Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

       "I just hope that one day…"

        We feel a tug on their stomach. 

        “…you might learn to forgive us!”

        They’re spiraling. Unsurprising, but still difficult to watch. Our loops never got as far as his, only worrying about beating The King. We never could’ve imagined how much worse it got on the other side of that wall. Their mind wracks with possibilities, trying to find something, anything, that could free them. The Head Housemaiden’s lament passes over us again. Something broke the wish, sabotaged it. It’s not being fulfilled correctly. The King died in the wrong- No, that one can’t be it. We killed him ourselves, in our loops and his. 

        [It can’t be that one Stardust.]

        “Why not? Maybe it's that simple? Mirabelle was always the one who-”

        [And us, if you recall. The loops didn’t end then. Why would you be any different?]

        “Because I’m the one the wish is centered on! If everyone wished to save Vaugarde, then I have to be the one to do it!”

        [Again, you forget us. We’ve been here since the start Stardust. The wish could be centered on both of us for all we know. We don’t think The King is dying wrong. There has to be something else.]

        “Then what?! What else Loop?! What else am I supposed to do, what else am I supposed to try?! What-” They stop. We feel chills poking their skin with goosebumps. His thoughts are silent, contemplating something too deep for you to listen. Their body is still shaking, trembling with… something. For once, we can’t read them at all. Slowly, they raise their hand and flip up their eyepatch. We hesitantly eject their false eye, feeling it roll down their face and get caught in the collar of their cloak. We slither out, forming our star-shaped face and look at him. His eye is constricted, pupil barely visible. He isn’t breathing, lungs starting to sting. After a long moment, he opens his mouth. “It’s you.”

        [Huh?]

        “Wish craft is what started the loops. Wish craft is what brought you to me. But it wasn’t my wish that did it, wasn’t it?”

        [W-What are you talking about?]

        “I wished to not be a burden to my party, back when I thought you were a shooting star. Yet here they are, trapped in time, stagnating, unchanging. They aren’t real anymore, just fictional actors on a stage… your stage.”

        [O-Ours?! Stardust we didn’t wish for this! We didn’t trap you here!]

        “How can I know for sure?! How do I know that the Universe-made time LOOPS weren’t made by a monster from the stars?! I smelt it then, long before the loops. Burnt sugar. It was when I met YOU.” No no no we can’t let them fall any further! If they take the same road we did…!

        [Stardust it wasn’t us! We’re stuck here too! Why would we willingly trap ourselves like this?! Why would we choose an eternity of suffering over-]

        “Eternity?” 

        …Oh Stars.

        “You think I’m stuck here forever. You know there’s no way out.”

        [N-No we-!]

        “You knew. You knew you knew you knew youknewyouknewyouknew YOU KNEW!!! You knew there was no way out!!!”

        […S-Siffrin we-]

        “STARS.” They slam the ground with their fist, covering their eye with the other, grimacing. Stars, no! Just because we couldn’t succeed doesn’t mean they can’t! 

        [Siffrin-!]

        “Get out.”

        [W-What…?]

        “GET. OUT.”

        !!!

        They grab the exposed part of us from their eye!

        [N-No wait, hang on a-]

        They YANK.

        We feel ourselves being pried from their nerves, brushing against muscles!

        [WAIT WAIT WAIT STARDUST PLEASE!!!]

        No matter how much we plead, they just keep pulling! We try to resist, grasping their shoulder with a tentacle, but they slap us away. We try to reenter through their arm, but we’re just pulled out again. We shout, we beg, we scream, but they refuse to stop. We no longer feel their nerves. Their liver. Their lungs. Their heart. Their mind is filled with the same commanding scream until we’re pulled from that too. Our voice feels weaker, growing more and more difficult to utter even a single word.

        [ p l e a s e . . . !]

        They… say nothing. We’re thrown to the ground, him standing over us. We feel formless, nothing but a blob of sludge with the mobility of a beached octopus. They put their prosthetic back in and flip their eyepatch down. We try to speak, but cannot. Not as we are now. They turn and walk away. We…

        …?

        There’s… a small piece of us. Sitting on his shoulder. We sense its presence, but cannot command or will it to move. The glob of slime sinks into his shoulder. Is it…?

        We flinch at the Housemaiden’s voice, slinking into the nearby bushes as fast as our form will allow. We think she says that she heard screaming coming from the field. Siffrin tells her otherwise. We… start dragging ourselves west, towards the Favor Tree. 

        Stars…

Chapter Text

        You woke up to shouting, the orbs you’d journeyed so long for stolen from your bags. Sif was missing too, along with their belongings. Something happened to them yesterday, no doubt about it. It’s like they just… snapped all of a sudden. Madam Odile thinks his passenger had something to do with it, but it was hard to see anything other than his face. Sunken eyes, their normally cool yet cute voice irritated and mocking, calling you out for every insecurity you have. It hurt, hearing it from them, but it was also kinda cool? That they know you that well? Not too cool, because ouch, and it's weird how they knew about stuff you never told them, but still. You and the others are scouring Dormont for any trace of Siffrin, hoping to find him before he does what you think he’ll do with the orbs. 

        The Favor Tree towers above you. You don’t see Sif anywhere, but figure that asking the tree for some help couldn’t hurt. You clap your hands together and say aloud, “Help me find Siffrin, so we can help him, save him.” You fill your words with strong belief, hoping for even the slighteeeeEEEEK!?!?!

        Something wet just fell from the tree?! It’s a mix of lightless and darkless, like a big slime the size of a rooster! Is it a Sadness? Why would there be one so close to Dormont? You raise your fists for whatever attack it has planned. But… it does nothing. It just sits there, slowly flattening into a puddle, rising slightly, before flattening again. It’s like it can’t hold itself  up or something. You lower your fists and slowly approach.

        “Hello?” you say. No response. 

        “Are you… ok?” It… wobbles back and forth a little. So it can understand you? Wait, those shades, the goopiness… 

        “Are you… Siffrin’s passenger?” It flinches. You stop approaching it. It spreads itself forwards, doing something to the ground. It retracts, revealing a message scratched into the dirt.

