Work Text:
You jolt awake. Another failed loop, like every single one before it. The disappointment can't even crush you anymore, you're fine powder, the smallest particle of dust possible, worn down over too much time.
Still, you have a part to play. You position that over-practiced smile perfectly on your face, and wait for your prompt. "Siffrin!" the Housemaiden will say, and you'll start again.
Except she doesn't. You know these lines better than anything, you know the pacing, the exact beats, where to place your breaths to fall in step with the same over and over and over again-
You lift your head to look at your party from under your hat.
This, isn't the House. And it's not Dormont either.
You've gotten used to not dreaming anymore, to not sleeping, to going immediately from one loop to the next, with no pause, no room to catch your breath. Just an endless, endless play, round and round. Is this what dreaming was like? A reprieve from the same and the same and the same?
It's not very creative, this black void, intercut with the glowing lights of the House, like an endless night sky. You haven't had much else to look at for the past-
You'd be forgiven for your mind only being fed one thing on repeat, only being able to recreate the House but without its walls, its ceilings. Still, there were other actors in this performance, so at least they should be here, shouldn't they?
And a distance away, they are. They're all there, all standing clustered in a loose semi-circle, their backs to you, all looking at something. Whatever it is, it's new, you haven't seen this before, so you really want to. You go to approach, a flighty apprehension in your chest. You don't know your lines! It's terrifying, and the fear is new too.
Before you reach them, they shift around, each of them flanking a side around what you now realize is a figure, a person standing up from kneeling. Their faces shift from concern to relief, and the one in the middle brings up their hands placatingly, a smile spreading across their face that you only know so well, not from seeing it, but from wearing it so many, many, many times.
It's you. Except it's not.
You're still standing off to the side. Somehow, center stage has shifted from under your feet without you realizing, and you're standing in the wings, performing to no one.
And you can feel it move even further away, the spotlight following your party as they walk away from you, convinced or satisfied to leave with this new lead, trained exactly on that overly-familiar face.
"No!" Your voice hits a wall, a barrier, and is wrapped around. You can feel it, closed in on like thoughts inside your head, like the words can't escape your mouth. Like there's not a mouth to escape anymore.
Don't leave me behind! you not-scream. Tighter, closer, like your party are at the end of a drawstring, and the farther they get, the more they pull the not-you towards them, the less you can breathe.
You get a good look at their faces. The Fighter, with his wide, warm smile, radiating out like sunlight-
A burst of starlight erupts from your vision.
The Researcher, subdued, her careful eye trained on their face, quiet mirth present in the way her eyes gather wrinkles, hands lightly crossed over her arms.
You feel scars peel away, disappear into smoke.
The Kid, hanging off their cloak, the only one who would still touch you, even just by accident, who wasn't so overly-careful with you, like you were made of porcelain.
Your skin snaps and creaks and flakes, rippling over your entire body.
The Housemaiden, gaze soft and sweet-
You taste burnt sugar in the back of your throat.
And finally, the Traveler. The one who shared your face, your clothes, your name, your friends, your family-
[Oh.]
You look down, and you are not you anymore. Your hands are dark, your chest bright, a soft glow emanating around your single eye, illuminating or obscuring, you can't tell, you haven't adjusted yet.
The Traveler - their Traveler is more you than you.
[So just any you will do.]
And really, who would want a misshapen copy, a flawed reproduction of the original? No one. It makes sense that you would be left behind. It makes sense that they would prefer an unblemished, indistinguishable, perfect recreation. It makes sense that since you failed so, so, so many times, you don't deserve them anymore.
[Yeah. That makes sense.]