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It's a few days out from you almost ending the world, from ending the loops, and somehow you're still in this blinding clocktower.
You know it's over. You do. You're here because you refused to stay at the House– over your dead, cold, paling body writhing in a pool of its own blood– but your little temper tantrum also made you really sick. You're on doctor’s orders to at least stay in Dormont until your Craft exhaustion stops leeching off your immune system, and the closest compromise the rest of your party could reach while you were halfway delirious with fever was staying at the clocktower.
You resent it.
You feel selfish, as you often are, for the part of you that's upset with your family friends for keeping you here. It makes you think of your desperate attempts at finding answers to your issue of time dilation, blaming your friends before ever blaming your own hubris, and it puts a revolting taste in your mouth. The same as remembering the horrible things you said to them all this loop, this— this new start, you're not in the loops anymore, but… You're disgusting. How could they have ever forgiven you for what you did, like they said they have?
Maybe this is a punishment. Maybe they’ve kept you here on purpose, just to teach you a lesson. You wouldn't blame them, if they did.
Suddenly, this bed is suffocating you and your barely-there skin-to-skin contact with Isa is making you itch and you need to get out of here.
You throw what little covers you had off of you and sit up, face in your hands and feet brushing the cold wood floor. You recall, faintly, a comment from Isa a million years, months, loops ago about you hogging the blankets when you sleep. A quaint little character-defining trait, that plays to the endeared hearts of the audience. You don't think you ever realized you did it. You don't think you'll do it anymore. You don't think you’ll ever be that Siffrin again. You're not sure you ever were.
Your skin crawls, burns, itches. You try to control your breathing. You don't know when you started hyperventilating, but of course you don't– poor little Siffrin just loses so much time, forgets so much they can't even retain each second as it passes. You also hardly remember standing, barely feel yourself moving on uneven legs toward the bathroom, can't remember how to breathe, can't remember, can't remember anything, nothing—
“Siffrin…?”
It's a miracle you even hear her. Still, you jump. You turn to her in a dizzying pivot. “...Odile.” You rasp.
“What's going on?” She squints at you, brow scrunched in obvious irritation, though her tone is surprisingly light given the circumstance. It's also less dignified than you feel you have the right to be privy to. But you're selfish like that.
And it's strange, but you like when her voice is heavy with sleep, you think. You like the way her accent slips. Her tongue catches on her R's in a way so foreign to Vaugardian, it reminds you of your own language. It's nice, but the thought always leaves you as soon as it comes. Mostly, it's just refreshing to hear her when her guard's down. You don't get that often.
Of course not, why would she ever let her guard down around you? You're dangerous. You're disgusting. She's not so foolish as to keep her back turned to you. She's smart. You're a threat. Your brain supplies in rapid bursts, thoughts toppling over each other.
“Siffrin.” Ah, and there's the Odile you're used to, having found her glasses and regarding you with a stern look over her nose. It's almost too familiar, actually, except that her hair is down, free from its usual bun and spilling over her shoulders in lightless waves, giving her a unique air of… tenderness. You're out. You're out, you're out, you're out. “Care to tell me what's wrong?”
You feel a distant tug on your stomach, heart, lungs. You tense. You… don't want to tell her. You never wanted to tell her. You never should have told her. You never should've told them anything. This whole thing has been a mistake. You're so blinding stupid, so weak– if only you hadn't broken so soon, you could've ended the loops yourself, never had to tell anyone, never had to burden them– if only you had held on longer! You…
You…
You think of Loop.
…
You promised.
“I—...” Your throat catches, any words dying with your dignity. She stares at you, and you stare back, buckling under pressure like a black hole caving in on itself.
She blinks, her chest puffs up like she’s going to sigh, in that way Odile does– only to stop halfway through as her sight sets on you again. As if any wrong noise or gesture will send you toppling. And she's right, because of course she saw the way your face fell when she took that breath in, waiting for the exasperated followthrough to tell you you've overstayed your welcome. Because annoyingly, she understands you better than anyone.