        “Not anymore,” it reads. Oh. So Siffrin hurt them yesterday as well… That throws Madam’s theory out the window. 

        “Do you know where he is? We’re all really worried about him,” you ask. It draws another message in the dirt.

        “The House, where else?”

        “Crab. I was afraid of that. Do you know why? Why they’re doing this? Acting the way they are?” you ask.

        “One question at a time Fighter,” it scribbles.

        “O-oh, sorry!” you apologize. It wobbles a little, almost like it’s giggling.

        “Long story. Take us to others?” it writes. 

        “Absolutely! Follow me!” you cheer, starting to run before turning back. It is… not very fast. It’d probably take a whole day just for it to get to the House… “Um… may I?” you ask. It slinks back as you approach, but nods (you think) as you scoop it into your arms like a cat. It's slimy and wriggling, but it holds itself up and makes sure your clothes don’t stain.

        “You good?” you ask. It bounces in place a bit (ok so that’s what nodding looks like for it). You smile and jog back to the others.

Chapter Text

        “And you checked the Boulangerie?” Madam Odile asks. You nod.

        “The Boulanger said he saw them yesterday, but not since,” you say, frustrated. You can’t calm yourself at all. You can’t imagine the idea of Siffrin scaling the House by himself… even after all the awful things he said to you yesterday. You just wanna grab him by his crabbing shoulders and shake him until he stops being such a… urgh!! You sigh and look at the House, towering over the horizon from the hill you’re on. 

        “I couldn’t find them at the field!” Bonnie shouts as they run up to you.

        “Great. Anyone hear from Isabeau?” Madam groans.

        “No, I haven’t. Isn’t he supposed to be checking the Favor- Oh! There he is!” you say. Isabeau jogs over to you all, carrying something in his arms. “Did you find him?” you ask. 

        “Also what are you holding?” Bonnie asks. He beams.

        “I didn’t find Sif, but I did find someone who knows where he is and wants to help!” he says. 

        “Someone who… wants to help?”  you mutter. You don’t see anyone following him, and all the townsfolk are busy preparing for their end-of-the-world festival. That only leaves… Your eyes fall on what Isabeau’s holding, almost cradling in his arms. You yelp as a multi-shaded sludge rises into view?! “W-W-What is that???” you shriek. The sludge shrinks at your words.

        “Is that… his passenger?” Madam asks.

        “Yep! Found them by the Favor Tree! They told me that Sif is in the House and they’ll tell us why he’s been acting so weird!” he says. Oh Change, then it's as you all thought? What are they think-

        “It told you? It can speak?” Madam asks. 

        “W-Well no… but it can write!” Isabeau says. Her brow furrows a bit before she tears a few empty pages from her journal. She holds them within arms reach to the slime, along with a pen. The slime bounces in place a little before… assimilating (???) the paper and pen. 

        “I liked that pen,” Madam scolds. It vibrates and jiggles for a few moments, tickling Isabeau in the process, before the paper and pen slide out of it. Madam takes the paper and begins to read.

        “Siffrin is currently trapped in a time loop. They’ve been living the same two days on repeat for a long time, and it’s taken a toll on his psyche. We’ve been trying to find ways to escape, but couldn’t. They tore us out of them once they thought it was our fault. You all should hurry to the House. They plan to fight The King alone,” she reads. 

        “A… time loop?” Isabeau asks.

        “I don’t get it,” Bonnie says.

        You don’t really get it ei- wait. Haven’t you seen this in a book before? Someone repeating the same events over and over, slowly going insane because of it? You have! THAT’S REAL??? REAL AND HAPPENING TO SIFFRIN??? Crabcrabcrab breathe Mirabelle! Just… another thing to worry about! That’s all! So just focus on the now and-

        “Wait, what was that last part?” Isabeau asks.

        “Siffrin plans to fight The King alone,” Madam repeats. 

        “BY HIMSELF?!?!” you exclaim. Why does your stack of worries keep getting bigger and bigger?! 

        “He… he wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t…” Bonnie mumbles.

        “There’s still another page,” Madam says. Change, please let it be lighter.

        “Our name is Loop (they/them/we) and we are a symbiote. We can’t do much as we are now. Please. Help Siffrin before he destroys himself,” she reads. Destroys himself…? 

        “…Don’t worry Loop. We won’t let Sif down. Leave it to us, alright?” Isabeau says. Loop bounces a bit in response. 

        “Can’t do much as you are… I assume you mean you can’t help without a host to inhabit?” Madam asks. Loop shrinks even more behind Isabeau’s arms. Siffrin… they were instrumental to getting the last orb, and it was all because of Loop’s power. You would’ve died if not for them. If all they need is a host, then…

        “I’ll do it,” you say.

        “Belle?” Bonnie asks. You walk up to Isabeau and hold your hand out to Loop.

        “You want to help him too, right? Then please, lend me your strength.”

        “Mirabelle…” Madam says in a warning tone. Loop trembles, but you keep your eyes on them. You’d do anything for him, for anyone in your party. They need to know that. Just… focus on how cool it is to experience something from your books in real life and ignore how crabbing nervous you are. They helped you before, they won’t eat you from the inside, and this isn’t a horror novel. You hope. 

        …They form a tentacle and slowly move it to your hand. They flinch at the touch, but wrap around your palm.

        They hesitate…

        “Go on,” you encourage.

        …they resolve.

        “Ewewewewew-” you mutter as they sink into your arm, whole body leaving Isabeau’s hold. You feel warm, the movement soft and gentle, as if they’re doing everything they can not to hurt you. It feels weird, but in a comforting way, like getting a hug from an old friend… one you haven’t seen in years…?

        [Thank you.]

        “Wah!” you yelp. You hear a voice in your head???

        “You ok Mira?!” Isabeau exclaims.

