Archive of Our Own ^beta

The lack of movement is not as painful as one might originally think it would be. Even as the body creaks and joints seems like they're rusting from disuse, there is no pain.

In fact, you don't feel anything at all.

It was impossible to stand still before, it wasn't like your work hours would even allow some actual time properly resting. There was always something to do, documents that needed checking, reports that needed to be written, housemaidens to overseer, a new book series to read and then add to the library, the hair appointment you needed to go at the end of each month with the students of the hair styling class-

Now there is nothing.

Now there is the only possibility to keep standing still, waiting to say the lines of the script that was forced upon you.

Your limbs itch.

The other puppets haven't come in the room yet, there is no way of knowing if they ever will.

Do they also feel the distant ache that is the nothing but heaviness that licks away what little consciousness they still have? Do they even have consciousness still?

You always think of Claude in moments like these. She would always manage to make you slow down and rest. Always the one with ever so gentle hands, soothing.

She hasn't appeared anywhere yet, only that damned thing has ever come to see you here. Where even is she? You hope she's safe, that she didn't get a chance to see that thing or worse tried to fight it-

…

Stop thinking about the worse case scenario like this. Out of all people, the Head Housemaiden is the one that should always strive for hope, to be the reference.

The Change God is by your side, by Mirabelle's side, and she will succeed. The moment she got blessed right in front of you was one of pure horror and awe. She has to win.

The door gently creaks open, shining a soft light in the otherwise dimly lit rooftop room beneath layers and layers of the earth. It is possible to hear steps, coming from that source of light - that now seems to walk so slowly, accentuating the click of their heels, and the sound of their bells.

Dread flows through your body like blood was meant to fill it.

With each step, the otherwise lifeless room seems to be exhumed, and forced to be examined again while maggots and rot fester through it. It is a cruel thing, to force a corpse out of it's grave, and yet the person thing being threading it does not seem to care. It continues to walk at a leisure pace, dreading almost. It is to be expected, after all there is no living thing to comment of, only the dead may witness the "End".

There is no reason for them to do this, and yet here they are.

The sound of the heels reach a halt the moment it reaches the End. The End does not say it's lines yet, as the Actor is merely standing forward, not interacting, almost hesitant to take that last step.

No reason for her to keep doing this to you, and yet there he is!

The Actor takes a step forward, looking above to the looming presence of the End.

"Oh traveling one… Siffrin was it?" - the wooden mouth opens, and your vocal cords move unwillingly to an already written script.

No reason for them to keep doing this to themselves. And yet. Here. They. Are.

"I cannot thank you enough for what you've done!"- The being in front of you laughs, and you've never yearned for the ability to cry more than now.

"I'm sure you and your companions have a lot to talk about…"- The wooden mouth pauses, following the script still. Every time this line comes up, it almost feels impossible to imagine anyone accompanying… this. As cruel as that thought may be.

Even if you can hear the one sided conversations that it seems to have with such "companions".

The Actor, the moment it notices that The End has finished it's lines, walks readily to the hedge on the left, with it's incessant clicking and chiming of the bells. It stops, and immediately starts it's dialogue with The Kid.

It feels invasive almost, to hear these one sided conversations while just standing there. But they have also taken your privacy, your humanity, your capability to Change. It does not feel fair, but that does not matter.

However, the talks are always sweet.

After doing this play pretend a few times, you started thinking that there would be a moment where the conversations would go terribly, so much so that it would have ended up being what caused it to end up as this. Their own origin story, in a way.

But this isn't a book, nor the play they so desperately pretend this is. So that never ended up happening, as these conversations tend to go about pretty much the same - there are times where it is slightly different, almost sweeter, crueler also in their own way.

From what is possible to hear from short answers and overly expressive inhuman emotions being shown through the mask he carries on what you assume in their face, it almost feels like they are saying his final goodbyes. An inmate in the death row saying it's last goodbyes to their family. He always dreads coming here.

And yet, here they are.

There is no origin story here, only lingering warmth of a time long past - and dread for a future that is already here, eating away what last remains of such warmth.

After coming to a full circle around the room, stopping in four specific spots, it slowly makes it's way to the center of the room to face the End. When it reaches it's Final destination one more time, the Actor looks up.

"Traveling one!"- The wooden mouth opens again, starting this part, again. You hear them sigh in front of you, tired of it already.

"Are you done talking with your companions? Yes, wonderful, wonderful!" - Hearing xher repeat your lines with a slightly higher voice makes you want to slap them. By Change is this god annoying.

