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The dim light of the Dunes outside barely made their way into Dina’s saloon, casting a kind of orange glow that she had grown accustomed to with her time living in the Wild East. The only difference this time is that there wasn’t any noise outside of a gentle breeze outside to accompany it.
Dina was currently sitting on the other side of the bar, tightly gripping a mug that had just been emptied of its contents. Instead of refilling it, she just left it be. Staring at the inside of the empty mug as though it would fill itself back up. She tilted it to one side, watching the few remaining drops pool at one end at the bottom. Then she titled it to the other, watching it fall to the opposite side. With each noise, the wood of the bar and wood made a gentle clack as they clashed together.
Her hands rested against the countertop of the bar, her nails gently scratching against the wood, not caring if splinters or sawdust got stuck underneath them. It helped fill the absence of noise, which made her mouth feel dry. But she remained seated, unable to muster up the will to move or even attempt to refill her mug.
The silence was deafening. What was once a lively saloon, filled with patrons of all sorts and antics beyond her wildest dreams… now lie practically abandoned. Her snakes slithered around her neck, with Ann gently sliding down her arm and onto the wooden countertop and aimlessly looking across the whole saloon before resting their gaze on Dina once more. Carefully, Dina brushed the top of Ann’s body.
“...’s okay, Ann.” Dina said quietly, voice slightly uneven. “...Ya don’t gotta be afraid.”
It was clear she didn’t believe her own words. Empty sayings to try and calm herself, to control her fears. But they’re empty for a reason. Her heart rate was faster than usual, fear lining every inch of her body as she waited. She tried to swallow, but the lack of saliva made it difficult to do so, instead letting out a huff of hot air.
When the mail came in a few hours ago, a rather sudden letter at that, she almost couldn’t believe what she had read. Details of a human arriving in Snowdin, wreaking havoc and gunning down any monsters they had the unfortunate displeasure of fighting. Monsters were asked to evacuate. To head to safety at the earliest possible convenience so they wouldn’t have to face the human.
Dina’s scratching sped up at the thought. She scooched forward in her chair, straightening her back and looking around to try and take her mind off of things.
She recalls so many fond memories of this place. Every moment where the Feisty Five burst into the Saloon, yelling out their adventures to the spectators above while on stage. Every spat they had was eventually cleared up and they were right as rain once more up until the next one. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes it was a fast recovery, sometimes it was slow. It worried her sometimes, sure, but it eventually got better.
Not this time. Most of them had already evacuated.
She recalls every night Ceroba stayed in the saloon too late, drowning her sorrows away in various beverages causing Star to come and pick her up. How the two’s antics often brought a smile to the saloon that simply couldn’t be filled by anything else. Star with his over the top attitude and enthusiasm. Ceroba being more reserved and trying to keep him from doing anything too rash. Sometimes, she thought of the two as inseparable. They were childhood friends after all. Nothing can separate that kind of bond.
Or at least. So she thought. Ceroba had already left to make sure everyone evacuated safely. Starlo foolishly decided to stay behind.
Dina tried. She really did. But his stubbornness just really showed no limits, didn’t it? So desperately, she tried to get him to leave. Using just about every single excuse or reason she could think of to get him to just go and keep his life. But he stayed. So she did too. If she died because of it. So be it.
Her gaze went past the doors leading outside of the Saloon. Unfortunately, Star was obscured by the small tower with the bell in the center. She can imagine him looking at the bell with his back turned towards the entrance of the Wild East, just waiting for the human to rear their ugly head.
Her eye twitched, simply raising her mug to take another sip only to remember that it was already emptied. She set it back down with an audible click as wood met wood. She pressed her hands together, hoping that, somehow, Star would somehow either win or see that it was futile. Just as she had, however, another noise began to fill the air. It was distant, but noticeable.
Footsteps. Calm and even.
The human was here.
Dina’s gaze fell once more to her hands, eyes wide as she heard North Star begin to speak, the wind carrying faint echoes of his voice into the saloon. She couldn’t make out the exact words, but somehow she knew exactly what he was saying. Trying to build himself up as something great, as someone who could take on the unjust human. Trying to challenge them to a ‘dual’. A notion she knew was coming, but one she didn’t want to accept. Her heart pounded in her ears as she stared down at Ann, moving their hand and scratching their head with one finger.
Then finally, after it went quiet for a moment, she saw Star once again. Now visible as he moved away from the bell tower’s obstruction, the doors to the saloon being just low enough for her to see him. The human followed suit on the other side, the two separated by it from her perspective. This was it. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t muster up the will to look away from what was happening.
