Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Could you do it, everyone? Could you entrust your life and future to someone like Siffrin right now?”

…The silence that rings through the clocktower speaks volumes. You don’t need a single one of them to say it. Really, it’s impressive how obvious it is. The answer is ‘no’, stupid~! You messed everything up, and they don’t want anything to do with you anymore! You figure you’d better loop back, since you can’t go through the House without them. It’d be faster to use your dagger, but you don’t want to do this another single blinding time. You CAN’T, but you can’t do anything else this loop, since you need them with you-

You

You DON’T need them. How strong have you been getting, all this time? You’re defeating every sadness in only one hit. You could do it on your own, but you’ve only got one orb on hand. Every party member carries one. Well, they’re right in there, so you could…

You       could….. 

You                          decide                          to-

“Of course I can trust Siffrin.”
What.
“Mirabelle???” Isa’s voice calls out, appalled. “Like… I get it, I care about Sif too, but are you sure? What about-”
“About what he said today? About how he’s been acting? I agree, I can’t trust that person. But I can trust Siffrin. All the time we’ve spent together on this journey, every memory you have of them… do any of you think that was some kind of lie, or a trick, or something?”
Odile sighs, silent for a moment. “...I do feel like their actions were genuine, but logically I don’t think so, considering how he changed so suddenly like this.”
“I still don’t believe he’s just… completely different. He’s still the same Siffrin, somehow. Like, when I yelled at him for being… well, he seemed so shocked. I’ve been thinking about it, and I really don’t think he meant it like that.”
“He was still super mean though!!!! He didn’t mean it but then he should’ve said it better!!!” Bonnie pipes up, voice still wavering.
Mirabelle responds apprehensively. “...He is different, somehow. I just… I’d rather figure out why. Listen, something must have happened for him to change so suddenly like this, and it must’ve been something bad. And instead of trying to help him, we’re discussing leaving him behind. I’m not going to do that to Siffrin, and that’s final. U-um, at least, for me.”

“...You’re right, Mira.” Isabeau concludes. “They haven’t exactly been working against us, so we can probably count on them to stick with us for tomorrow. We just…” He sighs. “We need to find out what’s wrong.”
“I doubt he’d tell us.” Odile speaks.
“No, I’m certain he won’t.” Mira acknowledges. “But we have to try figuring it out on our own. Siffrin’s our friend, and we need to help them in any way we can.”
Bonnie grumbles. “Frin’s a crab though.”
Isa chuckles softly. “Well, they weren’t before, right? It’s like… something is making him act like this. Something’s wrong, and they don’t want to tell us what it is.”
“Oh… OH, like how people get really mean when they’re hungry???”
“Exactly! It’s, um. Probably bigger than being hungry, though.”
“So… the plan is just to figure out what’s wrong tomorrow? While we’re in the House?” Odile questions, incredulously.
“Well… do you have a better idea?” Mira rebutes.

“...No, I agree. We can trust Siffrin to lead us tomorrow, but we need to keep an eye out. Second priority is to find out what’s wrong with him.”
“...what’s first???”
“How about to kill the King???”
“Ohhh that makes sense!!! Sorry!!”

They chuckle a little, and keep talking. They… they’re going to find out. You can’t let them, you can’t let them find out it’d be easy to just loop back but you CAN’T. You want to avoid looping by any means necessary. Who cares if they’re trying to figure it out? They can’t!!!! You keep it too well hidden!! You had to go out of your way to drop as many hints as possible for Odile to figure it out, you can just do the opposite! You can just- you just have to go through, and beat the King on your own, and make sure they don’t find out. You can do this. You can do this. You take a deep breathe in, and out. You can do this.

You figure you’d best go downstairs and make it sound like you just entered the clocktower, so they don’t suspect you eavesdropping, but then you notice how quiet the room is. Do they know you’re there??? There’s no way, you’ve been quiet, you just… did a breathing exercise right outside of the door. Are those loud?? Is breathing loud????

“U-um, Siffrin?”

. . . 

Okay, breathing is loud, noted. This is fine. They don’t know how much you heard. You walk in, smile painted on the mask you call your face. Bonnie moves to hide behind Odile, peeking out with worried eyes. Mirabelle and Isabeau are sharing similar looks of pity.

“How’s everyone doing~?” You say, convincingly. They look at you like you told a joke at a funeral. It’s probably accurate in some way.
Mira’s the first to speak. “...How much did you hear?” Stars, I wonder~!
“Whaaaaat? I didn’t hear anything, silly~! Just about how you’re pretending you don’t want to leave me behind~!” That was. Maybe a bit too obvious.
“Okay, one, that’s definitely not how that conversation went down.” Isa remarks, smiling. Pretending he tolerates you. “And two, we only considered it for half a second thanks to Odile who brought it up in the first place-”

“ISABEAU.” Odile glares at him for putting the blame on her.
“SORRY M’DAME!!” He apologizes, smiling weakly. “But u-um, anyway, we’re not leaving you behind because we’d rather just help you with whatever you’re dealing with. Speaking of which, is there anything you want to tell us?”
“Nope~!” You know they won’t believe it. You just need to stall. You just need to get them to drop it.
“...Well, so much for honesty. But we’re going to figure it out eventually. M’dame Odile especially, out of all of us.” You chuckle a little. She already did.
“What are you laughing at, Siffrin?” Odile watches you intently, right on cue. Blind her and her stupid blinding observation- attentive- WHATEVER. They’re still not going to figure it out. Hey, if you play it well enough, it might line up with a normal loop in some places! Haha! You don’t want that at all~! You don’t want to see the same BLINDING lines again! At least things are different now, but you can’t have them finding out, you can’t have them hating you, so, so… so you need to toe the line. You need to be careful. You can do this. Just one more loop.
“We just want to help you, Siffrin, but that means we need to know what’s wrong. And we’re going to figure it out.”

