Chapter Text
The cold was beginning to get worse, making Kris uncomfortable when they weren't close to their boyfriend or inside of a sleeping bag. They could not stand the cold. It seemed to drain all of their emotions away, the drain taking these emotions to some unknown ravine of their mind. Sometimes they just sat there and stared into space. The walls of the houses they rested in were signs of comfort from the terror to be found outdoors.
The sky above them seemed so much dimmer, now that many of the stars had gone away. That was a much bigger problem. Because of it the titans that moved across the land just looked like groups of giant eyes that bobbed up and down looking for targets, connected by an even thicker darkness than what surrounded them. When the titans grew close, Kris heard them roar in the distance. It was a low grumbling sound, and Kris sometimes thought it resembled their own grumbling sometimes when something bad happened; sometimes, that thought made them laugh.
On this false morning, Kris rose from their sleeping bag and woke their boyfriend up with a passionate kiss on the neck, the titans unknowing of their existence, probably assuming they were both dead. He giggled and rose to give them a few kisses in response. They whispered sweet words to each other. They got into their ragged clothing again; their armor had been damaged, and they had nobody and nothing to fix it. They moved toward their destination. Kris thought of singing sweet melodies, but to their horror, they realized that they didn't want to sing them anymore.
The darkest parts of their mind corrupted the rest because of one fact.
Susie was gone. Virtually annihilated when this world began to split apart.
Susie chose Kris instead of Noelle. Kris remembered finding Noelle in her room in Castle Town crying over a picture of Susie. She never learned to accept her potential partner's decision to be with Kris instead of her.
Susie became sweet with Kris after their adventure through Cyber World. Eventually, Kris convinced Toriel to find a tent and they camped together in the forest. The memory became tainted after Kris learned what had been happening at the same time they were camping. They tried to extinguish the flames in their soul, yet it put up a strange dogged resistance the more water they poured, growing greater with each bucket emptied. When they stopped pouring water, it went back to normal size.
They walked back to the beginning of their adventure. It was abandoned, but Kris didn't care and their boyfriend didn't care either. Ralsei stated, that there was a book in Castle Town that could save them both. He never said what was in it, but whenever he talked about it, Kris knew flames danced in his heart; those flames did not parallel their own.
Then one of the titans came into view. It was a huge, lumbering beast walking scarily fast for its size. Its form was black and looked much too human-like, the prophecy didn't mention that they could look like humans. They needed to get behind something; they went under a rock formation. After they did it passed by without incident except for triggering their heartbeat to rise. Kris somehow felt that would alert the thing to their position. Ralsei kissed his sweetheart.
When the terror got too much to bear, the duo cuddled and snuggled beneath their sleeping bag, enjoying each other's body heat. Eventually one of them kissed the other to sleep. Those nights, though it was always night, were very nice.
"There are no more titans in the way," Ralsei said.
It took a while for them to process this information; during that time, the wave of relief became so great that they had to lay down. They continued on into the night, happy that they didn't have to deal with the titans anymore, since--if Ralsei was correct--titans preferred the forests and fields of Card Kingdom, and Castle Town was the exact opposite of that.
Their final destination was the Field of Hopes and Dreams, where they saw terrible devastation. The field was an eerie place of flattened, dead grass. They ran.
The signs Lancer had put up to confuse them both were nowhere to be seen even when Kris tried to imagine them into place.
The duo reached the door to their destination but the remains of it lay scattered across the ground. They were reminded of the toys that had once been scattered across the ground in the unused classroom. Ralsei cut his foot trying to traverse the rubble and thanked Heal Prayer for its service. They couldn't find any shoes his size in the abandoned towns they'd looted. Well they did find a few, but they were all stuck on stone cold darkners, and he wasn't willing to desecrate their corpses for shoes. Though most of the darkners looked sad, some of them still looked happy despite all that was happening. If Kris saw a still joyful darkner, they would often have to hold back tears.
Past the gate was the saddest sight so far. Since when could something grow so abandoned in such a short time? The place looked like a museum within some lost medieval castle; the darkners looked like statues; everything looked eerily intact. Seam lay at his shop counter with the same expression as always, surrounded by no one.
"I'm so sorry," Kris said. "I am too," Ralsei said. For a brief moment Kris ignored everything else around them and put their hand on Seam's shoulder. It looked as if they liked Seam better than the other darkners and that they were trying to honor this darkner's memory by ignoring the others. Kris wondered why they were thinking that.
Eventually they went to inspect the other darkners. The next darkner they saw was Rouxls Kaard. He was turned to stone. One arm was outstretched to the sky for some reason, and he was smiling. "He probably went insane," Kris suggested. "He was always insane," Ralsei told them.
