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The glimmering crystals embedded in Waterfall’s ceiling cast a cool light. Glittering and winking at the world below, they throw rich greens and blues dancing across the space. It’s beautiful, in a way that Chara finds calming as much as they find it melancholy. They can see why Asriel drags them here so much, why the other monsters have taken to wishing on the stones. There’s nowhere else in the Underground like it.
A trickle of water echoes through the room, sounding larger than it is in this enclosed space. Further down are intense, rushing currents that roar so loudly Chara wants to cover their ears when they get too close. If they close their eyes and stand near a waterfall, they’re transported somewhere they don’t want to be: Trudging along the side of a highway, just out of sight in the trees. Cars roaring carelessly by, the wind whipping their hair into their eyes as they maintain their course towards the lonely mountain peak ahead.
Today, Chara and Asriel have settled at the edge of the wishing room, feet dangling in warm, running water. They’ve both rolled up their pant legs and Chara’s discarded a pair of worn brown loafers and socks by their side. It’s humid, and Chara has to tie back the hair at the nape of their neck with a small length of ribbon Toriel gave them. They’ll cut their hair soon, despite Asriel’s protests that it looks nice when it grows out.
Asriel sits by their side, hunched over three stalks of long thin grasses. They’ve been carefully stripped from a stand of water sausages growing in the shallows. He’s trying to weave a braid, Chara generously holding the far ends still and taut for him. His fuzzy little hands are clumsy, tongue sticking out in concentration as he furrows his brow. His hands aren’t built quite like Chara’s, already bigger than theirs. Already less articulated for fine motor movements and more suited to friendly pats on shoulders and heads and someday— wielding large spears and scepters. But Asriel doesn’t like to think about that, Chara knows. Every once in a while, his short puff of a tail twitches in annoyance. But he maintains an admirable focus.
“At school yesterday, someone said that my name is funny.” Asriel breaks the comfortable silence. His voice is injected with the feigned casual tone that he uses to disguise his true feelings. Lest he be a crybaby.
“Who?” Chara asks, eyes narrowing.
“Just someone,” he replies. His fingers wobble and nearly tear the fine green leaf in his hands. “It’s nothing to worry about, really! I just…never realized my name is just Mom and Dad’s names smushed together.”
Chara gazes up at a cluster of stones sparkling above them. “Your name sounds good. It suits you.”
He instantly perks up, “You really think so?”
They nod, and it goes quiet again for long enough to make them believe that’s the end of it.
But then Asriel asks: “Where did your name come from?”
“Mmm,” they hum distantly, still looking away from him. The grasses go itchy in their grasp. “I’m named after a star. It’s from the constellation Canes Venatici. It’s sometimes called the Hunting Dogs.”
“Whoooa! That’s so cool!” He sets the braid in his lap, not noticing how it unwinds a bit at the ends. “I bet real stars are so awesome!”
“They are,” Chara agrees, finally looking into his wide brown eyes. “You should see them someday,” they frown and release the braid themself to gesture at the ceiling. “They’re much better than this. You would not believe it.”
“Oh, c’mon! The wishing room is awesome. Even you like it!” He gives a playful shove to their shoulder and they lurch to one side before swaying back and crashing into him in retaliation.
Chara reaches down and flicks a fallen pebble at his head, watching him shake with laughter as he ducks out of its path. They say, “I can like the wishing room while believing something else is better!”
“You must really like stars, huh?”
“I do.”
“Did your parents like them, too? If they named you after one.”
Chara freezes.
They thought Asriel would know better by now. And maybe he does. He seems to realize his mistake immediately, his hands swiftly covering his mouth like he’d said something foul. Because, he kind of did. But it had been so blissfully, innocently absent-minded.
It was simple curiosity, and Chara knows it would be easy to correct him. They chose their name themself. It’s the only name that matters. Their true name. It has nothing to do with anyone on the surface. But Chara’s jaw locks shut.
