bellelurette | Epilogue

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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I imagine it was. It seemed ... so satisfied, those few times I saw it in the wake of another one of her deaths. But you're right. I got stronger, but never strong enough. [ echoed quietly, a confirmation. ] Everything I tried always led to the same ending. Different variations of it, maybe ... but in the end, the same thing.

[ Madoka dies, or Madoka gives herself up. Madoka sacrifices herself, this final time so thoroughly the universe rewrote itself around her, without her. Both, at the same time.

(everything Homura ever did only made things worse. she's watched all of them die so many times she's lost count. try to befriend them, or push them away. support them, or try to horrify them with the truth? work together, or do it all alone.

it was always going to end like this, the conclusion to this story the same as how it all began. book ends: Homura, caught in a hopeless situation, wavering and unsure, and Madoka stepping in to save her.) ]

All I can do now is protect the memory of her sacrifice. No one else remembers that she existed... well. Her brother, a little. I'm not sure how. But even her mother thinks she's just his imaginary friend. So that's why... the bow, the ribbon, the wings, my magic. All of it is hers.

[ Protect the memory of her, and her sacrifice, huh. Siffrin glances over at Homura. ]

... Memories are tricky things. There's an island that suddenly disappeared from the world, and everyone forgot about it. Anyone... who went there, too. [ ... ] My island. My home.

[ "Orphaned by the world," Hwylryn had once said. He wasn't wrong. It pains them now and forever, evident even in the strokes of pain in their softspoken way of reply. ]

I've forgotten a lot about it, [ the language and customs, the people and things they did, ] but I still remember a bit from time to time. The Universe. Stars. How we take care of our dead, and what the island looks like, kind of. My cloak and hat are from then too.

[ Physical pieces, wrapped tight around him always. He plays with them hem. ]

As long as we remember the things others don't, those things still exist. Even if you can't see them or return to them, they're still there. Her bow, her ribbons, her wings, her magic... are proof of that. You're proof of that. She's still there, even if she can't be seen. Because she's with you.

Mmm. That is what I'd like to think, at least.

[ that as long as she doesn't forget, something yet lives on. that as long as she holds fast to her resolve, to what she knows (?) to be true, in spite of reason or logic or what anyone else says, all of it was real once.

but memory can be such a fragile thing. ]

Though ... An entire island and the memories of it just ... gone? How does...

[ what kind of wish manages that? and, moreover— who makes it? was it even a wish, or is this— something else? ]

... I see. You also do not have anywhere to go back to, do you? Or, rather, not a place, just...

[ just people. orphaned by the world, indeed. orphaned by time, by memory, by the void of their own making ...

really, what is the difference between them? ]

I'm a traveler, after all. [ Though it's said wryly. ] We don't belong anywhere or to anyone but ourselves.

[ No, they don't have a home to return to. It's why not once have they ever referred to returning to Vaugarde, to their world, as "going home" unlike others -- it isn't their home and, unfortunately, would never be.

(Your home has been swallowed by the sea by anyone else's measure. Even if you can see it on the horizon, sometimes.) ]

... My family members aren't waiting for me, since they don't realize I'm gone and they wouldn't remember even if I was. [ Timeloops, and all. ] I like it when they love me. I feel like I belong. But it's just a farce.

[ Of their own making, their own direction, loop after loop after loop. Siffrin shakes their head. ]

They're good people. I'd like to be one of them.

[ Adrift in a world that's forgotten what home ever was... ]

... Those who I have been both friends with, allied to, and aligned against on varying occasions are the same. Whenever I rewound time, it would take me back to a point before I met them.

Each and every time, I would be starting anew.

[ After all, she made a wish to redo her meeting with someone, didn't she? She got exactly what she wished for. ]

... I was friends with them more often, in the beginning. As time went on, though ... I suppose I just got worse at not seeming strange, or suspicious. They didn't know me, so of course I would steadily grow further and further away from them.

[ ... an echo of the thought she'd had, when Siobhan Roy had first revealed Ayaka and Richard's deed to all, and the ensuing commotion: ]

If you want to stay with them, though... I suppose I should just say this. Don't let everything that's happened change you more than necessary.

[ (You feel like it already has.)

Siffrin lets the quiet answer for them, heavy with a grief the two of them can share, before they pull from the topic at hand. ]

Do you have any hobbies?

[ Pretty abruptly, maybe, but

(you don't want to linger) ]

[ ah. well.

she can understand the need to simply drop a subject. she's done it so often, though unlike them she doesn't typically offer a replacement in the previous one's stead. ]

... I enjoy theater. Ballets. Plays. Music and instruments... that sort of thing.

[ not quite the same as how miki sayaka did, does, did, but all of it is integral to the overall experience, after all. ]

For quite some time I was ... more or less bedbound, too. Not entirely, but... [ rather than elaborate, she pivots. ] I read a lot back then. Literature, stories, fairy tales.

I like theater, too. Watching and reading plays... is something that I came to enjoy a lot, while traveling. I think it's neat. How seamlessly they can become someone new, like putting on a mask. [ A quiet huff of laughter. ] I'm not that good of an actor myself, though.

[ A better director, strict if nothing else.

... But acting is something they've had to practice, to a point, even if it only serves to worry others. ]

Do you have a favorite? Story, play. Book or tale. I like heroics, adventures, poetry...

... Making something new of and reinventing oneself as needed, right? It is an admirable skill.

[ Becoming someone new, putting on the mask, as they put it. And then, when the role is no longer needed, putting it away just as easily. Maybe it would have been easier for her if she was so skilled an actress. ]

I don't know about a favorite... but I do enjoy Swan Lake. I told another about it, actually, not long after we'd all originally arrived here.

[ She tilts her head a little, thinking back and amending the way she'd described it then. ]

I suppose it would be a drama. A romance, but a tragedy with ... typically, but not always, a bittersweet ending. There are differences and variations in the ending depending on what the groups performing it choose to depict.

Epilogue

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