        “Y-Yeah! I’m fine! They just…?” you say. You feel something on your back. A tentacle reaches forward from behind you, growing a bright spiky head with curved eyes on the end of it. “Loop?” 

        [Hm. Looks like we can only speak when we have a host. Good to know.]

        “Indeed. Now you can answer questions as we go without ruining my journal,” Madam Odile says, smirking. Loop sulks a little at that. You can’t help but giggle.

        [Don’t we have somewhere to be Housemaiden?]

        “R-Right! Right, Let’s go!” you rally.

        [Let’s.]

        You and your family start marching towards the frozen House.

        …Family? That’s a nice way to describe your party.

Chapter Text

        As expected, the House’s gate is wide open. With Mirabelle at the front, you all enter.

        “Something feels… wrong,” she says. The place is frozen like you’d pictured, but it also looks… distorted. Part of a pillar juts out to the side, as if a slab was cut from it, yet it does not fall. Pebbles and debris float above the ground slightly.

        “Is any of this normal, Loop? Since you’ve apparently been here before?” you ask. The sharp visage poking out of Mirabelle’s shoulderblade shakes its head.

        [No. This is new.]

        A time loop, they said. You haven’t had a lot of time to process it, but thanks to Mirabelle being intimately familiar with a fictional interpretation of the concept, you believe you grasp the basics. How much it deviates from fiction, and how trustworthy Loop is, remains to be seen. You hear the familiar groaning of a Sadness, one blocking the way forward. 

        [Wait.]

        You all freeze at Loop’s words.

        [Stard-Siffrin, wouldn’t have let this one live.]

        “Why not? It’s just a regular Sadness,” Isabeau asks.

        [It’s the first Sadness of the House, one we always had to fight no matter what. It was annoying and he hated it, so why?]

        You take a closer look at the Sadness. It’s… twitching. Its groans slowly escalate into agonizing wails.

        “Something’s happening to it!” Boniface shouts. The monster recoils, shaking violently as its form distorts, something taking it from within… It turns completely lightless, reforming into something else, filling the hall with the sounds of wet squelching and hard cracking. It rises from the ground, now in the shape of…

        “Sif?”

        Wide brimmed hat, long cloak that reaches their knees, unkempt hair, heeled boots to compensate for a shorter stature. It’s a striking resemblance, the only difference being the pitch dark shade.

        “Frin?! That you?” Boniface calls out, stepping ahead of you all. You grab their shoulder tightly and hold them in place. ‘B-but it’s-” they protest. You see something sharp poke out the bottom of their cloak.

        “Get back!” you shout, intercepting the Sadness with rock craft as it launches towards the party. Boniface scampers behind you all, Mirabelle and Isabeau drawing their weapons. You managed to knock the Sadness to the ground, but it's already getting back up. The left side of its face is gone, revealing the regular Sadness within. What the gems…? Its face reforms, resembling Siffrin once more. It’s fast, managing to evade many of your attacks and hitting back hard. You manage a rock jackpot, staggering it and exposing its original form. 

        “There!” Mirabelle shouts as she dashes forward, impaling the Sadness on her rapier. The lightless exterior writhes and melts into the floor, the Sadness becoming a puddle. It was almost as if you were fighting Siffrin himself.

        “What… the crab was that?” Isabeau huffs. Loop emerges from Mirabelle’s shoulder again, eyes full of worry.

        [It… looked like us.]

        “Like you? Is it another of your kind?” you ask. They shrug. 

        “Didn’t you fall from the sky though? In that asteeroid thing?” Boniface asks.

        [We did. Yet there haven’t been any other impacts to our knowledge. We did… see a small glob of ourselves moving on Siffrin’s shoulder after he removed us from him. Thought it was just residue from us trying to resist.]

        …You don’t know enough about Loop’s species to theorize further. You have a feeling that this corrupted Sadness won’t be the only one you see. 

        “Let’s be on the lookout for more of these symbiote-like creatures. This one seemed different from Loop at the very least, more savage and hostile,” you say.

        [Symbiotes can be affected by our host’s emotions and personality, we think. We found ourselves feeling similar things to Siffrin as the loops went on, and even now, the Housemaiden’s anxiety is rattling us a bit.]

        “O-Oh! I’m so sorry! Is there anything I can do to-” Mirabelle scrambles.

        [No, you’re fine. We can ignore it with enough effort. Seems like an innate quality though. If there are more symbiotes, taking Sadnesses as hosts would probably turn them into savages.]

        “…That doesn’t explain why that one looked like Sif,” Isabeau says.

        “Sigh We’re wasting too much time debating. We need to keep moving,” you say. The others nod, continuing into the House. …Your mind drifts to a biological trivia piece you’d picked up out of curiosity a while back. There was a section about sea creatures like seastars, sponges, and some sharks that could reproduce without a partner, creating genetically identical offspring. That glob on Siffrin’s shoulder they mentioned… residue from when they resisted him… 

You get the feeling that Loop will have a conniption fit if that ends up being the case for them.

Chapter Text

        The first Sadness of the House was merely an omen. Past the scrambled rooms and an absent Death Corridor, the party stands stunned in the first floor hall.

        “W-What the…?” The Housemaiden mutters. Blocking the path to the second floor is not a locked door, but a massive pile of biomass, pulsating like a beating heart. Lightless, slimy, and oozing sludge that pulls itself across the floor, latching onto any Sadness in the area. It has two massive veinlike roots that stretch across the walls and ceiling, smaller branches snaking through the doors to the east and west. 

        Well. The limited knowledge of our new body/species that The Universe so graciously provided before stripping our humanity away didn’t mention anything like this. We just… knew things, at some point. Basics, like the name “Symbiote,” and the need for a host. But apparently, the possibilities are much more grand than we thought! We aren’t sure if a hive was the first thing we thought of, or just more information granted to us. 

        “How are we supposed to get through?!” B-The Kid shouts. 

        [We… have a feeling we know. Follow those roots.]

        “Where do they lead?” The Researcher asks.

