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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[the_obedient_servant]

[Staring up at the sky, there is an emotional freefall brewing in their chest. The reality of the situation hits them, the challenge is bested, and now they're free.

Free?

They're free? Just like that? Free from the confines of their limited world, free from the trappings of their own cosmic purpose? What kind of sick joke is that.

They hold a knife in their hands - it looks like it was once used for gardening, but now it radiates a dull red colour, power comes off of it. They have their powers back. They can return. Wait for another eternity that won't arrive. Or it will arrive, and they'll be stuck again.

They feel sick.

Their voice wavers.]

What was any of it even for, then? To be solved in such a... such a trivial manner? [They stare down the knife like they're only just now realizing how meaningless this all is.

* Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same...

* Except you don't exist?

* Everything functions perfectly without you...

* Ha, ha. The thought terrifies me.]

[perfectpower]

Solved trivially or not, it opens a world of possibilities now.

[Brad isn't one to speak of hope, but he does speak of practicality. And practically speaking, they all have choices now.

He speaks a little quieter, just so Chara can hear the next part:]

If you wanna go somewhere else, you can come to my world. Though that means seein' mine 'n Cain's ugly mugs sometimes.

[the_obedient_servant]

[It doesn't matter that it's Bradley, or that he's offering to take them to his world that they'll have to share with Cain, of all people.

The offer, so casually given, like it's just nothing from someone that doesn't even like them.]

...I sacrificed everything. Destroyed everything. Only to be yanked into some asinine happy ending where I can just -

[Their face is wet.

Droplets of black ichor run down their face. It smells like buttercups.]

[perfectpower]

[Chara...

Brad crouches down next to them. He uses his magic to bring a hand towel from the bathroom to him, and he offers it wordlessly to Chara.]

Where you can just what?

[the_obedient_servant]

...Where I can just leave.

[Their own words echo in their head.

* Now we have reached the absolute. Let us erase this pointless world and move on to the next.

It is overwhelming, to learn for the second time that everything you believed in was utterly meaningless.]

With not a single consequences for everything I did. [...] It all would've been easier if I'd stayed trapped here. That would have made sense.

[antemeridian]

[ ... ]

Sometimes ... it really is just out of our hands, in the end.

[ there was nothing she could do to stop madoka from becoming the law of cycles. all those repeated timelines, leading up to this singular point. many routes, all terminating in different flavors of the same end:

madoka destroys herself. the entity known as 'kaname madoka' no longer exists. whether she finds fulfillment in it or not, and leaves a world either in ruin or better than it once was is what homura was able to change.

and after the end, you still have to continue. the world doesn't stop because you have. ]

[the_obedient_servant]

...

[There is a certain helplessness you feel after watching the people you loved and admire fall to their worst impulses - your family split apart, your own name being used to justify attrocities.

A certain despair after losing everything, watching it all rebuild itself, and promptly move on without you.

A puppet on a string. A cosmic plaything. That is all they ever were. An actor typecasted as the villain, the arbiter of power.

* SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?

It's not real control if you have one choice though, is it?]

I believe my mistake was thinking that it ever was. A mistake I've made twice.

[Their tone steadies, out of a desire for... dignity, in front of someone they can't help but admire. But the tar drips own their cheeks regardless. Proof of their weakness, their hate leaking out of their tearducts.]

I don't know what to do from here. There is nothing for me to return to.

[antemeridian]

... In truth, it was much the same for me. [ There isn't any judgment, whether of their tears or their words. How can there be, when their words are things she's thought about at times herself?

As ever, her tone is soft, steady. Factual. ] In the wake of the universe rewriting itself, that final time ... I didn't have anything left, either.

[ Her final remaining guidepost, the only thing she had left to guide her after...

'The truth is, I think I lost myself a long time ago.'

And then.

And then. ]

... Here we are still, though.

[ Persisting, persisting. Despite everything, it's still you. ]

Has anyone else offered you somewhere to go yet?

[the_obedient_servant]

[They have to wonder what will happen to Frisk. Alone in some gap between existence, waiting for something that will never come.

Why do they care? After all that they have destroyed, the idea of responsibility over a child that they overwrote, whose body they stole.