The two slowly took steps away from one another with their backs facing each other. Ten paces each, before turning to look back at one another dead in the eyes, a hand each near their respective holsters.
Draw.
Dina’s eyes widened. Star had raised his hand faster, as a thunderous CRACK of a gunshot rang out throughout the town as the gun remained steady in his hand. She set her hands on the bar table. “ No… ” Her voice shook.
Star couldn’t do it. He shot first, but the bullet wasn’t lethal. It was a dummy round, bouncing off the human’s forehead. She could see it only vaguely from a distance, but that was all she needed to know. Because the human was still standing.
Then the human raised their gun, shooting Star in the chest as another CRACK filled the air.
Dina immediately shot up from her seat, mortified. But her legs wouldn’t move past where she stood, paralyzed with fear. She was forced to watch as Star collapsed onto one knee, the human staring at them. She couldn’t see their expression, completely obscured by the hat they wore.
She was forced to watch as Ceroba returned, only to see her childhood friend in such a state. Forced to watch as the two held hands, Ceroba trying desperately to cling onto him to keep him from death.
But the both of them are forced to watch Starlo turn to dust in front of them, his dust getting swept away in the wind.
It’s one thing to hear about monsters being murdered. It’s one thing to empathize with someone losing someone important. Now Dina finally understood just how it felt to watch someone important to her get murdered. Right in front of her own eyes.
And yet she couldn’t cry. The tears threatened to let loose, but they didn’t. Noises began to erupt from outside, but Dina finally ripped her eyes away from the carnage. Her heart ached as she heard blasts of magic and heavy bangs of gunfire, guilt seeping into her as it was almost certain that Ceroba had begun fighting the human out of pure rage.
She could physically feel Ceroba’s anger from here. She reciprocated it. But she couldn’t do anything about it. She didn’t have the means of fighting back. Not like those two did. Her gaze returned to her empty mug, staring at it as the battle outside continued. The place she once called home no longer felt like it. It was ravaged, turned upside down because of the human’s presence alone.
Even as she sat there, she could only wonder why. Everything in life was going just fine, only for everything to crash in an instant because of one human.
Starlo was gone. Even though she saw it with her own eyes, it felt impossible to comprehend. Her mind wandered over and over, desperately clinging onto any single piece of hope that still remained. Any excuse, any reason to maybe, hopefully, figure out a way to convince herself that Starlo survived and that it was all just a bad dream.
A bad dream she could awaken from. One where none of this ever happened, where she could go back to the saloon in reality and serve people like she usually did, staying late with Ceroba and having nice chats despite the fox woman being tipsy or near blackout drunk. Always having to hide her laughter from Starlo and his posse whenever something funny happened. Sure, it had gotten predictable, but that didn’t mean she disliked it.
But this was reality. None of that can ever happen again now. Her hand gripped the handle of her mug tighter and tighter, but not tight enough. Her other two snakes, Sammy and Bert, slid down her arms, coiling themselves around her as if trying to comfort her. She sharply inhaled, quietly speaking to them, “ It’s okay, Sammy. It’s okay, Bert. ”
“ I’m okay… ” She said, her voice quivering.
…
She didn’t know exactly how long it had been, any sense of time having fully left her as her mind gradually spiraled downwards. But at some point the ruckus of battle— the cries of harm, the arcane sounds of Ceroba’s spells and every gunshot from the human’s gun that kept growing louder and louder every time she heard it go off— all of what was happening outside had finally stopped.
She didn’t even dare bother looking up at this point, out of fear of what she’d see. On the one hand, Ceroba could have won. The human would be dead. It was believable, she knew Ceroba was strong. Stronger than anyone else she knew, in fact.
But on the other hand, Ceroba could be dust. She didn’t want to find out if that was the case. Part of her knew it was the right answer anyway. She didn’t want to believe it, to not trust her own brain telling herself what she thought the answer was. Her breathing tried to remain steady, but everything going on outside made it increasingly hard to stay that way.
Then she heard the doors to the saloon swing open, audibly creaking. Against her better judgment, against every flag in her head that told her not to, she tilted her gaze upwards to see which one of them had made it out alive. Even though part of her knew what to expect, her heart still sank at what she saw.
Standing at the entrance of the bar, leaning against the door with ragged breaths, scrappy clothes and spots of blood mixed with the dust of various monsters, was the human. Dina’s hand tightened. Of course they survived. She glared at them, but otherwise said nothing.