Their fingers worm slowly into the marshy soil as if it can keep them from floating away. As if it can ground them to their body. They dig slowly down, down, until they find the root system of a small tuft of sprouting wetland grasses. They uproot it wordlessly. They’re shallow and give easily in the moist earth. Chara’s usual methodical movements are stilted, pulling each white strand from the dark soil. And then they tear through the foliage, ripping it like a letter they never want Asriel to read. Knowing he’s watching, flooded with the same discomfort he always is when they go quiet like this. When he knows he’s done something wrong.
He’s gearing up to say something else, mouth ajar and fingers fidgeting. He’ll spew out hurried sentences clarifying that of course, Chara is part of his family now. Of course, his parents are Chara’s parents. Of course, he knows that they don’t like to talk about their life on the surface or anyone they knew before. Of course, they don’t have to! Of course, he’s sorry. Of course, of course, of course.
Chara can feel his gaze on them, and it makes their skin feel prickly and sweaty and bad.
Finally, they push the pile of ruined grass into the water and watch as it’s carried away from them both. A serene smile blooms across their face and they close their eyes. “The humans who gave birth to me never gave me anything, much less my name.”
//
The next day is a quiet day. Chara’s moodiness billows like a dark cloud consuming their lonely figure. In the morning, they try hiding in the garden. But Asriel finds them. They try slinking back to their room in the castle, but Asriel finds them. They finally give up and read quietly in the living room, where —at least if they lay on their stomach and face the crackling fireplace— they can pretend they can’t sense Asriel hovering on the room’s fringes. Toriel hums distantly in the kitchen, and Asgore works in the garden. Chara would join them, but the effort it would take to speak or engage is too much to imagine. And they don’t want to worry them, not anymore. Not if they can help it. They don’t have school today at least, and Chara is determined to get as far into this book as possible before Toriel calls them to set the table for dinner.
Asriel seems to have finally gotten the memo, because they actually do forget about him for a long time. Whatever he’s doing, it’s silent and unobtrusive. And Chara makes decent headway into the book before the fire’s warmth lulls them to sleep. They startle awake to the feeling of a knit blanket being spread gently over them, and for a moment they expect to see the towering figure of one of their adoptive parents. But it’s—
“Oh,” Asriel whispers, withdrawing his hands meekly. He’s kneeling by their side, the dying fire’s glow setting the ends of his fur aglow in a warm orange. “Sorry, I just— you fell asleep and I thought— sorry.”
“...thank you.”
This alone is invitation enough. He flops down by Chara’s side with his own book —so that’s what he’s been doing— and quietly opens it back up to the right page. Chara recognizes it. They’d finished it last year, and while they knew it was age appropriate for the ten year old they were at the time, it hadn’t felt challenging enough. Then again, if their parents knew everything in this book they found in the garbage dump, they’d probably take it away until Chara was older. And so far, Chara likes Banana Yoshimoto’s work too much to risk that. Still, the book Asriel reads now has its own charms: The adventures of two kids in a magical treehouse. Chara supposes it’s a good selection for him. They yawn and feign opening the book and reading for a moment before—
“When certain stars catastrophically explode, they become really small and dense,” Chara says, eyes fixed on the waning fire. The blanket pulled up around their shoulders makes them look even smaller, more frail than usual. “Then, they spin rapidly and emit radiation blasts that can be detected from Earth.” It’s like a lighthouse, spinning until a jet of light falls across the earth and sends scientists scrambling to their instruments. But they know if they say that, he’ll just ask what a lighthouse is.
“Radiation?” he asks instead.
“It’s a kind of energy,” they say simply. “They call these stars pulsars.”
“Pulsars,” he repeats slowly, rolling the word around in his mouth like he can taste it.
“There’s also binary stars,” they fold their arms over each other on the floor and rest their head on them. They tilt their face to look at him next to them.
Asriel mirrors them, laying down and turning on his side so he can get a good look at them. It’s hard for him, Chara knows, when they retreat and get quiet for a long while. And even when a bout is triggered by something he’s done, they try their best not to dip into the ugly human part of them that wants to lash out at him for it.
Sometimes they fail.
But they try.