They frown. Looking at the ground.]

A few.

[They turn and look at Homura now, in all her newly rediscovered majesty as a being of immense power. It almost makes them a little jealous. They never got wings. Just a knife and a beating heart wrapped around their neck.]

Do you mean to move on? From your world that has moved on without you?

Or does your own duty - that which guides your own determination demand that you continue?

[antemeridian]

... There is someone I once wanted to protect. In turn, there is a world she wanted to protect, ugliness and all. She knew it for what it was. But even at her worst, she looked at it and saw things that she would give herself to safeguard.

[ Past tense, all of it. The implication is clear. ]

... I will too, for as long as I can continue to resolve to.

[ And after that ... after that, who knows. Not her, steadfast in her sense of duty, of obligation;

Of being the living proof of and memorial to the fact that someone else once existed. ]

[the_obedient_servant]

...I can't understand these feelings anymore.

[Their soul is empty. A cold, dark, dead thing. Their feelings are a cavernous void, but they ache all the same.

They try to remember how they felt before, the love they had for their new family, their new best friend, the glow they felt in their chest watching the barrier come clashing down and Asriel come back to himself.

It mattered then. Nothing matters now.]

Do you see anything in that world worthy of protection beyond her love for it?

[thesharpestroy]

Weird how fucking neat it was, huh?

[Shiv can't help agreeing with the sentiment of feeling like she's back at square one. Chara is a child, however, so it's far more concerning from them than from a grown woman like her.]

You don't have to go home, you know. I doubt you'd like where I'm from all that much, but there's a lot more to choose from.

[the_obedient_servant]

I'm very familiar with your world.

[Their tone is testy, but not quite biting or hostile.]

...I can't go home. Because there is no home for me to return to. It is just black space.

[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?

[the_obedient_servant]

[They can't help the slightly pained laugh that that manages to summon.]

I'm dead, Shiv.

There's no growing up for me. I'm a revenant resurrected by the overwhelming power of my partner's violence.

But no, it had magic. Just not in the human world that I was born in - or... well, that magic had been suppressed. Erased from memory. [They shrug, a weightless despair surrounding them as they reckon with feelings they had kept suppressed for well over a month.] It doesn't matter. None of it matters anymore.

[littlegentleman]

[In the face of everything that had happened at the carnival, even as he was spiraling, he remembered: Chara had smiled at him. It's because of that he actually feels comfortable approaching them, versus almost anyone else here.]

I've been asking myself that question a lot, lately.

[Not just now, but before, back home. At least the first question. The second...well, he didn't know.]

[the_obedient_servant]

[They could take it. Take the outstretched hand that Junior offers and share the role of "cursed child", someone who will continue to wander through the caverns of time and space leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.

Is it loneliness? Is that what they were feeling? Someone who would understand them, or at least pretend that they did?

Junior would almost certainly be easily convinced. Their first midnight conversation proved that. He sees himself as something uniquely untrustworthy, with a violent nature. Just like Chara, he is a tool for violence to be wielded.

And yet.]

Do you still want to be friends with me?

[siffriend]

[ Thoughts Siffrin would understand complete, if Chara were to voice them.

For now, though... ]

Wishes work out, sometime.

[ ... ]

Would... you like to see a country so impossibly kind? [ Naively so, even. ] Since someone else can finish the job. If you're okay with letting that go.

[ (You think Chara's colors suit them. The knife... is interesting. You have a feeling, as someone who scares the monsters that roam the House, it's not so different than your own.) ]

[the_obedient_servant]

[Let someone else finish the job.

It echoes the truth they had to come to terms with early on in their time with Frisk, with their partner as well - that they were no longer in control. That their only responsibility was to guide Frisk to correct the mistakes that they made when they were alive.

Once again, that was only a half truth.

The thought of returning to yet another world in which they are the only scowling monster in a crowd of happy faces, of returning to another loop to repeat the same thing again and again - it makes them want to weep. They weren't even aware that they could feel that.]

There is no job to finish, Siffrin. There is no home for me to return to.

[siffriend]

I don't have one either. I just travel.

[ But it's interesting, that they say that... The barrier still held, after all. The cycle was broken, but there was still a barrier to destroy.

