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chronologically-challenged · 2 days ago

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Final Bow pt1.

Summary: The Director is "defeated" in a sense. The party brings her to the well on zir request. Of course, Loop is there. Normal reactions happen all around.

@askoverkill

(This is a bit of a theory fic, but mostly "this image won't get out of my head, so I decided to write it down" sort of thing. Part 1 is Loop's POV. Part 2 will be dawn. Enjoy!)

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You see him in person for the first time in several eternities.

You know what the Director looks like. Their shining face and night dusted skin all dressed up in a jester costume is blazed in her mind. If you give yourself a moment to think too long, you could pick out all the details the Director foolishly kept of their previous self that even they couldn't scrub clean. Their eyes, their brows, even the way the light that shines from their head gives an impression of hair left unbrushed in a certain way. But you don't look too long. You haven't in so many outer loops. In fact, despite the affectionate name that threatens to spill out of your traitorous tongue, you first and foremost see the Director as every other Siffrin sees them, a fool and an executioner in one, a malicious joke ready to put the punch in punchline at a moment's notice.

Now? It's difficult to see how they could ever be a threat at all.

The rest of the party leads the procession. Odile first, Isabeau second, with Bonnie sprinting past them the moment they see dawn already standing up to meet them midway. You watch them all impassively, only noting the two halves of the Director's cracked mask in Odile's hands.

No, while Lupus, dusk, and dawn run up to the party, your focus is at the entrance of the clearing.

Mirabelle trails behind, holding the Director's hand. Their face is free of the mask for the first time since it's mattered. Somewhere along the way they lost their jester's hat.

They have no mouth. They have no symbols across their cheeks. Only his eyes persevere through the harsh light.

Unbidden, the image of your stardust carefully trailing their finger in the dirt flashes bright in your mind. Their hat covered his expression, but you could still see just how careful he was to make each simple detail. Then with a small nod, they leaned back to show you, well you.

A shining head. Half crescent eyes. No clothes to speak of. A star in your chest.

That was you. This was what you looked like.

You asked for them not to loop too early. They hadn't. In fact, you think, maybe, they let themself linger for once. Gave you time to memorize it. How else could you remember even now? How else could you in your weakest moments, redraw the small sketch as clear as the day your stardust bestowed it to you?

The Director does not have crescent eyes. In fact, only one eye shines through the insistent light. It's an eye shape you knew all too well. Or perhaps, you never truly knew them at all.

The Director freezes when they see you.

Mirabelle tugs at their hand. “Siffrin?”

Three heads swivel towards her. Dusk, dawn, and the Director all at once head her call. Lupus clutches at both dusk's and dawn's cloaks, glaring up at the Director.

And you? You don't move from the steps of the well. You can't bring yourself to.

Even across these eons, you are just unhelpful, useless Loop.

“This is weird,” you hear Bonnie say. This causes a round of banter between the party. “No, it's not” “It kinda is.” “Well, you get used to it.” “That doesn't help, Siffrin.” and on and on.

The Director and you add nothing. After all, your current roles aren't fit for such antics.

“So, what're fae doing here?” Lupus eventually interrupts. They point to the Director with a sneer, pointedly bringing their ‘Siffernts’ closer to them the best they can with only two hands. “We beat you. Go away.”

“Lupus,” dusk warns, then looks back to the Director. They try to hide the child under their cloak.

Dawn only eyes the Director warily. You can tell they're waiting for a final twist, for the show to finally end with a “more fitting” tragedy. If luck would have, only you and the Director will be the tragedians in this version of this play.

The Director does not take the child's bait. They barely seem to acknowledge anyone else at all. Their grip loosens from Mirabelle's hand, sliding out almost unnaturally from her grip. She shouts out to catch them, but they've tucked their hands to their chest far too quickly.

Their eye still hasn't left yours.

Isabeau quarters dawn away from the path of the Director and raises his fists. Odile stops him a second before he strikes out. “Wait, a minute,” she hisses. You don't hear the rest of their arguing.

The Director brushes past them, unconcerned.

“No, wait, Loop!!! Get out of there! Run away from her!!!” Finally, someone, dusk you think, gets it.