And today, his patience is rewarded.
Chara continues, “They’re two stars that are really close. So close that their gravity pulls them together, and they circle one another.”
“Ooooh,” he nods sagely. Their teacher just taught them about gravity last year. They’d all had to build something to protect a raw egg from a high drop, and Asriel’s homemade contraption of a paper bag and sewing scraps hadn’t worked. It’d left him in tears to see the yolk smeared across the inside of the thing when the teacher retrieved it. He says, “Binary stars sound cool! They get to be together forever.”
Chara blows a strand of hair from their eyes and tries not to sound too harsh, “Even stars die.”
“No way!”
“They do. Of the stars visible from the surface, many are already dead. We just don’t know which yet because it takes so long for their light to reach us. So it’s like looking into the past. Like time travel.”
Asriel blinks owlishly like he thinks they’re making it up, but is either too polite or too afraid to say so. “Time travel isn’t real.”
“I didn’t say that it was!” They almost smile despite themself, eyes growing heavy again. They stifle a yawn. “I said it was like time travel.”
They don’t want to say it, but being around forever sounds torturous anyways. Even stars don’t want to do it. It sounds tiring, being alive day after day after day after day. Forever is far too long for the fleeting bursts of joy that would stitch it all together. There isn’t enough of it in this world to be worth it. Even the sky is a graveyard. And why should this world be cursed by the presence of a human who lives forever? What did it do to deserve such a thing, anyways? A human can do enough damage in a short set of years.
I certainly can, they think. They flex their hands into tight little fists as if they can hold the memories at bay, but it’s already begun: A simple joke gone awry, the buttercup’s sallow little petals sinking innocently into the batter, laughter cut short.
Chara feels queasy, and something bubbles up their throat like bile. It’s a shrill peal of the kind of manic laughter that they hate. And they nearly choke on their own spit trying to swallow it.
“Being with my friends and family forever would be great,” Asriel sighs, something sleepy stealing across his face too now. “Hey, Chara?”
“Hmm?”
“We’re best friends forever, right?”
He’s always said that they are. Chara’s never bothered to correct him. It’s always easier to hum noncommittally. Forever is a rotten hypothetical, a blessed impossibility. Chara takes a deep breath, fluttering their tired eyes closed so they can have a moment to think without having to meet Asriel’s waiting gaze. To be trapped on this planet forever, with no respite from the evils and injustices that will always be wrought by humankind? Or worse, to spend an eternity with people they love —someday happy, someday free— but completely undeserving of such a fate? And besides, forever is more than long enough for the Dreemurrs to realize they’re sick of Chara, that they’ve made a mistake. That a human never belonged here in the first place. That humans are only good for one thing: Destruction. Parasitic and vile. (A recipe read incorrectly —buttercups/cups of butter. A failure to correct their adoptive brother’s mistake. It was a joke! It should’ve been SO funny! They couldn’t stop laughing. Tears ran down their face.)
Love is a trap, Chara decides. But it’s already too late for that.
They open their eyes. “I will die someday.”
It’s not what he wants to hear. His face falls dramatically, and he curls on his side and wraps his arms around his knees. He forms a perfect little ball of boss monster like this. “Then…you’ll just have to not do that.”
“Not…die?” They blink at him for a moment before a small giggle finally pops out. It’s so absurd, they actually snort a little.
Asriel pouts. “Hey! Don’t laugh!” He wiggles closer and the movement is strange, all curled up like that. It’s almost creepy-looking, like a too-big snail on its side.
Chara gives a small yelp and tries to roll away, but ends up tangled in the blanket. The sight of them all rolled up and wriggling to break free only makes Asriel break and start laughing, though. And the veil of seriousness is lifted. When Chara breaks their arms loose, they roll toward him menacingly.
“No! No, I know what you’re going to do!” Asriel shrieks, wriggling backwards, still in the fetal position. But his back is against Toriel’s reading chair and there’s nowhere else to go.
“As if you could stop me, Azzy,” comes their reply. Their hands snap out and close around his ears. They squeeze them gently, before giving them both a tug.
