Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The postcard is tucked away in a slit Asriel must’ve cut in his mattress, and Kris comes across it by accident when they’re scratching at the edges of said mattress, two months after Asriel’s short visit over the summer. Their blunt nails aren’t the claws they want, but they work well enough for digging when the urge hits them, and so the postcard is unearthed. Kris’s nail catches in the corner of it, and they pull it all the way out with their teeth, careful not to tear it.

The paper tastes old and they spit it onto the floor, circling it twice before thumping down, tucking their paws under their chest, nosing it open. One paw to a corner to keep it from curling up, and they read.

Az,

Made it out. World’s a lot bigger than either of us ever knew. The city here’s got more people on a single street than live in the entirety of Hometown, but that’s alright. Not so many monsters, but enough that I don’t stand out.

I’m doing fine so far. Located that person I was telling you about—the one from the forums? We have plans to meet up in a week, but I guess by the time this reaches you, that’ll be past, huh? Hopefully that all goes well and I have somewhere to go, something to do—you can think I’m crazy all you want, Az, but I know there’s a way to fix this.

How is Noelle? You’d better be there for her. Usually I’m around to keep Mom off her back, or Kris comes over and makes Noelle look like the perfect fawn she is. Just—give her a place to stay, if things get bad. Make sure she and Kris are hanging out. Kris helps take her mind off things, if only for a few hours. Just make sure you’re there to supervise.

No idea how many of these I’ll be able to send. You know where to check for more. Make sure my parents don’t see any of these. Do they think I’m dead? I hope they don’t. They should know I’m too powerful to be killed, yeah? But maybe then that’ll keep them from looking too hard for me. That’s weird, right? It has to be weird for you. We both know I’m alive and kicking and saving everyone’s lives from—you know. The bunker thing. But to everyone else, I’m gone.

…not sure how much I like that. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll be out here until I fix this all, and Noelle can be safe.

Until next time, Az,

Dess.

There’s no date on the postcard, but the date doesn’t matter, because Kris is already on their paws, pausing only to snag the postcard before bolting full-sprint for their door. They crash into it and paw at the doorknob until they catch the latch and it swings open, and they’re downstairs and out the house and on the streets and running, running, running.

Because there’s no date on the postcard but it’s from Dess, and that means she’s alive, she’s alive, and Kris drops to the ground in front of the gate to Noelle’s house and wriggles their way through. They’ve always been skinny and this body is no exception, and so metal bites into their ribs but they make it through.

“Noelle!” Kris barks, the quick one-two sound of her name, and then louder, drawn out, the closest this throat can get to a howl, “Noelle!”

If her mom’s home they can’t just barge in so they pace, stones cutting against the thin pads of their paws. Stupid, stupid Light World body. Stupid Ralsei for not wanting to tell Noelle the truth of Cyber City—that no part of it was a dream, because a dream would be better and a nightmare would be worse so it’s just real life: bad and good and never perfect.

But Kris is here, now, and maybe they can’t fix that but they can fix this problem held tight to their chest.

“Noelle!” More of a whine, this time. They curl a paw into the dirt, taking care to keep their final forepaw lifted and pressed to their chest, to keep Dess’s words safe. In this body Noelle’s name sounds a lot quicker than it actually is—it’s a catch in the back of their throat, and then a sharp bark, the same bark they give to Asriel and Dess and Mom and Dad, ‘cause it’s family.

“Okay, Kris, I’m out,” says Noelle, as her door opens. She looks more annoyed than anything, wearing her snowflake-patterned pajamas, hair all mussed up, and—

Kris glances up at the sky and the moon dangling above. Oh. Right. It’s night.

“Noelle!” Kris repeats, bounding over to her, and they press the postcard carefully into Noelle’s paw.

“Yes, yes, I’ll read this.” Noelle takes the postcard but is still looking at Kris, her head tilted. “Weird that you’d come see me now. It’s been…years.”

Kris’s paws fumble halfway through the signs for we hung out for so long in Cyber City before they shake their body instead. Ralsei says Noelle can’t know. And now is not the time to tell Noelle the truth anyways, because Dess is alive and they have to go find her. Aloud, they say, “read.”

Noelle turns the postcard over, starts to say, “what is this, any—”

Her voice cuts off with a sob.

Kris leans up against Noelle’s legs, just like they did down in the Dark World, though that, like pretty much everything, is easier to do when their body is closer to what it should be. Noelle doesn’t even react, just rests her hand in their hair, right between where their ears would prick in the Dark Would (where their horns should poke out of their head).

“I found it in Azzy’s bed,” Kris says, as Noelle finishes reading. “Hidden.”

“Oh, Kris,” Noelle says, sinking down so she’s sitting down, too, the postcard held limp in her hands. “Kris, I forgot what her handwriting looked like. It’s so—” she laughs, something like a choked sob, “it’s so bad, she blends all her letters together, and, and look, did you see—”

She holds the postcard up to Kris’s face, and Kris squints at what she’s pointing at.

“She doodled,” Noelle says, and Kris notices the little doodle they didn’t pay any mind the first time around, so focused on Dess’s words: she’s drawn herself, a smile across her snout, paw giving a thumbs-up—her hair’s all messy ‘cause unlike Noelle she always kept it short and said she had better things to do then spend time making it all nice-like but Kris remembers days spent half-dozing on Noelle’s bed while Dess braided Noelle’s hair and Kris sometimes got up to playfully bite at Noelle’s ear until Dess told them off. But that’s all memories and Kris hardly remembers what Dess looked like for real.

She had reddish fur. She had—lighter eyes than Noelle.

“She’s alive,” Noelle breathes, “and she—she left. She.” Noelle shudders. “Kris. She left.”

Kris presses their flat snout to Noelle’s shoulder. “I know.”

Asriel left them. But Dess—the Dess of their memories isn’t like Asriel. She wouldn’t leave them like that. She wouldn’t leave Noelle like that. Asriel did, and Kris bit him so deep in the arm they hope he still has the marks in that stupid college of his. Dess—died.

Dess was taken, except now she wasn’t.

“We gotta find her,” Kris says, nudging Noelle. “Gotta. Right?”

“Right.” Noelle stands. “Right. Um—how are we going to do that? We’re just…kids. Mom would never let me.”

Kris sits tall. “They don’t have to know.”

“Kris…”

But they’re on a roll. “Cause we’re—we’re not just kids. We’re older than that. Dess said not to tell anyone. That she left for a reason, and she said it was to save us. From—a bunker. Which I don’t know what that means, but maybe it’s the bunker in the woods, and there’s something there, and—”

Because Kris only knows the three Dark Worlds, ‘n two of them are closed now, but if Dess found a Dark World—maybe she didn’t understand that they’re good. Maybe she didn’t have a Ralsei to explain things, a Susie to fall in with her. But Kris knows the Dark World better than they know their own room now, and if it’s to save Dess then they’ll do it and Noelle can help.

“—she went to a city,” Kris says, “and it’s gotta be kinda near ‘cause it seems like this is the first one, so probably it’s not like, across the ocean. And she met someone there so we just gotta find who she met. And then we can find Dess. And—and.”

But if Asriel has this postcard he has to know Dess is alive. And he never told them.

“And we can do it all on our own,” says Kris, ‘cause if Asriel wants to lie then fine, if he wants to leave then fine, ‘cause they don’t need him anyways. “Noelle, we can find Dess.”

“We—right.” Noelle takes a breath. “Right. Right. Okay. Do you have—”

“Dark World,” Kris says, grinning their blunt-toothed smile up at Noelle. “Remember your dream?”

“I—Kris!”

And Kris is grabbing her hand and bolting for the school. Noelle stumbles after them, but they know her, still: she’s excited same as them, and they feel the wag of their phantom tail. “Wasn’t a dream.”

The plan, as it comes together over the next week, is this:

Dess is alive. That’s the crux of the plan—Dess is alive, and sending postcards to Asriel. They don’t have the exact location but probably it isn’t far—Noelle’s near-certain it has to be one of the cities nearby. Well, nearby enough if they had a car, which they don’t, but it’s fine, ‘cause they’ve figured that out too.

She was in a city, and there’s not a lot of cities nearby. There’s two they can get to by bus. So probably one of those. She was looking for someone, which is harder to figure out—but if Kris is right and it’s Dark World stuff, then maybe they can find them. But that they can’t do here, ‘cause Dess said forum which is online which still isn’t working.

Kris skips school to instead go to Castle Town while Noelle covers for them, except on those times where Noelle skips and comes with them, which is a lot. Kris tells Noelle all about Castle Town, about the Dark Worlds, and nips Ralsei hard enough until he stops blabbering about more people knowing is dangerous and explains to her too.

In the Dark World Kris lands on four steady paws, with ears that prick and a long snout and sharp canine teeth, and their tail wags. The first time Noelle looks at them, rubs them between the ears.

“I’m glad,” she says, “that my dream was real.” And she smiles at them, like they’re little again, Kris convincing her to sneak up to the forbidden nook, Noelle complaining but laughing as she gives them a boost.

In the Dark World Kris still doesn’t have horns—but their chest is lighter anyways. Their body is right, down here, in a way it isn’t aboveground. They tackle Noelle and pin her down, jaws loose around her throat, and Noelle’s heart flutters like a bird as she pushes them off, flicks their nose.

“You’re worse like this,” Noelle teases, and Kris wags their tail and barks Noelle, listening to the crisp, sharp sounds of her name in their proper tongue.

And so coyote and deer-monster continue planning.

Ralsei doesn’t know about any other Dark Worlds, but does say that there’s probably others out there, just so far he can’t reach them alone. Susie doesn’t know about Dess really, but she drops the bombshell that she technically knows how to drive—

“Not well or anything!” she adds, “and I don’t have like, a license or shit! But I can.”

“I could kiss you,” Noelle says, and then the two of them go red and it’s up to Kris to get things back on track.

So Susie is coming with them ‘cause they can’t just rely on the bus, because it rarely comes to town. Gas is expensive maybe, but Dad has a truck and he’s got gas cans and Kris spends the night with him and asks him about how his truck works and where he keeps extra gas cans and curls up against his side and he doesn’t suspect what they’re planning to do.

“Mom’s going to kill me,” Noelle says, but she says it with a rush, as she folds clothes and Kris helps by dropping anything useful they find around her room into her suitcase. Mostly Noelle takes out Kris’s contributions to put them in better, to save space, but whatever. “Ooh, Kris, we’re going to get in so much trouble!”

Kris rolls onto their back, pawing at the air. Noelle laughs.

“Okay, you’re already always getting in trouble,” she says, tossing a shirt at Kris. Kris lets it fall over them, shaking it off their head with a sneeze. “Oh, when Dess is back I’m telling her everything you’ve done. All those mice you let hit me? Yeah, Dess is hearing about that one.”

“You can try,” Kris says, rolling onto their paws, padding over to knock their head against Noelle’s side. “When Dess is back Azzy’s gotta come back to see her, ‘n if Dess is mad at me I can just remind her of that time he broke two of her picture frames like a day after she got them and then they’ll be fighting and I can just trot off.”

Their tail is wagging hard as anything. It hurts kinda where it hits the floor, but as Noelle steps around them she goes right where their tail should be, and like that it’s gone again. “You can try,” Noelle says, as Kris curls back up on her floor.

Kris packs and Noelle packs and Susie says she doesn’t have a lot to pack but she can bring snacks, and also her great driving skills. Kris returns to Castle Town one final time, two hours before they’re set to leave, everyone in town asleep and Dad’s keys with Susie, and they stretch their paws in front of them and enter Ralsei’s castle.

They find him in their room, sitting back against their bed. Kris barks, a quiet, “Ralsei?”

His name is a rolling of sounds, soft where Susie’s name-sounds are sharp. Ralsei looks up at them, eyes a little red. Kris creeps closer, belly to the ground.

