Chapter Text
You let out a broken cough as you rose from where you’d fallen, spitting out grass, dust, and flower petals that had found a temporary home in your mouth when you landed. You were surprised at how softly you had hit the ground; a fall like that should have killed you, you figured as you gazed up at the entrance of the hole, which was now a tiny dot in the distance. But instead, you were left with scratches, bruises, and you were pretty sure you dislocated your arm with how bad it hurt and how it fell limp against your side.
Sitting in the odd patch of buttercups (thank the lord you hadn’t swallowed any of the petals that had gotten in your mouth!) you had landed in, you felt panic arise as you looked around for your things, finally spotting the two bags you had been carrying when you fell in. You crawled over and used your only working hand (your non-dominant hand, damn.) to open the first bag, a duffle bag that had lots of clothing, your phone plus charger, and a few other essentials inside, thankful when you saw everything was unscathed. You brought out your phone to check it, seeing many messages which you chose to blatantly ignore to check if you had any signal. None, like you expected. You placed it back into the duffle bag and closed that up before moving to the second bag.
Your heart panged as you looked at the long black bag, feeling memories resurface as you shuffled over and slowly opened it. You simply peeked into it for a second before quickly closing it and not giving much of an inspection, starting to wonder why you’d brought the contents of the bag with you in the first place.
Slowly rising to your feet, you tried to recollect your memories as you carefully picked up your bags as good as you can with only one working arm. You had been traveling up the mountain to view the scenery, and hadn't been watching where you were going, which lead to you falling down the hole.
You chose to ignore the other memories arising in your mind as you began walking down the small cave path, reaching a strange doorway leading into yet another black room.
“Howdy!”
Jumping almost a full 3 feet into the air, you came to a full stop and looked around for the source of the voice. Odd, it didn't seem like anybody was even in there with you-
“Heh, hey pal, down here!”
Your gaze dropped down and locked onto a small flower planted into a rather convenient patch of grass. You took a slight step back, trying to keep a collected manner even though you were standing in front of a fucking talking flower, with a fucking face.
“E-Er, hello..?” You cursed mentally at yourself for stuttering like that despite figuring you had a pretty good reason for it right now. The flower seemed to be swaying to an invisible beat, giving you a big grin as you greeted him. He had such a cartoony face, it was actually hard to not find him at least somewhat cute, even if this whole ordeal was rather unsettling.
“You're new to the Underground, aren’tcha? I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower!” 10 points for originality, you think with a grin you hold back to avoid offending him.
“I'm _____, nice to meetcha Flowey,” You say to him, kneeling down so you wouldn't be awkwardly staring down at him while the two of you spoke.
“Well _____, since you're new, someone needs to show you how everything works down here!” Flowey spoke with such a cheery tone it was almost suspicious. “I guess little ol’ me will just have to do!”
You felt a sudden tug on your chest, like someone had attached a string to you and was pulling you forward with a sudden feeling of emptiness accompanying it, and you suddenly shot back up onto your feet and backed away when you saw what was now in front of your chest. There was a small cartoony-looking heart, colored cyan with thin streaks of what looked like green swirling all around it. You stared at it in awe, thinking it was possibly one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen, before you came back into reality thinking what in the absolute shit is this thing? Did this come out of my chest?
“See that heart? That's your SOUL!” Flowey chirped, snapping you out of your thoughts. “It’s the very culmination of your being!” Those words made it sound as though this ‘SOUL' is something that should really be staying inside your body. You decided it would be best not to interject though. “For your SOUL to grow stronger, you need to gain LV! What's LV, you ask?” You did not actually ask but what the hell ever. “Why, LOVE of course!” Aw, how sweet, like something straight out of a cheesy romcom. This guy is spouting out originality left and right. “Down here, LOVE is shared through little white.. friendliness pellets!” Was this guy fucking serious? And what was that hesitation there? Giving you a wink, a few white things which looked an awful lot like bullets appeared from thin air beside Flowey. “You want some LOVE, don't you? Well, here you go! Catch as many as you can!” Hell no.
The little pellets came flying towards you and on instinct you dodged them, gripping onto your limp arm and watching them disipate once they passed by you. You noticed that when you dodged you had swept across the ground rather gracefully, which was odd as you were not generally a graceful person. You didn't give it a second thought though, as Flowey’s smile twisted into an irritated smirk and began to speak again.
