Epilogue

[lesmodsalouette]

EPILOGUE

Your stopped time has restarted. Whether you were in the grassy field or fighting for your life on the castle grounds, you'll suddenly find yourself in an untouched area of the gardens. Ish is back, and so are the items, and the dead.

You return to Chateau Ambregris with the certain knowledge that come Monday, you will greet a new week, in a home of your own choosing. No longer will the chime of the clocks hunt you down, no longer will the oppressive scent of roses haunt your senses, no longer will you be forced to watch the death of those you've come to love and hate.

Parting is such a bittersweet sorrow, isn't it?

Make merry one last time, in this castle of illusions. Ironically, your memories of this stolen time that never existed are the one thing that will truly remain to you.

END NOTES

🔮 All dead are revived as tsukumogami! Congrats on your immortality(?)
🔮 Any other contracts made with Ish will be honored
🔮 Characters may choose to leave for any world they desire.
🔮 Time has not passed while you were stuck in this loop!
🔮 There will be no cross-dimensional world travel, except for on Samhain (Witches New Year October 31st/November 1st). On these dates, Ish will enable everyone to visit each other's world freely.
🔮 Universal Communication will be possible, courtesy of Manba and Ish. Everyone who wants one will be given a small fox that can communicate with other foxes through voice and video; the foxes can talk and are fairly simple creatures, enjoy them and give them fried tofu once in a while.
🔮 Powers are on for the finale, but Ish will step in and yeet anyone who gets too out of hand back to their homeworld, so play nice! (or relatively nice. )

[OOC: Welcome to your epilogue! The timeloop is ended, the evil has been defeated, and you have some time to catch your breath in the castle before the rest of your life begins! ]

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[siffriend]

[ ... ]

Hickey. If you lose your case in the sea, that's it. You know? I don't think it floats.

[ocenon]

[ On instinct, a gloved hand goes up to one of the red streaks in his hair, playing with it for a second. ]

... I do not do anything to style my hair, if that's what you're asking.

[ It is sort of a similar shade to G'raha's red, isn't it... he never really thought about it that way. ]

Is that to do with your return to the living?

[ The remembering. ]

[distain]

[As per graveyard chat, she's getting a Glock, so it's fine.]

It'll be much faster than having to wait on letters or telegrams.

[A tiny line creases her forehead as she thinks over the fact that time may be arranged differently between them. What if all worlds aren't the same distance from their preplanned meeting?

It's so frustratingly complicated, all of this time and dimension business, and now she's a part of it with relatively little to show. He can probably feel her underdeveloped sense of magic heating up, her huffy annoyance with the unknown.]

Her mother first. She's on borrowed time. I'll need to work on faking our deaths.

[siffriend]

I asked for it, yeah. In exchange for giving The Witch time that he needed to wake Norna up. I've got plenty of it, being in a time loop.

[ So just sparing a little, there.

... ]

Um. Did you need anything, though? From me.

[allrounder]

[ Ah, damn. They got him pinned. ]

I would not be opposed to that meaning, if it is what you intended.

[ But he doesn't want to assume too much either and make the situation weird, but. Well. That ship might've sailed. ]

[siffriend]

It isn't, but you don't have to dance around stuff like that.

[ (...

He'll find out about the bonding earrings when he comes to visit, so. No need to talk about it right now.) ]

You give flowers to people who are important to you. That one, [ with a gentle nudge at the peony, ] will die eventually, but my feelings won't. So I thought that a flower ring would be a good way to show that no matter how much time passes, you'll always be important to me.

[ ...

That's all! ]

[coldseep]

( Despite the hostility he'd met Hickey with last time, he'd largely moved past his intensity of feeling over it - glassing him and watching him die had something of a therapeutic effect.

He, of course, is not happy about the Junior thing still, which is probably well enough, given Hickey's come to confront him about this. )

I would accept accusations of manipulation from anyone, but not from you.

( He does not speak coldly - and, in fact, Hickey is met with Hwylryn's real voice, reverberating from his throat. It's smooth and clear and strangely - perhaps unwelcomingly! - pleasant, infused with a mythical sense of vast nature. )

You used Junior for your own gain. For Junior and me, it was a matter of love.

