Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I see... nothing. Nothing but white.

ESTABLISHING CONTACT…

ARE YOU THERE?

ARE WE CONNECTED?

“Yes, I am here. Hello?”

EXCELLENT.

The voices I hear are not my own. What’s happening?

“Who is this?”

The light is sucked out of the room, leaving just darkness and a single crack of light. You at first reached out to touch it, but you then jump back when it starts spilling its contents out like yolk. It settled on a perpetually melting, drippy form, kind of like the amalgamates at the lab.

“What?”

You didn’t know about that…

LET US MOVE ON.

YOUR CURRENT SITUATION

AND YOUR FUTURE ON THE SURFACE

ARE BOTH QUITE...

COMPLICATED.

I WILL SIMPLIFY THINGS AND HELP YOU PERSIST THE ANGEL.

IN EXCHANGE

YOU GIVE ME YOUR HUMAN SOULS.

I don't know what it's talking about. You don’t even know what it’s talking about. Wait, you do?

“But sir, I need these souls to break the barrier.”

THE BARRIER HAS ALREADY BEEN DESTROYED.

REGARDLESS

THIS OFFER IS NEITHER ONE YOU CAN ACCEPT
NOR REFUSE.

AND THERE IS LITTLE TIME BEFORE HE INTERFERES.

“Before what? Who will?”

The souls drift apart from each other, and ours with them. Your soul shined brightly yellow before it returns to your body. Even still, the distance between us grows.

“No, please!” you cry. “You must not have them!”

YOU RESIST?

EVEN WHILE KNOWING THAT THIS EFFORT IS FUTILE?

GOOD.

THAT IS AN OPTIMAL RESULT OF THE TRANSFER.

You shout some more, but your words are too faint to be heard. You give chase, but you are already too far away to even be seen. But even though I've already resigned to my unclear fate, I can still feel the power radiating from you. Your determination.

Chapter Text

You and I will share all that we know

So close your eyes and just let yourself go...

“Frisk!”

I wake up to a bespectacled senior goat-dragon woman calling my name. Toriel was standing over me in her usual pose- the one with her hands interlocked- before she moved her arm to cut off my music. It’s okay though, since I like my mornings quiet.

“Are you awake?” she asks. “It is not always easy to tell sometimes.”

“Halfway” would’ve been my answer, if I wasn’t pooling all of my energy at hand into pushing myself upright. There was something in the air, and I knew it because when I breathed out a tired sigh from my nose, I had to take a slap of steaming pie back in. Though, it was the snail pie this time, so it was more like a kick in the face. Yuck…

“Ah, there we are- your eyes are open now!” said Toriel. I couldn’t tell if her tone was innocently delighted or just plain sadistic. “It seems that you are ready for breakfast.”

Plain sadistic it is. I exited my bed and dragged my feet to the closet, but not before shaming the cruel queen with a passing pout.

“Please do not give me that look. Snails make for a nutritious meal, a delicious one at that!”

“Mhm,” I begin to mumble, “I’ll get dressed...”

“No, no, child!” Then right away she lightly steers me away from where I was shambling and out of the room instead.

“You will only make a mess over your clothes that you had just ironed yesterday!” she points out literally with a wagging index claw. “Trust me, that is not a mistake you would want to repeat multiple times.”

I gave Toriel a very interested look for that last part, but then she just turns her head away sheepishly. Or goatishly. Aren’t they the same thing?

“Ah… well anyway, just go on and freshen up first,” she continues, herding me into the bathroom. With little agency in my legs to begin with, I basically float along with Toriel’s guidance like a bridge seed on a stream. After that I see her glide past me in the mirror’s reflection, likely to sit back down and read on that thinking chair of hers in the living room. Humorous imagination out of the way, I carry out my morning hygiene routine, finishing off by showering. Once I finished, I decided to check my cell phone’s home screen for the time.

Mi, 9/9

8:11

Seeing “9/9” as the date gave me this weird feeling as if I lost something, but whatever. I practically have two hours. Heading out should be a breeze now, since all I had left to do was put on my mufti and- wait, never mind. The gastro-pie’s aroma quickly reminded me of the trial ahead. This might turn out to be a long morning, but on the bright side, perhaps it could motivate me into getting out faster? We’ll see. Not too surprisingly, I found Toriel waiting for me on the opposite side of the dining table. It almost looked like she was torturing herself into not eating her slice before I sat down, so I hurried up into my chair for her sake.