So, this was it then. Were they going to kill her too? No witnesses and all that? Her hand still ran along her pet snakes, much less so to comfort them than just for herself by now. Upon seeing the human, damaged but still alive, any sense of fear from before had vanished almost completely. In its place was pure, unadulterated anger.
Even so, she held her tongue. Not because she wanted to, but because there was simply too much to process for her to even begin trying to say anything to the freakshow standing before her. She couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of surprise as the human walked in. It was almost like they didn’t even see her to begin with.
She watched as they slowly approached the front of the bar, hopping over it after a moment of trouble as their foot got caught on the wooden countertop. Seeing them in this state wasn’t gratifying. Even though she knows they murdered her friends, it didn’t satisfy them to see them like that.
In her eyes, the human before her should be dead. No buts about it. They deserve the fate they’ve been giving to the monsters they come across. And now they had the gall to run in here and raid her bar. But it wasn’t like she could stop them. If she tried, it’s all but guaranteed she’d get a bullet right between her eyes.
So instead? She just watched. Glaring at the human the whole time as they raided her saloon like some kind of heartless thief, searching under the counter, off to the sides, anywhere they could get their hands on all the while they were mucking up the place, scattering dust and whatever else was clinging to their clothes. It was absolutely despicable.
The human seemed to finish up fairly quickly, all things considered. Figures they wouldn’t give any passing glances to anything here. Although she couldn’t find it in herself to smile, she was glad that was the case, since they seemed to think it wasn’t worth ransacking her home any further than they already had. Though where they were going after this, she didn’t know. Nor did she care at this point.
Just as it would seem like they were about to carry on their way, they stopped dead in their tracks. Slowly, they turned around. Their gaze may have been hidden underneath their hat, but Dina knew they were staring directly at her. They finally realized she was there. Was she really that forgettable to them? Even after causing such a massacre, they still had the gall to ignore certain monsters?
Was it just convenient to them? Or did they only bother attacking those that could attack back? Desperately, she tried to come up with something, anything, to explain the human’s thought process. Maybe they thought of it as heroic. As a deed that needed to be done, regardless of whoever got in their way. How sickening.
She remained still as the human began to approach, the wood underneath them creaking slightly as they did so. Dina’s hand clenched once more, keeping her gaze away from them. “...I ain’t gonna make you a drink if that’s what you want.” She spat, anger evident in every word.
The human stopped dead in their tracks, not saying a word. Dina inhaled, dust-contaminated air filling her lungs, almost causing her to cough. But she bit it back.
“I know what you did.” She continued quietly. “...naive fool… I tried to warn him.”
The corners of the human’s mouth turned downwards, almost grimacing. Dina didn’t bother wondering why. “... And Ceroba? She lost to you?” Dina hissed, setting her elbows up on the wooden bar counter and digging her nails into them, unamused and not bothering to hide her distaste. “You must be feelin’ real lucky.”
Dina slowly shook her head, eyebrows furrowing as her fingers traced the lip of the empty mug. “I have nothin’ but hate runnin’ through me, but I know I wouldn’t stand a chance.” She seethed, emotion returning to her in full force. “So here I am, cooped up while everyone else…” She trailed off, expression faltering into sorrow for only a moment.
The saloon went quiet once more. Part of her was just waiting for them to raise their gun. To point it at her and fire. But that moment never came, the human’s presence instead making her feel queasier the longer they stood there. “Look. If you’re not going to kill me, let me mourn my family in peace.”
But even after that, the human remained standing. What did they even want at this point? To gloat? Dina’s expression contorted as anger finally took the forefront, turning to stare at the human in the eyes. At least, had they not been obstructed by their hat, “Star might’ve only been a target to you but… He was more of a hero than you’ll ever be. Now… Get out of my saloon. ”
The human had seemed to get the message. Even though they didn’t react, they did turn away and begin to walk out of the saloon. Dina’s gaze never left the human as they walked away, even after they had passed through the door again and out into the rest of the town. It took a while for the human to finally disappear.
And then… there she was.
All alone again. Staring down at her hands. A few tiny pieces of dust having landed on them from the wind carrying them. She didn’t know whether it was Starlo’s or Ceroba’s.
The dim light of the Dunes outside barely made their way into Dina’s saloon, casting a dark blue hue into the saloon. By now, it would’ve been considered after hours for her.
The only difference this time is that there wasn’t any noise at all. Not even a gentle breeze.
The silence was deafening…
…
Her hands were shaking, breath hitching in her throat as tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.
…
She gently rested her head on the desk as her nails dug into her scalp, her snakes resting beside her.
…
And she began to cry.