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Sometimes, you can’t help but think that your family is too good to you.
It’s been five years since the loops.
That’s five years of waking up screaming. Five years of instinctively reaching to your hip every time you completely blind a conversation. Five years of flinching at the smell of plantains, of going blank and freezing at loud noises, of shuddering instinctively every time you’re a little too cold, reminded of being frozen, slowly, slowly, and then all at once.
Five years of being loved. Five years of being seen, of being cared for, spoken to, treated like someone worth keeping. Five years worth remembering. Five years of being remembered.
There are still some things you will never talk about. You will bear the burden of seeing Bonnie’s crushed body in your dreams alone. You will keep hidden the bitter details of that first clumsy time you tried to slit your throat.
You thought you would never talk about why you came back from that last meeting with Loop bruised and shaking even harder than you had on the trip there. That was a secret for them to share.
...But it’s been five years.
Five years of making a fist, extending two fingers, putting it to the side of your head and getting nothing but static. Five years of little offerings made below Favour Trees. Five years of flipping a silver coin, rubbing it between your fingers in your pocket until the embossed details have been worn smooth.
Five years of a life that Loop didn’t get to live. That they endured eons of torment to finally get to have. That they gave to you, out of a sense of some misguided guilt and love that you could never hope to repay.
You have no idea where they are.
It’s on that five-year anniversary of the loops that you admit to yourself that you don’t expect to ever see them again. Not in this life, at least.
Your family knows to give you space today. It was helpful to be held, for a while, but now that so much of it is out in the open... anything else you could share would just be for the sake of self-torment.
You’ll talk to them tomorrow. Today, you need space to grieve.
Isa had found you staring at the coin a few days ago, planning in your head how best to remember the person whose life you stole, when he admitted that it bugged him how you never talked about them. Isa didn’t say it like that, of course—he was gentle about it, was kind—but he lives with you, for Change’s sake, and there’s so much about your life that you can’t share because of it being stolen from your mind, or it being simply too awful to bear even for you. And there’s this entire person that you had—who you clearly loved, whatever that meant for you—and you have no one to talk to about them. No one to help you remember.
That’s what convinced you to talk about Loop with Isa, and you’re glad you did.
He didn’t take it well. You didn’t expect him to, though. Knowing that there was a version of you that suffered in silence for exponentially longer than you did, who endured more, worse, completely alone, and who was never saved? He kept a stoic face, but you could practically see his heart shatter in his chest, and you knew that after you went to sleep later, he would stay awake thinking about it.
Your suspicions were confirmed when you woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Isa sneaking out onto the back porch, but he didn’t go far. From your window, you could see him staring up into the sky, as if trying to figure out whether a sharper, more exhausted version of you was up there. Hoping that somehow, somewhere, in some way, you had finally been allowed to rest.
Because you love him, you pretended to still be asleep, even when you heard him quietly sobbing, whispering apologies into his hands.
But when he regained his faculties the next morning, he kept listening. He listened when you tell him about who Loop was, about their biting sense of humor, their allusions to information that seemed useless at the time but truthfully held the key to your escape. He frowned at the thought of them berating you and bit his lip as if holding back tears when you spoke about the softness they pretended not to have.
He held you as you cried, recounting the devastated way they’d wept, begging you to tell them why you got to keep yourself, why you had been allowed to be set free, why you could be cherished and cared for while they had to simply sit and watch, knowing that the reason they’d failed had simply been because they’d never been brave enough to ask for help—had never believed they were worthy of it.
More than that, Isa told you about what he saw in Loop, for the brief time he knew them as Loop —how they’d fizzled nervously, sparks pouring off of them as they told your family about where you’d gone, about what was wrong. How they’d been so, so patient guiding your family through the House, how they seemed to know what your family was going to say before they said it, how they snarked with Odile, were kind to Mirabelle, endured Bonnie’s jabs with an honest cheer, and laughed like a child’s handbell at Isa’s nervous jokes as if they were hearing them for the first time—even though he now knew they couldn’t have been new.
It made your heart ache.
You hope that it gave them some comfort to get to go on one last adventure with their family.
You told Isa your plans for today—your plan to remember Loop, to treasure getting to live in a moving world, to swim in the ocean and sit under Bambouche’s Favour Tree and savor the life that they let you keep—to make sure it isn’t going to waste. He thought it was a great idea.
Then, he made a few additional suggestions.
You’d spent the day the way you’d initially intended to. You imagined Loop with you, walking down the streets of Bambouche, sharing a fancy pastry with you, picking dandelions and blowing their seeds away, watching them fly into the sky. You sat beneath the Favour Tree, already the home of several little trinkets you’ve spirited away in its branches, and you talked about everything and nothing for hours. You took some of the fancy paper that Odile had brought back from her last trip to Ka Bue and started folding thin strips into stars, whispering wishes for Loop into each one.