. . .

“Do your worst.”

Chapter Text

You’ve only just left the clocktower when Isa speaks up. “Hey, would you all mind if I went back to the Favor Tree for a second? I never got to ask for anything.” You wonder what could have possibly interrupted him.
“We’d be better off pushing forward as soon as possible, but I suppose a few minutes won’t change much. Be quick.” Odile responds.
“Okay!! I will see you!!! At the House!!!!” Isabeau runs off, leaving the rest of you waiting just outside the clocktower. Even if their eyes aren’t on you, you can tell they’re thinking about you. About how horrible you are. The silence is killing you.
“...Think his wish will be about me~?” You tease with a smirk. Silence. Suffering.

“M-maybe he’ll ask for us to save Vaugarde?” Mira guesses.
“Come on, Mira~! How many people have probably already wished for that? Enough to be sure we’ll beat the King today.” Hah. And enough to make you miserable, as a bonus.
“The confidence is very reassuring, Siffrin.” Odile comments sarcastically.
“It is.” Your cheeks are hurting from your grin. You make sure to look away before dropping your smile.
“...crab.” Bonnie mumbles. Nobody says anything else.

Silence returns to the four of you. A few minutes pass in front of the clocktower. Impatience begins to seep in. You know Isa takes a while to decide on a wish on every loop, but you’d think he’d have thought of something by now if he’d have you all wait for him. Maybe he’s just trying to figure out how to word it. You’d zone out, but you haven’t heard any of this before. You clench your teeth, trying to slow your mind down and wait.

…

.  .  .

“I’m back!” FINALLY.
“That took you a while. I had imagined you’d already decided on what you’d ask for if you were going to make us wait here for you.” Exactly!!!
“Well, um.” He looks nervous. He glances at you.

“...I just had to find out how to word it, I guess! Haha!”

--=-={ + }=-=--

The House’s doors slide open with a flash. You press forward quickly, not wasting a second. You only turn and stop when you notice the others aren’t quite as close behind you. They’re following you, sure, but they’re at least a meter behind you. You weren’t even running, were you?
“Taking your time?” You ask, grinning. Your cheeks flare in pain.
“We’re just keeping up with M’dame Odile. I know you’re supposed to be the fast one, but this might be overdoing it a little.” Isabeau says, lips curled in a half-smile.
“We should be going as quick as we can! We don’t want to spend more time here than we need to!” You make your point by continuing to walk once they catch up, speeding up gradually.
Odile glares at you for a moment before speaking. “Better leave me behind, then. I’d just slow you down, right?”

“N-no! I’ll slow down, it’s fine!!” You quickly find yourself right at the head of the group, where you belong. Odile looks like she’s been taken off-guard by how quickly you backed down, like she’s taking a mental note of this. She then takes out her notebook to make a physical note of this. It’s out of spite, you’re sure of it.

“A-a sadness..!” Mira observes, as usual. Your hand flies to your dagger, stopping at the handle. You want this to be over already, but you remember what happened the last time you took on the first sadness on your own. It’s fine. You can wait. You know these lines. You can hear them clear in your head. But only in your head, you notice, as the others are deathly silent. You turn slowly, and see them staring at your hand. At your dagger.
“Um, Sif…” What is it now, Isa!? “...do you want to take this one?”

. . .
“What??????”
“Y-you don’t have to!!!! But, um. You look rather stressed, and impatient… if you want to blow off a little steam, that’s okay! We can just sit back for this one! I-if you want. I mean.”

…

Slowly, you take your dagger out and examine it, debating the choice. You could, but they’d see how fast it’ll go down. Another secret out. Do you want to risk it, just to make this go by quicker?

You end up not needing to debate, because as soon as you look up at the sadness-

…you gain EXP.

And

you 

don’t turn around. “Come on, let’s keep going.” You say, shakily. You don’t turn around you can’t turn around, but thankfully, you can hear their footsteps following you. You remind yourself to slow down, for Odile.
A piece of your mask has fallen off. Soon, they’ll be able to glimpse what’s under it, and you can’t let that happen. You’re the director of this stage, Siffrin. You can keep them off your trail, but how? At this rate, you won’t even make it to the King before Odile figures it out. You know what they said last night, they’ll take every hint they get. They’ll piece together every single one of your secrets until they know what it means. So what can you even do?? You’ve already proven you’re too blindingly desperate to hide everything. So maybe, you can… um… lie. Lying is the solution to all your problems. You could… tell a fake secret. Let them think they’ve found something new, when it’s just a lie. A lightless herring, to distract them. That’s a great idea.

Now, you just need to think of something.