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In any other situation Lemres offering everyone who wanted to come by Primp town hall for free ice cream and soda would never have drawn as much of a crowd as it did today.
Everyone just had a lot to talk about. A good reason to replenish some blood sugar, too. The entire town had just spent a whole week forcibly entangled with the dream world and cut off from the outside, after all. There was a lot to catch up on, and so everyone sat gathered around the multiple long tables in the big banquet hall, talking about the events of the past days. As it turned out, much of the population of the town hadn't even been aware what exactly, if anything, had transpired this past week. They'd either been far enough from the hearth of simmering disaster to not catch wind of much beyond the occasional oddity in their surroundings, or just had written off what they had seen as the usual benign magical shenanigans the area was prone to. Thus, life in Primp had continued fairly uninterrupted for many that lived in it.
It would continue uninterrupted for those that didn't live in it, too. Ringo, Maguro, and Risukuma might not have been around to celebrate with everyone, but Ecolo assured Amitie that he'd personally made sure they'd made it back to Suzuran at the exact point in time and space they'd left it, as if they'd never been gone at all. They wouldn't miss a single day or even a single meal in their hometown.
-Unlike Sig, who, upon reflection, realized he'd missed quite a few meals. Five and a half Ocean Prince servantships worth of, actually. The Sig-who-wasn't-him had realized that, since the physical world was following the laws of the dream world, it meant food wasn't mandatory anymore. So he had simply chosen not to eat for days on end. Now that everything was back to normal, it was the Sig-who-actually-was-Sig who had to deal with the results of that, and here he now sat, stuffing his face with more of his favorite blue Puyoberry treats than he even knew could fit into his stomach until now. Thankfully he wouldn't run out of seconds any time soon. He was pretty much the only person in town who actually enjoyed the bitter, sour taste of blue Puyoberry enough to consider it anything more than a budget option. It helped him focus and ground himself, and that feeling was something he needed now more than ever…
“Eheheh! Look at Sig, guys. I mean, I always knew he liked to eat, but this could be some sort of record for him, huh?”
Amitie was trying to whisper to their school friends, but she was sitting right next to him, and she wasn’t exactly quiet enough to keep Sig from overhearing what she said. His ears perked a bit, and as he kept eating, Sig listened in to the ensuing conversation.
“At very least in terms of speed,” said Raffina. She sounded a little disgusted by the lack of decorum Sig was displaying. “Like, geez, who had any idea Sig was even capable of moving that fast?”
The next person to speak was Klug. Unlike Raffina, his voice was uncharacteristically calm; downright careful, even.
“Lemres once told me that blood sugar can serve as a source of energy to cast spells from when other avenues are exhausted or blocked…” he sounded worried. “Given what you told us happened, Amitie… Maybe that’s just how much magic this whole ordeal took out of him…”
“But didn’t Amitie say that he was holding that thing back from doing too much damage from the inside the whole time?” Raffina pointed out. “How much could it possibly have used?”
Klug reacted with immediate insult, “Excuse me!? Restraining one’s power can be just as strenuous as applying it! …And he still beat me, so OBVIOUSLY it used a lot! A whole lot! There is probably a limit to how much Sig was capable of holding back, I am certain-”
“Y-You guys, quiet down!” Amitie interrupted him, pressing a finger to her lips. “Sig is right there, you know…!”
“Yup. I am,” said Sig, before putting a piece of chocolate in his mouth.
Amitie, Klug and Raffina immediately fell dead silent, staring at him with shame.
“Uh…” Eventually, Klug spoke, his head hung. “M-My apologies. I’m sure you would rather not have, well, unpleasant memories spoil your appetite right now, huh…?”
Sig’s eating speed had slowed down. Quietly, he let a piece of chocolate sit on his tongue and melt. He focused on the bitter taste, and the feeling of the ground firmly pressed against his feet. Eventually, he caught himself digging the nails of his right hand into his left arm a little. He didn’t say anything.
“ Sig… Are you okay? ” a familiar little voice whispered in his ear worriedly. It wasn’t Amitie or any of his other classmates saying that, but somebody that wasn’t really here right now. Somebody who was looking at him through a little window only he could look back through, for reasons he still didn’t really understand. He knew that now, and so, instead of replying to Meena, he tried to smile a little in her direction and give a small nod. Amitie, Klug, and Raffina awkwardly started talking amongst one another again in the meanwhile.