(Well, not quite. But she's the closest to it now that it almost makes you miss when someone could just read your mind. Just so you wouldn't have to feel scrutinizing eyes on you, trying to puzzle you out.)
Odile languidly shifts herself up in bed. She settles against the headboard and says, “Come here.”
Your legs carry you instantly. You sit on the edge of the bed in an almost robotic fashion.
“Hold out your hands, Siffrin.”
You do as you're told, and Odile turns to reach into the drawer of the nightstand across from you. You ponder whether or not you should be closing your eye, too– as if a child receiving a surprise on your birthday, a memory you do not have– distracted when a solid weight is dropped in your hands. It surprises you. You chase the thrill for a moment before looking down.
You're holding… her journal. Scuffed leather and intricate binding. You flex your fingers around it uncertainly. It almost feels like you're tainting it with your touch, but you suppress the urge to get it away from you by throwing it across the room, because that'd be stupid, and you don't need to add on problems to this humiliating situation.
Odile nods toward you, simple but curt. “Go on. Read it. I want you to.”
…You cannot possibly imagine why she would want this. You feel like this is a lapse of judgement on her part, but to question her would be expressing autonomy you do not deserve, so you, again, do as you're told.
You open the book, and…
Unfamiliar characters spatter the pages. Letters and symbols like nothing you're used to, and for a moment a primal fear strikes your heart, but it's calmed when your mind recognizes the words simply as a language you know, but can't read. Ah.
“Uhm… Madame?” The formality hits your tongue first, for whatever reason, and you just let it. You don't typically call her by her title, but here it somehow feels a bit overdue. “Th– This… is in Ka Buan.”
Odile blinks at you, still grasping for some coherence, before groaning lightly and massaging her temple. “Right.” She says, and takes the journal back, snatching it with a petulant look that you'd dare to describe as embarrassed.
You know you, at least, feel embarrassed. Being trusted with something so personal only to be too stupid to actually be able to read the blinding thing. You messed it up, you stepped in it, Odile’s gonna shove the journal back into its satchel in the nightstand and regret ever even giving you a chance to be competent. And she'd be right.
But, instead…
Odile opens the book, skims her eyes along the page and…
“Our little party picked up a new addition today, against my better judgement.” She reads aloud to you. She reads to you in Vaugardian, no less, translating from her Ka Buan script. She's so smart. Your heart stutters in your chest. “A scrawny little rogue-type– swaddled in a ludicrously giant robe and hat, light on their feet, and alarmingly adept with a dagger. Says their name is Siffrin, though he said it as if he wasn't very sure of it himself. They're extremely odd.”
Her cheeks gradually darken a shade as she speaks. You can tell she never intended for anyone else to read this, which pulls guilt from you as much as it does a swelling pride. She… actually, really trusts you.
“I don't trust him,” She recites, immediately following your train of thought, making you snort. She steals a light glare at you before continuing. “I can't say anything for certain yet, but I have theories. Someone so skilled couldn't have just been wandering around waiting to be found. I currently suspect he may be an assassin, sent by the King to dispatch Mirabelle. Whatever the case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on them. I will see this mission through to the end, even if I’ll have to protect a few gullible kids by sniffing out a rat along the way.”
Odile pauses, and sighs, like she's just heard you ring off a particularly bad pun. You wonder why, before she reads the last line: “This ‘Siffrin’ will be the last addition to the group if I can help it.”
That pulls a genuine laugh out of you, a feeling so foreign to you now it nearly shoots your voice from your throat. Thankfully the rest of your group sleeps like the dead, but you cover your mouth far too late to mask it, and Odile offers you her condescending, very unhelpful grin. You stick your tongue out at her and realize you feel more present now than you have in days. Oh. Oh, stars, you feel like a person.
Odile's gaze returns to her journal, turning the page and flitting along the contents, ultimately psyching herself out of it. She turns the book around to face you, grimacing, “I won't read you anymore bedtime stories, I’m sure you get the picture. I’ve written quite a lot about you. You're rife with material, you know.”
