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There was a pile of dust here once, right between where Snowdin meets Waterfall.
It’s gone now. Undyne is sure Sans got to it before she did, and that’s his right as family. She can’t ask him about it now, of course: for whatever reasons of his own, he decided to leave for the ruins with the softhearted former queen.
Humans. As their friends. Hilarious. Papyrus decided to try to be friends with a human, and this is what that got him: a swift end. No more friends, no more puzzles, no more Papyrus.
Perhaps some dust remains here, mixed with the snow. Perhaps that makes it worth Undyne leaving the palace, when she has the time to in between training new members of the royal guard, and coming here, to this spot.
Undyne doesn’t know what Sans mixed the bulk of his brother’s dust with. A puzzle he was exceptionally proud of, maybe, or a book: she remembers him leaving their training early more than once in order to be home in time for Sans to read him a bedtime story. His set of action figures, or a plate of spaghetti. It could have been anything. It could have been everything.
Papyrus loved everything.
Undyne comes here to be with the remains of Papyrus. He never set up an answering machine for himself, since he could always be counted on to pick up the phone, and so his voice is lost to her. But she can be where he was, in his last moments, and that counts for a little. Not much.
She can’t come often. There are guards to train, and battle plans to make, and between those there are monsters in need of support and guidance as their empress. She knows they should be first on her mind, but it’s hard to see past her rage, sometimes.
Papyrus... would not have loved what she’s doing now.
She knows that. She knows that, even if it’s on some subconscious level that’s hard for her to pull up.
Sometimes she needs the reminder.
Sometimes she needs to sit down in the snow and think of what Papyrus might say to her, if he could say anything at all. He might say something like “Undyne, obviously your first priority should be to feed the people! Training the guards can wait until later. It’s not as if there are any humans here right now. You’re a great cook, so I know you can do it!”
She’s a terrible cook and she knows it, but Papyrus thought she was great at almost everything.
Undyne doesn’t want to disappoint him. But she also can’t keep herself from avenging him, and Asgore, and Alphys, and everyone she loved. That’s not the kind of monster she is. It never will be.
Even if Papyrus believed in her until the very end, he’s gone now, anyway. He isn’t here to scold her, no matter how effective that might have been. He’s gone for good.
These visits to Snowdin never work as well as she would like.