“Hey buddy, you missed them,” He spoke, making you narrow your eyes. You wanted to speak so badly, but it was like something was holding you back, preventing you from opening your mouth and snapping your thoughts at him. This little flower was definitely up to something. “Nice moves though, you definitely fit in down here,” He snickered softly which you figured was mostly to himself, though the flower wasn't exactly good at whispering. “Well, try again!”
He sent more of those pellets your way, and again you dodged like the rule-breaker you were. This seemed to irritate the flower more.
“Are you stupid?” He hissed softly, his petals seeming to quiver in annoyance. “RUN. INTO. THE BULLETS- friendliness pellets!” Flowey’s voice quickly returned to its cheery tone, causing red flags to sprout in your mind left and right. This flower was clearly bipolar or something. He threw more bullets at you which you again gracefully dodged, which seemed to immediately piss him off as his face twisted demonically as soon as they passed by.
“You know what's going on here, don't you?” Flowey snarled at you, his petals pressed back like an angry cat’s ears would be. Well yeah you knew, it was pretty damn obvious. A ring of white bullets suddenly surrounded you and your mind immediately went into a panic. Your hold on your limp arm tightened, causing you pain that you ultimately ignored as you shrank back. “DIE!”
You squeezed your eyes shut as the bullets began to close in on you and you braced for impact, only to be met with nothing. Instead, you heard a sudden yelp from Flowey and opened your eyes seeing him sinking into the ground and taking his bullets with him. A wisp of fire was in the air for a brief moment before fading away with lingering smoke.
“What a despicable creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth!” You heard a woman’s voice say nearby, but your panicked mind was quick to make you close your eyes and shrink back away from whoever was speaking. The woman speaking had a motherly tone to her voice but after Flowey, you found it hard to trust in anything at that moment. An overwhelming sense of dread overcame you as you heard footsteps approaching, and you gripped tighter onto your dislocated arm. But instead of pain you were met with a large, furry hand resting on your damp cheeks. Weird, when had you started crying? You felt something being pressed against your chest and soon that feeling of emptiness went away. You felt relief instantly flood through you, you figured your SOUL had been returned to your body.
“Oh, my child, you are hurt!” The woman gasped, placing her other hand onto your other cheek. You immediately were filled with this feeling of warmth and protection, causing your tense body to relax and practically melt against this woman's hands. The pain in your body began to melt away and slowly you opened your eyes, looking up at your savior.
In front of you was a tall goat-like lady with fur as pure white as snow, gazing down at you with big crimson eyes. She had two long, floppy ears that looked like they'd be so soft to touch, along with two nubby horns and a long muzzle with two small fangs pointing out. She was wearing the most gorgeous dress, a lavender and white dress that swept perfectly across the ground with a strange symbol on the chest. It reminded you of a dress you would wear to waltz. She looked so regal, someone who could easily be seen as a queen.
You’d been so busy being entranced by her beauty that you only snapped out of it when she placed her hand onto your dislocated arm and began speaking, “My child, I am going to have to put your arm back into place. It will hurt, but once it is done I will soothe the pain,” She reassured you, but that didn't stop yourself from panicking again. You had never had a dislocated limb before, and you heard they hurt pretty damn bad when snapped back into place. But this woman.. she healed your other wounds (you weren't sure how though, magic?) so you felt like you could trust her.
“On the count of three, alright?” She smiled, and you gulped nervously before nodding, looking into her eyes as she placed her hand correctly on your arm, her giving you a reassuring smile.
“One, two… three!”
Holy fuck.
You never heard yourself scream so loudly before now. The pain didn't even last long as she held her promise by immediately healing it, but the aftershock left you shaky and dizzy and trying to fully comprehend what just happened. You felt a fuzzy hand brush away your sweaty (ew) hair and you looked back up at the woman.
“Good job!” She beamed, running her fingers through your hair a few more times before pulling away and standing up. “Please do not be afraid my child, I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. If you would please come with me, I can show you how the Ruins work and lead you to your new home,” Toriel spoke, noticing your bags (when had you thrown them away from you?) and going over to them, settling one on each shoulder before turning and holding her hand to you. “I can hold onto your bags for you, you must be weary.”
You stared at the goat woman’s hand, mulling over your options. You could completely ignore her offer, take your bags, and leave into this strange new place to look for a way back to the surface with absolutely no idea where you are going.
Or, you could go with her. Take her offer to show you around, and lead you to a new home.
A real home.
What did the surface even have to offer you anyway other than suffering?
You gave her a trusting smile, reaching up and taking her hand to pull yourself up. “Hi Toriel,” You finally were able to find your voice, “I'm _____.”