Inside of the castle they saw Queen with a form suggestive of laughter, her arm stretched out toward the sky. They would never again see or hear her laugh her heart out. They decided to forgive her for her stupidity, thinking that that was just the way she was born and that there was nothing she could do about it, and that wasn't a bad thing. Why hadn't they thought about it that way before?
King was still trapped in his cage, and he was trying to get out even though he couldn't. "Why don't we take him outside, with the others?" Ralsei suggested. Kris flinched. Ralsei often tried to honor dead darkners. Kris never refused him. The two of them pushed and pulled King out of the doors. It took a very long time and Ralsei had to do so much of the work because of Kris's weakness and sorrow.
When they had finished pushing and pulling King they laid him at the door of the castle to look into the endless night with a prince and a human cuddling next to him.
After this they had to get to searching for that item Ralsei kept talking about. Apparently, it was a book of some kind. Supposedly it had an ancient spell inside of it, one that could give them a chance to fight back against their unhappiness. But the problem was that it could be anywhere. Ralsei didn't remember where it was, and he could only remember vague details as to what it looked like. It had a red cover, and it was without title.
After some thinking, the duo decided to investigate Castle Town first. It most likely wasn't there, but the inhabitants weren't always the most innocent of darkners, and Kris thought it was good to rule out the improbable locations first. Perhaps one of them had stolen it for fun or to gain some magical knowledge. While exploring they noticed how eerie each building looked. All the torches and other lights were still on and there were even some darkners sitting there looking normal, despite their stone forms.
The book wasn't in the many shelves of Seam's shop. Perhaps he isn't so bad after all, despite my suspicions.
The Party Dojo had nothing notable. Some of the equipment was broken and the ropes on one side of the ring had all been torn down. They only quickly looked over the contents of this building; how could it be here?
After a quick check around the Town Square, they didn't find anything there. Why would they?
For a moment they stared exhausted and terrified at the objects around them, and then they stared at Ralsei. They got lost in his fluffy fur. The pair kissed for a bit. Why would they try to find the thing anyway? The best thing to do was just to enjoy their boyfriend's kisses and sweetness. This was the only time that the two could kiss without anyone else watching, forever.
They searched the area around the dummy and it wasn't there. The dummy still looked happy.
They searched the Top Bakery viciously and thoroughly all because of Lancer's mischievous tendencies. They tore open every single drawer and desk in the hope that they could find something to do with the book's location and not even the book itself. But there was nothing, no matter how hard they looked. Kris rested on one of the walls for a moment, in sorrow.
The cliffs were the very start of this adventure. They were so mysterious, but now they were so unremarkable because of what they'd seen in the adventures that came after. Mr. Society lay there with the blank oddly fitting expression on his face that he always had. Kris tapped his face for fun, and then walked away with Ralsei.
The cafe was a giant mess of stone. Some of the walls were made of stone, but so were the darkners, their stone faces. There weren't enough seats for them all, and so some of them had to stand out in the open. Their forms cluttered the floor so much, and it didn't feel right to touch any of them, so Kris and eventually Ralsei had to move around at a slow pace to get to the areas which possibly had the book or evidence of the book's location inside them.
Once they had searched the whole area, they waved a final goodbye to all those they weren't able to save. The eyes of a select few darkners, the ones that Kris liked the most, were focused on the path to the door. We never came.
This emotion... it made Kris cry. They wept onto Ralsei's shoulder, and after a while of doing this, they realized that their head was full of hot blood; Kris fell to the floor. They felt worse than they had ever been before, but they needed to keep moving... no, they didn't need to keep moving. They could just... stay here with Ralsei. They hadn't thought about it that way before.
Kris asked Ralsei to help them up to their bed.
"But... why?"
"I'm too tired to walk normally."
"So I'll have to help you up?" Ralsei didn't sound too worried.
"...Yes," said Kris.
"Okay." Ralsei held up Kris's body. His head felt good to rest on, Kris thought.
Holding Kris, Ralsei carried them up the stairs, and onto the second floor. He laid them down upon the bed, and walked out of the room.
In the bed they had daydreams of them and Ralsei kissing. Susie and Noelle were there too, but they weren't kissing; they were just doing normal things... like holding hands, exploring the landscape, and talking about things that happened.
The real dreams were focused on them and Ralsei. In the dream they had an exciting bounce to their jump; their jumps sent them to the empty endless space above the dark world. They were carrying Ralsei, and he smiled, and gently caught looks at their body; its legs, its arms, its eyes, its hair. He tried to hold their hand sometimes. He had a nice paw, one that was very nice to touch. It was also very nice to massage. Every time they massaged it, Ralsei did a soft little giggle. Kris couldn't feel the full range of his touch, because they were in a dream, but his fur became softer the longer they stayed in the dream.
They woke up to Ralsei on top of them, who giggled with cute red cheeks, and a smile so reminiscent of those drawings Kris sometimes made of him, before the world fell apart. He massaged their ears, and progressed to their shoulders, and Kris sighed in satisfaction as soft hands massaged their neck.
