, okay? Activate your stealth mode – nobody else remembers, so it’s gonna be our little secret.”
Their eyes lit up a bit, even as your heart sank with the words. “Our little secret? Just for us??”
You remember them, in the King’s grasp, face blooddark and eyes lifeless. “Yeah, buddy,” you said, putting on your best and most reassuring, smiling mask over the expression you really wanted to make, “our little secret, just for us.”