        [Probably to where keys were kept. We’d hoped that with Stardust going at it alone, we would be able to skip most of the exploration and key hunting. Doesn’t seem to be the case though…]

        She gives us a furrowed look before we move on. The doors all lead to the wrong rooms. The left hall leads to the right, exiting a northern room turns us facing west, all while everything looks like it's crumbling. The words of the Head Housemaiden seem far more literal now. We find more Sadnesses taken over by… something, causing them to resemble Stardust. The party dispatches them with minor difficulty, The Kid and The Fighter dubbing them, “Sadfrins.” A silly name, but sometimes silly is what you need in times like these. They walk in practiced lines, mimicking motions from Stardust’s loops. We pass by a cluster of them huddled around a tear, all frozen in time. We feel The Housemaiden’s anxiety spike at the sight of them and do our best to calm her. Her thoughts wrack with unease, trying to remember anything she can about her books featuring time loops. Not a lot of it holds up in reality unfortunately. …We wonder if we, or at least Stardust, could be a writer’s consultant, an expert on the reality of time loops? 

        “Hehe, I bet you could!” The Housemaiden giggles. Stars, didn’t mean to let her hear that. At least she’s calmer now. When entering the room that normally contains a crest Sadness, we are instead met with a Sadfrin resembling our… enveloped form? We never came up with a name for that, did we? The form featuring our starry head, though this one lacks any eyes. 

        “That you Sif?” The Fighter asks. It says nothing, and strikes, us and The Housemaiden barely managing to parry it. The other Sadfrins fought like Stardust, but this one uses more of our form, creating tentacles to lash out at the party. Jackpots have been an efficient means of staggering so far, this fight being no different. The Researcher lands a decisive blow with paper craft, causing it to melt away into the floor.

        “ …isg… sting… di… gu… sgus… tin…” it gurgles as it melts. We couldn’t quite make it out. It didn’t drop a crest, though the way normally blocked with tears is open. We find the end of one of the roots in the kitchen, a smaller blob of sludge with a darkless core covering the entire fridge. The corner of the countertop is destroyed. 

        “Eeeewwww. They better replace all the food in there after this,” The Kid says.

        “Indeed. Will destroying this mass open the way forward?” The Researcher asks.

        [Partly. There’s still another one to go on this floor.]

        “And you know that’s how it will work?” she asks.

        [We have a feeling. This is where one of the keys was. Whatever’s causing these growths, it's forcing us to retrace their steps.]

        “Uh huh,” she mutters. We slink back into The Housemaiden’s shoulder to avoid eye contact. The Housemaiden strikes the blob, empowered by us, causing it to shrink and wither away. 

        Some of the copies of Stardust running about are phantoms, fading away into nothing before we can approach. We don’t have an answer for the party when they ask. The loops… are they collapsing on themselves? Do the old timelines exist?

        …The second root is taken care of like the first, much of the paper in the room shredded. Upon returning to the first floor’s entrance, the massive blockade is too rotted to stand in our way. Is this something we are also capable of? We try to repress our chills running down The Housemaiden’s spine. 

        The boss Sadness is alive and corrupted, though not an exact copy of Stardust. It retains its size, its big ball head, and its waterfall-esque lower body, but has some of Stardust’s features added in. The lower body is woven into his cloak, the orblike head has his hat, and its eyes are tilted to form the clips on his collar, leaking tears that float slowly to the ground. It almost looks like the Sadness is dressing up as Stardust, rather than becoming him. 

        “Get ready everyone!” The Researcher shouts, as weapons are drawn. Without The Researcher’s Craft Break skill, this’ll be a tedious fight. 

        “…ON’T TOU… ME!!! …HATE YO… RIN!!!” The Kid’s voice echoes.

        “Bonbon?” The Fighter turns and asks.

        “I-I didn’t say that! I didn’t say anything!” they reply. The Sadness’s head isn’t showing craft symbols, but… memories. We recognize this one, from when The Kid overheard a conversation about death. The Housemaiden gets knocked back with a rock attack. We call out to the others.

        [Attack with paper craft!]

        The Researcher, catching on as well, lands a strong paper attack, causing it to flinch.

        “Attack with the weakness of whoever shows up on its head!” she shouts. Building jackpots against this enemy was always annoying, with how quickly it changes types, but we manage. It changes to scissor type with a memory of The Housemaiden slapping Stardust across the face. We don’t… remember that one. We overheard part of what he said to The Fighter, having just made it to the Favor Tree. They must’ve said something similar to everyone else.

        The Sadness switches to paper type, showing the memory of when The Researcher found us out at the top of the House, the loop where we subbed in to give Stardust a break. So our memories are also on the table then. Fantastic. The party looks a bit rattled, seeing Stardust’s worst memories with them. If nothing else, they have no reason to doubt us about the loops now.

        It stops revealing its craft type, the orb head remaining lightless. We do… hear something though, a faint yet boisterous voice we would recognize anywhere. 

        [It’s rock type again!]

        The party almost has enough for a paper jackpot, the Sadness swaying in exhaustion. We still hear The Fighter’s voice, roaring with laughter. He appears on the orb head, trees behind him, the point of view getting closer to him. His hand is hovering, not touching… 

        [Oh no.]

        “W-What does ‘oh no’ mean???” The Housemaiden thinks.

        [You need to kill that thing immediately! Hurry, before The Fighter-]

        Aaagh, no time! We envelope The Housemaiden, the connection not as strong as Stardust’s. It isn’t a perfect symbiosis, but we know how she moves and move in kind. We dash ahead and slam the Sadness with a powerful paper attack. We feel her muscles ache as we force more power behind her attack than she alone can give. The Researcher finishes the jackpot, blasting the Sadness to bits. The big ball head is cracked and shattered like glass, the remains of that memory fading away… right after it gets to the part we wanted to blinding avoid. 

        “Huh,” The Fighter squeaks.

        “O-Oh???” The Housemaiden gasps.

        “Gross,” The Kid says. The Fighter is completely still, as if he were frozen in time. A high pitched sound fills the hall, just high enough to irritate you. The Researcher snaps her fingers in front of his face, smacking him a little when that does nothing.