“Topic change, topic change!” Raffina commanded.
“Topic change, to what!? None of us are exactly connoisseurs of insect facts!” Klug hissed.
“It doesn’t have to be terribly interesting to him; it just has to be anything other than THAT!” said Raffina.
“Uh, uh, uh, maybe we should talk about school!?” Amitie suggested.
“Do you really think that would make him feel any better!? His grade average is no better than yours!”
“H-Hey…!”
“So. What was it?”
The three of them fell silent again. Sig had spoken. ‘What was it?’ he asked, without looking up from the table. Amitie, Klug, and Raffina all gave him a puzzled glance. Then, they looked at each other.
“What was… what?” asked Raffina.
Amitie, meanwhile, bit her lip a little.
“...It.” Sig repeated. Words were hard. “The other…me.”
“Sig…”
Klug backed away a little, already regretting that he’d inadvertently segued them into this conversation. Sig rarely spoke about himself. To hear him address the subject so frankly was unsettling.
“Where’d it come from…? Why? Was that all me…? Didn’t feel like me.” The chocolate had melted completely. Sig gripped onto the edges of his chair with both hands and looked down onto his lap. “...Second time this happened now.”
The moment of silence between the four that followed was a little painful. It was Amitie that finally leaned forward, put a hand on Sig’s right hand and said.
“I-It doesn’t matter how many times it happens, because we’ll always be there to help you come back! Okay!?”
“I don’t want it to happen ‘many times’,” Sig mumbled. “That’s a bother for everyone. That arm should just go back to normal…”
“...” Amitie kept holding his hand, but went silent. She wasn’t sure what to say.
Klug spoke up, “You and Amitie, um… were looking into a way to reverse your condition a fair while ago, weren’t you? How did that go?”
“Nothing,” Sig replied curtly.
Amitie sighed, “Miss Accord just told him to use his other hand if it bothers him so much. And the library had nothing either. Akuma just said ‘ There’s nothing to be done right now, ma ’, and that was that…”
“Oh…”
Klug shrunk away at that, almost as if he felt guilty about something. Raffina observed that body language, but decided to not comment on it. Not like she would’ve had anything better to say at the moment either. The mood between the four of them certainly had tanked now.
“Oh well,” Sig picked up his fork and grabbed a plate of blue Puyoberry cake from the middle of the table. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not that important anyway.”
“Sig…” Amitie shifted in her seat.
Usually everyone would have just been amazed with Sig’s ability to shrug things off, but today it was a bit different. The fact that he wasn’t being totally truthful was fully transparent. Now Sig was the one attempting to change the topic of conversation.
“Sig, that’s no good…!” A familiar little figure tried to force itself into his field of vision, preventing him from eating. “You shouldn’t just pretend this doesn’t bother you! I mean… they’re all your friends, right? You should talk to them about it.”
Sig maneuvered his fork around Meena and ate cake.
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“Sig…!”
“...”
“Siiiig!!”
“...Ouch. Don’t pull my hair.”
That statement got the attention of Sig’s schoolmates again, who tilted their heads bewildered as they watched him pat the back of his head.
“Say… Is it just me, or were you talking to somebody just now?” Raffina asked.
Sig looked up, “Uh…”
It took only a moment before Amitie’s eyes lit up with recognition, “Wait, that could be… Is it Meena? Is Meena here!?”
“Uhh…”
Raffina raised an eyebrow, “That thing that got us all trapped in the dream world in the first place?”
“Oh, that crafty criminal…!” Klug hissed under his breath.
Meena, who shuddered at those descriptions, let out a quick squeak and, despite the fact she wasn’t even on the same plane of existence as everyone else, decided to hide in Sig’s bag. He frowned and quickly pulled her out again by her little cloud balloon.
“Not a thing. Not a criminal either,” he stated firmly. “...But, yeah. She’s here.”
“Sig!”
Amitie leapt out of her chair so quickly, it startled Klug enough to tumble backwards right to the floor, where he then lay still with a whine.
“We should ask Meena!” Amitie blurted out.
“Huh?”
“Like, about your arm! She knew how to use your powers, right? A-And… she’s from the dream world! There’s a lot of mysterious stuff there. Like, maybe she knows something we don’t. Like, like… how to stop this from happening! Or how to make the red stuff go away for good!”