“Hi, Kris,” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “Isn’t—aren’t you leaving today?”

Kris nods. Taps their paw twice against the floor, for, “in two hours.” When Ralsei doesn’t say anything, they press their ears flat against their skull, and whine soft in their throat. “Okay?”

“I guess I just got used to not being alone,” Ralsei says. “It’s—alright, Kris. I’m glad your friend’s sister is alive, and I really hope you guys find her, and that she didn’t get wrapped up in any of this stuff.”

“Noelle,” Kris says.

“Right, Noelle’s sister.” Ralsei offers a hand to them, and Kris sniffs at his fingers before flopping next to him. Their russet-brown fur presses against Ralsei’s pale white. “…I really wish you hadn’t told her.”

Kris growls.

“Kris, more people knowing about Dark Worlds is bad,” Ralsei says, “and if Noelle’s sister really did find a Dark World, and found other people that knew about it? They might…open more, or something. And that’s bad for us all. Our worlds, they—they have to stay separate.”

Kris rolls their eyes. Easy for Ralsei to say. He’s not trapped in the wrong body up above. But they still press their nose to his side, saying, “alright.”

“I’m really going to miss you,” he says, “you and Susie both.”

Me too. Kris stretches their paws out across his lap. If Susie and Noelle weren’t busy with final preparations, Kris would drag Susie down here, too. But they can’t all skip out on it and Kris already claimed that spot.

“Be safe,” Ralsei says, scratching behind their ears.

Kris yawns, showing their sharp teeth. “I will.”

The final item Kris packs is this: their knife, with its worn wooden handle that fits in their paws like horns should fit on their head, and its blade sharp as their coyote teeth.

Then they’re meeting up with Susie and Noelle, making sure all the extra gas cans are secure in the truckbed, counting up the money they have pooled together—a little under $100, a fifth of that stolen from Asriel’s dresser—and getting ready.

Dad’s truck isn’t really made for three people. They and Asriel would ride around with Dad, but Kris was smaller then.

Susie takes the driver’s seat, Noelle the passenger, and Kris double-checks they’ve got all their bags, stacked at Noelle’s feet ‘cause she doesn’t trust them not to fall out if they’re in the truckbed, and then curls up between the both of them.

“If I get us killed, it was an accident,” Susie says, as she turns the key and slowly, very slowly, backs the truck out onto the road. The stereo crackles to life, playing one of the old country CDs Dad likes. “I just want to put that out there now.”

“It’s okay,” Noelle says, staring out the window. “I trust you.”

Kris’s seatbelt bites into their chest, without a thick ruff of fur to keep it at bay. But they bark Susie’s name, a sharp half-howl, and she grins at them fangs-and-all, and so they’re off.

“Oh! Guys!” Noelle says, three hours out from Hometown. The sun’s since risen, and Kris has shaken themself free from the restraints of their seatbelt, instead laying across Noelle’s lap, as close to curled up as they can get in this body, flat snout pressed against the window. The road around them’s surrounded all by trees and grass and sometimes flowers, and Kris has counted three deer dead on the side of the road, and hopes Noelle didn’t see any of them.

“Yeah?” Susie asks. She’s actually kinda good at driving, though granted Kris doesn’t have a lot of experience with that. She’s probably worse than Mom and Dad but that doesn’t mean she’s bad. “Did you finally see a sign for food? I’m still starving.”

“No, not that, my phone works!” Noelle rests her phone across Kris’s back, and Kris twists around to try and see it. “I have data again!”

“Oh, shit, hell yeah!” Susie says. She glances over at the phone, which is probably fine ‘cause it’s not like there’s other cars to hit them. “I guess now we can maybe get a better sense of direction.”

Noelle hums in agreement, opening up her browser. “I can also give you directions once we’re closer to…you know, anything.”

Susie shrugs. “They’ll probably keep having signs and shit until we get to the city. But once we’re there I would like directions. Well, if we know where we’re going by the time we’re there.”

Kris pricks their head up. “According to the last sign we have 180 miles left,” they say.

Susie points at them. “Exactly. Thanks for looking out for those, Kris.”

Kris’s phantom tail wags loose against the seat.

“You should still be wearing a seatbelt, though,” Noelle says, lifting up her phone so Kris can readjust, pushing themself back mostly into their middle seat, hooking their chin over one of Noelle’s legs. Susie, who has returned to mostly focusing on driving, rests her arm across their back, and Kris wriggles at the weight of it, biting back a grin.

“Eh, they’ll be fine,” Susie says. She comes to a rolling stop—Kris thought highways were just long roads where you go fast fast fast, but this one has lights to stop at the few intersections they come across. There’s nobody waiting with them but Kris notices movement in the trees, and sees the brindled fur of a coyote. They scramble up to yap hello! hi! out the window at them, pawing at the lever to roll the window down. Noelle laughs and does it for them, as Kris pokes their head out, still barking, friend! hi hi hi!

The coyote lifts their head and Kris feels their tail wagging and their ears pressing back slightly in no-threat as it glances their way. They don’t meet their eyes—that’s a challenge and they aren’t into that with people that aren’t their friends if it’s not a danger thing—and the other coyote barks once, something like who? before darting back off into the trees.

That should be them, burns deep in Kris’s chest, even as the car starts again and Noelle tugs them back inside. Not in a car, but alongside the road, nose to the air, stuck close to the rest of their herd. But even a coyote probably couldn’t make it 180 miles in the same time a car could, so this is fine, whatever.

“No more of that,” Noelle says, “you’re going to fall out!”

Kris huffs, thumping back down across Noelle’s lap. Her elbow pokes uncomfortable against their chest as she sets her phone down across their back, pressed just-too-close to where their shoulders should be.

“Stop pouting,” Noelle says, “hey, Susie, we’re going to look up that forum Dess mentioned, okay? Um, will you be okay just watching the road yourself?”

Susie waves a hand. “I’m good. I don’t get any of that stuff, really, so I wouldn’t be much help even if I wasn’t driving.”

“Good, good,” Noelle says, more under her breath, and she returns to her phone. “Alright, Kris, um…how are we even supposed to find something like this?”

Kris twists until they can see Noelle’s phone. Their muscles twinge with it, but it’s fine. “Um.” They tap a paw against Noelle’s leg, and sign, “Dark World?”

Noelle snorts. “A bit on the nose, but sure, okay,”

Dark World doesn’t get them any results beside some book, which used the word but used it for something entirely wrong and fake, and Noelle has to hold Kris back from leaving a one-star review over getting something so important wrong. After that they go to descriptions, things like fell into a strange world, world in my closet, stuff like that. It’s mostly stories, all fake things, but a few desperate pages into Google search results and Kris pauses, taps a nail against one of the links.

“…The Alterworld Forum,” Noelle reads. “You think that’s it?”

“‘s something.” Kris pushes themself up so they’re sitting, forepaws braced against Noelle’s knees. She repositions her phone between them. “Dess said forum.”

“That she did,” Noelle agrees. She glances to her bag—Kris let Noelle keep Dess’s postcard, and knows she tucked it away safe in her bag—before clicking the link, and opening up the forum.

It’s…weird. Kinda hard to read, with such a dark color scheme, and the most recent post was last made two years ago, and none of the board titles really make any sense, so it’s a lot of clicking around and hoping for the best. One they click is helpful, though—its title of Schemas not so much ‘cause what even is that, but it turns out to be full of people describing Dark Worlds they saw. Or, well, Kris assumes they’re Dark Worlds, but some of them are weird.

“Dess’s would’ve been…at least four years ago,” Noelle says, clicking a few pages back. “I mean, assuming this is where she posted.”

“Probably was.”

Noelle just keeps clicking.

It’s on page seven where they find it: a single topic with eight replies, titled simply, Bunker, posted by a user named stringsabove.

Kris says, words careful, “Dess mentioned a bunker.”

Noelle clicks the link.

“…I don’t remember any bunker,” Noelle says, quietly, as they finish reading. For Susie’s benefit, she read them aloud, Kris helping out whenever they felt okay enough to read long blocks of text. “But…that has to be Dess. The ages all match up, the names, the details—oh, Kris.” Noelle heaves in a breath. “Kris, she’d be—she’s 22. Dess, I mean, she’s—her birthday’s past.”

“Oh,” Kris says, looking down at their paws. They don’t remember a bunker, either. But Dess said rabid animal.

Dess used to ruffle their head between their horns-that-weren’t-real and say goat.

Kris toddled after her on too-long puppy legs, chewing on sticks and leaping for her ankles. Tail wagging so hard it knocked them over.

Dess said rabid animal. Said they’re going to bite my sister.

But it’s all play. Sparring and wrestling and Kris doesn’t have horns and yes their teeth are sharp and yes they are a predator but—but—

“This Ranunculus,” Noelle says, jerking Kris out of their own head. Noelle is tapping her phone screen. “Susie, Kris, look at this. This signature says proprietor of Schema Antiques. Do you think—if Dess and this person were talking, do you think maybe this is the person Dess visited? Or, or that even if not maybe they’re still in contact somehow?”

Noelle’s pressing her paws together, ears flicking against her head, so fast and anxious Kris wants to nip one to say calm. Their tail twitches, and they trap the phantom sensation between their forepaws.

“I mean,” Susie says. Out the window the road is bordered by grass, dusky gray and half-dead. “Yeah, it’s a pretty good idea. You have any way of locating it?”

“Uncle Asgore’s tuck is too old to use Bluetooth, but,” Noelle says, opening up maps on her phone, “I think I should be able to find it, and then we’ll just have to make the volume loud enough that we’ll hear it over the music.”

Which won’t be hard, ‘cause the music is already kinda quiet. Dad’s truck has a radio but it’s real staticky, and so all they have are whatever CDs Dad has in his glove compartment, which is two old country CDs, music Asriel liked when he was Kris’s age, and a couple folksy ones Kris remembers liking a lot when they were littler, but they haven’t really heard in a while

“And it’s…” Noelle sighs. “204 miles away. According to this.”

Kris pushes off of Noelle, flopping against Susie instead. “I think we could run it.”

Susie laughs. Kris loves Susie’s laugh, all loud and barklike, kinda like them. “All 200 miles?”

“Yeah.” Susie’s solid against them, and from here Kris is sitting tall enough to stare out the front window. The sky’s pale blue, entirely devoid of clouds, and the road stretches on in front of them, cutting through the grass and trees. “I think we could.”

“In 120 miles, stay in the right lane,” says Noelle’s phone.

They’ve got a destination. They’ve got a place to go.

They’re going to find Dess. And Kris is gonna show her that they’re a coyote, yes—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still part of the herd.

It’s afternoon when they stop for the first time, pulling into a McDonald’s parking lot. The highway is still mostly empty but here is most certainly not, all full of humans and monsters. It’s not a city, Kris doesn’t think—on TV the cities are all tall buildings and majestic skylines—but it’s not a town, either, ‘cause it’s all road with a bunch of stores on either side.

“Ah, urban sprawl,” Susie says, cutting the engine. “I thought I was away from this.”

Kris tilts their head. Noelle asks, “you used to live somewhere like this?”

“I’ve been around,” Susie says, which isn’t really an answer, but it’s not like Kris was asking. “So, who’s getting food?”

“Um, I have the money here,” Noelle says. “Kris, how about you guard the truck? Me and Susie can go in.”

Kris stretches out their paws. “Good for me.”

“Aww, you’re just lazy,” Susie teases, opening her door and hopping out. “If anyone tries to break in, fight them to the death!”

Kris bares their teeth in a friendly growl.

There’s not much to do alone in the truck. From where they’re parked they can see Susie and Noelle through the window, waiting in a kinda long line. It’s mostly humans inside. Kris curls tighter into themself, where they’ve stolen Noelle’s seat to sap off the leftover warmth. Much as they love Susie, deer-fur is where it’s at.