You started this tradition some time ago, remembering something about one thousand stars being significant to wishing in some way. You would fold one whenever you think about it, and you were only ten away when you sat down.
Now only nine.
Each one contains the same wish: Return home, return home, return home.
You hope it’s vague enough. Some part of you has always hoped that Loop’s definition of home included you, but you can’t begrudge them the choice to build one somewhere else.
Eight. Seven.
Or maybe they never left.
You still don’t know. You can only hope that wherever they are, they know that you haven’t forgotten.
You never will.
Five, four, three.
But Isa was right: you need to let yourself live instead of waiting for a person that may never come back.
You need to allow yourself to grieve.
You’d folded your last star, and then you delivered it into your waiting pocket, turning to walk back to your house.
Isa told you to stay out of the house for the day while he set things up. He was still cooking when you got back, and with a determined look in his eye, he told you to go upstairs and get ready while he finished.
You put the last of your stars in the box and snuck through the kitchen to place it on the back porch. Then you got dressed, tying back your hair, writing down your activities for the day so you wouldn’t forget, and standing in front of the mirror, breathing in and out.
By the time you returned, he was gone.
Just you, an empty, candlelit house, a table set for two, and in the living room, a place to pay your respects.
You’d eaten in silence, taking care not to get anything on your dress, then steeled yourself and walked to the mirror.
It was free-standing, set up on a white bedsheet in the middle of the room. It was surrounded by several small bouquets of white flowers--Isa probably couldn’t find an actual funeral arrangement in the period of time he had, but this was more than fine. More... sincere. There were two candles on the floor, the rest sitting safely on nearby tables, bookcases—stable surfaces that you probably wouldn’t easily knock over.
Now you stand in front of the mirror.
Your eyepatch is gone. Loop didn’t wear one, so neither will you. You can’t exactly mold your face into the shape of a star, but... They were you, weren’t they? So, they would look like you.
You got a conformer for your eye a few years ago, and now sport a prosthetic eye, just a bit lighter than your natural eye-shade. You still wear an eyepatch most days, but not tonight. You’re dressed completely lightless—a long, formal gown speckled with shining bits of glass that Isabeau designed for you a long time ago, but that you’ve never had an occasion to wear. He helped you trim your hair this morning, leaving the majority of it long and simply tying it up, but bringing the pieces in front up to frame your face better.
You don’t look the same way that you did five years ago. You look close, except for the clothing, and the new creases to your face.
But looking into the full-length mirror that Isa has set up in your living room, sparkling like the night sky, you can recognize Loop in your own reflection.
You school your face into an expression you saw on Loop’s face only once—that very first time you saw them, a look that you weren’t able to decipher at the time. During the loops, you would have made a guess along the lines of disdain.
It comes so naturally to you now, though, that you think that what Loop must have been feeling in that moment was simply a loss so profound you didn’t have the capacity to understand it then.
You understand it now.
You see them in the curve of your jaw, in the pain etched into your brow, the way you hold your head high even as you want to sink under the weight of it all. You kneel down, careful not to trip on your dress as you stare, settling your hands in your lap and just... watching.
There they are.
You don’t reach out to the mirror yet.
Instead, you let your hands drift upwards, crossing them to wrap around yourself, trying to get the picture in the mirror just right—the image of Loop’s face, pressed into your hands, wide-eyed and lost but held nonetheless.
Safe. Secure. Not alone.
You try not to pay any attention to the feeling in your face, instead focusing on your hands, the give of their cheek against your thumbs, the pulse fluttering softly against your ring finger, the soft hair brushing against your knuckles. You watch as Loop’s expression shifts, softens, looking unsure, perhaps a little frightened. You want so badly to comfort them—so you do, shifting a bit closer to the mirror so that you can look them directly in the eye.
“Hello, Loop.”
You’re not looking at their mouth. You don’t want to break the illusion by seeing your own words come out of them, so you focus on the eyes, the way the functional one twitches, how they hold your gaze. You shift your hand higher to brush a strand of hair away from where it was falling, blocking their view. You tuck it behind their ear.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just... I just want to talk to you for a moment.”
They’re listening. They’re settling in, your hand coming back down to hold their jaw again, bracing themself for whatever impact you’re about to land.
You swallow thickly.
“I... I couldn’t have this life without you. The only reason I get to be happy is because you thought I deserved to be helped.” You swipe your thumb beneath their cheekbone, and you smile at them as reassuringly as you can. “You saved me. You helped my family find me, and you told them what I couldn’t. Even though it hurt.”
They’re tearing up, and stars, you are too.
“You went through so much. Suffered for so long, without someone to show you where to look for a way out, without anyone to talk to, to lead you away from the edge.” You squeeze a little tighter, and a tear falls. You wipe it away. “You didn’t have anyone to keep you from destroying yourself, did you? It’s okay. You can cry. You weren’t able to before, were you?”