You laugh again, though it's smaller, breathy, a bit dazed. “R-Right. I’ll bet.”
“A bet you’ll lose. However much about you you think there is, there's more. Though I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that my future entries on you are much fonder.” She reaches to ruffle your hair the way she always does, like you're a scruffy little cat, and you're embarrassed at how you actually lean into the touch as she pulls away.
Your eyes scan the words in her writing without recognition, mindlessly turning through page after page. You know some of these characters, but your mind sputters uselessly trying to make sense of them. Still, you look with intent. As if the meanings will become clear to you if you just try a little harder. Above you, Odile sighs again.
“I know you can’t read it. But I would like to teach you, at some point. If you'd want to learn.”
You perk up, hope lighting your eyes. “Of course I would.” You tell her, and try not to sound as desperately eager as you feel. It's always been so blindingly annoying, not being able to read a language you can speak with total clarity. And although Ka Buan isn't your mother tongue, a small part of you thinks that learning to read it might fill the gaping void in your heart.
No matter how hard you try, you can't read your language anymore. Once again, your home has slipped from your grasp like lightless sand through your fingers, as is cursed upon you by the Universe. It hurts, it aches, a constantly twisting knife in your gut that you know you’ll just have to live with. And you think you can, as long as…
You look up at Odile, who's looking down at the open page beneath your hand. Embarrassed, you follow suit.
“Then, consider this your first lesson.” She says, and then… she points to a word sitting just above your thumb. “Siffrin.” She reads. She glides along the page and stops at a different word. “Mirabelle.”
And it hits you… She's teaching you everyone's names. So you can pick yours and everyone else’s out of the jumble of nonsense and at the very least know you were there. That she thought of you, that she wrote about you– that you're here, always have been, and always will be. That you and everyone you love are all real. And… and that she loves you. Enough to dedicate writing to you, enough to read to you, enough to teach you. Even when she's fighting herself, choking back sardonic quips and revisions to save herself from this vulnerability, she pushes through for you.
You should feel ashamed, a nagging voice thinks, but for some reason you just can’t. You're loved. And that's her fault, really. You almost laugh again. That someone like her can love someone like you… It's just too absurd to be faked. You’ll take it.
You’ll take it, you’ll take it, you’ll take it, you’ll keep it, you’ll give it back a hundredfold if you can manage.
“Isabeau.” Odile’s voice comes through like the soothing bass of a humming angel’s choir. You bathe in it. “Boniface.” She goes over the characters a few more times, your brain soaking them up easily, firmly committing them to memory. Siffrin, Mirabelle, Isabeau, Boniface. It's all you have, but it's enough.
So you read. Name after name after name. Siffrin. Siffrin. Mirabelle. Isabeau. Mirabelle. Siffrin. Boniface. Boniface. Boniface. Isabeau. Siffrin. Boniface. You keep reading, and she reads over your shoulder, perhaps waiting on an opportunity to cut you off that never comes, because you don't stop.
You turn and turn and turn through the pages, eyes finding names in walls of text and keeping them safe. You flip forward, back, returning and rereading the same pages over and over, and before you know it you've feverishly skimmed the journal five times and Odile has fallen asleep against the headboard. You know from experience that waking Odile is a very bad idea, and you've already done it once tonight. You're lucky to have made it out alive, let alone with a star burning bright and warm in your heart.
It'd be rude to keep reading her journal when she's asleep, though, you decide. Nevermind that you haven't been reading much of anything at all.
You lay down with her journal open on your chest, and wait for her to wake up and kick you out.
She never does.
Instead, when the sun rises over your sleepless face, she curses you and her aching spine, snatching her journal from your grasp and leveling you with a look you’d crumple under any other day, you think. But as much as she tries to hide it, there's a smirk playing at the corners of her lips while she glares at you, and you can't help but smile back. She huffs, fond, and disappears into the bathroom, always the earliest bird.
She loves you. But most bafflingly, and you can believe this now more than ever… she forgives you.
…You should thank her, you think.