( A sane thing to say. Anyway, his neck raises up as he peers at Hickey, expression, unsurprisingly, difficult to read. )

But if Junior sought my punishment and atonement, I would honor it. I don't think you'd grant him the same. Am I wrong?

[ocenon]

[ haha, yay! :D ]

We're already linked to each other, though. [ ... ] Unless it's meant to go with the others?

[ girl he maybe used the crystal once. ]

[spotsalone]

[ Hm. He glances at Siffrin. ]

Elias.

[ Anyway. ]

It's more difficult to lose things overboard than you may think. I'm certainly not going to be so flippant with my own soul.

[coldseep]

( He waits patiently for Siffrin's answer, because he's aware he is not owed it. He aches, but he is not owed it. In some sense, this is an exercise, for him - teaching himself, several thousand years later, what it means to choose in any way that matters.

It's always been easy to kill and cut off that which he has never cared for.

The answer he gets, though, surprises him.

His head returns to how it was (unrotated, a few degrees back up), but then drops a little lower - as if getting a better look at something he could not clearly see. There is, of course, nothing to see. His body is just as much a vehicle of expression as his face is as a human, is all. )

... Do you think I still can?

( It had take him so many thousands of years to come upon this sort of thing at all, in this pressure cooker of a castle - he might be scared of the idea of confronting his grief, but change in the abstract? Change as a whole? He had just gotten over this one hump with great effort - and he was content to resign himself to what he's gained from it. He had not even thought to think there was more places for him to go, or where. )

[allrounder]

[ Andrew Glock

He sure can, but at least it isn't much magic, as far as he's aware or used to... But he'll be keeping an eye on her anyway.

But that's not so different than it has been. ]

Her mother? If you can provide more information on her later on, then... mayhap we can pull her across the rift first.

[ocenon]

[



Hang on a second, he'll be right with you to answer your questions, Hwylryn. ]

Hwylryn? I must admit, you seemed larger when you were in the field that first week, but you're still quite the sight to behold.

[ :D :D :D :D :D ]

[coldseep]

( hi frien do u wanna fight :) )

I could be larger than this, but I would crush everything within this space if I were. But, I don't know . . . I could probably size up, if you prefer a little bigger.

[siffriend]

[ Who the heck is Elias.






Well, okay. Elias then. If he wants to switch names for his new life. Siffrin doesn't have a leg to stand on anyway. ]

... Good. Because I'd like you to visit sometime. Poteria's a country of luxury, and I think you'd enjoy seeing it.

[allrounder]

[ He doesn't? It's something G'raha is so used to doing, though, only letting things slip because more than often he struggles to shut himself up, but...

He'll have to get used to not needing to dance around subjects, afraid of the results. The two of them are way past that anyway. With a smile, he affixes the flower to his shirt, using his scarf to secure its place.

That it's not a proposal doesn't upset him either, because he smiles, soft as ever. ]

I will do my utmost to see that it lives a long, happy life.

[ For as long as a flower like this can anyway. ]

On Etheirys, there is a rare flower known as the Elpis. 'Tis known to react to the emotions of those in its proximity. I wonder what color the bloom would take on right in this moment. A light pink, perhaps, like the peony you've gifted me.

[coldseep]

( Hwylryn would have argued with Gwawlyn too, if he were in that same position. Would have with Balthazar, if Balthazar wanted to hear him speak at all about it.

So he understands. He understands so much, it hurts like it'd just happened to him.

And he understands, too, as someone on the verge of giving up this entire time.

He strokes Ish's hair, voice soft. )

She couldn't explain why?

[distain]

[...Ah. She's been spending her weeks with a lot of people who can't see, hasn't she?

It's such a nice description that Andrew doesn't know what to do with it at first. The words aren't anything she would think to associate with herself. Summer... she's realizing now that she'll see the seasons change into that warmth again.

She finally supplies, super usefully:] They're green.

[siffriend]

[ That is super useful, actually. ]

So that's how it's pronounced.

[ Wow. So much to tell Bonnie.

(...

You'll have to remember to check the book on Color Theory again if you want to spark that conversation, though. Or maybe... you'll just never say a word, and be careful about descriptions from now on.

You realize you have no idea how you're going to tell them about any of this.