…why would Dess call them rabid?

It circles their mind like vultures around something bleeding out. They didn’t really understand everything Dess said in her post, and Noelle took her phone so they can’t read it again, but if that was a Dark World, and Kris was there, then Dess saw them, right? Them as they should be?

Because Ralsei explained the Dark World like this: it is made of hopes and dreams. And so Kris lands there, finally in the body they should’ve had from the start. They don’t have horns there and it hurts, but when they’re a coyote, when they’re wagging their tail and chasing Susie and leaning against Ralsei, it’s—easier.

‘Cause it’s them. Them true-as-anything.

Dess saw them. Even after their horns stopped working, turned out to just be a headband—Dess saw them. She said goat, and so it was worse when she died, ‘cause nobody was there to say goat anymore, except Dess isn’t dead. Dess is alive. Dess saw them, except Dess saw Dark-World-them and said rabid.

Noelle isn’t scared of them. They’ve pinned her down, they’ve held their teeth to her throat, and she’s laughed and shoved them off of her. That’s what Dess must’ve seen! Dess just didn’t think right, saw play but missed the wag in Kris’s tail, the uptick of their ears, so she thought anger.

Just a misunderstanding! ‘Cause Asriel never got it but Dess did. Kris huffs, grinning against their arm. Without Susie and Noelle they have space to sprawl, so they stretch out as long as they can, tail thumping against the leather seats. Tucked within Noelle’s suitcase they find Dess’s postcard, trace a nail over the shape of her letters, the curve in her ear.

Make sure she and Kris are hanging out. See? And in that post of hers, the one on the forum, I won’t let that happen. Wanted them and Noelle to be safe.

She’s not dead. She left to help. Not like Asriel, who left for himself, who left even when Kris said no, said, don’t leave me, even as they bit deep into his arm, even as they yowled Asriel, the sounds of his name elongated, drawn-out, and that sharp bark at the end for family more a desperate cry than an easy truth.

Kris blinks and finds that they’ve been gnawing at their wrist hard enough that the skin’s going red, so they tuck the paw underneath them and shake themself. Once they find Dess, everything will be okay. ‘Cause she’ll explain she understands, and then Asriel will come back and stay back, and Kris can return to the Dark World, feel those four sturdy paws underneath them, and this time they’ll have their horns, too, even when they come back to the Light World.

Kris digs for their bag and pokes a paw in, nudging it against the wooden handle of their knife. The wood is smooth against the pad of their paw, and they leave it there until they see Susie and Noelle returning, grabbing the zipper in their teeth to yank it shut and tucking Dess’s postcard back away.

“So that cost a lot of our money,” Susie is saying as she and Noelle return, carrying between them three bags of food, “did you guys know fast food was that expensive? I sure didn’t.”

Noelle sets her bag down and leans over to yank Kris’s seatbelt over their chest and into place with a firm click before they can even react. Kris yelps, snapping at Noelle, but she dodges before they can catch fur between teeth. “I’m more worried about how much further we have to go,” she says. “We’ll have to stop to sleep and I don’t know if we’ll be able to afford a room?”

“I mean, we can just sleep in the truck,” Susie says. Kris continues to struggle as she and Noelle get back in the truck, but once Noelle starts passing out the food Kris sighs and goes limp against their restraints. They hate sitting like this, back straight, like someone who walks on two legs and not four. Their tail is pinned underneath them and twinges whenever they try to move it. Their paws dangle at their sides, and it’s unnatural. “Though…”

“Not a lot of room,” Noelle points out.

“I guess we can try the back,” Susie says. “You and Kris brought enough blankets.”

“Just out in the open like that?” Noelle shakes her head. “That’s a bad idea. What if someone—finds us?”

“Punch them,” Susie says.

Kris barks, sharp, to interrupt. “I sleep light,” they say. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Are you—”

Kris growls before Noelle can finish her sentence. “I’ll keep watch.”

Noelle flinches back.

Kris holds their burger in their paw, and digs their teeth into it. It’s bland and tasteless and they should not be sitting like this.

They drive the next hour in silence.

Kris yanks their way out of the seatbelt two hours later, and Noelle reaches out a paw, says, “Kris, we’re not on empty roads anymore, I’m just scared you’re going to—”

“I’m fine,” Kris snarls, nearly toppling into their luggage, but they lash out with a yelp and manage to catch themselves, nails caught against Susie’s scales. She winces and picks their paw off of her.

They butt their head against Susie’s side, their way of saying, “sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Susie says. “Hey, Noelle, uh…I’ll just drive careful, that should be fine for Kris, right?”

Kris nods, spinning around to watch Noelle with the narrowed eyes of a predator. Noelle fidgets in her seat.

“I just think—it’s not safe, and I just don’t want Kris to get hurt…” but she trails off, and when Kris curls up in their seat, the way they should, paws tucked under their chest, ears pricked at the alert, tail stiff but no longer trapped underneath them, Noelle sighs and doesn’t fight it.

It’s boring, the road is. There’s nothing to do, not with all of Noelle’s phone being used for GPS right now, and there’s just the same songs on repeat and so Kris can’t focus on that ‘cause their mind just slips right off it, and outside is grass and trees and nothing nothing nothing.

Kris’s paws itch to run. In any body they should be running—goat-as-they-should-be are runners and jumpers, and coyote-as-they-are aren’t weak, either. They have the stamina, maybe not so much as Noelle but she’s on track and deer are better at that than goats anyways, ‘cause goats have cliffs to climb and deer just have open fields. Kris has neither of those right now, but they’re a tracker, the click of claw against ground, a steady gait.

If Noelle wasn’t here they could gnaw their arm but she keeps looking at them all-weird. Like she’s never met them before and doesn’t know what to do.

The sun glows. Kris rests their head on Susie’s knee.

They don’t make it to the shop, or even really to the city. Kris doesn’t even know how much time has passed, but they know this: they blink, and then the car is stopping, and it’s dark outside, and Susie and Noelle are both outside and trying to figure out blankets. Kris stumbles to their paws, barks, “what?”

“Oh, Kris!” Susie grins at them, beckoning them over. “We were letting you sleep, since you agreed to keep watch tonight. We stopped! We also have dinner, but it’s just the snacks I brought to try and save some of our money. There’s like, four granola bars you can have. And some jerky.”

Kris takes an offered slice of jerky and tucks it between their paws, chewing slowly. With the side door open they can feel a faint breeze, the way it ruffles their cheek-fur. The dark is easier on their eyes—they’ve pulled over somewhere off the side of the road, and it must be out-of-the-way enough ‘cause Kris can’t hear any cars even when they squint their eyes and strain their ears. Once they’ve eaten their jerky, they dig in their bag for one of their blankets, and drape it over their back, hopping out of the car and landing on all-fours.

The ground is…uneven. Hurts a bit, with these stupid weak paws, but not so bad. Kris heads to the back of the truck, lets Susie take the blanket off their back and rears up to their hind paws to peer down into the truckbed.

“There’s really not a lot of room,” Noelle is saying, as she removes the gas cans. “I don’t think we’re all going to fit? At least, not without being, uh, basically on top of each other.” She glances at Susie, flushes, and hurries to shove the gas cans in the truck.

Kris says, dropping back to the ground, “I’ll sleep at the end. ‘Cause I can watch better there.”

Susie shrugs. “I guess that’s as good as we’re going to get,” she says. “It’s just for a night, anyways. We’ll get to the city tomorrow. Right, Noelle?”

“That’s what my phone says.” Noelle’s still red when she returns. “Um. Alright. Let’s. Do this. I guess.”

Kris rolls their eyes and snags another piece of jerky while they wait for Susie and Noelle to get situated. And she’s right—there’s barely any room for the two of them, and no way Kris would fit if they slept all stretched out like that. But Kris just needs enough space to curl up in, and so they hop up and yawn, turning in a circle before thumping down with their back to the truckbed, paws dangling off the edge. It gives them a good view of everything around them, even if they are kinda lying on Susie’s legs.

“That’s going to be comfortable,” Susie says, and Kris shifts until they’re not crushing her so bad. “Okay. Goodnight? I guess?”

“Haha, yup!” Noelle’s facing the side of the truckbed, too, which means her face is basically mashed against it. “Just. Sleeping! Not thinking too hard about this!”

“Yup,” Susie says. “Not thinking. Got it.” And then, hissed lowly in Kris’s direction, “why is she so warm???”

Kris barks out a laugh.

“That’s not helpful??” But Susie doesn’t press it, and soon enough Kris is the only one awake, listening to the two of them snoring, and the crickets that are somehow loud enough to still be heard also.

The bed is kinda just a hodgepodge of blankets, so Kris is lying on one of Noelle’s, actually, a soft and fuzzy sort of palish gray. Before they went to bed Noelle also threw a blanket over Kris, probably for warmth maybe, but Kris isn’t entirely sure why ‘cause their fur is thick enough. Though the blanket’s not the worst. It’s their own, so it’s a perfect texture, not too soft, not too scratchy.

Kris shivers. Curls a bit closer to Susie, but she’s not warm, so sighs, gets up, plods over to try and sap warmth off Noelle. Stupid deer and their stupid thick fur. Kris should have thick fur like that.

They do, in the Dark World, but this isn’t the Dark World. Kris curls their paws into their blankets. Their knife is still back in their bag.

Movement sends a shudder through the grass and bushes at the edge of the forest and Kris freezes, growling low warning in their throat. The moon’s a sliver so it’s not giving off great light, and these eyes are worse at seeing in the dark than they’ve maybe ever been, but Kris narrows them anyways, standing.

Noelle and Susie slumber on. The bushes tremble again, and, quiet as they can, Kris leaps to the ground.

“Hello?” Kris’s bark is quiet so as to not wake anyone up, but sharp. Their tail flicks, and their ears are flat against their head. “Hello?”

The world is still. Kris creeps forwards on silent paws.

Once they’re a breath away from the bush it explodes into motion, a dark shape leaping out of it and pelting back into the woods, and Kris wastes no time in charging after them. They’d better stay away! Trying to sneak up on Susie and Noelle like Kris wasn’t there to keep them safe!

But they’re a few pawlengths into the woods when the shape trips, and Kris nearly trips over them too, but stops in time to look down, and see, staring back up at them with wide eyes, a pup like them. Not a pup-pup, but a young coyote, probably younger than them, still growing into their body.

Kris pauses with a paw in the air. The other coyote scrambles to their paws and cowers back.

“Oh,” Kris says. Tilts their head and cocks an ear. “Hi. I’m Kris.”

Their name is a mid-toned bark, with the beginnings of a rolling growl at the end just ‘cause it sounds cool. They wag their tail, patting their paws against the dirt. “You’re like me! Just a kid. Sorry for running you off.” They sit back, grinning easily, tongue lolling.

The thing is Kris doesn’t know other coyotes. Their herd is a good herd, but they’re the only one like-them in it—Susie’s the closest they’ve found to someone like-them and she’s not really the same. But this is a coyote, young like them, on their own like them—and coyotes aren’t so solitary that they can’t make friends.

The other coyote stares. So frozen Kris can’t see them breathing.

“It’s okay,” Kris says, voice soft. “I said I’m sorry.”

If that gets through to the other coyote, Kris doesn’t see it. Instead, they see this: the coyote snapping at them, sharp sounds that mean something like danger and stay-away, the sort of sounds you’d shriek at something bigger and stranger than you, before spinning sharp and sprinting away.

Kris—

“But I’m a coyote,” Kris says. “You don’t have to be…”

The other coyote is long gone and does not return.

Kris swallows. It’s—fine. They don’t need other coyotes to recognize them. That’s. Fine! Because Kris knows themself, and Kris has a herd who knows them too, except Dess said rabid and Noelle drags a seatbelt across them like digging teeth in their arm, and Asriel left them and never looked back. Kris staggers when they get up, picking their careful way back to the truck, except—it’s.