“Uh…”
“Meena, do you know anything? Please, if there’s anything you know about this, you should tell Sig!”
Amitie was clearly trying to give Meena a determined gaze, but she was looking in entirely the wrong direction—up above Sig’s left shoulder—when really, the little dream guide was currently sitting in his lap brushing her ears straight. Painting a dejected expression onto her mask, she looked up at the boy. His eyes hadn’t changed much throughout the conversation, and yet she felt as if he looked faintly… hopeful.
Meena sighed.
“ I’m sorry… I really don’t know much about your left arm at all. I just got curious because I saw you had a special power, lots of it, that works even when you’re asleep in the dream world. But… that’s all. I don’t know where it comes from. Or… how to make it go away. ”
“...” Sig just looked at her.
“And?” asked Amitie, hands pumped to fists. “What’s she saying?”
Sig turned his head away and mumbled, “..’nything…”
“Huh?”
“Doesn’t know anything.”
“O-Oh…”
“Not a big deal.”
“Huh?”
“It’s okay. Guess I’m just like this forever.”
“But… Sig—”
“Dunwanna talk anymore.”
With that, Sig slid his plate which still had half a slice of cake on it over to Amitie, stood up and walked out of the room.
“What… Hang on! Wait, Sig!”
Amitie stared and called out after him until he walked through the door to the banquet hall and she realized he wasn’t coming back. Then she stood up and followed him.
-
Outside in the town hall’s gardens, Sig kneeled down on the ground. There was a small trail of ants marching from a hole in the building’s walls to their home somewhere under the trees, and Sig had decided to observe them a little. Were they enjoying the same party food as everyone inside, he wondered?
“ ...I’m sorry for being useless ,” Meena chirped above his head.
“Don’t say that,” he mumbled, eyes on the ants.
“ Hey… ”
“Hm?”
“ What’s your dream, Sig? ”
“...Why’re you asking?”
“I’ve tried to figure it out. When you napped after everything went back to normal… last night… and a few times before everything happened too. But I can never find much. Well, except for bugs, I guess…”
“...”
“But, if I can, I want to do something for you, Sig. Something you can’t just go out and do for yourself. A pleasant dream. That’s the least I can offer you after everything that’s happened.”
Sig stayed quiet. His eyes followed the trail of ants carrying sugar and crumbs back and forth. One of his claws hit the pavement. He found himself tracing a parallel line next to the ants with it. Back and forth. The hard, sharp nail left a notch in the ground.
“I… wanted to make everyone happy.”
“ Huh…? ”
“I thought giving you that power would be nice. Because you were gonna actually do something nice with it. It could’ve finally been something other than… annoying.”
“Oh, Sig…”
“But it didn’t. It just made everyone worry. It hurt them.” he stopped tracing the notch. “...I hurt them.”
“N-No! That wasn’t you!” Panicked, Meena floated around in front of his face, trying to get him to look at her. “Sig, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have messed with something I didn’t understand, I should’ve just been happy that you called me your friend. I…I did something so awful to you…”
“It wasn’t up to you, Meena. It’s happened before. Maybe it’ll happen again. Dunno. It’s been nothing but annoying ever since that hand turned weird. But…”
“But…?”
“...I don’t care.”
“Sig, come on…!”
“As long as it doesn’t hurt my friends… I don’t care.”
Sig pulled his legs close and wrapped his arms around them. Rolled up, like a pillbug. Safe and immobile. Maybe that was the best way for him to be right now.
“Sig…? Are you crying…?”
He didn’t make a sound.
Sig stayed like that for a while and Meena watched sadly, not sure what to do or say. After all, was it really her place? Regardless of what Sig said, this still only happened because of her meddling. She wondered if it was good for her to be watching him right now at all. Should she leave? Or, would that just make him feel even worse? It wasn’t as if she could ask Sig. He wasn’t too good at expressing these things.
Eventually the static silence was ended by Amitie’s voice from behind.
“There you are, Sig! You left so suddenly…!”
Amitie ran up to Sig, but he didn’t move. He remained rolled up on the ground in front of the trail of ants. Amitie thankfully noticed said trail just before she could step on it. She halted and stumbled back a little, bending down to look at the ground.