.............................

Well. What's one more secret.)

For now, Siffrin'll stand on his tippy toes. ]

Can I see? Closer.

[calamitish]

[ well there's no point talking around this issue anymore, right? he's quiet for a moment, appreciating the fingers in his hair.

deep breath- ]

She's never been good at being a "goddess", that's why she created attendants. But after the last fallout with humans, she couldn't take it anymore. She thought that the only way she could understand them was to become one, even though I was right there.

I understood them the most, I still do. [ as much as he is a clown, being able to read emotions is his specialty and in a way, what he was made for. ]

But rather than trust me, or just keep trying on her own, she put herself back into the cycle of rebirth. That's how it is in the world where I'm from, once you die, your soul gets reincarnated as long as it doesn't require tuning, until it's reached nirvana.

So all this time, after I woke up, I was waiting for her to reborn. And when she finally was...the girl who had her soul was nothing like her. She was loud, brutish, opinionated, stubborn [ he's extremely biased here, it's fine. ] . She was the one who kept looping back time before I came here, because she inherited that power from Norna.

I played a game with her, in order to get her soul. I didn't need her specifically, so I broke her slowly bit, by bit, by bit. When I finally won—she just disappeared from the cycle completely, because of a deal she struck with Rune. So I killed him too, but it was too late.

That's why I had to do all of this, I had to rewind time all the way back to when Norna was actually whole. But her answer was still the same, even if the ending this time meant she would cease to exist at all.

[ocenon]

[ He smiles, gently squeezing her hand again as they head back into the château. Richard seems content with meandering back through the halls, but as he looks at her, he's got something of a glint of something in his eye. ]

After all this time without your magical energy, I'd almost forgotten what it was like with Loxley and the others around.

[ would've been real helpful with with siffrin, honestly. ]

[ocenon]

[ His hand drops from his hair, back to his side. ]

Was that all that you were staring for? Or was there more to it?

[simulacres]

It feels weird to me, too. It's like I just drank a whole cup of coffee in one go.

[ though she had never felt dependent on her magical energy and didn't really notice the difference without it, now that it's back, the energy feels like a low hum in her body. there is a slight hesitation, with everything about herself revealed, but...

she trusts richard. no matter what she is and what she does, she trusts that he'll be alright.

that said, she sure is eyeing him suspiciously when he looks back at her. ]

Did you forget something?

[antemeridian]

[ anything that looks so specifically handcrafted in a lab to be cute is sus until proven otherwise. ]

... And this is the method he settled on?

[ one of the darker colored konnosukes yawns. it hops out of manba's arms and scampers up onto one of homura's shoulders... where it then proceeds to shouldercatfox through a nap. ]

[siffriend]

Oh. Yeah. I was just, um. Getting used to seeing color and all. It's pretty overwhelming.

[ Who'd have thought!!!!!!! ]

Looking at people I know helps. What do you call your hair? Colorwise. It reminds me of the same shade as flower middles. And bees.

[coldseep]

( Perhaps, in the same way Hwylryn should have been better to not ask Junior at all to assist him, he should have left those he's harried alone. It is their right - more than earned, for a burden they did not want - to find some way to rearrange themselves whole without Hwylryn sticking his claws into things again, substituting their compromised consent for a kinder course of action.

But here he is, regardless, waiting patient for G'raha's answer - G'raha, grounded enough to be upset with him, but too kind to tell him off as soon as Hwylryn alighted. )

Very well.

( He chirps, content with this. )

It's the least I can do. ( True, but. ) And if you don't wish to reach me directly, I think you can use those little foxes to reach Junior. They're where I'll be.

( Against popular demand! He will be remaining with them both ! )

You are more graceful than I deserve.

( He will not thank him for it, because it's not necessarily appropriate - it's not something G'raha should be giving him. But he will not seem apologetic for it, either - because he is not ashamed of what he is, deserving or undeserving. Frankly, he thinks being apologetic would be an insult to the suffering he put G'raha and Sariel through - what he did to them, he must wear with pride, regardless of censure. (This is a more Northern attitude, in the end.) After all, he cannot undo it, nor truly right it.

But he would remark upon it. And so it becomes a neutral statement of fact. )