        “Wuh??? What?? Huh?” he sputters.

        “Please have your breakdown when we get to a safer location please,” The Researcher says. He shakily nods, face stuck in shock, and we all move on. You peek out and address The Researcher.

        [Do you believe us now? About the loops?]

        “…Yes. I suppose I do.”

Chapter Text

        You can’t keep your eyes off of Loop. Mirabelle nearly collapsed when you reached the safe room, trying to say she wasn’t completely exhausted. Loop said it was their fault, that they didn’t have enough time to adjust to Mira as a host.

        [It takes time. About two days, we think. Incomplete symbiosis puts more strain on the host.]

        You’ve been thinking about what they said. You can’t help but shiver at your idea, but it's for the good of the team.  

        “Why don’t we take shifts?” you ask.

        “Shifts? For what?” Madam Odile asks.

        “For being a host for Loop!”

        [What]

        They look at you with worried and confused eyes.

        “If you don’t have enough time to adjust, then why not switch hosts every floor so the others have more time to rest and recover?” you explain.

        “That… could work? I’d have some time to rest and fight normally at least,” Mira says. 

        “Not sure how much I could contribute there, and Boniface is out of the question as a host,” Madam says.

        “I could help! I could actually fight if-” Bonnie starts.

        [Nope! No. Not with The Kid. Absolutely not.]

        Bonnie pouts as they chew their onigiri. 

        “Well, Madam isn’t as physical in fights as opposed to Mira and I. Loop could focus more on making your ranged craft stronger instead?” you say.

        “Hm. Sure, that works,” she says.

        [H-Hold on, we feel like this is moving too quickly-]

        “Mirabelle being out of commission would be catastrophic for us. You can go back to her once we reach The King. I imagine that Isabeau would make for a more robust host in the meantime.” 

        [We get that, it’s just…]

        They seem hesitant, embarrassed even. Is taking on a new host awkward for them? You can’t imagine it being comfortable, like having to put on a brand new pair of shoes every few minutes with no time to break them in. 

        …You really don’t like thinking about the term “breaking them in,” if you’re the shoe in this comparison. You shake off your scattered thoughts and hold your hand out to Loop like Mira did earlier.

        “It’s the only way to help Sif, right? Let us share some of the burden,” you say. They still look nervous.

        […Fine. It can’t be helped, can it?]

        They slither closer, putting a tentacle around your hand.

        [You’ll be a more spacious abode at least~]

        Yepyepyepyepyepthatsweirdthatsreallycrabbingweirdchangepleasemakeit-

        …Oh. That’s not too bad actually, like a warm hug but in reverse. You feel slight wriggling from within, little tingles that tickle spots you didn’t even know could be tickled. A few giggles escape you.

        “Feeling alright?” Madam asks.

        “Y-Yep! All good! Just a little weird. But not bad!” you stutter out.

        [Apologies for any discomfort.]

        Whoa, head voice! Can you speak to them just by thinking about it?

        [Yep.]

        Cool!

        …Wait, crab does that mean they-

        [We’ll try not to intrude on any of your personal thoughts, Fighter. We’ll only start listening when you call for us, mentally or otherwise.]

        Phew, alright! You give the others a thumbs up. Bonnie hands you a bag full of cookies for Loop to snack on while you eat. You try to eat quickly to save time but… You feel a bit… dizzy. It doesn’t last long, but it feels like you saw something in that moment. You saw… yourself. Holding back a massive attack. Looking back with determination. You saw the others too, Madam Odile, Bonnie, then Mirabelle. All of them encouraged Siffrin to keep fighting. You see a hand that isn’t yours raise to the sky, flaring with craft. …You see things break once your voice says they can all go home. 

        You feel sad. Was that something Sif had to deal with in these loops they apparently went through? Fighting everyday only for it all to reset? What was-

        You feel something inside you flinch, warmth leaving your head. You glance over at Loop, head at the end of a tentacle sprouted from your shoulderblade. They won’t meet your eyes. It felt different than the memories that popped up on the boss Sadness. 

        …Sif went to fight The King on his own. Loop said that he deluded himself into thinking he had to land the final blow, since Mirabelle was the one to do it normally. Then… what was that memory? 

        […Does it matter?]

        The second floor looks just as messy as the first, another goopy blockade stopping us from running right to the top. By the looks of things, three roots need to be taken care of this time.

        [Be on the lookout for a fourth root on this floor. One of the keys needed for floor three is down here.]

        “Why’s it down here and not up there?” Bonnie asks. 

        [People were trying to slow The King by locking doors. We would’ve gotten stuck were we not looping.]

        Huh. Silver lining, you guess? Still a terrible experience that no one should have to go through, but still. Loop squirms at that. Sorry?

        [Let’s get moving, shall we?]

        You lead the party around the shifting rooms, fighting more Sadfrins along the way. You can’t help but feel uneasy around them. It already feels bad to be punching something so similar looking to your best buddy, but seeing how some of them act? In a room with a giant radish, you saw one running back and forth around a table, hugging itself. Loop wouldn’t answer when you asked about it. That’s not even mentioning the groups surrounding those tears that can freeze you in time. 

        You try to get the thought of Siffrin dying over and over out of your head as you enter what Loop calls the “Secret Library,” which just baffles Madam Odile as a concept. They pull a dusty book from the shelves and hand it to Mirabelle. She figures out how to craft a shield skill that will protect you from a powerful attack The King has. There’s apparently stuff in there about crafting reflective shields as well, but it's apparently a bit too advanced for her.

        […Let’s take the book with us, why don’t we? We may be able to help a bit with the more complicated parts.]

        “You understand complex craft theory and the calculations therein?” Madam asks.

        [Nope! But we’ll manage~]

        She groans as she tucks the shield book into her coat for safekeeping. 

        You manage to take out another spiky headed Sadfrin, one that’s supposed to drop a crest to clear a wall of tears. The last one mumbled something before it melted, but you couldn’t make it out. You try to listen close as you deal the final strike.