“Oh! Were you watching ants? Oh, or, were you feeding them? I got it, did you come out here to give them some of your food? Ahaha, that’s so Sig! Ahahaha…”
Meena cringed a little. Amitie really was trying to lighten the mood a little, but was that really a good idea right now? If she could have, Meena would’ve asked Amitie to maybe give Sig a bit of space for now, but unlike Sig, Amitie couldn’t interact with the dream world while awake. They existed on two different planes. The most Meena could do right now was tickle her subconscious mind a little, maybe.
Amitie’s laughing awkwardly faded out into silence without any acknowledgement from Sig. She gave it a few moments afterwards, hoping for a response after all. Then, she spoke, more quietly.
“Hey, Sig… You know you’re not a bother, right?”
At first it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything again. Then, Sig uncurled a little and limply lifted his left arm.
“This is,” he said. “And I’m kinda attached to it.”
“We’ll figure it out!”
“Sounds like work…”
“I’ll do all the work for you!” Amitie saluted.
Sig looked up, frowning, “I don’t want that.”
Amitie dropped her hand, “Oh…”
“This is a bother too.”
“Huh?”
“Like, me sitting out here, when everyone’s celebrating inside. You, coming after me.”
“O-Oh…Sorry. I should have given you space, right? Ah, I suck so much at this…”
“Not what I meant.”
“Hm? …Mhm…”
Slowly, Amitie lowered herself to the ground and sat down next to Sig.
“You know… If you want us to pick back up the search for something we can do about your arm, I’m with you all the way.”
“I don’t want you to bother with it,” he mumbled. “I don’t bother with it myself.”
“But it’s not a bother!” Amitie shook her head.
Sig lifted his face a little. “It’s not…?”
“The fact that it bothers you is.” Amitie spoke firmly, her eyes clear and strong. She caught eye contact with Sig, and once she had it, she didn’t let go of it anymore. “Look, Sig. I can deal with mean people. If keeping Primp Town safe means beating up a baddie here and there, I’m all in! That’s part of what it means to be a wonderful sorceress, right? That’s why having a little adventure like that happen every now or then really isn’t a big deal! Or… it wouldn’t be. But, that person, the one who isn’t really you… Every time I’ve seen his eyes, I’ve always somehow seen you behind them. And you looked like you were in pain.”
Sig rolled up a little again, “I don’t wanna hurt you guys…”
“I know! And that’s why we’ve always won this battle up until now. Because you’ve always been there, fighting right alongside us to take that guy down!” Amitie’s eyes began to shine. “We’ve always fought together! That’s why it doesn’t scare me! But that’s why I want to find a way to put a stop to this too. Because I want you to be able to fight with us out here, where you can see us and where you can hear everyone’s voices and not only mine for some reason I still don’t really get! I don’t want you to have to hurt so much, Sig.”
“But… What can we do about it? I can’t be out here and fight with everyone when this happens. I’m always just kinda somewhere inside.”
“Hmm…”
Though Amitie couldn’t see Meena, the both of them lowered their heads to ponder at the same time. Yes, the fact that Sig always had to fight from the inside, rather than outside, where all his friends were, when this happened, was a big part of why this was all so frustrating, wasn’t it?
“Ah!” Amitie looked up. “And what if we took the other Sig that’s not Sig out of you? Then we could all battle him together! Oh, or even try to talk to him! Figure out what his big deal is and why he won’t leave you alone!”
Sig looked at Amitie and tilted his head curiously.
“Is that a thing we can do?”
“Uh, um…! Hm…” Amitie lowered her head again. Yeah, back to the drawing board with that one.
Meena spoke up, “ Well, if the other Sig that isn’t Sig is something that’s deep, deeeep inside you, then it should be possible for him to show up in your dreams. After all, all the people that show up in the dream world that aren’t other sleeping folks are made from things inside the dreamer’s heart, like memories or thoughts or fears… In a dream, you could easily face him directly! ”
“Oooooh-” Sig popped his lips. That sounded promising, if a little scary.
“Huh? What is it?” Amitie asked, looking all around. “Did Meena say something just now!?”
“ Buuuuut… ” Meena continued, a little paw on her mask. “ That other Sig that isn’t Sig hasn’t shown up in your dreams even once yet, has he…? That would mean he either can’t show up or has a way of hiding I don’t know. And I can’t do anything about that… ”
“Oh.” Sig groaned a little. Okay, so that wouldn’t work either.