Was it always this dark? And, and, they sniff the air but it’s just dirt, just big-scents, nothing they can pick out ‘cause this body is stupid and wrong and their paws are bleeding and weak and their nails are too-blunt and when they walk it hurts, and they don’t know how to get back ‘cause it’s all the same, all trees, all bushes, all alone.

They claw their paws into the dirt. They do not have their knife with them but what was it that Queen said? That determination could open fountains and they are nothing if not determined, ripping the world into two, a tiny sliver they can slip into, and be right. Ralsei’s wrong that their worlds should be separate ‘cause what’s the point of this world, this big real world, if Kris can’t have their body be right? When the Dark World is right there, and comfortable, and their barks sound as they should and when they run they run faster than they ever could stuck in this human-heavy body.

Their nails are stained with dirt and blood and entirely devoid of the fur that should cover them, warm grays and browns all mottled down their sides and back. Kris bares their teeth at thin air.

Stupid. Stupid coyote. Stupid Noelle. Stupid Dess. Stupid Asriel.

Oh, they’ll show him most of all. Drag Dess to his door, yowl look! Yowl you lied to me! Shriek in the tones of someone dying, you left me!

Truck. Truck truck truck. Kris licks the blood off their paws and it tastes of metal and grit. Where’s the truck?

This body is wrong but they are not. They have been to the Dark World and pricked real-ears and wagged a real-tail and these things are just phantoms here but they exist in the Dark World so they are Kris. Breathe. In-out-in-out. Kris’s chest heaves.

They were near the road. Not a lot of cars but maybe one or two every hour and if they can hear a car passing they can find the road and follow it home to Susie and Noelle. They have to keep them safe. They have teeth and they will use them if they must.

Kris blinks and the world is blurry. Blinks again and it’s less-so.

When they do finally hear a car and limp their way after the sound, the moon is starting to set. But they push out from the undergrowth and emerge again alongside the highway. They still do not see the truck so they wait, instead, nothing but a dark shape and dim eyes. A few more cars pass. One, two. After the third Kris decides on a direction to go, and walks it slow.

They’ll need to lick their wounds once they’re home ‘cause it’s burning pain in their legs when they move. Maybe a thorn but Susie’s good at getting those. Noelle less-so. They’d have to go to Asriel. Noelle’s paws were too clumsy, didn’t have the same sharp claws Asriel did.

They played, them and Noelle. Around and around and around, Kris’s tiny tail wagging away. Why did Dess say rabid? Why did Noelle flinch back when they growled?

They have always growled. Noelle never flinched before.

The fifth car they see comes plowing out of nowhere and Kris leaps back into the woods at the roar of it, protected by the brush. A deer—and they did not even see the deer, but it leaps out of the woods anyways—goes charging onto the road, and right into the car.

Thunk. The deer falls. The car roars onwards. Kris stays for a minute, two, three, until they’re sure the car is gone and they creep out, staring at the deer in the middle of the road.

It’s still moving. Legs twitching. Eyes darting this-way-and-that. It locks eyes with Kris, and Kris ducks their head, and runs the rest of the way back, until their truck comes into view and they leap into the truckbed without a care. They land hard on Susie’s chest and she awakes with a wheeze, as Kris is wriggling their way between her and Noelle. It’s hard, ‘cause sometime in the night Noelle has ended up kinda tucked under Susie’s arm which is thrown out over her chest, and Susie’s tail is trapped under Noelle’s leg, but Kris crams themself into the tiny spaces in-between.

“Fuckshit—Kris?”

Kris wants their tail to wrap around their nose so bad but instead they dig blunt teeth into their arm. Okay. Breathe breathe breathe. They’re back. Susie’s talking so she’s okay. Noelle is asleep still maybe but she’s moving so she’s okay.

“Did—something happen?” Susie’s voice is groggy but her words do not slur together. “Hey. Kris. Look at me. You good?”

Kris lifts their head and looks at Susie. Not meeting her eyes, just—looking. They’re probably getting blood all-over Noelle’s blankets but Susie doesn’t say anything about that. Just rubs the fur on their head right between their ears. Kris shudders. Breathes. Susie always misses their ears and their should-be-there horns. Like she sees them even if Kris can’t always.

“A car woke me up,” Kris says. It’s more bark than words but Susie understands anyways. “I’m cold. You and Noelle are warm.”

To Kris’s left, a bleary voice says, “Hello? Is that my name? Are we getting up?”

“Naw, just Kris,” Susie says, ruffling Kris’s fur. Kris growls playful at her, glancing over to Noelle, who has lifted her head to watch the two of them, some sort of—something in her eyes. Furrowed but not angry really. Just—curious. “Keeping us safe like they promised.”

“Oh,” Noelle says. She nods, slow. Considers Susie’s arm, the one not petting Kris, which is still splayed across her chest. “Alright. I’m going back to sleep, then.”

“Night, Noelle,” Susie says, and Kris echoes it, barking Noelle’s name. Two short yaps, then sharp family. Kris gets more comfortable as Noelle dozes back off, mostly crushed by both her and Susie, but the pressure is good.

Susie gives Kris one final pat before she rolls over to go back to sleep. “Night, Kris. Thanks for being our guarddog. Guard-coyote? Dunno if that sounds good or not.”

“Night, Susie.” Kris’s tail wags against the blankets, chest light like the sun rising. Susie. A howl, ‘cause Susie deserves that type of energy, and then—

“Susie,” Kris repeats, and ends it with that same sharp bark they give Noelle, give their family, before closing their eyes, safe and warm.

Chapter Text

Cities are big.

Kris didn’t know that. Cities are also full of people, so many people that rather than look out the window Kris hides down near the luggage, listening to Susie narrate everything she’s seeing for them, only pausing when the GPS goes off, leading them to Ranunculus’s antique store.

“In half a mile, turn right,” chirps the GPS.

“We have been stuck here for twenty minutes,” Susie complains. Outside the noise is mostly honking, the idling of engines. Traffic isn’t really a problem back in Hometown—but then again there aren’t this many cars there. Or people!

“At least we’re close?” Noelle offers, nudging a hoof against Kris. To them, she says, “can you go ahead and get the postcard out? I want to bring it in, maybe this Ranunculus will remember the visit and can tell us about it if we show them the postcard?”

Kris nods, unzipping Noelle’s bag to grab the postcard. Above them, Susie says, “I don’t even know if we’ll be able to park.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something!” Noelle says, with forced cheer. “Maybe, um, it’ll be better when we get there? We still have a few miles to go…”

“Maybe.” Even Kris can tell Susie doubts it. “I guess I can just drive around in circles while you guys talk. It’s not like I’ll be much help in there.”

“No, Susie,” Noelle says, “that’s not fair. Sure, maybe you don’t know Dess—but you’ve been so, so helpful! There’s no way I could’ve done any of this if you weren’t here. I mean, you can drive! Ha, I can’t drive, and even if I could, I’m not brave enough to steal a truck, or do—any of this! But with you here, it’s, um, easier? Because…I’m not alone.”

“Oh, uh.” Kris glances up at Susie and sees her blushing. “Well. I’m sure anybody would’ve done it.”

Noelle shakes her head. “No. Not anyone.” She’s smiling, a little secret thing.

Kris rolls their eyes, rests their head back on their paws. But it’s—hmm.

Susie and Noelle are happy and that makes them happy. They’re drawing ever-closer to finding Dess.

They aren’t, as it turns out, able to find anywhere to park, but Susie manages to convince Noelle and Kris to go off anyways, and she’ll just drive around and they’ll meet up when they can. And so that’s that: Noelle and Kris hop out of the truck, watch it until it disappears.

“Okay,” Noelle says, clapping her paws together, “Kris, please stand up, I really don’t want to stand out here.”

Kris, halfway to dropping down to the ground, growls. Noelle says, “I gave up on the seatbelt thing, can you please just give me this? I don’t want to fight, I just want to act as normal as possible so we have the best chance of getting any information about Dess.”

Walking upright isn’t normal for Kris, but Noelle is pleading with big deer-eyes so they sigh and push themself back up, trailing after Noelle as she enters the shop: Schema Antiques. Not in the center of the city, but there’s still kinda a lot of people around. Lots of humans, a few monsters. Kris hurries in before the door can shut.

It is…small. Small and kinda dark, full of a bunch of random things—Kris spots a cabinet of weird clown figures right next to a sword, and they’re reaching out for it before Noelle slaps their paw.

“We do not have the money to risk breaking anything,” she says, and Kris can give her that one. They really, really don’t. They got breakfast and lunch and they’re down to half of what they started with.

There’s a couple people they find browsing in the shop: a small family of three humans, a monster with scaly wings tucked against their back, a kid on their own that looks about their age. But mostly it’s empty, and mostly they don’t have time to really absorb what they’re even passing, ‘cause Noelle is going right ahead, like she’s got a goal. Which she does, same as Kris, but Kris doesn’t actually know what Noelle’s looking for.

Noelle, as it turns out, is looking for the owner of the shop, who they find sat at a counter near the back. The owner is a human, ‘n Kris doesn’t know how old but at least older than Asriel, they’d bet. They’re reading a book and Kris catches the title Poisonous Plants of the Oceans before they put it down.

“Hello,” they greet. They’re wearing a jacket, a kinda old one, but Kris catches a few patches—one that’s of a pretty golden flower that they think they’ve seen in Dad’s shop before, one xe/xir over the colors of the nonbinary flag, and Kris’s tail wags loose at that one. “Can I be of any help?”

Noelle’s already barreling into things. “Are you Ranunculus?”

To xir credit, xe only pauses for a moment. “It has been quite some time since I have seen anyone active on that forum, but yes, I am. You can just call me Chara. Have you encountered—”

“A Dark World or whatever it was you called them?” Noelle nods. “Yes. But we’re here about my sister. Um, so, a few years ago, four to be exact, she disappeared and we thought she died, but my friend here, they found a postcard she sent their brother, and, well, long story short, she’s not dead, her name is Dess, and she talked to you on that forum and in her postcard mentioned meeting someone from the forum, and even if that wasn’t you, do you know anything about where she might be?”

Chara frowns. “Ah. Yes. Dess? Dess Holiday. We met up once four years ago. She mentioned having a little sister.”

“That’s me! Hi.” Noelle waves. “I’m Noelle, this is Kris. So—you know where she is?”

“Hmm.” Chara glances off somewhere deeper in the shop. “Give me a moment, and we can go in the back to speak, rather than do it out here where people are shopping, yes?” At Noelle’s nod and Kris’s blink, xe calls, “Frisk! I am going to talk to some people about you-know-what, can you keep an eye on the register until I’m done?”

The kid they passed on their own trots up, gives them and Noelle a glance before signing to Chara, “yeah, okay.”

“If anyone tries to buy something heavy, come get me,” Chara says, as Frisk hops over the counter and just narrowly avoids knocking something over, “and if anyone else comes in about the Schemas, as unlikely as it is, come get me. And if—”

Frisk pushes at Chara’s side. “I get it, I get it, you tell me all the time!” They roll their eyes. “I know math! I can handle money! And there’s like, only six people here anyways!”

“More than usual,” Chara mutters, but relents. “Alright. I’ll be in the back if you need me. Noelle, Kris, did you say? Here, follow me.”

Chara leads them through a door marked employees only into a room with a small kitchen—a fridge, a sink, and a counter—a table that’s got textbooks and notebooks strewn across it, and a handful of beanbag chairs. Chara and Noelle both sit at the table, but Kris drops down onto a beanbag chair, relaxing into it. Ah, to not have to walk on two legs.

“Sorry about the mess,” Chara says, “Frisk is on break, and so has decided to leave all their schoolwork back here, rather than bring any of it home. Now, your sister? I’m afraid I only ever saw her that once, but I will do my best to answer any questions you have.”