"I'd like to thank you for accompanying young Mirabelle this far. I'm very grateful for it." - If there is anything you take joy or any amount of relief in is how far, far away Mirabelle is from this thing. But oh, how worried you are for her when she has to come back in this now torturous maze, to fight this. To do what needs to be done.

"Siffrin, yes? If there is anything I can do to thank you, please don't hesitate to let me know!" - And the script continues, never ending in it's certainty.

Here is what you have learned with it: this was once a person, once named Siffrin, they were a traveler maybe, had companions which they seemed to be on good terms and seemed to have loved very much, and now star is a god that wants to destroy the world and do this play over and over for some reason you do not know. All of this could be false, or related to someone else completely different, or be somehow distorted. There is nothing else you have gathered in this room yet.

Whatever other information you have is either probably just made up, something very horrifying but very real, or something from another reality, so you do not lump it with these more rational information.

"I know you will go back on your travels soon, but I do hope that you'll keep in touch, if only for young Mirabelle" - Any type of hope you still possess is destined to their utmost demise.

"But no matter what, know that Dormont will always be open to you! Please come back-"

"You can start breaking down now." - They speak with a saccharine voice and the most fake smile you've ever seen. What a crab, honestly.

Hating this might be understating your loathing for the next part of the script.

"Oh… Oh no." - Change this is horrifying. You hate, hate this part.

"Oh… Siffrin…!" - This part does sound like the start of a villain origin story if you put your mind to it. The hero, hoping that their journey would finally be rewarded, and yet getting faced with a final challenge impossible to beat. And so they give up!

But that also just sounds really cheap. It has to be greater, the event that caused this thing to exist has to be greater.

"I'm so sorry! There's no way we can stop it now..!" - Where did this part of the script come from anyway? Why is it written like this? There is no possible way for you to actually know at this point, and you ponder about it anyway. It's easier after all, to pretend you have an objective, and that you are not trapped.

"I'm sorry! You'll be going back! Back to where everything started." - Even as your wooden mouth continues to say such things without your actual will, there are things you feel sorry for. That you didn't do anything, that your blessing against the King is now worthless, that this thing is beyond anything you could have prepared. That you still doubt Mirabelle, even when you saw her moment where she got blessed by the Change God. You wish you could have had the knowledge back then to actually do something. But you can't, can you?

On a subconscious level, you know that the being in front of you wants it too. To go back. More than any of you. Isn't it all this Labyrinth is for anyway? To desperately want that warmth of the past back, back even when that isn't possible? Even when it isn't rational anymore? Even when it is only an obsession that fuels all of this place?

"I know you thought your quest was over, but it can't be!" - It will never truly end, will it? You feel it beneath your oak made skin. This won't end, even when it should. There is no true ending to stories like this.

"Something's broken, something's failing, rotting!"- It was always meant to be like this. There is no fixing it. There is no fixing something that was made this way. No matter how hard you just wish you could fix it-

The End stops speaking, almost as it hearing something. The Actor looks confused, as it knows this isn't meant to be happening. There are no pauses in this monologue until the true ending of this loop scene.

"Fix… it?"- The puppet opens it's lips.

"No. It's too late, Siffrin." - It's always been too late. But the script doesn't go like this.

"It's always been too late." - You gulp.

The Actors expression contorts, from casual annoyance, to confusion, to fear, to desperation. There is no good reason to relish on that, is there? Why do you keep narrating paragraphs like this? You're not in a book Euphrasie, you're in a play. And you see the person, not thing, not just a god, in front of you just start going into a panic attack. And it feels good, to have to control, doesn't it? It makes you feel powerful. Aren't you just so swell, Head Housemaiden.

"No! No! You- You aren't supposed to- You shouldn't" - Seeing them take breaths between each word they manage to get out, tears forming on their eyes, makes you wonder if they know.

"Oh, Siffrin…" - Hands moving against your will, the oak infused fingers and palms gently cup his face. They flinch, and beneath the wooden flesh, they shiver and sweat.

You still don't feel it.

"It's true. All of Vaugarde wished to the Favor Tree, wished for us to be saved."

Are they actually feeling your hands? Or, if just like all of the other puppets, maybe she's not feeling anything. They may have flinched upon contact, but a knee jerk reaction like that shouldn't count, they still happen even if there is no contact involved. Are they warm? Are they cold? Are their tears actually salty or sweet? Is their skin clammy? Is it soft? Is the light that they emit actually capable of burning? Would you burn if you touched it?