Siffrin watches them with this quiet curiosity in mind, head tilting slightly. It seems overwhelming. A lot of it must be; he starts again, quieter. ]

I was thinking it'd be nice to wander together for a while. Since you've been trapped behind the barrier, the loops, death itself. To have... a chance to keep using your voice.

cw for uh, knocking at that fourth wall

[the_obedient_servant]

[It is a heartfelt offer of friendship from someone who wants to understand them - and in some ways comes closer to understanding them than others. And so they let out a heavy breath as they face the consequences of their actions.]

Siffrin.

[Their voice is... raw. But they try to keep it even. Tar drips from their eyes.]

My role - the reason behind my resurrection - is to use my voice. To guide my partner - not the child whose body I lived in - my real partner - the entity that I guide, to absolute power.

Siffrin. There is no world to return to. Because I finally understood the reason it existed in the first place.

The barrier could never be broken. Any happy ending forged could never be permanent. Time would just go back, cycling between happy endings and total extinction, and neither I nor the child had any say in it. [They hadn't quite admitted that to themselves, but they know that it was true.

Was it MERCY? Cruelty? Hatred? Part of a larger plan? They can't even say themselves anymore, if they ever even knew. But it remains the horrible truth.

Drip. Drip. Their eyes are pitch black. The knife hums with energy. Sharp enough to tear a hole through reality.]

[siffriend]

[ (There's a lot that goes over your head, admittedly.

But you don't like to see others cry. Especially not Chara, who -- along with Homura -- was someone that made you feel less alone. More than Water Lily, as welcoming as Vaugarde. More than Raha, who sought to understand you. More than Andrew, who was learning what it meant to be friends. The two of them had experiences no one else had, ones that matched yours-- not completely, you'd come to realize, but enough that you had let down your guard with them, had spoken plainly and without fear of judgment.

Like with Loop. The only other person who remembered, who knew what you were going through. Who felt as if they'd gone through it before in some weird way.)

And so, Siffrin tries again. They'd like to wipe Chara's tears, but they know how the other feels about people touching them-- so they don't, only moving half a step closer, hand raised a moment with that desire before it hesitates, falters. ]

What happens if you... just don't go back, then? If there's no world to return to. [ A slow inhale. ] Don't you... deserve a life beyond your role, and a happier ending that sticks?

[baebladie]

[ Trivial?

Blade wonders...if after all of their struggles, it can be called that. Maybe, though, Chara expected more - is used to more of a struggle. One that is constant and leaves oneself gasping for air, uncertain of the end that is laid before them.

In the end, maybe the resolution could be considered that. Though ultimately he's still of a different mind. Instead of levying criticism, there, he asks: ]

Does it make you uncertain of what lies ahead?

[ Because of the way it was solved? ]

[the_obedient_servant]

Part of me is expecting to be yanked back into the loop. Either this one, or my own.

[Their dagger hums with a power that is altogether alien. Their golden necklace beats like a human heart, and only they can feel it. Only they can see it. Only they can understand the depths of their own despair.]

I've never experienced choices like this. No matter the choices that I made, either me or my partner, things always ended the same way.

Now there is an infinity upon an infinity stretching before me.

It's... [It should be good, right? Being free of your burden? Free of the crimes that you committed (how willingly did you even commit them?)] I don't think I've felt terrified like this for a long, long time. I didn't realize I was still capable of feeling that emotion.

[baebladie]

[ Blade supposes in a sense one of the possibilities floating around in his head was on the mark - the expectation of them being drawn back into a "loop" of any kind seems to imply they hadn't thought of any end but a consistent struggle.

An ending state of horrid flux.

But, Blade thinks freedom is in the palm of their hands now. Choices, of how they will all proceed towards the future. Though, for]

Paths with interminable destinations.

No telling where you will end up.

[ ... ]

...Do you find it freeing? Being able to make these choices? Not knowing you could feel fear? Or, do you think it's a burden?

[ Having choice. Being able to feel afraid of what lies ahead. Blade also wonder if Chara ever truly imagined living a life of their own outside any "loop", if not for the initial response - that is answer enough. ]