“OW!” Asriel exaggerates, like he always does.
Chara withdraws their hands, smiling despite themself. The blanket is twisted around their body like a knit tornado, but it’s cozy. They giggle and catch their breath, the last of the fire’s embers settling into a vivid glow. If one of them were to reach out and touch it, it would be pleasantly warm. It wouldn’t even burn. Toriel made sure of that. (Chara can’t think about it for too long— why she keeps the knives hidden when she isn’t in the kitchen, why the fire tools are blunted. What she fears they might try to do, not to anyone else. But to themself. It fills them with the churning discomfort of something like shame and they wish so dearly that humans weren’t like this. That they weren’t human at all.)
Asriel takes a deep breath and looks suddenly earnest and serious. He grasps their hands in his —something that took nearly a year to do without them flinching away on instinct— and he levels them with his huge, brown eyes. “I’ll find a way for you to stay with me forever. Just wait and see.”
It occurs to Chara that he might not understand the creeping inevitability of death. And that maybe, they don’t want him to. He’s spoken about Toriel and Asgore, about how they age as he does: They’re connected as a family. A special thing Boss Monsters share with their children, pouring two life forces into one. But does he not realize the end result? Has he really never given it thought?
“I’ll be right back!” He drops their hands and pops up to his feet with a speed that nearly makes them startle. And before they can ask any questions, he’s bounding out of the room and down the hall.
It doesn’t take long for him to return, but Chara’s already closed their eyes again. The cooler months always make them sleepy, snuggled by the fire and listening to Toriel’s humming in the kitchen. The whole room smells like a buttery, baking crust. Something sugared and spiced. Asriel plops down by Chara’s side and crosses his legs There’s something in his hands, light and rasping against his paw pads. Begrudgingly, Chara opens their eyes and sits up. But no, they will not leave their tangle of blankets.
“Here!” Asriel gently reaches out and places the object on their head. It’s the grass he’d been braiding the day before. He must’ve finished it off when Chara wasn’t in the mood to talk. It forms a little circular crown now, a clumsy loop of plant fibers tied closed in a tight knot at the back that looks suspiciously like it was done by adult hands. But Asriel looks so proud as he presents it.
Chara touches it gingerly. “You’re giving this to me?”
“Of course I am!” He huffs and plants a fist on each of his hips resolutely. “You are now officially— uh— my Royal Knight and Advisor! And as my Royal Knight and Advisor, it is your duty to stay by my side and be my bodyguard forever! I’ll make sure of it!”
It’s made up. But Chara flushes despite themself and grumbles, “That’s so stupid.”
“What?!”
“No! I mean—” they fumble for words, stroking the rough edges of the grass at their temples. Maybe forever wouldn’t be so bad after all? And maybe they don’t deserve it. Maybe screwing it all up is inevitable. But love stretches on forever, while life meets an abrupt stop. In this fleeting moment, with Asriel beaming triumphantly, something inside Chara breaks down. They can’t mess this up like they mess up everything else. “You’re always such a crybaby, you really could use my help forever. What would you do without me?”
“The Royal Knight and Advisor is not allowed to call me a crybaby!” he insists fervently.
They remove the crown. “Then I rescind my acceptance.”
“No, no! Chara stop, I was joking!”
They put the crown back on. “Well, if you insist.”
“Yes!” Asriel offers his soft hand up for a high five. He always suckers them into them, no matter how corny. Their hands meet in a snappy little motion and he cheers, “Best friends forever!”
Chara doesn’t have the heart to tell him this is a fantasy. They worry this makes them a liar, chewing at their cheek’s pink insides until they taste the tang of blood. Asriel is setting himself up for a bitter, bitter failure. They cannot orbit one another for eternity. Binary stars die, too. Just like humans, just like monsters. The only difference is—
Souls.
And just like that, Chara remembers something Asgore once said about souls. About the future of humans and monsters. Something grand and terrible clicks into place all at once. They glance over Asriel’s shoulder and out the window.
The buttercups will be flowering again soon.