You wonder if it's the way the Director stalks like a lion across the worn path. Or the uncanny silence the otherwise bombastic jester tends to have. Or maybe it was the way their previously dejected body shot up when they realized who was on the steps.

You knew because you watched them this entire time. It would be kinda hard not to realize.

But even if you hadn't, you'd be an idiot not to see with just one look how much they want to eat you alive.

This is your final stand in this concluding act.

The Director stops at the base of the steps.

Silence chokes the crowd.

“Loop,” they finally say.

“Director,” you call back.

The look in their eye has not faded.

“You must hate me.”

Obviously? You don't designate that with a response. There's no point.

They move again. They raise a foot and the heel clanks against the stairs.

“I deserve it. I know I do.” Their head tilts, and for the first time since they've seen you, their eye twitches. You realize after a moment, they're trying to smile without that mask for a mouth. “So say it. Say you hate me.”

They step up the stairs.

“Say it.”

Another.

“Say it.”

And another. They're close enough that you can feel their matching star pulse in their chest.

“No even better, kill me and get it over with! Not like you haven't tried already!!!”

Quicker than you can see, they grab your hands and clasp their around their own throat. Their fingers lock into yours, painfully intertwining them. The skies on your hands meld into one another into one starry canvas.

Around you, the audience gasps and then shouts all at once.

“Siffrin, that's enough!” “Gems alive.” “Please stop…” “I thought we were done with this.” “I knew this was a bad idea.” “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!!!”

You feel the heat of the Director's throat, and the subtle movement of their breaths, and the way their fingers tremble in yours, and their eye swallowing you whole as they wait for you to make the next move, and you wonder briefly if dawn rewound time in this frozen moment because it stretches on and on and on and on and on, as you memorize the Director's face the same way you did your own lifetimes ago.

You try to uncurl your hands from their throat. They latch on tighter.

“Come on, I know you want to! Or is it?” The Director gasps playfully, “Oh! Don't want to get your hands dirty, do you Loop? That's low even for you.”

That's enough. “Shut up, Director.”

“Aww, are you-” they try, but you interrupt their nonsense quickly.

“No, shut up. I'm talking now. You wanted to say something, I'm saying something.”

Their eye narrows. “Go on~,” they purr out, but with the way their nails dig into your hands, you can tell they wanted to snarl.

Their attention is all on you. Even with your hands on their throat, the stage set for you, and the audience watching for your next words, you never felt any less in control. Their nails claw into you, and even now you know this loop, this miracle could end any moment. One wrong thought from dawn could take this away from you. But you'd gone and done the stupidest thing and let yourself actually hope again. Hope that the party could get through to the Director. Hope that Lupus and dusk could keep dawn afloat long enough to get the party back. Hope beyond hope that there was enough of your stardust in the Director to end this play once in for all.

So you ask, hoping it to be true. “Is it over?”

The Director blinks, clearly not expecting the question. Their grip loosens ever so slightly around their own throat. “...pardon?”

“Is. It. Over?” you hiss. They know what you mean. Asking again, they eye flickers in amusement. You can practically see where their Cheshire grin should be.

“I doooooon't know,” they sing, “Is it?”

“Director.”

They look to you, then to dawn, and back. You don't miss how dawn flinches. The Director shrugs.

“I think that's a question we all want to know,” you hear Odile say.

You can feel the Director suppress a laugh. Their throat jumps against your fingers.

“What's so funny?” You ask.

“Oh, you know. Just! The irony! Asking ME for the answers when I can't know. Not really.” The Director rests their chin on your wound fingers and presses harder.

Bonnie, thank the Stars, interrupts this nonsense. “WeirdFrin stop being weird and answer their question.”

The Director sits back up. The light around their head dims the slightest bit. “If someone, not naming names, loops, then that's that! None of us will remember any of this. Except. That isn't the case is it?” They scratch at your hands. “We have, what do you call them, dawn and dusk? They'll remember. And of course, you Loop. You'll always know. So I'll ask you, what do you think? Is it over?”

You have to hope that the loops are done on dawn's end. That a promise of something after all this, a promise of the time after this is enough. You don't know, can't know if this is truly it.