“Good,” Noelle says, “so—what did you guys talk about? Like, how was she? Where did she go next?”

“That final one, I do not know.” Chara taps xir hands to the table. “But when we did meet, it was mostly about the Schema she fell into. How to close it, keep it from spreading—there is much that nobody knows about these worlds. I am…not comfortable that you seem to be looking into them. They are not safe.”

Kris huffs out a bark like yeah, sure. Noelle says, “we’re fine. You read Dess’s post, if either of us went into a bunker, we, uh, really don’t remember any of it. Just—are you sure you don’t know where she went? Have you ever heard from her since?” Noelle’s leaning closer, almost goatlike, kinda, in the way she holds her antlers.

“I can tell you this,” Chara says. “I will not advise that you go into a Schema after her—they are not places for kids, and I will not have anybody going in there on my watch. However, when she was here, she did take a sword with her. An older one, very nice. And she was not heading back to your town, that much I know. She said something about…finding? I am sorry, I do not remember her exact words. Finding as in training, I believe. That, maybe if she found another Schema, she could practice there, before returning home and closing the one there.”

Chara sighs. “She did, however, give me a PO box. Said if I ever learned anything else, if I would please send it there. I have the address written down somewhere; I can go grab that for you if you would like it.”

“A PO box,” Noelle repeats, slowly. “Thank you, that’s actually—really good. You’re, um, kind of our only lead? So, this is really helpful. Where is it? How far?”

“One moment,” Chara says, and gets up, leaving the room. When xe returns it is with a small book, one xe flips through for a moment before leaving it open on a page. Noelle leans in to read it, and Kris decides to not get up and bother—Noelle can remember the address for them.

“So, it’s pretty far,” Chara says. “At least a six-hour drive, though worse, with traffic. Assuming you drove up here from the same town your sister came from, it is back that way—not a drive you can make today.”

“Oh, great,” Noelle mutters. “I don’t want to sleep in the truck again.”

Kris shrugs. “Wasn’t so bad,” they say.

“Kris,” and Noelle turns to them, “I woke up cuddling with Susie. She was already awake. She just couldn’t move because I was on top of her.”

Kris snorts. Noelle throws her phone at them, and it thuds into the beanbag when Kris scrambles out of the way.

“Wait,” Chara, who had been leaning back in xir chair, says, at-attention again. “You are sleeping in a truck?”

“We can’t afford hotels or anything,” Noelle says. “It’s not that bad! It’s just really cramped.”

“Your parents didn’t figure out anything better?” Chara says, mostly muttering to xirself, but Kris and Noelle lock eyes. Yeah, parents, haha, right. “If you need advice on cheap but clean motels in the city, I can give…” xe trails off as xe looks at Kris and Noelle.

Kris drops their gaze to the floor. Noelle taps her paws together.

Chara says, “your parents do not know you are here, do they.”

“Nooo?” Noelle says, drawing it out. “Or, yes? Whichever one makes you feel better, that’s the answer.”

“Once we find Dess they won’t be mad,” Kris adds, lifting up their hands to sign, since obviously Chara knows it if that’s how Frisk was talking to xir.

“This,” Chara says, “is why I have retired.”

Kris squints. “You don’t look that old.”

“I have an old soul.” Chara stands. “Alright. It’s just the two of you?”

“…our other friend is driving the truck since we couldn’t park it?” Noelle’s voice squeaks.

“Three,” Chara says, “okay. Why not? And it’ll be a six-hour drive, and Angel knows where else you three will head off to once you find that PO box, and I will not be able to talk you out of this, no?” Xe glances at the two of them as xe stands from the table.

Noelle and Kris shake their heads.

“Right. So all together, that’ll be…” Chara’s muttering under xir breath as xe leaves the room, back into the shop proper, and it’s not like Kris has any better ideas, so they follow, sticking low to the ground. Noelle sighs at them but follows as well. Chara’s words pick back up as the employees only door swings shut behind them, “…and assuming I’m able to work extra hours while Frisk is in school that will cover, and—okay.” Xe nudges Frisk aside at the register, the kid hopping off without protest, though obviously curious, scooting over towards the two of them.

“What did you do?” they sign, pointing between them and Chara.

“Um…xe figured out that we’re out here alone and sleeping in a truck?”

Frisk nods sagely at Noelle’s words. “Ah. That’s dumber than anything I’ve ever done. You’re lucky xir not your sibling or xe’d be worse.” Frisk shudders. “So much worse.”

Chara returns with—oh, wow, that’s a lot of bills. Noelle’s the only one who brought a bag, ‘cause she’s smart like that and also bags aren’t made so well for coyotes, so she’s the one who takes them. “This,” Chara says, “is $500. I’m sorry I do not have more. And this,” xe presses a sheet of paper into Kris’s paw, covered in neat writing, “has the PO box’s address again, as well as a list of all motels that you should encounter on your way to there, and some further out, in case you head that way, that you will be able to afford. I would recommend you call your parents, but I cannot force you to do that, so this is the best I can do.”

“I—you don’t have to,” Noelle says, trying to push the money back, “we’re—fine, seriously, it’s—”

“You,” Chara says, “are kids. Your sister—she made it clear in that post that she had a friend who would look after you while she was gone. And if she has been gone for four years, and you are here—that makes me think that either she was lying, or that her friend did a very bad job at keeping you safe.”

“Dess didn’t—” Noelle protests, at the same time Kris manages a half-mangled version of Asriel, not because they know what to follow it up with, but because this is a stranger, and what right does xe have—!

“You should not be responsible for finding her,” Chara says, and takes a step back. “Stay safe out there. If you need anything else, I wrote my number on that paper I gave you—please do not hesitate to call.”

“Okay,” Noelle manages, and they leave, and don’t speak until they reunite with Susie, 15 minutes later.

“How’d it go?” Susie asks, pulling to a stop. Noelle tugs the passenger door open.

“It went—well.” Noelle tucks the most of the money away in her suitcase, doesn’t even make a sound when Kris thumps down in the middle seat without even touching the seatbelt. “We can stay at a motel tonight.” She enters in the address of Dess’s PO box, and repeats, “it went well.”

“Noelle?” Susie asks, and reaches out a hand, pausing for a moment before resting it on her shoulder.

Noelle is staring out the window. They are not moving, and so Kris is not sure what she is watching—maybe the people, a sea on the sidewalks. Maybe the lights, and their harsh brightness against the setting sun. They really won’t make it far today, if it’s already getting dark. Maybe they’ll eat dinner in the city before finding a motel.

“Noelle?”  Susie repeats.

“It went fine.” Noelle’s voice is hushed.

Susie starts the car. Kris rests their head against her side.

Noelle does not tear her gaze away from the window.

They make it to a motel halfway to the PO box when they stop, and Noelle pays and the human at the counter eyes them weird, eyes Susie and her scales, Noelle and her antlers, Kris sitting at the floor by Susie’s feet, wishing their teeth were as sharp as hers. And at that look Kris beams, a growl in their chest, a sound of pride. ‘Cause this human looks at them and sees something strange, sees something never-human.

“That’ll be 65 dollars for the night,” the counter-lady says, and Noelle passes over the money, and they head outside and over to their room. It’s near enough they don’t have to move the truck, just stopping by to grab their bags, lock the gas cans inside, and then enter the room. Kris pushes past Noelle to enter first.

It’s…okay. Not the greatest. Kinda small. The carpet is stained with dirty footprints and Kris curls their lip at that. But there’s two beds and those look clean-enough, and there’s a tiny bathroom which is great ‘cause rest-stop ones are kinda really bad, and Kris’s limbs all hurt and their heart is heavy so they hop up onto the nearest bed, and curl up on it.

Susie and Noelle set the bags they were carrying down. The door slams shut behind them. In the bathroom Kris can hear the trickle of a leaky faucet.

“So,” Noelle says, and Kris lifts their head, “I can share with Kris. Since, uh, we used to sleepover a lot when we were kids.”

“You sure?” Susie eyes the beds. “They’re pretty small.”

Kris lifts a paw. “You’ve been driving all day,” they sign, pointing to Susie, “We’ve just been sitting. It’s fair.”

“Ugh, I guess.” Susie flops down onto the empty bed, the one closer to the bathroom. “Whenever we stay in one of these next, though, we’re trading off. One of you gets the bed and I’ll share with whoever’s left.”

“I’ll take the free bed next time!” Noelle says in a rush, and then, “or, uh, I mean, is that okay? With you? Kris?”

Nah is the funnier answer to give, just to see Noelle blush red. Nah is what Kris would say if they were ten again—when their jokes made Noelle groan and shriek but laugh always, too. Maybe their teeth weren’t so sharp when they were little. Maybe Noelle just doesn’t like them that much anymore.

“It’s okay,” Kris says.

They take turns changing in the bathroom, and Noelle even attempts the shower, and says it’s fine, but the water pressure is terrible and her fur’s too thick for it to really be worth it. Kris’s pajamas are all hand-me-downs from Asriel, ‘cause they’re made for goats ‘n once Kris thought they were a goat but now they’re the only ones they can wear that aren’t tight, contorting their body into a shape it never should be. This one used to have Yoshi on it, but it’s so worn and faded he kinda just looks like a blob now.

The bathroom mirror is dinky and coated in dust. Kris pokes at their lip with a canine. Presses harder. A bead of red blood pools up.

The Kris in the mirror is—

The thing is they know their snout is long. They know the way their head is shaped, their ears that prick up, the way they carry themself, their gait and their motions. ‘Cause they know how they move through the world, and how wind feels on their tail—they know it true.

There’s no mirrors in Castle Town. They asked Ralsei once, since it’s his town ‘n all, and he just kinda looked at them, and said, “do you want any, Kris?”

Kris shook their head, barked a sharp, “no.”

“Then there’s no point.” Ralsei’s voice isn’t really ever firm. He says stuff like it’s all suggestion, like if Kris pushed him down and snarled yes he’d say yes even if he’d said no a moment before. Kris wants to, sometimes—wants to grab him by the throat and growl and dig their teeth in to figure out if he bleeds or goes to dust.

They don’t do that. They circle around him instead.

“Do you want anything?” Ralsei had asked. Not scared. He’s not scared, or he never sounds it. Kris thinks if they did pin him he’d just stare up at them, with his big wide eyes, his horns sharp but never angled on the defense. He’s a goat and he doesn’t ever use it. “In the town, I mean.”

Kris’s hackles were raised. The fur all down their spine prickled. Their teeth were—and still are—sharp. When they swallowed they swallowed thorns.

Ralsei’s not really a monster. They’re kinda not sure if he’s a Darkner either. Sometimes in the mirror they see him, a little. Not the body they’re stuck in, not the them they should be—but Ralsei.

To their reflection, which they do not look at, Kris says, aloud, raspy, “why do I think you would bleed?”

Their lip still stings. Their tail, if it is there, does not move.

Kris drops back to their paws and leaves the bathroom.

They make it to the PO box the next morning. Or, more accurate, they make it to the post office, and then to the wall of PO boxes, and Noelle says, looking at her phone where she’s been keeping notes, “it’s number 113.”

“Well, this one here is 12, so we’ve got a ways to go,” Susie says, knocking against said box. It’s earlyish, ‘cause they woke up just in-time to get free breakfast from the motel—granted it was like, one yogurt, but it didn’t cost extra—and then left right-away, and now they’re here and if they were home Kris would still be sleeping. All that’s to mean the post office is empty, save for the monster staffing it, who nodded at them when they came in but otherwise hasn’t done anything.

Noelle’s still making Kris stand on two legs, and that itches, but Kris can’t really fix it right now. Their paws ache for their knife, for their sharp canine teeth. Even their nails, ‘cause they can’t do much damage but they’re sharper than anything they have in this body. Instead though they stare at boxes lining the walls, counting off numbers with a flick of their tail. 45, 46, okay, maybe way further down, or, no, now they’re at 304, so, back a bit, and—

“Found it!” Susie calls, and Kris scampers over to her, dropping down to the floor since this one is near the ground anyways. Noelle glares at them and they just bare their teeth right back when she kneels down.