Ralsei pulled their bangs up, and admired his themfriend's skin and features. Kris was trying very hard not to giggle from the way his fingers tickled their body. Kris could feel his nose moving upon their head as he sniffed their hair. Hey, when did I say you could do that?
Kris made satisfied bird-like noises and got on top of him. Kris got to massage his floppy ears, and he wiggled his whole body. He turned his back to them, and Kris massaged his floppy ears some more. Kris imagined what his expression looked like now that his face was turned toward the pillow, such a dreamy and sweet expression did they imagine.
It was Ralsei's turn. He forced them down with a very brave level of force, Kris making a satisfied "Ohh." He ran his fingers through Kris's bushy hair, the fur melting into its softness.
"Kris... my lips are a bit dry, but..." Kris licked his lips, and he smiled, giggled and, licked their lips as well. They kissed. Kris felt their saliva on his lips. Ralsei forced them off the bed and got on top of them, wildly wiggling their comparably weak body.
They kissed each other some more, and then Ralsei directed them to the edge of the bed. Then, he got on Kris's lap, facing toward them. He slowly massaged their big hips, and they breathed in and out every time Ralsei gripped their bones. Without prompt they pulled up his shirt and kissed his soft furry belly, his face turning red, and his body almost falling over the bed; they caught him, and for a few seconds Ralsei stared entranced into Kris's eyes.
"KRIS."
And then he pulled up their shirt, and gave them an exceptionally passionate kiss on the belly; for a split second, while they fell on the bed, they gathered energy, for the longest, loudest moan they'd ever made. Then they rubbed each other's belly as hard as they could, yelping and howling.
They yearned for more. They wanted to kiss each other in even more places.
But it felt... wrong. They had to stop rubbing his belly; they had to regain their senses after all that sensuality.
"Ralsei, we need to get back to finding that book you mentioned."
"Yeah, we do," Ralsei said. "Oh... and I'd like to tell you something. The boarded up door on the second floor... leads to an underground library... the book's in there." How had their mind done such a good job at concealing that location's mysteriousness? Was Ralsei a better manipulator than they had thought, that he could conceal such an obviously suspicious fact from their mind?
"I'm really sorry for concealing the location... I was afraid to tell you. That place... has some sensitive material in it referring to the creation of the dark worlds. You can decide whether or not to actually read all of that." Kris didn't tell him they weren't going to.
The library was very large, but the shelves all stood below Kris's height. Kris couldn't tell the distance from each side to the other. To Kris, it looked almost impossible to store the amount of books here, but the two of them continued trying to find the specific book anyway.
"Where did this even come from?" Kris asked.
"I don't know," Ralsei responded.
The vast, vast majority of the books were fictional works involving elements of the world Kris had yet to see. Kris opened one, and it was a scene involving some kind of salamander-resembling creature, and a human, talking to one another. They appeared to be in love with each other. Kris didn't intrude into these books any more.
"It should be in that section over there," Ralsei said. Where he pointed was not far.
Ralsei finally got his hands on the book, which was colored red. It was full of symbols that Kris didn't recognize, but then Ralsei turned to a page with two titan eyes, one of them horizontal, one of them vertical, and they were both aligned at the center of the page, an unusually simplistic design for the standards of the book. Ralsei took a deep breath after examining the pages for such a long time.
"Stand still, Kris." He went into a position resembling the heal prayer spell, and looked directly into their eyes, for such a long time.
Eventually, Kris felt awkward and swerved their head away. "No, KRIS! Don't look away!" They moved their eyes back to his. Ralsei apologized for being so harsh.
Kris noticed an odd feeling in their clothes; they then realized that the duo's clothes and armor seemed so much tighter. They stood still. Their clothes were now much tighter, and somehow they made Kris feel good. But eventually, their clothes began to hurt, really hurt, and Kris realized that they could kill by suffocation, and they felt prompted to throw everything off.
"Keep them on, Kris!"
After a moment, the hurt was too much and they screamed. And then, the clothes started de-tightening, and they sighed in relief... and then only pleasure once the clothes were back to normal tightness, but Ralsei was not done; he used his finger to point out a circle around the both of them; the ground and the duo fell into a massive void where it looked like nothing could survive, and Kris resumed screaming.
The duo hit the ground, after one minute of falling. They stood in a blue and black void, a void of somehow lukewarm temperature. Kris felt watched, like the color on the walls and ceiling was one giant eye. Kris's only object of reference was Ralsei, and they focused their eyes on him to relieve themself from the surrounding blackness... and became quite panicked; had the spell gone wrong? Would they ever get out?
"Ralsei, there is no ground! Where are we?"
"An area with... unique properties. Those properties will be put to great use, by us."