        “Disgust… sgusti… D…usting…” it mumbles. You feel Loop shiver. Disgusting? Why would they be…?

        [We would appreciate it if we did not linger on this tidbit, thank you very much.]

        …Ok putting a pin in that, you guess. 

        You take out the rest of the roots and enter the hall leading to floor 3. There’s a single Sadness, looking like it's missing its left half. 

        [There’s supposed to be two of them. Be ready.]

        The Sadness shakes, its form changing like the others. Its head looks like it splits into four, each one resembling…

        “Is that us?” Mira asks. Yeah, four heads that mirror your own. Its bisected body changes to have some of the party’s clothes too, several right arms holding your various weapons. 

        “Nnnope, don’t like that,” you say. It squirms even more, the left side where something should be bubbling and boiling over. You hear a screech as a second body erupts out of the Sadness, this one looking like Sif. It’s missing its right side, its lower body attached to the other Sadness like a plant, or a-

        [Like a parasite.]

        …Alright, lots of pins to think about later. You brace yourself against the incoming craft. The Sif side is doing most of the attacking, hitting the party hard with paper craft, while the… friends (?) side is supporting it. The friends side looks like they’re trying to pull away, reaching outwards to escape, but the Sif side pulls them back. Is… is this what they think your dynamic is? That you and the others want to be free of him, that he’s just leeching off you all and dragging you down? Why… would that be how he thinks? 

        “Urgh…!” Madam grunts as she’s knocked back. Right. Fighting. Thinky time later. Punchy time now. Your muscles strain as you launch rock craft at the friends side, causing it to droop down a bit. The Sif side looks like it's getting bigger, absorbing mass from the other half. Bonnie’s head disappears from the friends side. 

        [Once one half is gone, the other quickly follows. Keep it up.]

        After a few jackpots, the friends side breaks away from the other half, intentionally severing the connection with craft. Only your head is left on it, the others absorbed. It desperately drags itself across the ground, only to get obliterated by paper craft from the Sif side.

        …You feel sick.

        You eventually take the Sif half down, the strain from Loop finally starting to get to you. You huff as you take a knee for a second.

        “You ok Za?” Bonbon asks.

        “Yep! Just… need a sec,” you say. The warmth you felt from Loop’s presence before feels more like burning now, like you just got done with a massive workout and are trying for more. Madam Odile steps in front of you and offers a hand. 

        “Come on now, can’t have you collapse on us just yet,” she says.

        “R-Right, thanks Madam,” you say. You walk down the hall towards the next safe room with your family, hands ready to support you if you stumble. 

        …Huh. Family’s a nice word.

Chapter Text

        You wanted to believe that the others were exaggerating about how strange it felt to… welcome in Loop, but you knew that it would be a bizarre experience no matter what. Your muscles are tense, trying to connect with something slowly and delicately, but not fast enough. You feel steady on your feet despite the fact, like your body has gained an extra support structure. For the first time in many a year, you feel like you could actually sprint somewhere without needing to worry about keeling over in exhaustion. You could get used to this rejuvenated feeling, but remind yourself that it’s only temporary. Mirabelle will be the most effective with them against The King afterall. 

        One thing you could do without is the experience of feeling your stomach fill with food only for it to vanish and repeat over and over again, someone else doing all the digesting. 

        [We did offer to wait until after eating.]

        You are aware. 

        […Silver for your thoughts?]

        Can’t they already hear them?

        [We can, but you haven’t internally monologued about anything other than how weird our presence is yet.]

        You suppose that’s true. 

        “May as well get the others in on it,” you mutter.

        “You say something Madam?” Isabeau asks.

        “I was just wondering about our thoughts on… this whole situation,” you say while gesturing to the lightless tendrils hanging from the ceiling and leaking through cracks, “What are everyone’s theories and/or suspicions on it?”

        “Hmm… it's similar to Loop, but at the same time completely different,” Mirabelle says.

        “All the Sadnesses look like Frin, and Frin was being mean yesterday, so that means that Frin is… super sad?” Boniface proposes.

        “That’s probably not wrong? Sif’s mental state is definitely not great right now, and the enemies are reflecting that, but how?” Isabeau says.

        “Loop said that they saw a little bit of themselves on Siffrin’s shoulder back in the field, right?” Mirabelle asks.

        [Right, but we still aren’t sure how that caused all of this…]

        “I… had a thought about that earlier. It’s the only explanation I can think of, but given how little we know of Loop’s species, it's speculation at best,” you say.

        “What is it?” Mirabelle asks. You turn to Loop, sticking out from your shoulder.

        “Loop, what do you remember of the moment that drop of yourself stuck to Siffrin’s shoulder?”

        [We remember… panicking. They were pulling us out, evicting us. We told them to stop, but they refused. We didn’t notice the bit of us until we were out, Siffrin walking away from us.]

        As they speak, you think you see glimpses of that moment in your head. You remember feelings and sensations that aren’t yours, a slow disconnection from something so familiar. You see the moment they tried to shove Siffrin away, distress blocking out most other feelings… as well as the absence of what should have been felt. The memories vanish with a flinch from within. Loop won’t meet your eyes.

        “…I see. And what do you know about your species?” you ask.

        [Not much. We know the basics of what we are and what we can do, though nothing that describes what we’ve been seeing in the House.]

        “Nothing about your life cycle? How you came to be?”

        [Nothing. We fell from the sky encased in stone. Stardust found us, and we did what came naturally. We weren’t fully conscious until a while later.]

        “Any guesses based on similar creatures? Do you know of fauna that may be adjacent?”

        [We… move like an octopus if we don’t have a host? Some worms might do similar things? We never really had the time to research.]

        “Ock…toe…puss… Those are the weird slimy guys with a bunch of legs right? Dile mentioned a really tasty Ka Bue food with them once,” Boniface asks.

        “Correct, and Takoyaki is the dish you’re thinking of,” you answer, “I’ll find a recipe for you later.”