You don’t take your eye away, and they slowly shake their head in the mirror. No, of course not. Stars don’t cry. You smile again. “You can now. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
The tears are coming more steadily now, and if you try very hard not to acknowledge the way your throat tightens around it, you can hear them sniffle.
“You did so well. I know it doesn’t feel like it. I know it doesn’t feel fair. And it’s not, Loop, it’s not.” You lean forward, slowly, tentatively, letting your forehead rest against the mirror. They’re weeping openly now, getting tears all over their pretty dress. You wipe their eye, not looking away for a second. “It’s not fair at all.”
You want to kiss their tears away. You don’t. Not yet. “It’s not. You deserved this, too. You deserved this instead. And I wi-” Their expression looks panicked for a second, and you bite your tongue, restructuring the sentence in your head. Stupid, stupid. “I... regret that I’m too selfish to ask you to take it from me. But I would share it with you in a heartbeat. No matter what it took.”
Oh, that hurts them. You can tell. It’s not enough of an offering, you’re too much of a coward to let them reclaim what was theirs, to give up the family you’ve crawled on your hands and knees through the abyss of empty space to keep. But they don’t say anything. All of their old vitriol has drained from them, replaced with an emptiness that you feel reflected in yourself. You hurt with them. You wish you could fill up their hollow, aching chest with dandelions, with soft things, with warmth and light and love and ether and your own hands, your own heart.
“You’re so kind, you know that? So much kinder than me. You don’t think you are, I know you don’t. But I would never have been able to do what you did.” You close your eyes, listening to them hiccup around their tears. “You’re so good. So good to me. Better than I deserve. I can never thank you enough.”
You open your eyes again, and their teeth are worrying their lip. You brush your thumb over it, the tip of it resting against their mouth. It’s wet, the heat of their breath curling over your hand and making your own breath hitch in your chest. You just watch them breathe for a long moment, trying to compose themself, failing miserably. Your mouth runs dry, and you see them try to smile at you, even as they blink away tears.
“I can’t... I can’t give you anything else. I wish I could. I wish you’d accept it. But...” You feel their heart beat faster in your own chest. “But I can... I can let you rest. I can stop silently willing you back. You deserve to- to not have to worry about me.”
Their eyes are wide, your hands shaking. “I’ll always wish for you to return home, wherever home is. I’ll always wish for you to be safe. I’ll always love you, and I’ll always secretly hope that I’ll see you again some day. But you deserve better than for me to drag your corpse along with me.” You squeeze your eyes shut. “You deserve to be remembered as something better than the pain of your absence.”
Your fingers twitch against their jaw, and you push your hand further back to card through their hair. “So... I’m going to let you rest, okay? I’m going to miss you, but more than that, I’m going to focus on remembering you. And I’m going to make sure you know that I’m not letting what you did for me go to waste. I’m going to be happy, and I’m going to treasure every moment.”
You open your eyes again. They’re still crying. You smile.
“For you. For me, too, but when that feels too hard, I’ll do it for you. Okay?”
You lean forward, pressing your lips to the mirror, eye almost shut, just barely open enough to see their own eyes fluttering, their own face pressed against yours.
You let out a long breath and sit back, watching them. Then you bring your arms down from their face, pressing a hand to the mirror.
“Rest now. I love you.”
And then you smile, and they disappear. You are looking at yourself again, smiling fondly, eye red and puffy, tears and snot dribbling down your face.
You stand up, hand still on the mirror.
Then you pull your knife from the sheath on your back and bring the point to the center of it. You steady your hand, then bring it down hard, shattering it into what feels like a million pieces, thousands of shards, sparkling and twinkling like stars, falling onto the waiting bedsheet.
You make quick work, then, of moving the mirror frame, shaking out the flowers and scattering petals. You gather the ends of the bedsheet, tying it up into a bundle, securing them with one of the pins from your cloak. Then, you carry the bundle out of the house, being careful to watch for any weak patches of the cloth.
Isa is waiting for you on the beach.
The little boat is made from the bottom of a barrel, already filled with darkless roses and the box with your paper stars, a pair of lit candles in Isa’s hands. He inclines his head to you, gesturing to the boat, and you nod back, setting the bundle of mirror fragments into it.
As you set it in, you notice some more items—items you didn’t pre-approve.
A set of cloak pins, each fastened with a little bell. An antique deck of playing cards, the suit of diamonds replaced with the four pointed star that you now know represents the Universe. A hand-made hat, lightless, embroidered with little white spots speckled across it. A drawing of your family, with six members—Isa, Mira, Bonnie, Odile, and Pétronille, all gathered around and hugging a figure that’s more trapezoid than person, wrapped in a darkless cloak.
You’d thought you didn’t have any more tears to cry. You were wrong.
“Did you tell them?”
