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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[simulacres]

[ in the back of her head, she had always wondered what saber had wished for after siobhan's murder. it had taken saber so long to come up with a wish for the grail, that she couldn't imagine him being able to come up with something significant here...and she figured that his pride wouldn't allow him to wish for the same thing he was planning to wish to the grail.

but it never came up, and she never knew a good way to ask. eventually, she simply figured that maybe he had rejected ish's offer all together.

but now, seeing the tarot card in his hands, offered to her, she can only stare at it in wide-eyed shock, her words failing her. she approaches saber, taking the card with both hands, as if it were the most precious thing in the world. she stares up at saber, her breath caught in her chest. ]

Why?

[ 'why now?', 'why me?' ]

[simulacres]

[ she'll give him (1) cla- no, she won't.

but she does blink in surprise at his response, taken aback. ]

Absorb you? That's a... bit extreme. Especially since you wanted to see her so badly.

[ like, does she condone any of this? absolutely not. but at the same time, that kind of sounds like a slap on the face after all of his efforts. ]

[coldseep]

( Dan Heng may have seen Hwylryn's dragon form (not so big) out in the gardens at any point, but, while he pops into Primrose to put away his things, he'll find Hwylryn (humanoid) entering not long after. He seems a little surprised to see Dan Heng, but, after a few moments, he puts on something of a smile. )

... Are you taking those with you?

( why else clean up, )

[thesharpestroy]

Oh, shit.

[Shiv struggles to comprehend what Chara describes, a complete absence. All she knows is that something terrible must have happened.]

Well, explains how you knew what you did about this stuff.

The void's not a good spot for a kid to grow up. Was it a place without magic before it all went to shit too?

[coldseep]

( A familiar dragon of a more palatable size has watched that entire affair - the magic swelling; bursting; rippling out - and watches her for several long moments more after. )

It seems we did.

( In answer to her question.

A beat. )

... Will you be returning to keep your promise?

( The answer is yes. He expects as much. But, still - he's clingy. He can't simply see her without saying goodbye in some fashion, even if he's on the outs with two Primroses (and another two adopted Primroses) already. )

[simulacres]

[ she doesn't move her hand. it's almost like she's genuinely considering the statement. ]

To be frank, Yoru, I feel like there's a lot about you that I don't get.

[ maybe it was for the best that she wasn't there for the yoonhee murder, since that means she's less cautious. ]

But you... or I guess, some part of you, reached out to me when I was pretty low and... I really appreciate that still. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep being your friend. You were the first one, after all. It doesn't feel right to let it go so easily, especially since you still want to be my friend.

[simulacres]

Just a hunch.

[ maybe the sharpness of your smile, andrew? have you checked that? but ayaka shrugs nonchalantly, as she focuses on the rest of the things that the other girl says. ]

Ah... does this mean that you're not sick anymore?

[ no, she doesn't know that andrew and the rest of the dead are now functionally immortal. ]

[coldseep]

( Ayaka may or may not notice, not so far away, that there is a familiar dragon of a more palatable size, his long body winding around the gardens, who very much noticed the singularity of magical energy when it appeared earlier. He finds it particularly curious to match it to Ayaka, but it would be more curious if he did not hear from her in part what she understood of herself.

Whether or not Ayaka notices him, she will find a little pear, dancing lights about it and glowing a slight blue, floating into her hands. It comes with the scent of sea breeze, which announces Hwylryn's presence before she hears his voice: )

What sort of place is the US?

[coldseep]

( Paying off Ish with kisses absolutely feels like a cheat code, but here we are.

It's hard to read a dragon's expressions, them being short on facial muscles, but there's a slight tension in the air when Richard answers as he does. His tail (a ways back) flicks - agitation, maybe.

He should leave implication alone as implication. But, he can't help it - he's still fond of Richard (all of Primrose, though some have turned from him); he can't help but worry. Where he lacks in expression, this, at least, carries clearly in his voice. )

... You will not remain beside her? You've been with her all this time.

( dumb fool dragon doesn't know how the holy grail war works smh )

[simulacres]

Well...

[ ayaka opens her mouth to answer that simple question and...

finds herself at a loss.

not because of a lack of reasons. the moment that the question was presented, a myriad of reasons floated to her head, each one of them more self-deprecating than the last. but none of those were something that she would be able to say without either being looked at like a weirdo or like she's ungrateful.

... ]

Don't think too much about it. It's a bad habit of mine, it seems.

[simulacres]

Hwylryn!

[ there's a wide-eyed, innocent look in ayaka's eyes as she spots the dragon. but her eyes are practically glittering as the fruit floats into her hands. she looks between it and the dragon, and she needs a moment to process the question before answering. ]

Oh... it's a country. A pretty big one. Actually, Richard and I are only going to one of the cities, which is where we were before this. [ she holds out the pear towards him, curious. ] What's this?

[antemeridian]

It was. I made it for her, because ... She saved my life when we met. And I never really thought ...

