Work Text:
"Oh, cruel whimsy," Siffrin whispers right of Odile.
"Oh, cruel whimsy!" Siffrin wails from below as he lies, sprawled dramatically, dying.
Odile's seat vibrates because of how excited Siffrin is next to her. "Now leave me, light--" they continue.
"--let all shade come upon me--"
"--and with this last Change--"
"--I end this sordid tale, and pray my next be humorous enough to remedy."
The Siffrin on stage finally dies several minutes after he should have passed out from blood loss. The curtain falls. The Siffrin next to Odile claps wildly, shouting along with the crowd. "Bravo! Bravo!!!"
Mirabelle, on Odile's left, is still crying from the play's tragedy, but has recovered enough to comment, "that's another liberty they took. We don't all believe in reincarnation. It's only the Houses in Brisseau."
"And that's fine?" Odile asks, raising her voice just enough to cut through the applause around them.
Mirabelle shrugs, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "The Change religion doesn't focus on what happens after death anyway, so it's not really that big a deal, I guess?"
"I don't think the Poterians are worried about accuracy anyway," Odile says, casting an eye at the crowd around them before focusing on Siffrin--their Siffrin, not the dark-haired actor who is back on their feet now that the curtain has risen again and taking a bow.
She cannot believe this is the first play Siffrin wanted to see. They'd loved plays, yes, but then those two strange days in Dormont happened, and the first time Isabeau suggested watching a play as a way to take their minds off things for a bit, Siffrin had gotten an awful look on his face, like he was cast out to sea and couldn't find the shore, before saying he wasn't really in the mood and maybe they could just look around the market instead. They'd left the topic there for the day, but slowly, with a joint effort, they'd gotten Siffrin to talk about how he'd come to think of life as a play during the loops. They were supposed to say these things to Isabeau, or Odile, or Mirabelle or Boniface, and then the others would always say the same lines, and sometimes deviating from the script was good and created a better script and sometimes it resulted in something so awful that they immediately messed up the next loop and then spent the next six strictly following the better script and making everyone smile, over and over again, so that those "bad loops" wouldn't count anymore. Which was completely illogical, but Odile had to assume whatever had happened--Siffrin had yet to talk about whatever that was--had been traumatizing enough to make Siffrin cling to the safety of repetition even as it was driving them insane.
Needless to say, plays had been taboo for some time. Mirabelle hadn't even been sure at first if she could talk about her books, if any fiction might make Siffrin uneasy, but Siffrin had taken her not reading books by them as her not having any and had dragged Odile on a Secret Quest to procure some, so books were clearly safe.
The taboo on plays broke today, when Boniface spotted Siffrin's name on a flier and immediately called it out, making everyone notice it. It didn't take long for awkwardness to settle in as they all read further and realized "Siffrin" was the titular character of a play, but before Isabeau or Mirabelle could find a distraction, Siffrin lit up. "...My name! I named myself after the hero! I love this--that is--" His cheeks shaded with fluster as he realized just how enthusiastic he'd gotten. "...can we go see it?"
It had been a unanimous yes, of course. If Siffrin was rediscovering an interest the loops had taken from them, good. Of course they'd watch it, both to make sure Siffrin enjoyed themself and because they were all a little curious what Siffrin had seen in this play to name himself after it.
Well.
Well.
"...Wait, where's Bonnie and Nille?" Siffrin was asking. With the play over, he was finally regaining awareness of his surroundings and noticing the other seats in the aisle, already empty. "Isa?"
"...Boniface went out with Petronille because they were uncomfortable with how dark it was getting--we all warned them it was a tragedy, please don't feel guilty, Siffrin," Odile says when Siffrin's face falls. "They knew they might be uncomfortable, they still wanted to try, and they left with their sister when they realized they might get upset. Boniface is fine."
"Okay...Isa...?"
Odile is certain Isabeau walked out early in the final act because he'd overthought the connection between Siffrin naming himself after a character who was from the start of the play doomed to die at the end of it. She's certain, because she's overthinking it herself. "I'm not sure," she says instead, because he didn't actually tell her that and she'd rather not put words in anyone's mouth with a topic this delicate. "So why did you name yourself after the hero?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Siffrin asks.
She doesn't like the answer that seems obvious. "I'd like to hear your own thought process, though."
Siffrin bounces on their feet. "That monologue in act four--and his banter with Gaston! I can't believe I remember so much of it!"
It is impressive how good their memory is with plays, and Odile wonders if it's because plays, while inspired by the real world, very much take place in their own little worlds, far from memory-erasing islands.
"And, well..." Siffrin sobers. The rows around them are mostly empty now, the audience lined up to leave the theater, but they still glance around to make sure no one else is near. "He loses everything in the play. And I--I guess--I don't really remember if I tried telling people or not, about my past, but I don't think I felt like anyone would have believed me...so...it's not the same, he still remembers, but he felt that sad and everyone feels bad for him, so... it felt like a relief that way?" He shrugs, awkwardly.
"Oh," Mirabelle says, clapping her hands together as she stands up. "Now I get why you like these plays! It's the catharsis!"
Siffrin brightens with a smile at Mirabelle. "That's it! The catharsis."
"I see," Odile says, hoping the relief in her voice isn't too apparent. Yes, she and Isabeau definitely overthought this.