“Good morning dear, I am so glad you made it,” she says as she stuffs a napkin into the collar of her robe. “For a moment there I thought you were stalling for some peculiar reason.”

I was.

“I thought we were supposed to eat before we got dressed,” I say, picking my own slice with my fork. I’m stalling again, by the way.

“Well yes,” Toriel replied, “But it does not hurt if you are prepared.”

Her complacent expression nearly fooled me into thinking she wouldn’t notice my scheme, but I knew from her subsequent glare that I was caught again. I frown and stare at my plate, wishing I had a save point just in case she accidentally kills me again, but once I saw her starting to pout just like I did earlier, I stiffened up and got my first bite over with. Great, she’s smiling again.

“Well, what do you think? I ‘put my feet in it,’ as they say.” Toriel guffawed before going on to explain, “You see, a snail has one single muscular foot that it uses to crawl...”

My lips involuntarily cornered into a smirk while I kept stuffing portions into my face. The joke would’ve flown over my head if I hadn’t read that old snail book she had. As for the pie, well, it was an acquired taste- but not nearly as bad as I feared. I was slow to notice it, but it was Toriel’s humor and liveliness that helped me get through.

“Thanks, Mom-” I slip. I hadn’t called her that since I…

Forget it. I never meant it genuinely in the first place- they did.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say...” My strength to take it back ran out as soon as I saw Toriel’s warm smile.
“You are welcome, Frisk.”

I glance down at my plate again, and it looked a lot “happier” than me. Without a word I rise from my seat and left with my dishes to clean them off and put them away.

Toriel stopped eating momentarily and asked, “Is something the matter, dear?”

To which I replied, “No. I need to move on, that’s all.”

I left to my room and changed into my clothes. The task was quick up until I had to fix my tie, so I returned to the living room since there was a mirror close to the front door there. I did need to move on. Just one day in the Underground drained so much of me, but if she pull through, why couldn’t I? Speaking of Toriel, she stepped over to join me in the mirror.

“My child, it fills me with joy to see the person you have become. I just know you will get the job-” she says with misty eyes, “Or else I will go to Asgore myself and show him something to ‘fire!’ ” That pun wasn’t as good as the earlier one, but she chuckles anyway.

“It’s alright,” I say. “I’d honestly fire myself if I have to.”

Toriel places her hands on her hips. “Oh no, not that again! Once you are hired at the Botany Business, I would like you to focus less on breaking my heart like you did all those years ago and more on, why, trimming hedges! Like this one, for example.”

I didn’t catch what she meant until she flicked my hair. Very funny Mom, and there I go again. Maybe she’s right.

“Will you still recognize me when I do?” I ask.

“I know your eyes, dear. And about that...”

“Will I tell them?”

She nodded. Right… Well, I really don’t know if I will. It’s not like I even remember how it happened, let alone know. And when they’ll ask me about it, my only answer would be just “magic”. Mix that with those weird time powers I had once, and that’s just… that’s just too much.

“I’m thinking about it,” I answer.

“I understand. I promise not to tell until you are ready to do so yourself.”

“Thank you-”

“But only if you give me a hug before you go!” she teases. Sigh. It seemed like I had no choice, but I did. I voluntarily embraced her, because I didn’t want to be cold now.

“Thank you for coming back, Frisk.”

Chapter Text

One by one, spots of dead grass hissed under the weight of my slow footsteps. An amber glow descended carefully from the aperture in the sky- like a timid spelunker who feared the darkness too much to reach out for those like us left behind in it. In the eye of the forlorn spotlight stood the flower, taking whatever little sunlight from the surface available before another cloud could pass by to take it all away again. A few seconds had went before the clouds returned. The flower lowers his head from the sky to its decayed kin underneath his leaves. Now that the tomb underneath them was empty, they just sink into the hole I left behind.

The flower then asks me, “Do you think that those without souls could ever hope?”

I take a seat right next to him at the edge of the pit. My legs aren’t as short as they used to be, so my feet were planted still on the base soil. “Of course,” I answer, “I still do. Now more than ever.”

“Or you think you do.”

“No. I believe it.”

He sneers at my resolve. “I don’t know if you’re right, or if that’s just your human side spewing that bullcrap.”

“It makes for good fertilizer.”

“Shut up."

Laughter escaped me, but then like most of my past efforts, it died out the moment it collided with an opposing will- once again it is Asriel's denial. 

“It is really that hard for you?” I inquire.