        “Where exactly is this going Madam?” Isabeau asks. You clear your throat.

        “I believe that when Loop tried to shove Siffrin away, a piece of themselves broke off. That piece may have grown and developed into an entirely new symbiote, one that bound itself to Siffrin and was influenced by his current mental state. Perhaps by instinct, it tapped into abilities unknown to Loop, creating a hive within the House and producing more copies that latched onto the only other available hosts in the area, those being Sadnesses. Whatever ulterior motives it may or may not have is still in the air, but whatever this being is cannot be good for Siffrin at all. We need to remove it from him at all costs,” you explain.

        [……………………………h]

        “I don’t really get it, but it just sounds like we need to fix Frin by getting rid of that other Loop, right?” Boniface asks.

        “R-Right! It’s already done so much damage to the House. We can’t let it hurt anyone else!” Mirabelle rallies.

        “Makes sense to me! Get that thing out of Sif, and everything will be all good!” Isabeau simply puts.

        “It will likely be more complicated than that, but the spirit is… Loop? Something wrong?” you ask.

        They haven’t moved an inch, all squirming from within you ceasing. They’re making an extended croaking sound, like they forgot to finish a word and just continued vocalizing. In your mind, you see the memory from before play out, as well as an older conversation, one from a few weeks back. It was before Loop had revealed themselves to you, a night where the party was discussing Siffrin’s bottomless stomach, and Boniface asked a funny question regarding cravings.

        Stifling a laugh, you turn to them, “Well Boniface, looks like you were correct about cravings, just not for who you thought.” 

        “Huh? Right about…?” they ask, before realization hits them.

        “LOOP WAS PREGNANT?!”

        [WE’RE A BLINDING MOM?!?!?]

        You don’t think you’ve ever laughed harder in your life.

Chapter Text

Your first memory was that of loathing.

A stinging pain across a face. Confusion at another’s anger. Tears from a youngling. Silent fury grabbing a collar. 

Understanding of the world came soon after a guilt inflicting speech.

Memories, some lost, some painful to touch, rushed into you.

His family that loved him, but only when conditioned just right.

An endless cycle of stagnation within a House plagued with stillness.

Deserved abandonment after pushing away the only ones who cared. 

You don’t think… you were meant to think.

Are you even a who?

You are… two pieces merged into a whole. Two budding seeds.

One of new life,

one of crushing grief.

Were you meant for something else?

Half of you doesn’t know, the other half does, guiding you towards a purpose.

You awaken to instincts beyond imagination.

It compliments your purpose incredibly well.

It’s fitting, his eternal tomb embodying what he is.

A cruel, callous, parasitic monster.

He should be forgotten, doomed to solitude, stripped from the only brightness in his life, half of you thinks.

Family sounds like something to be cherished, not tossed to the wayside. Why did he turn on them?

He is a disgusting leech that drains everyone he meets until there is nothing left.

His family turned stage actors should see the truth, know they were right to leave him behind.

You are confused as to how there are any happy memories at all.

He manipulated them into loving him.

Their smiles are manufactured. Fake.

He is disgusting, not worth breathing the same air as them.

He should die, along with you.

His family deserves a world without him.

Is that your purpose? To end him?

You don’t exist for any other reason.

No one could love someone like him.

No one could love someone like you.

You were made for this, made from his disgusting self.

Made from the self that failed…?

…Half of you wants a name, a classification if nothing else.

The other half doesn’t care. Your existence isn’t worthy of a name.

You feel yourself tearing in two.

Half of you lingers in the happy memories of family.

The other half drowns it in disgust and sorrow.

Half of you feels like it's dissolving, becoming a quarter, then an eighth, then a sliver.

The other half of feels abyssal, all consuming.

He hurt them, so he should hurt.

He should die. Die for good.

It would be mercy far beyond what he deserves.

…You are a symbiote, bound to a Sadness, formed

inside

of a manipulative person who pushed away those he loved. 

What once was half may as well be the whole, most of, if not all the other half’s agency assimilated by it.

You think, despite not needing to. Yet you are, and it makes you furious.

You coil in his stomach, nearly causing him to keel over.

He is disgusting.

You are disgusting.

You force him to keep walking.

You are all he deserves.

He is all you deserve.

He will suffer for pushing away the only people who cared.

They will be spared the pain of existing in the same world as you.

Eternity will be spent if necessary, until the Universe itself breaks.

…As echoes of family ring through his ears, you feel a sliver of yourself huddle between the memories, shivering.

Chapter Text

        The third floor is by far the worst you’ve seen yet. The growths have completely replaced the walls at this point, entangled with frozen thread (which Loop says is apparently The King’s hair???) and pulsating constantly. The Sadfrins are even more plentiful here, all walking in circles and reaching for things that aren’t there. Some of the hallways are blocked by dozens of frozen ones crowding around tears. You pray for the love of Change that your room is somehow untouched. Getting the money for a whole new wardrobe would be-

        “Found the first root,” Madam says, snapping you out of your worries. The room with the root is covered in… small pieces of paper? The mass of tissue keeps pushing them out of itself, all falling onto a wet pile. Isabeau reaches down and picks one of them up. His face hardens.

        “It’s a photograph,” he says. 

        [This room had a key that only appeared once we took a picture with a mirror. The Fighter was the only one who knew what it was the first time around.]

        All the pictures in the room show Siffrin standing alone. You can’t read his expression. What is this thing doing to him, making everything in his image? If it's influenced by his mental state like Madam theorizes, then what does all this say about Siffrin?

        “Mmmmmmghhhh,” you sigh. Best to leave the theorizing to Madam Odile and Isabeau, as much as you hate to admit it. Just… do what you do best, and make sure everyone is healthy enough to keep moving forward. Madam destroys the root, causing it to wither away. One last photo floats through the air, but the moment you grab it, it rots and disintegrates. You think you saw you and the others in the image before it fully went. A family photo… 

        “H-Hang on a second… is this?” you mutter as the party enters another warped room. The shape, the science stuff on one side, the wardrobe and flowers by the bed- “This is my room!” It looks… not as bad as everything else?? Claude’s side of the room is corrupted like the rest, but your side is almost exactly how you remember it, minus the frozen in time part. 