[ backtrack. take a step back, and rewind. ]

... when Walpurgisnacht came, that first time, she was the only one left who could fight it. Back then, I was useless. Weak. [ it's a wonder she survived going out in the storm to look for Tomoe Mami and Madoka. ] I found her, but ... I asked her to run. To do anything other than fight alone and die for it. I tried to tell her that something like that wasn't her responsibility alone, that there was nothing left we could do. That no one would blame her for not trying to fight an impossible battle.

She just smiled at me. She told me she was happy to have been friends, that saving me was one of the things she was the most proud of ... and then said goodbye.

[ ... ]

I wanted to try to repay that kindness, somehow. Some way. I wished she could have lived, somehow, because it wasn't fair that she didn't, and that someone like me was still alive instead. I wanted a second chance. I wanted to be strong enough to protect her, the way she protected me.

But there is a being in my world who grants these desperate wishes, and it was in their interest to have these wishes turn against the ones who made them. None of us knew that back then.

[antemeridian]

[ nani the fuck, norna. ]

... Perhaps Yamanbagiri might know more, then?

Though... they somewhat reminded me somewhat of spiritual entities from my own world. We call them Wraiths.

[diel]

Like it was to make me feel better? I mourned the idea of Water Lily that I love, and by extension you. I guess… some could say that’s not real, but it’s real enough to me.

[ he shrugs. the words hickey had said to him, though probably insincere, had been nice for what they were. ]

After all, I’m also something like an idea. A not-real person borrowing a child’s body.

cw; vore ig...

[calamitish]

Well...I guess you could say she doesn't sweat the small stuff.

[ he's going to regret saying this isn't he? but he's tired, so he has no filter (where usually with her, he has a fortress.) ]

The reason the humans turned on her is because she told them she would take all of them into her, so there would be no more war, and everyone would be at peace with her. You can imagine how well that went over.

[antemeridian]

[ she's quiet for a moment, casting her gaze up to the sky for several long silences. the moment stretches long enough that it would be easy to assume that she doesn't want to speak to him, after the events of earlier.

eventually, it flickers over to the flowerbeds around the pagoda, where the spider lilies grow. ]

... What did I say my promise was, exactly?

[ her promise ... he doesn't know, does he?

that she is a broken shield, the mechanisms all rusted through. ]

[simulacres]

[ ...................................................... ]

How long were you planning this for again?

[diel]

Thank you!

[ he kicks his legs idly, thinking. ]

Do you think you gained by speaking more here? Or did you just even out a bit because you weren’t speaking much before either?

[calamitish]

Seventeen hundred years or so? Usually I'd be there with her when she met with the King so things like that wouldn't happen, but one of the other attendants needed me for something...

[ in the complete tone of: this was all my fault and not that his mother is a complete idiot. ]

[diel]

Yeah! I can make you float, too. Would’ve been soooo useful, but Ish is boring.

[ an absentminded comment, really. he’s busy studying the bottles. ]

So navy blue. [ he floats it closer to siffrin. ] This one’s orange, maybe pumpkin. Pink. Yellow. I’d call this a chocolate brown. And black, which we used last time.

… Wait, how come you don’t know colors?

[simulacres]

That sounds more like guilt talking.

[ is she parroting his words back at him? of course. but most importantly-- ]

You had one thousand and seven hundred years to think about what to do and you never imagined that your mom was going to react like that?

[ like, dude. ]

[coldseep]

( Ayaka... cute... )

A pear? A gift. At least one before you go.

( And then drifts over... an apple! It'll float in the air until (or if) Ayaka grabs it. But, with it, come some flowers from the gardens, which begin to braid themselves into a multi-colored flower crown, and that plops onto her head. )

I'd give you more things, but I don't think we have a lot of time before we all go.

[diel]

Oh.

[ he tilts his head. he doesn’t think there’s all that much to learn about him that’s not all tied up in jin. ]

I - hm! Well, then we’re friends. [ that part is simple. ] Did you want to learn more… now?

[ adding after a beat: ]

He’ll be happy to hear that though. He worried about you a lot.

[simulacres]

You don't have to!

[ ayaka takes the other fruit and keeps them both close, but it's when he makes the flower crown for her that she's shaking her head. she really doesn't know what to do with all of this!

in a way it reminds her of that dog's--wolf, actually--servant. ]

I mean... thank you, really! But there's nothing that I can give you in return, and we're heading back to a pretty bad situation so... maybe it's best if I travel light.

[coldseep]

( He is patient, and he is trusting. He thinks that if Homura does not wish to speak with him, then she will make it clear soon enough - and if that is the verdict, then he can take waiting a little more to know.

He is happy that he receives an answer, in the end, even if the topic could be a less weighty one. )

... She asked you to stop all those things the two of you suffered from happening at all, right?

( Or ... something to that effect. Right? But he says this with some uncertainty, because it sounded like she felt she failed at this task - that in the end, what was done could not be undone - simply the way that it occurred - and, in the end, she had become a memory.

But Homura doesn't sound as if she'd conceded defeat, either. Does she still intend to try, or - was her promise of a different nature than he presumed? )