“To pretend? Depends. Sometimes I can get into a groove, especially if the satisfaction from breaking the trust is great enough," he answers. I watched his face shift into a demented grin crossed with the face of a mantis, before twisting into a hard frown shadowed by furrowed brows. "But then there are the acts so idiotic that I’d rather kill myself than waste my life playing,” he spat. “And when it comes to faking having a soul? Well, what’s even the difference!”

The flower with the essence of my brother reflected hopelessness, so much so that he forgot he has HOPE himself. Now that I think of it, so did Asriel. I used to believe that there was no worth in the world too when I was younger, but I learned to let the prospect give me life instead of crushing me; maybe that is the difference. While the flower gazed into the grave in which I was set, I turned my eyes to the dawn sky. 

"So why did you ask me this question…?"

"Forget it," he grunts. "Let's go up." 

He immediately sinks into the earth after saying that. Irony aside, I get up and proceed into the catacombs behind me. The bricks were textured with many cracks that I could not help but imagine tiny frogs living in. Some of the traps up ahead were still functional for the most part, even if there were the flower’s occasional vines in the way. The others were fortunately preset by him to at least not inhibit my passage, essentially making this whole walk into the typical breeze it has been for years.

“You know, I’m considering fixing these things up again,” he says from far behind me as I bypassed the rock puzzle. “Just in case those soldiers outside get curious.”

That revelation wiped the smile off my face. I kept my silence as I made it to the first three-switch puzzle. My long legs help me cross the halls in hyperbolically no time, though Flowey was still fast enough to keep popping up a yard ahead of me.

“Yep…" the flower growls. "I just spotted them patrolling the summit, but I won’t be surprised if those pests are outside the barrier too.”

"Soldiers blocking our way. That is indeed problematic." What pitiful creatures… squatting at my home again!

“I got a plan for that though, so let's not worry about it. Anyways…" Once I reached that black tree, Flowey popped up in front of me again. "Hey Chara, remember that twerp you were stuck with a decade ago?"

"Which one?" I earned a whip from his vine for that, but it was worth a chuckle. 

"The human, funny guy," the flower glowers. "Anyway, they're still alive. Somehow."

Flowey dipped back under for me to proceed. "Where are they," I ask.

"I saw them coming out of Toriel's house on the surface a couple hours ago," he replies, emerging again to flash me a coy look. "Bet you wish you were there, huh?"

"Not really. I like it here with you, Flowey." 

He huffs with slight fluster. His disdain for my sincerity was apparent as he waved a vine warningly. "Do you want another?"

I walk past him and say, "No thank you, but I would like to know how my old partner survived."

Flowey did not say anything, but I kept walking along, expecting him to answer eventually. At this point I was already gliding through the door of Toriel's old house. Everything inside was still there since I was tethered to my partner- from the dusty books remaining in their exact positions on the shelves to the cold ash husks of the logs in the fireplace- but it might as well be empty without her. Before going down the stairs, I briefly deviated to the kitchen for a snack to take along with me. 

"Oh my GOD, Chara, it's been ten years already!" Flowey's voice suddenly rang out from the living room. "You can just buy a chocolate bar that isn't rancid on the surface!"

"Who said I was looking for that?" I reply as I turn around. Flowey was right; it was time to move on to the exit. There was no chocolate inside anyway, or anything left for us here at all. He gives off an annoyed grunt as I head down the steps.

I carried on through that long hallway. 

"To think," Flowey jeers again, "You've never saw her again since she's tried to kill you here, but now she's up on the surface babying her little goldfish." I always liked his new sense of humor. "I wish I could tell you how the human came back to life since they gave up their soul, but I've only got a guess."

"That works for me," I say. Flowey starts to push open the door, but then he hesitates, as if something was on the other side. He goes silent and passes me a wary glance, so I nod my head and drew my knife. The gate is opened after I had moved to the left side, opposite of Flowey, and crouched. The only thing that came through was a gust of frigid wind.


Flowey checks his vicinity, and so do I.

"Did you see that smiley trash bag?" he asks me. 

"No," I say, shaking my head. 

"Go, go!" the flower ushers with a hushed whisper as a fine shoves me out the door. "They could be watching us!"

" 'They'?"

"Him... and my guess. I'll tell you later, when you're up."

I give Flowey a brief stare. Whatever he could mean... it filled me with discomfort, to say the most. But I trust him.

"Very well," I say with a nod. "Goodbye for now."

Flowey sinks into the ground, not before replying with a false-hearted "so long!"

After that, I crossed the bridge.