“Okay, now we just…open…it…” Noelle trails off, staring at the keyhole on the PO box. “We don’t have the key.”

“Fuck,” Kris says, with feeling. They hook their nails around the edges of the box and pull. Nothing.

“Maybe we could…ask?” Noelle doesn’t sound convinced. “I mean, I’m her sister. That has to count for something, right?”

Before Noelle can stand, Susie puts out a hand. “Wait, guys, I’ve got this.” And she pulls out a lockpick.

“You have a—” Noelle glances back towards the worker, who still isn’t paying them any mind, and hisses, quieter, “since when have you had a lockpick?”

“Since the start,” Susie says, fitting it into the lock. “I figured it might come in handy. Now, I’m not, like, great at this, but I think I can figure it out…”

A few minutes of fiddling later, where Kris gets a try—and instantly gets the lockpick taken when they nearly snap it in two—and Noelle paces behind them, the door to the PO box swings open. Kris snags the mail inside, dragging it out onto the floor for them all to see.

And there’s…not a lot.

“One letter,” Noelle says. “All of this, and she has one letter.”

“That’s a good sign, though, right?” Susie says, turning the letter over. “I mean, she’s probably getting her mail then, which means she still uses it.”

“Right.” Noelle sits down beside Susie, taking the letter when Susie passes it to her. “Right. Right. Um.” Noelle looks down at it. It’s an unassuming envelope. Pale white, with the address to Dess’s PO box written on it in—

And the return address is—

Kris’s heart shudders. “That’s Azzy’s handwriting.”

Noelle stares at the envelope for a long moment. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Which means Asriel and Dess have been talking this entire time. Four years and they thought she was dead. That she vanished and died and they’d never ever get closure. That the one person who looked at Kris and saw, without a doubt, a monster, died, and Kris would never get that again. That Kris would have to fight and fight and fight, themself, their family, everyone they met, with sharp teeth and a stiff tail and every part of their body they were not given but knew they had.

And she wasn’t dead.

And Asriel knew.

Susie’s the one to open the envelope, cutting the seam with one of her claws, and she lies it out in her lap for all of them to read.

Fuck you,

Address is on the envelope. I hate you for making me do this. I don’t know why I bother.

-Asriel.

Three lines. The ink is dark, bleeding across the paper. Asriel’s handwriting is a bit on the smaller side, a neat print, but this is—this is big, harsh strokes. The paper is ripped at the edges.

“He knew.” That’s all that Kris is able to get out, and it’s not even words, and it’s not even signs. It’s a yowl deep in their throat. “He knew this whole time.”

“She wanted him to do something,” Noelle saying, maybe at the same time, but Kris is shaking, thinks maybe Susie is trying to touch them but they growl and back away from her, to the PO box, eyes darting around for the door. “And Asriel said he would, which means—which means he probably knows where she is right now! Kris, we can go to Asriel, and he’ll—”

“He’ll lie!” Kris shrieks. “That’s all he does! He lies! He knew Dess was alive and he lied to us! He left me and he lied to me and he doesn’t care! He’s just—he’s just as bad as she is!”

“Dess isn’t—”

“Dess left too!” Kris lunges for Noelle, pinning her to the ground, teeth bared in a snarl. Susie is talking maybe but Kris doesn’t care. “Dess left you and Asriel left me and you left me and Dess left me too and everyone leaves me! Nobody cares!”

Noelle’s eyes are watering. “Kris, stop, you’re—”

“I hate them!” Kris yowls, to the ceiling, to the sky, blocked from them as it is, to the coyote that ran from them, to every single monster they have ever met, to every single event that led to them, standing here, in a body that was never meant for them, and that everyone calls them anyways. “I hate all of them! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Because none of them understand! None of them look at Kris and see Kris, they just see Kris-the-human, Kris-the-mistake, Kris-that-should-not-be-here, Kris that is clinging to the Dark World as though it is just a childish dream. But the Dark World is them! The Dark World is them, and Asriel can’t see it, and Dess can’t see it, and now Noelle can’t, either!

“You’re just scared of me!” Kris’s nails dig into Noelle’s chest. They’re panting and their tongue is lolling but they swallow to speak anyways. Susie is trying to grab them. They will not be moved. “Admit it! You say you want to be friends again but you’re lying too! Just like Dess and just like Asriel and—”

“Dess isn’t lying!” Noelle kicks at them with her back legs, and Kris goes sprawling backwards, right into the PO boxes. But they waste no time standing, even if their head is spinning and pounding, even if they’re stumbling. “Dess said she was trying to protect us all! From you! And maybe she’s right! Maybe—maybe you are just a rabid animal! You certainly act like one! You’re not the friend I remember when we were kids!”

“Liar!” Kris lunges again. They are a coyote, a predator, and Noelle may be strong but she is nothing compared to them, just another person who won’t ever see Kris. Because this, this, this is Kris! Kris who snarls, Kris who bites, Kris who dug their teeth into the arm of their brother, who tasted dust, who refused to let go even as he yelled, even as Mom grabbed them and dragged them off. They land true, and their tail is curled over their back all spitting pride, and their teeth are bared and sharp and they can feel their snout, the way it curls with their growls, the way saliva drips from their jowls.

The Kris they were before was a lie. And if nobody can see that then Kris will make them.

Noelle’s heart flutters. They can feel it between their teeth at her throat, like a tiny, tiny bird. Bones so fragile they crumble with a bite. Dust swirls through the air and Kris does not let go. Kris will not let go. Because Noelle is wrong and Dess is wrong and Asriel is wrong and they’re all wrong, all down to the core of them! And Kris—

Kris is knocked off of Noelle and there is something on their back keeping them down.

“Kris.” And that’s Susie’s voice, and Kris looks up, best they can—but this isn’t the Susie that fought beside them. This is Susie as she stared down the Spade King. Determined down to her bone. Not giving up.

She watches Kris as though Kris is the enemy.

“Whatever the fuck you are doing,” Susie says, and she doesn’t have an axe but she stands like she does, anyways, “stop.”

“Susie—” Kris whines, but Susie isn’t looking at them, turning back to Noelle, who she helps to her feet.

“Shit, Noelle, are you—”

“I’m,” Noelle’s voice is weak. She staggers against Susie’s side. Faint. No, faint isn’t the word. She’s fuzzy around the edges. Kris blinks and the fuzziness stays. “I’m. I’ll be—okay. I’m not—”

“You’re flaking to dust!” Susie’s—

Susie’s scared. Like.

Kris swallows. They don’t know if they taste dust. When they look at their paws it is stuck underneath their nails. White shards of Noelle’s being.

“I just need time, I.” Noelle stumbles. Susie catches her. “I didn’t think Kris could—”

“Yeah,” Susie says, “Yeah, I didn’t fucking think they could do that either.”

Kris could probably get up. When they twist they see that Susie has dropped her bag on their back, and it’s heavy but not heavy enough they can’t stand without a bit of a push. But.

But.

Susie is getting something from the worker, who looks horrified. They keep pointing Kris’s direction. Susie keeps shaking her head. Saying, “I just want to help my friend. We’ll deal with this.”

Noelle is sitting down in one of the chairs near the front. She’s.

She’s.

Solid. Mostly. Her edges aren’t so fuzzy but Kris—

Their mouth is muzzy. Like there’s tiny bits of stuff stuck to their teeth and gums.

Noelle doesn’t look at them. They think she’s maybe crying. When Susie sits beside her, Noelle breaks into a sob and hugs her tight, and Susie hugs her back. The two of them so close, and Kris is here. On the cold floor.

Asriel’s letter sits in front of them. His dark handwriting echoes in their head. Fuck you. I hate you for making me do this.

He lied to them. They all lied.

Noelle and Susie don’t let each other go.

Kris rides in the truckbed.

Nobody says anything. But Kris takes one look at the truck, where the three of them are close-always, Kris flopped across Noelle or Susie. How Noelle’s moving careful, now. As though to move is to hurt. How her throat is—

How the fur is shredded, there. How Kris can see skin.

How Susie went to Noelle’s side.

So Kris hops into the truckbed, curls up on Noelle’s old blanket, right beside the gas cans. If they focus they can hear Susie and Noelle talking:

“We’re going to Asriel’s apartment?” Susie. Her voice is clipped.

“Yes.” Noelle’s is too. “We…should’ve started with that. Kris refused. I should’ve—gone with my gut. We should’ve asked him from the start.”

“I’ve never…seen Kris do that.”

Noelle takes a breath. “I just—I wish we could be as we were as kids again. It was so easy then. And, I don’t know. They’re just. I used to know they’d never hurt me.”

“Noelle…”

“I know.” She laughs weakly. “I know! Angel. I hate this.”

The truck drives on. Noelle says, “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“Oh.”

“I think—I think without you, this would’ve gone a lot worse. You’re just—I think you saved my life?”

“Kris wouldn’t’ve—”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.” Noelle’s voice is hushed. “It’s like—it was like a stranger wearing the skin of my best friend.”

Kris presses their paws over their ears and watches the sky until the sun sends spots swimming in their eyes.

When they stop that night at a motel, neither Noelle nor Susie hesitate before claiming a bed to share.

It’s two days to Asriel’s apartment.

Kris has never actually been. When Asriel first went to college, as a freshman, they were going to go with him to set up his dorm—but of course that never happened. And the years passed and they just. Never did.

Mom and Dad go up to visit him, sometimes. They don’t say that, but sometimes Kris spends a week with their Dad, and Mom tells them, and Mom never tells them to spend a week with their Dad. Kris always asks. But.

And so now Asriel’s got an apartment. They overheard him on the phone one summer, after his first year. Talking to his roommate. Saying, “I know it’s expensive, but I think we could cover it, and I can’t stay here for another two months again.”

Kris doesn’t say a word the entire time there. They do not leave the truckbed. They’re small enough it’s not like anybody can see, and worse comes to worst they hide under the blankets. But two days of roads and driving and long nights and then Kris blinks and they’re pulling into a parking garage, and Susie is killing the engine, and the two of them are getting out.

Noelle’s throat is still scarred.

Kris trails behind.

“I’ll do the talking,” Noelle’s saying, frantic, to Susie, “I’ll just say, hey, we found the letters you and Dess have been exchanging, and I just want to know she’s alive. If I just lay it all like that he’ll have to tell me, right?”

“You know him better than I do.”

They’re not holding hands but their hands are close. Kris is so far behind they’re not even part of the group. They walk on two legs because Noelle would yell at them if they didn’t.

Sometimes they still taste her dust. Thick. Heavy. It coats their dreams.

Their knife is a familiar weight in their pocket.

Asriel lives on the fourth floor of his building, and Kris climbs the stairs while Susie and Noelle take the elevator. One foot after another. Dropping down to all fours ‘cause Noelle isn’t around to see.

At the fourth floor landing they sit and stare at the door into the hallway. It’s a nice building. According to calls they’ve overheard between Mom and Asriel it’s only a 30-minute drive from campus.

Kris stands on two legs. Curls their paw around the handle and swings the door open.

Susie and Noelle are waiting for them at Asriel’s door, number 432. Noelle knocks. Once, twice.

And there’s Asriel.

Older than they’ve ever seen him before. His horns are bigger, curling, more like Dad than anything, and they’re no longer the same white as his fur, but cream, kinda. His fur is longer, and the fur on his head rivals the length of his ears. If he has any scars on his arm where Kris bit him, the fur’s too long for Kris to see. He’s distracted at first, half-looking at something back inside, but then he blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks again, and says, “Noelle?!”

“Um, hi, Asr—” but that’s as far as she gets before he’s grabbing her in a hug.