"We wished for a savior. A way for us to win against the King." - And xher won, didn't it?

"And Wish Craft gave us the means to do it, didn't it? Made sure it'd work?" - The feeling in your gut sinks, sinks into the depths of the sea.

"Somehow, Wish Craft gave us a savior, able to use Time Craft…Able to retry, as many times it took! So you could beat the King?" - Nausea builds up in your throat.

"stop it… please stop it" - Fae looks as sick as you feel, breathing like the next one might be the last, tears and sobs easily falling from their eyes.

"But… But something went wrong, didn't it?" - This is wrong. This is all wrong!!

"Something goes wrong every time!!!" - How many times did you fail? How many times has this been going on for at this point? Did you fail so badly that the only remedy the world could offer was this?

"If you're here now, asking about Wish Craft, then something must be wrong, isn't it?" - Did you manage to fail your housemaidens so thoroughly? Fail Claude? Fail Mirabelle like this? Are your tears even fake at this point? How much of this is you? How much is it not you? You feel sick to your stomach, still. "This isn't the first time you've gotten this far, isn't it?!?"

"It shouldn't be like this... Why does time loop back, even though the King has been defeated?!?" - How many times will you fail this House? Dormont? Vaugarde? How many more until the world implodes in on itself and dies?

"The only answer I can find... Is it's because we did it wrong."

Star sobs in front of you, their lips wobbly, and knees seemingly weak - trembling like a newborn fawn. And yet zir doesn't move an inch away from your grasp, frozen in place.

You wonder if they know, or if they can tell in some way.

"I don't know what happened! But we must've done it wrong!!!"

"None of us in Vaugarde knew the exact ritual, but-- But we must have done it so wrong, it broke, and it doesn't answer to us at all anymore!!!"- An uncanny, unnerving feeling settles beneath your long dead nerves. Why should there be a right way to wish for something? And if not done properly, things will go wrong? Was their wish for safety done unjustly just because of a technical mistake?

"Or maybe-- Maybe someone wished for it, wished for our wish to fail!!! Wished for this!!!" - Why would anyone be that cruel? Vaugarde doesn't have enemies that threaten like that anymore, only on stories long past. It isn't just a petty wish, it's a national threat. "Something made our wish break, made it fail, made it rot!!!"

"O-Or maybe the wish can't come true anymore, somehow!!! Maybe the King wasn't defeated the right way-- It'll forever remain incomplete, and Wish Craft, the world, will not abide it!!!" - Craft can't be cut away easily like that, and from what you've seen and researched yourself about Wish Craft, it also doesn't work like that either. The world will always grant the wish of the individual who wanted it, in one way or another.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!!!" - How could you ever know?

"shut it shut it SHUT IT!!!!" - Fae is fully panicking now, and you want to stop but your mouth just keeps moving and-

You wonder if they know, truly know.

How unstable their form actually is.

How sometimes when they talk to your, the light vanishes and what appears is a human face.

They look almost like a porcelain doll like that, with pure darkless skin and wide eyes, with pretty lashes . But it's hard not to see the bags under it's eyes, or the hollow on their cheeks. He looks like a caged animal, starved and gone mad, on it's last days before the final Change happens to them also. Their eyes are also a deep shade, fully lightless most of the time, no shine to make looking at xir in the eyes any easier. But sometimes, just sometimes, their eyes shine that broken, horrible shade.

That's what left of "Siffrin", you suppose. A dead corpse that continues to stand for no reason.

"If only... If only we had fought back against the King, instead! If only we didn't wish for such a thing!" - You wouldn't have been able to win either way. It doesn't matter anymore. It will End soon.

"If only I knew this would happen, if I had noticed it sooner, I would never have let people wish at all!!!" - And yet you wish, wish for this to stop.

"To know you'll be trapped for all eternity, Siffrin... I am so sorry!!!" - The damage has already been done. You know, you know it, there is no going back from this.

"It's our fault, all of Vaugarde, that you have to suffer like this!!!"- Is blame worth anything at this point?

"I just hope that one day..."

The scene shifts, glitches into a dark void. One the Actor and The End know all too well, with a thousand reflections staring right into the one who started all this madness. The one that caused all of this. All the distorted reflections can do in their afterlife is stare at the culprit. The Actor screams, screams, screams into the unending void, but it does not matter. It is their fate, always, to End here. And as such, the reflections and the end work into the final line of this loop scene play world. The only way it could ever truly end.

"You might learn to forgive "