Still, he took a moment to explain to Amitie what Meena had said, just so she wouldn’t be so confused.
After that explanation was over with, Amitie crossed her legs and started thinking hard, raising her face up to the sky.
“Hmm…So we don’t know how to bring him out in the real world or in the dream world. And bringing him out the way he’s come out before is a big no-no. This is hard… If we could only talk to him just once without fighting. Then we could at least ask who he even is…”
“...I’m not sure I wanna know,” Sig hesitantly spoke to the side.
“Hm?” Amitie looked to him. “Sig?”
He was looking down at the ground.
“If I don’t like the answer… Then maybe… What if I can’t stay with you all anymore then?”
Amitie held her breath for a moment before, carefully, taking Sig’s right hand again.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Why?”
“Because we won’t let that happen, ever. You’re home here, Sig. If you had to go away forever… It’d be way too sad for all of us.” As Amitie spoke, Sig looked up at her for a moment. There were just a few tears in her eyes. “Everyone would hate it if that happened.”
And that answer, finally, made Sig smile. Just a little.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d hate that too.”
It wasn’t a reassuring thought, but the fact alone that the feeling in him that he didn’t want this—that he, just like his friends, never wanted him to be taken away from them—was strong enough that he could call it ‘hate’ made him strangely happy. He rarely felt that strongly about things. And even if this feeling was a negative one, right now it felt like a little string of sturdy spidersilk that kept him firmly tethered to the others. Right, it was that same feeling that, both times when he’d found himself floating away and fading, had given him the strength to open his eyes and claw his way back to the surface, following the sound of Amitie’s voice…
“Maybe we don’t know the next time that other guy will show up. But when it does happen, we can make sure we’re ready then. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that if there’s a next time, it’ll be the last! We’ll figure out what that guy’s deal is. I promise,” Right now, Amitie looked so radiant in the afternoon sun, Sig found it downright dazzling. “I… I’ll ask Klug and Raffina to help me study, and I’ll ask Arle to teach me more magic, so next time I’m stronger. Because if I’m really the one who can help you get back out when that not-Sig tries to push you down, then maybe, just maybe, I can do something to make him leave you alone for good…”
“ Me too! ” Meena bounced up. “ I don’t ever want anything like that to happen to you either, Sig. You’re my first ever friend. So… I’ll do whatever I can do to help keep that guy from messing up your life ever again. I know I’m not strong, but I’ll keep my eyes open for any sign of him, anything that can help you so you never have to go through that again. And if I meet that guy again in one of your dreams… I… I’ll do whatever I can!! ”
Sometimes Sig was just struck with this really odd, really sudden realization that he was just really, really lucky. For somebody like him, who people often claimed they couldn’t understand, who he himself often wasn’t really sure he understood, to have so many people around him who cared so much, even though he often wasn’t even sure what it meant to “care” and if he was doing it right… It just felt nice. It felt nice to belong with them. It felt warm like a cozy blanket by the chimney fire, ready for a nice, long nap.
“You’re right. Amitie. Meena. Thank you. And everyone else, too. Thank you so much for caring.”
Amitie smiled, “You already said that the other day.”
“I’m okay with saying it more times. Because it’s important. It really is,” Sig smiled back. He used his good hand to finally wipe off the stray tears that had gathered in his eyes. “So, um… Let’s go back to the others at the party then?”
“Yeah!” Amitie grinned wide. “Right away!”
“I’ll keep watching you guys a little while longer, too, if that’s okay!” Meena told Sig. “At least until nightfall, when it’s time to do my job.”
“You could do more than watch. How about you have some cake too?”
“ Huh? C-Can I? I mean… I really don’t know if I can, I’m not actually in the same world as you guys after all. Would that even work? ”
“Just give it a try.”
With that, the three of them returned to their friends in the banquet hall to celebrate the rest of the afternoon away. Nothing had really changed; it wasn’t like they’d found any answers or solutions out there on the pavement. And yet, after that talk, Sig felt so much lighter and found it so much easier to laugh with the others. He didn’t spend the rest of the party eating nearly as voraciously as he had before, either. An odd, floaty feeling he hadn’t even realized was there had stuck with him from his stay in the dream world the past week had faded. Now, he finally felt as if he was truly a part of the same reality as his friends once again.