“Angel, Noelle, we were all so worried about you!” With Noelle in Asriel’s arms Kris can scoot back, further behind Susie. Susie does not move even if she does not look at them, and that is okay. It’s better than nothing. “I’ve been getting calls from your mom and dad nonstop, it’s been days! Where have you been?”

“Um,” Noelle says, as Asriel finally sets her down. He turns, as though to let them in, but then he pauses.

“Wait. Noelle, what happened to your throat?”

Noelle waves her paws. “Oh, that’s, haha, nothing, I just tripped, really, it doesn’t even hurt and Susie helped me make sure they weren’t infected, so, um.”

Asriel’s eyes fall onto them.

Kris forgets how to move.

“Kris,” he says.

Kris lifts a paw. Debates running for the stairs.

Noelle says, firmly, “we’re here to ask about Dess.”

That sends a shock through Asriel. He finally steps aside to let them in, and Kris slinks in behind Susie, glowering at the room they enter into. It’s a living room, though the kitchen is connected, and there’s a soft blue couch and a large TV and Asriel’s got the screen paused on what looks like one of those games he always said they were too little for.

“Dess,” Asriel says. “Why would you…why would you want to—”

Noelle sits on his couch, folds her paws over her lap, and says, “we found one of the postcards she sent you.”

“You lied,” Kris growls, low enough they don’t think anybody caught it. Asriel’s thumped down on the couch opposite Noelle, and Susie, after a moment of waffling, sits beside Noelle, so Kris just curls up right there on Asriel’s red carpet.

“Noelle, that’s—”

“And,” Noelle adds. “We found her PO box. The letter you sent her. So Dess is alive and I want to—Asriel, I just want to know where my sister is.

“It’s—not that simple,” Asriel says. “Um, why don’t we just—look. Mom and Dad and Aunt Carol and Uncle Rudy have been worried sick. How about I drive you guys home. And your friend, too, I’m sure her parents are freaking out. And we can—talk about this some other time.”

“Just—tell me.” Noelle grabs for Asriel’s paws. “She’s okay. Right? Dess is okay? She’s okay.”

“She’s—”

And Kris knows Asriel and knows when he’s doing that thing. Like when he said I’ll come back and never did. Like when he left them, and kept leaving them. And Noelle isn’t pushing, she’s just sitting there, just asking, and that’s not how this works. Because Dess was lying and Asriel was lying and Kris’s teeth are stained with dust and they will not let Asriel lie to them.

So they stand up, baring their teeth, and growl, “tell me.”

“Kris, stop that,” Asriel says. “You have no ground to stand on, dragging your friends all the way out here.”

“I didn’t—”

But Asriel is already turning to Noelle and Susie. “Seriously. I’m sorry, guys. You won’t be in trouble, I’ll explain everything. Kris is—difficult. Sorry they dragged you both into this.”

And that’s!

Susie won’t meet their gaze, and she doesn’t say anything. Noelle—and Kris glares at her, because this was her idea as much as it was theirs, because Dess is her sister, because this was their idea together—says, “I’m sorry too.”

“Liar,” Kris spits.

“You’re the one who refused to go right to Asriel!” Noelle says. “We could’ve called him! But no, you were so insistent on him being a liar, when you’re the one who—”

Kris reaches towards Noelle and she flinches.

Fine. Fine! Is that what she wants to do? Kris fought her once and they’ll fight the world again, so they turn to Asriel, teeth bared, tail held stiff as a line beside them, and snarl, “where’s Dess.”

“You dragged your friends out of Hometown to see me—could’ve gotten all of you killed—and you think I’m going to answer you?”

Asriel’s teeth are sharper than theirs, at least in this body. But the thing about Asriel is he’s a goat. Kris never was. Kris won’t ever be. But Kris is this: a predator, a coyote. A beast that stalks the night. That tears into the unsuspecting.

Kris says, standing their ground, “tell me.”

“What happened to Noelle, Kris?” is Asriel’s counter. “Those marks on her throat. Those don’t look like they happened on accident.”

Kris snarls. “Tell me.”

“You always do this!” Asriel says, and he stands, advancing towards them, and Kris shakes but does not move. Maybe Noelle and Susie are there. Maybe maybe. But their world is this: Asriel, looming over them like he always has. Them, tiny and weak and growling. Their body wrong but they will not let Asriel win.

He got away once. Twice. Every time.

Not now.

“You don’t ever stop to think!” And he’s still talking, swinging an arm out their way, but Kris ducks it. “You just drag, drag, drag, get other people hurt because you refuse to look at the truth!”

“Where’s Dess.”

“She’s dead!” Asriel yells. “She’s fucking dead, Kris!”

Kris snaps at his leg. Asriel takes a step back. “Liar! She sent you postcards! You sent mail to her PO box! Where! Is! Dess!”

They’ll prove them all wrong! Dess and Asriel and Noelle and Susie and everyone! They’ll dig their teeth into the world and shake until it’s right again!

“She’s dead and you know it!”

“Liar! Liar!” Kris yowls the words, head tilted to the sky, the sky they should be under. “You left me! Dess left me! Everyone leaves me! Stop lying! Where’s Dess?”

“Fine,” Asriel spits, “fine, you want the truth so bad?”

Kris can hardly breathe. Asriel’s all they can see. His eyes are dark and brown and narrowed and his horns are so much sharper than they could ever hope to have.

“Yes!” And Kris refuses to falter.

“Dess is dead, Kris!” Asriel’s voice is cracking but it’s harsh, like claws to their heart, worse even than when he left. Kris can do nothing but cower back, back, until they hit something wooden that digs into their spine. “And you know why? Because Dess doesn’t care about you! Dess doesn’t care about Noelle, or Uncle Rudy, or Aunt Carol, or anybody! Dess cares only about herself, that she can be the hero, that she can save us all—and she’s delusional! There’s nothing to save! There’s no danger and there never was! She just wasn’t ever able to conceive of a world where she wasn’t the center that every event revolved around! And looking at you now, the two of you seem pretty fucking similar, huh?”

“Liar!” Kris yowls. It comes out strangled.

But Asriel keeps talking. “She ran away, because she couldn’t be bothered to try and deal with anything that was hard! She saw her Dad getting sick, our parents divorcing, the consequences of encouraging your fucking delusion—and when it all backfired on her she ran!”

Kris can’t speak.

“So there!” Asriel’s claws lash through the air and nearly catch Kris in the side. “That’s why I never told anybody! Because she sent me one postcard four years ago, and I never heard from her again! You know who’s paying for that PO box? Me! Because some stupid part of me still wants to hope she’s out there somewhere, but I know it’s not true. She left because of you, and it got her killed. My best friend is dead and you have the audacity to risk Noelle’s life on some goose chase!”

It’s—

Their mouth manages a strangled bark of lie! Their paws dig into the carpet. Because Dess can’t be dead. Dess called them monster. Dess ruffled their fur and always missed their horns. Dess saw them, little-pup-them, with paws too big for their body, and welcomed them into the herd.

But Dess saw them, saw Kris-as-they-are, and said rabid. But Dess left them, and kept leaving them, just like Asriel. But Dess left, and Kris’s life fell apart. But Dess left them.

Dess said, in her forum post, priority list is N, K, A. I want to stop K from becoming a rabid animal, but if I can’t, I’ll settle for just some way to keep N safe. Dess said, in her postcard, just make sure you’re there to supervise.

Dess feared them like Asriel fears them like Noelle fears them.

“And stop acting like some rabid animal!” Asriel snaps. “You’re a fucking human! Start acting like one!”

Kris looks at the floor. At their paws.

The world, they think, goes still for a very, very long time.

“Angel damn it,” Asriel says. He’s maybe crying. Kris does not move. “I’m calling Mom. Fuck. Fuck! I’ll just—drive you home. Fuck my schedule, I guess. Thanks a lot, Kris. Don’t you dare leave. Noelle, you’re in charge. Or—fuck.” He’s definitely crying. “Noelle, um, Noelle’s friend? Just. Stay here. Kris, get over here.”

“Kris,” Susie says, very small, before Asriel is grabbing Kris, holding them the way you hold a human. Because that’s all Kris is, isn’t it? Delusional. Playing at being a coyote.

Asriel heads down the hall, enters a room, and drops them on a bed. Says, “you bit Noelle.”

Kris curls into a ball. Their tail isn’t even the faintest flicker.

“You bit—Kris.” He sits beside them, jabs his claw in their side. “This is serious. I’m telling Mom. You’re not going to be alone with her until we figure this shit out.”

Dess is dead. Dess has been dead.

Dess said rabid.

“You are,” Asriel says, “the most infuriating person I know. Stay here. I’ll drive you all back tomorrow. You stole Dad’s truck?”

Asriel said she left because of you.

“Of course you did.” He stands. Pauses, which Kris knows even not looking at him because his steps hesitate. “Kris. I am sorry about Dess. It’s—it was just easier if you all thought she died. The circumstances of it don’t change anything.”

“She left me.”

“Oh, Kris,” Asriel says, and Kris grits their teeth, because they are not a child. “Not everything is about you. Remember that, okay? It’s what got Dess killed. I love you. I don’t want you going her way.”

But Dess can’t be dead. She’s too alive for that.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Asriel says. “I’m—mad. At this situation. At what you did. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Kris bites at their arm.

“I know the human stuff is hard for you,” Asriel starts, and Kris snarls.

“Go away.”

“Kris—”

“Go away!”

The door clicks shut, and Kris is alone.

In the end they all end up in Asriel’s room. Them, Susie, Noelle. Asriel has just one bed, a twin at that. It’s kinda smaller than even the truckbed, though he does drag out an air mattress for one of them. Kris claims it without a word.

“Hey, uh,” Susie says, and she sits on the edge of it. Kris is pulled towards her by gravity, and just lets it happen. “Kris, I just wanted to—look. I don’t know…what’s going on with all this Dess stuff, but—I’m still your friend. Okay?”

“I hurt Noelle.”

“Yeah. You did, and that was fucked up.” Susie rubs their head. Despite themselves, Kris leans into it. “But—I’m starting to see that whatever happened when Dess left, or died, or whatever, it’s a lot more complicated than I thought.” She wrinkles her nose. “Also, I really don’t like your brother.”

Kris laughs. Or maybe sobs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you for like, two days,” Susie says. “I was worried about Noelle, but—that’s not really an excuse. She’ll be fine. By the way. Um.”

Kris presses their snout against Susie’s chest. “Can you tell her I’m sorry?” they whisper.

“Tell me yourself.”

Kris looks up, sees Noelle, watching them from Asriel’s bed. Still scarred. The fur hasn’t started to grow back.

“Noelle, I’m—”

“What you did,” Noelle interrupts, “was wrong, and scary. The bad kind of scary. But what Asriel said was—also wrong, I think. Because he said you’re a human, and—Kris, whatever happened between us, I swear, I know you’re not a human.”

Kris says, “Dess thought I was a rabid animal.”

“I think you have things you have to work out. But I don’t think that makes you rabid. I think it makes you a person.” Noelle offers a paw to Kris. “I’ve been—thinking. And. This entire trip, I was thinking, I just want to find Dess. And I did. And she was dead. Except—she left us. Both of us. And that was wrong of her. And so was calling you rabid. Kris, you aren’t…I’ve never seen you more like the you I remember than when we were in the Dark World.”

They place their paw in Noelle’s. Their paw is shaped like a human hand, when it should be furry, rounder, tipped with their nails. Their pawpads thick and dark. But Noelle squeezes it anyways.

“I’m not that Kris anymore,” Kris says. “That was a lie. I’m not a monster.”

“You’re not a human, either,” Noelle says.

It’s not perfect. Noelle says you’re not a human, but she still says stand up. Says wear this seatbelt. Says do these things that make you feel as un-Kris-like as possible.