“No,” Isa murmurs, handing you one of the candles. “But I asked them each for a gift to give to you. I told them it was for a time capsule for you to unwrap in ten years—here’s to hoping they forget by then?”
You snort, sniffling while you laugh. “Here’s to hoping I can tell everyone by then.”
“Sure. And you can be the one to tell them we put their gifts in a barrel floating out to sea, too.”
You grin, checking him with your shoulder. “Oh, hush.”
You set your candle in the barrel as well, making sure it’s secure enough not to catch anything alight. Then, finally, you reach into a pocket of your dress.
You set Loop’s silver Vaugardian coin on top of the lot. It glimmers in the candlelight.
You look up, north towards the island, then to a star directly above it.
Instinctually, the word Polaris comes to mind, then is erased.
Nonetheless, you know that this is the star that will guide your package to its destination.
You keep your eye on the north star, mumbling your wish under your breath five times.
Then, you kneel down, pushing the barrel into the current and out to sea.
You watch it float into the distance until the flickering of the candlelight is indistinguishable amongst the other thousands of stars reflected into the ocean. Isa’s arm wraps around you, and you slump in his hold, burying your face in his chest.
“Thank you,” you whisper, sniffling. “Can we go inside?”
He nods—the other candle still in his hand to light your way—and you turn around, the house that the two of you share mere yards away. It’s nice having the ocean in your very own front yard.
You were there all along, but still, you return home.
Two weeks later, you step inside your house to find Isa sitting nervously in the living room, thumbs twitching. When you enter, he jumps to his feet. “Oh crab, okay, great. There you are. Okay.”
“Uh…?” You blink, frowning. “Is everything alright?”
“I-“ He bites his lip. “I think so? I think so. I found something earlier on the beach in front of the house you might want to see, but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not. You might know better.”
“O…kay?”
“I mean, I think it’s good? I just-“ He groans, pulling a hand down his face. “Are you in a headspace to see something weird?”
“Isa, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m not trying to!”
“Can’t you just-“
…And then you see it.
On the kitchen table, the bottom half of a barrel.
You feel your heart sink.
“Is that…?”
He nods. “Go look.”
You brush past him. The barrel is a little too tall for you to see from the ground, so he gingerly lifts it from the table and sets it on the floor.
The barrel is filled with dandelions. Some in bloom, some just seed pods. One that’s clearly still living, sitting in an elegantly decorated pot.
With a trembling hand, you brush aside some of the fluff to pull it out, and gasp at the sight of a bundle hidden beneath even that.
You start to brush more and more of it away, pulling out item after item.
An intricately wrought astrolabe. A lightless hair bow with little cut pieces of sparkling glass set into it. A set of small earthenware bowls lined with decorative fluting. A bundle of shimmering midshade chiffon fabric.
A sack of lightless sand. When you lifted that out of the barrel, you were met with the final gift, hidden just beneath it: a single silver coin. Vaugardian currency, though you wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t already know what it was with how much it had been rubbed absentmindedly, the embossed details worn down.
You slid it into your cloak pocket.
“Sif?”
“Yeah?”
“…It’s good, right?”
You blink. “Yes, why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’re crying.”
…Huh. So you are. You reach up to wipe your eyes, your face breaking into a grin. “Sorry, sorry. No, it’s a good thing.”
“These are…” He hesitates.
“They’re from Loop.”
His shoulders slouch with relief. “Oh, thank Change, I was worried I was wrong and I’d totally crabbed up.”
“No, no,” you laugh, sniffling again. “It’s just…”
“…They’re okay, then?”
“Yeah,” you rasp, running your hands through the fluff. You wonder if they’re the same species of dandelion as the common Vaugardian variety. “Better than okay. It means my wish came true.”
“You think you’ll see them again?”
“Probably not.” You smile wider. “But it’s okay. I can stop wondering, now. And I can wish for something different.”
“Like what?”
You reach out and take hold of Isa’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Not sure yet. I'll figure it out, though.”
The dandelion ends up on your kitchen windowsill, displayed proudly for anyone who walks by to see. You end up bringing in a common Vaugardian dandelion to compare, and sure enough: the island variety is bigger, with darker, smaller leaves, and a stronger scent. You ultimately decide not to scatter the dandelion fluff outside, worried for the local ecosystems, but Isa’s making plans for an enclosed greenhouse.
It becomes a monthly ritual—on the full moon, sit outside and find your special star. Stare at it for a long while, then make a wish right before bed.
Something small. Something nice.
I wish for Loop to eat something nice for breakfast tomorrow.
I wish for Loop to see a cute cat this week.
I wish for Loop to have a conversation that makes them smile.
You don’t know what their life looks like now.
But somehow, in these moments, you get the distinct feeling that they’re sitting on a beach opposite Vaugarde with lightless sand, looking at a star south of them, and making a wish of their own.