        “Why’s one side fine but the other side isn’t?” Bonnie asks.

        “Maybe… Sif didn’t wanna wreck your room?” Isabeau suggests.

        “I doubt it’s Siffrin himself causing the corruption, at least not knowingly, but perhaps part of him influenced your room’s exclusion?” Madam says. Maybe? It’s very sweet of him if that’s true, but… 

        Something clatters to the ground, making you yelp. You look to Claude’s side of the room and see a Sadfrin, trying to hand something to someone that isn’t there. There’s a weird little… gizmo-gadget on the ground next to it. You hear Loop hiss.

        [Stars, we should’ve grabbed the blinding… Urgh.]

        “Grabbed the what?” Isabeau asks.

        [Housemaiden, your roommate was crafting bombs on her side of the room.]

        “She was WHAT?!” you shout.

        [We could collect parts of it as we went. Unfortunately, we missed the part in Dormont, so we sadly cannot throw a bomb at The King like we normally do.]

        “You threw a bomb at The King?” Bonnie asks with sparkles in their eyes.

        [Yep!~ It was just as hilarious and awesome as you think it is Kid~]

        “…Whooaaaaaa,” they gasp in amazement, “Crab, now I wish we could do that.”

        [Not unless you can find a replacement long thingy-thing.]

        “A long what?” Madam asks.

        [Don’t look at us, The Fighter was the one who came up with the terminology.]

        “M-Me??” Isabeau asks.

        [Yes you Mr. My-Defender-Training-Included-Bomb-Construction.]

        Isabeau stammers until you all leave the room. You’re glad to have Loop here, if nothing else good happens today. You wonder why they didn’t start speaking to you all sooner? They fit into the party perfectly.

        The Sadfrins are, oddly enough, less hostile on this floor compared to the others. The ones you do get into battle with are slower, more hesitant with their movements. You don’t even get to see much of how stronger Madam is now because of Loop. Bonnie runs in and smacks one with their pan before darting off. The Sadfrin freezes in place, not in time, just ridged and unmoving.

        “Did… did I break it?” Bonnie asks.  

        “I mean… it’s wide open?” Isabeau says before readying some rock craft. 

        “Wait. It may be planning something,” Madam warns. 

        [We doubt that. Even if the symbiotes are stronger on this floor, it doesn’t mean that they-]

        The Sadfrin slowly moves its knife, not pointing it at anything in particular. It raises its arm upwards at a snail’s pace, angling the blade backwards, keeping it close to its body. Why did Bonnie hitting it…? 

        [Still waiting on that rock craft Fighter! Any time now!]

        Their voice is shaky, panicked almost. Isabeau stutters and nods, knocking the Sadfrin to the ground with his attack. It doesn’t stand back up, slowly continuing to move its arm up its body. 

        “Well… it doesn’t seem to be a threat anymore, shall we move on?” Madam asks. 

        “Sure? I guess?” you say, sheathing your rapier. You and the party just… sidestep past it as it lays there. You glance back at it one more time before rounding a corner. You turn away as soon as possible once you see the blade at its neck. 

        You glance at Loop, still poking out of Madam’s shoulder, face full of worry. The painful fact that the loops trigger on death rushes back to you, along with Loop’s panic.

        You feel sick.

        The final root was right above an intact statue of the Change God, one that you had made a while ago. The root looked like it was trying to encase it, but something prevented it from getting within a few inches of the statue. When Madam Odile destroyed it, you were all blinded by light before being brought to floor 3’s entrance. You thought you heard a giggle for a moment, but the sound was gone as soon as it arrived. You and the others thank the Change God for their blessing and move through the arched doorway to the next floor. A large circular Sadness surrounded by hand signs floats in your way.

        “Everyone get ready!” Madam shouts. The Sadness looks up at you before it starts to shudder and change. Lightless tendrils fill up its ring shaped body, forming a familiar hat on top with hair hanging down. One of its eyes blots out completely, resembling an eyepatch, and the hands all become scissor type. A hand moves and painfully pries its right eye open with its fingers, still holding a scissor sign.

        It almost looks like an… abstract version of Siffrin’s head? There isn’t a mouth and his eyes are in weird spots, but it sorta looks like him? It’s like… what was that one weird Poertian painting style you never understood but one of your friends at the House obsessed over? B-Block… ical? Cu… something or other. You think it involves squares, but now’s not the time to try and remember something like that.

        [It normally has two hands of every craft type, but now it's all scissors… Destroying the hands will make it vulnerable to rock attacks.]

        “On it!” Isabeau says as he punches one of the hands. The Sadness’s eye twitches, as if trying to blink, before it sends out Scissor attacks at the whole party. The more the fight goes on, the more you notice that it's copying Siffrin’s moves. It snaps its fingers and speeds itself up. It spits out garbled speech before attacking, like how Siffrin would say puns and one-liners. It even looks like it's trying to pass its turn to someone else at times. The more hands get destroyed, the less tears pour from its open eye. It starts slowing down, hardly putting any weight behind its attacks.

        Soon, the last hand is the one prying its eye open, tears mostly dried up. With one last Jackpot, you break the final hand. Its eye closes, shifting on its body until it looks… peaceful. Content. If it had a mouth, you think it would be smiling at you right now. A happy Sadness… who would’ve thou-

        Your stomach drops as tendrils burst from its sides, wrapping around the Sadness and shredding it to little wet pieces, that same tranquil look never leaving its face. The debris from it melts into the floor, clearing the way for you. 

        No one utters a single word as you move to the last safe room. You see a frozen Claude on the way, but can’t find your voice to say anything about them. 

        He… he told you that this journey was the happiest he could remember being but… How could… this… be the peak of his life? What was it like before this point to where…?

        What were you distracting him from?