Especially if the jester in front of you ruins it.

You ask, far too loud in the silent clearing. “Are you done?” You feel your fingers trembling.

“Yup! Done talking. Your turn~.”

“No. Are you done? With.” You look their costume up and down. “All this.”

Their eye widens, but the performance is back in a heartbeat, eye closing in a fake smile. “...........I asked first!“

“Actually I did!” you counter back. For good measure, you squeeze, just a bit. Two performers can play at this game.

And the Director is many things, but no one can say they do not play their part. “Ah! You did, didn't you!” They hum, long and loud. The sound buzzes up your hands into your arms, and almost all the way to your head. In the distance, you see the party tense. They're talking to each other, something about stopping this before it gets out of hand, which doesn't make sense. Nothing has happened yet and nothing will get done if no one says what they need to. Your hands may be around their throat, but the Director might as well be in the labyrinth for all it matters.

“In. A certain sense,” they say slowly. “If you look at a certain angle. Where I have any real control here… Then yeah. I'm done. Thegreatvillainhas finallybeendefeated.Hooray.Youdidit.Woohoo.Yaddayaddayadda. ANYWAY!” They clutch their hands against yours, and you briefly see a shimmer of a sharp toothy grin against the endless light of their face. If you squeeze any tighter, you'd block their windpipe. “Since you've finally won, why don't you just get it over with already and just kill me. Ya know. For old times sake.”

Your fingers press against their throat. A god's life in your hands. It probably wouldn't kill them if you finished choking them. Because of that, it would be cathartic just to squeeze, for everything they did to every other Siffrin, for what they did to the world, for what they did to you.

But…

But-

-It's over.

They tried to hide it behind a sneering veneer, but you got what you needed.

It's over, Stars. It's finally, finally over.

Why would you need anything else?

You squeeze once. The Director's eye widens, first in fear then into a feral vindication.

The look fades as your hands go to their shoulders, their back, and finally you don't see their expression at all, as you surely, fully press them chest to chest, star to star, breaths catching in the other's ears.

They flinch, of course. You pretend not to notice. You also pretend how despite how they try to not lean into your touches, they shiver as your hands run down their back.

“What are you doing?” He hisses.

You hum. “Isn't it obvious?”

They shiver. “Stop it. I-”

You wait for them to continue, but they don't. That won't do. “You?” you prompt.

“...You should hate me.”

“Okay.” You do.

“I hate you.”

“Okay.” You hold them tighter. Their arms start to waver, almost falling to your back.

You hate them, you should kill them, and it's tempting. But also why should you?

It's over. It's over it’s over it’s over-

“I put you through all of this,” your stardust tries to counter, “I hurt you, I hurt them, I'm a monster, you shouldn't be-”

“-I dont care.”

They try to push you back, but they end up flailing uselessly against your back. “What!?”

“You're done, right?” You press your hands against their back, and they let out a little gasp. They're trembling.

“...yes?”

“Then I don't care,” you repeat, resolute, “Stars, I don't even care anymore.”

They're here. They're done. That's all you need. That's all you've ever wanted.

They don't say anything for a time. You just hold them, far more gentle than they deserve, but you want to give them just the same. Slowly, his hands fall onto your back.

“...I didn't even say sorry,” they protest weakly.

You huff. “I didn't either. Would it help?”

They don't say anything back, only dig their nails into your back.

‘No.’ They don't need to say. ‘No, it wouldn't.’

It's for the best. You're not sure either of you would accept the other's apologies. No use ruining this with a harsh reality.

“Then we're done,” you say both for you and them. “It's over, stardust. It's finally over.”

“...Oh.”

You expect a quip. Maybe them to push you back. You're surprised, when they simply lean into you, and finally, finally hold you back.

Your own breath hitches at their warmth.

In a minute you'll need to let them go and ask them what the hell their plan is from here. Dusk, dawn, Lupus, the party, all of them will want explanations. It's inevitable this moment will end, as all moments should, even if they haven't for forever.

Until then, you hold your stardust tight. Becuase they're home here. They're here with you.

And with a miracle like that, who cares about anything else?