But she’s offering, here. Her throat is scarred with Kris’s teeth, and she is offering.

“I’m sorry,” Kris says, quietly. Knocks their head against Noelle’s, keeping it ducked low, covering her throat but keeping their own exposed. “I love you.”

She scratches their head and misses their ears. “I love you too, Kris.”

That night Kris stands from their bed and steps onto the floor. In Asriel’s bed Noelle and Susie are both asleep, curled close together. Not how they started—but how they are, now.

Through the open door they can hear the faint sounds of Asriel talking, a one-sided conversation. “I’m just so worried about them, Mom. I think—I just. They’re acting like an animal. Like they’re four, not fourteen. Like—and then I think, is this my fault? I was supposed to protect them. I let them keep pretending. It’s not—you and Dad didn’t know, not like I did, not how…how much they really didn’t understand they were a human.”

Kris digs Dess’s postcard out of Noelle’s bag. Pauses, for a moment. Looks back at Noelle and Susie sleeping.

They could wake them. Or, wake Noelle, at the very least. Paw at her side, whine Noelle, explain maybe Dess gave up on me, but I won’t give up on her.

Asriel says, “I’m scared they’re going to end up like Dess.”

Kris grits their teeth, and turns their back on their friends. They paw open the window, taste stale city air on their tongue. The blade of their knife presses against the side of their leg.

And then they’re out, a coyote slipping through the streets.

In this body they don’t have teeth. But they have their knife, and they have their wits, and it’s wrong, this body, no matter what anybody else tells them. They know what they look like. They know what they are.

They plunge their knife into the ground like teeth around their brother’s arm, and let darkness drag them down.

This Dark World is goopy.

Like tar trying to drag them down even further. Each step is fighting against it, yanking their paws up and out. They can’t run, really, and their fur is heavy with sludge, but they press on anyways. In the fall they lost Dess’s postcard and that’s…good. They think. The air is dead and stale but there’s—a hint of hope.

Kris’s tail—their real, solid tail—wags.

They can press though anything like this. Coyote, sure and true as anything else: because in this world they can be themself, and so with a bark of delight they charge, dragging the goop with them and running anyways.

“They were all wrong!” Kris howls to the world. It’s empty everywhere, but they don’t care—because here their body is right. Here they have their teeth and ears and tail and paws, and Kris yaps as though they are a puppy again, rolling onto their back, splashing through the mud.

Their knife isn’t a knife, here, but that doesn’t mean it’s not with them—it’s the way their teeth glint white, their sharp points. It’s the tips of their nails, a final resort.

It’s Kris. All Kris.

Onwards they head. Through the goop, following hope. The goop is nothing on them—they are light and so are their steps, and eventually they can break into that easy run, so fast nothing can pull them down. Somewhere here is Dess, they know. Somewhere here is Dess, and they will see her, and wag their tail, and bark look, look, it’s me! Kris! and Dess will say I was wrong, firebrand, and embrace them, and together they’ll see Noelle and Susie and Asriel and everyone.

‘Cause Kris is right like this. Another delighted bark, and they’re on the hunt.

They find Dess near the fountain.

It’s weird, almost. They cut the slit between their worlds, yet the fountain was not where they landed. But Dess is there, and so Kris barks her name, Dess! one sound, full of light and joy and family.

She doesn’t look exactly how they remember her, taller a bit and not standing like she did, all proud, but it’s been a while so that makes sense. Kris slows as they approach her, to an easy trot, yapping, as though they are a puppy, looking up at Dess and wagging their tail, “Dess!”

She doesn’t turn to face them. Kris tilts their head. “Dess? Are you there?”

They take another step forwards, lifting a paw to bump against Dess’s knee, and she—

Melts. Like—

Kris trips backwards and the goop rises up, into Dess, around Dess, until it is Dess, not a monster but something very much like a Darkner. She is—kinda a deer, but not a deer-monster, a deer like the ones Kris saw dead on the highway. Her eyes are glassy and stare at nothing. She’s larger than any deer, much larger, two or three of them tall, and the goop drips black at joints where it doesn’t connect right, a leg too far from the chest, an eye blinking on her shoulder. Around her paws are tendrils of that goop, keeping her stuck-in-place, and Kris feels something moving across their back, so they spin and bite.

The goop tastes like—blood. Metallic and sharp but gritty, too, the kind of grit that sticks in the teeth, coats the mouth, the kind of grit like dust.

“Dess,” Kris whimpers, paws scrabbling at the ground. Dess is—is—

Not looking. Looking means intent. But those glassy eyes do not leave their pelt.

“Dess,” Kris whines, “Dess, Dess, it’s me. It’s Kris.” They wag their tail, and Dess—

A hoof comes down on them; tendrils grab at their paws. Kris yowls and throws themself to the side, skidding hard against the ground, which is sharp now that it’s not covered in goop. Blood drips red from their cheek but they move anyways, ignoring the sting of pain.

“Dess!” Kris says, and this time they dodge the attack, shooting forwards and underneath Dess before she can get them, spinning once they’re on her other side. From back here Dess has spikes sticking out from her back, like a spine stretched out, elongated. Her head twists enough so that Kris hears a crack.

“Dess,” Kris repeats.

“Going to destroy her it everyone everything it all the world the teeth the fangs,” and Dess keeps talking even as she attacks Kris again, and it’s her voice, Dess’s voice, but so fast it’s like she’s not breathing. Another hoof, which Kris avoids only for one of those spikes to get them right in the chest, and Kris can’t—can’t—

It’s—

Heart shuddering and beating but it can’t, lungs heaving in air even through the holes that puncture them. The spike retracts and it’s like needles, stuck to catch worse when it leaves. Kris yowls, whines, can hardly see. There’s a hole in their chest there’s a—a—

“Dess!” Her name is barely more than a cough. “Dess. Dess it’s me. Dess it’s Kris. Firebrand. We—you—I—”

Hoof. Kris can’t move fast enough to avoid it. This time the crack is from them. They can’t feel their forepaws. They—have to—gotta move, gotta, hafta, need—

“Dess,” Kris says. “I’m not a goat. I’m not a monster. But I’m me. I’m me, I’m me, I’m me.”

“RABID.” Dess’s voice booms, her hoof grinding Kris into the ground. Her head swings down, both those glassy eyes staring right at Kris. They’re—and Kris wants to sob because those are Dess’s eyes, medium-brown and always alive, except now they’re dull and lifeless and still they stare. “Destroyer of worlds down the path knife in hand proceed repeats getting her killed dragging her down a coyote that hunts rips tears apart the good the love spreads disease put down destroy exterminate.”

“I’m not,” Kris chokes. Dess’s breath is decaying rot. Their fur is matted red at their chest. “I’m not.”

They’re not really speaking the words. They’re never speaking, really, in the Dark World, but they bark and their friends know their language. But here they are flat on the ground, and they are submitting. Saying I give up. Saying I’m sorry.

They aren’t rabid, they aren’t, but Dess pushes them down, and Kris can’t feel their ears, their paws, their tail, can’t feel anything but the shuddering of their heart, the way their breaths catch and choke.

“I’m Kris,” they manage, as one of those spines pierces through their snout, pins it to the ground. They can hardly see through the red in their eyes. Dess’s watch them uncaring. Help. Please. Someone. “I’m Kris. I’m—”

“RABID.” Dess’s voice is the world. She slams her other hoof down, and Kris—Kris the coyote, Kris the coyote please, because they’ll never be a monster but they can have this, they have to have this—

The last thing they see is a human hand.

“—s! Kris, wake up!”

The world is bright. Far too bright. Everything hurts like a knife stabbing their gut. But they blink. Blink again, to make sure their vision is working.

Ralsei is in front of them, his hands awash with healing magic he’s pressing into their sides. “Kris! Oh, thank the prophecy, Kris, you’re alive!”

“Ralsei?”

“I found you like this,” Ralsei says, “you were—there was this Darkner near you, this huge, huge deer-thing, and you were bleeding, there was so much blood, and—well, it ignored me so I ran up and I dragged you all the way over here and I thought you were dead.”

“How are you…”

Ralsei’s paws press more magic against their chest. It—settles. Kris tries swallowing. A bit better. “I can follow you into Dark Worlds, remember? I felt you being hurt. Where’s Susie? Noelle? What happened?”

Kris tries to struggle to their paws, but their limbs don’t bend right so they stay there slumped on the ground. “I—Dess. Azzy said—but she wasn’t dead. I knew. So I was. I wanted to find her. But. But she.”

“…that was Dess,” Ralsei guesses.

Kris nods. Their head feels—weird. So does their neck. They can hardly feel the way their fur moves. “You saved my life.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I did,” Ralsei says. He hasn’t stopped touching them, still casting healing spell after healing spell. It’s—warm. Kris leans into it. “I was—really scared, Kris. Why didn’t you get Susie or Noelle? They could’ve helped.”

“Had to,” Kris coughs. “Had to show Asriel. All of them. They were wrong.” With the healing now they feel a bit better, better enough to try standing again. They do, and—

And.

That’s not their paw.

“What.” Kris shakes their paw. It remains, stubbornly, a human hand. They spin around, and—no fur. No tail, and their ears are—no, no, no, but if they’re—and those are their clothes from the Light World, but Ralsei is here so this is the Dark World, why don’t they—

“Ralsei,” Kris demands, grabbing him by the shoulders, which they can do, with their wrong-hands, not the paws they have, the paws they have, because they’re a coyote and it’s true. “Ralsei. Why do I look wrong. Where is my—why do I—Ralsei, what’s happening? I’m not—but—I’m—”

He holds them tight, and says, against their shoulder, “I don’t know.”

“But it’s wrong,” Kris says, and then, again, louder, “it’s wrong! Asriel said I’m a human and he’s wrong! Dess said I’m rabid and she’s wrong! I’m a coyote, I’m, I have to be, I—I—”

Ralsei doesn’t let them go. “I’m sorry,” he says, “sometimes—sometimes the world is like that. It says you’re one thing. Even if you thought you weren’t.”

“But I’m a coyote,” Kris’s voice cracks. “Right?”

Ralsei’s breathing is shaky. His claws curl into their thin human skin and they shouldn’t feel it. They have thick fur. “I don’t know,” he repeats, “I’m sorry, Kris. I just don’t know. Things should be—we should be—but we aren’t.”

“It’s wrong,” Kris says, “it’s wrong. It’s wrong.”

“The prophecy isn’t ever wrong,” Ralsei says, and it’s the least comforting thing Kris has ever heard.

In the back of their mind, they think Ralsei knows it too.

“You’re all in trouble when we get home,” Asriel says. “Everyone’s pissed.”

“Okay,” Noelle says. They’re not even in Dad’s truck. It can’t fit all four of them, so Asriel is borrowing his roommate’s car, who is out on a trip for his major and thus doesn’t need it. It’s a nice car, really. Red sports car. Comfortable seats.

Asriel had Kris sit up in the front with him. Yanked their seatbelt over their chest like they were a child.

Noelle and Susie don’t know about Dess, about the Dark World. Ralsei does, but Kris asked can we not tell anyone?

Ralsei had stared at them. They couldn’t read his gaze. Let’s keep this between us, was his answer, and Kris thinks he meant more. More than just-Dess.

But it sits in their chest.

“Everyone good?” Asriel asks.

The yes’s that Susie and Noelle give are quiet. Kris turns their head to stare out the window.

Dess is still down there. Forever down there. Alive-but-not. Saw them and ripped their body away. Saw them and continued to say rabid.

Like she never once saw Kris.

Asriel peels out of the parking garage. Discarded in an alley street they pass on the way out of the city Kris sees a coyote, glassy-eyed, staring at nothing. Chest matted with old blood.

I’m not a human.

But they left the Dark World in a human body. They exist in the Light World in a human body.

Not human, but their voice is wavering.

They are crushing their tail. It has only ever been a phantom.