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Kris had a dream in which they defeated the Roaring Knight.
“...ssstupid…” Its voice slithers out from within its obsidian sallet, thick shadow crystal shimmering like a disco ball against the snow. It drools from the hole through the middle. The triangle crack—posing as an eye, now—spins upwards as if amused.
“...you’re…” it breathes, hunching over itself from where it sits “…inferior to me.”
It’s true. Even as Kris sits here, too, curled up and shivering underneath the blanket it laid over their shoulders due to the snowstorm. They have no response, their lips pressing into a thin line as they focus on warming up for as long as they can.
Inferiority. The Knight is taller and swifter, deft in its actions even when uncalculated. It can take them down with a single flick of the wrist, and if they blink, the whole party could be gone within seconds. Swooned. It has taken pity on them most of the time, but one wrong move and they know it wouldn’t mind swooning them too.
There’s a promise that lingers in the air, heavy like the burden it is, of Kris’ pledged loyalty to the alternative side.
Their promise.
The dream of the fall of the Knight—it must’ve grown from Kris’ building hesitance.
In these past few days, after strictly being told over a week ago not to get too attached, Kris could not fight the way their heart had grown for their friends. Despite the distance due to the power within them—and their lack of knowledge of Kris’ inevitable betrayal—they let themselves sink into the feeling of having friends around them again. It’s natural. It’s as natural as letting yourself rest after a long day, knowing there’s still homework to complete. It’s natural to have second thoughts, stuck somewhere in the middle of the scale between their promise and their friends.
Maybe it was the power, with its cloying, persistent kindness and guidance. Telling Kris they should compliment that enemy or spare another. How it guides them all over town, prompting them to talk to neighbors they hadn’t said a word to since they were six.
No—even before it inhabited their SOUL, Kris had these syrupy feelings sticking to the back of their throat.
Something stolen from their beating heart, the cavity twisting uncomfortably at the sight of Noelle in the family Christmas photo frames. Berdly, surprisingly, reminding them of Asriel’s dusting PC, insisting on a rematch Kris has been avoiding since everything started to fall apart.
Susie. The syrup is more like cement, then, something that they could never clear. The newest girl, leaving them aching, literally, and leaving them waiting boredly on the days she was absent to kick their chair. Something about her had always interested them then. They still can’t place it now, because her every action seemed to encase them in feelings equivalent to warm honey.
Something crosses their mind from yesterday: Kris attempting to slide their sword into its sheath while stuck in a trance watching Susie laugh and pick on Ralsei. They had cleanly sliced the hand holding the scabbard straight through the fabric of their gauntlet; the one that held the hilt of their sword quickly moved to nurse the wound, sword discarded in the dirt. Both Susie and Ralsei had jumped to action then, tending to them despite their compromising embarrassment. You dumbass, Susie had smiled, teasingly, as her palm brushed over their own.
Kris knows that their feelings towards their friends are real, but are they truly mutual? What do they know about Kris that isn’t from years ago, or in Susie’s case, just from within this week? This week, everyone has been seeing what should appear as a better version of themself. Kris but scraped clean from all their faults and horrifying nature. Social, benevolent, and a hero of the prophecy.
But, even then, Kris found that they were letting their personality sprinkle in more and more, abandoning what started as them hollowing themselves out to fit their role as the cage.
It’s all because of Susie’s encouragement.
Susie. The girl who insists upon being a part-time detective, apparently, trying so desperately to get them to express themselves.
They bow down to people so easily.
Inferior. That’s what they are.
It’s too late for don’t get too attached now that Kris is in the middle. Regrettably, it seems they can’t do anything right.
Even on the other side.
(Secretly, Kris considered that there had always been a scale between their friends and the alternative since the beginning of the plan. They hadn’t entirely committed to the horrors that were approaching, deep down, even through the thoroughly damaged depths of their mind.)
(The end of the world. Kris knew, personally, that this wasn’t entirely the Knight’s plan, either. It already had the power. If it wanted an immediate Roaring, that would’ve been the first step of the plan.)
(As with everything, from snow angels to the end of the world, there’s more hidden underneath.)
(In the dream, the Roaring Knight’s form withered away in the Light World’s sun while Kris stood above it with the black shard. Their grip had tightened as its helmet melted into an opaque, dark goop. It stained the grass before the shelter, revealing an identity under the armor, its face never failing to make them falter. This is not part of the plan, they remembered thinking, frozen in place in front of the double doors just like five years ago.)
(And then they woke up.)
Kris sniffs so that the blood running down their nose doesn’t dribble onto their mantle.
There’s a hollow spot in the center of their chest, frozen like a glacier on the tallest cliff. From the corner of their eye, through their bangs, they watch as the Roaring Knight inspects the SOUL before tucking it away somewhere within its armor.
“…ssstage three…” it breaks the silence. Kris pulls the blanket tighter around themself.
“…must…distract sssusie.” As it begins to shift, floating, Kris wobbles up as well. The blanket whips through the icy wind, the knee-deep snow oddly providing some kind of stability for their legs.
“…i’ll…handle…the others.” It finishes, its temporary eye spinning back to look at Kris. Immediately, they’re nodding without a second thought.
A dull hum of several voices reverberated in reply. The blanket disappears from their grasp.
“…you know…what comes…next.” It tilts its head at Kris’ already disheveled figure.
Of course they know—stage three was already discussed. One this day, the one before the Roaring, Kris would open a fountain inside the Holiday estate. The Knight would appear and separate the group, leaving Susie and them alone, before stealing them and their SOUL. In reality, it will be used on the fountain after targeting… Noelle and Ralsei. And…
The Knight’s finger juts out in a point.
A squealing sound pierces the air. From behind the Knight, they can see something sparkling above the snow as it approaches. A distinct sword, embedding itself into their stomach, painting gore across the snow. Kris’ shivering comes to an immediate halt as they drop to one knee, ears ringing so loud as if they’ve had their eardrums blown out.
Following the other, another sword, with a hazy delay, takes out that knee as it sinks into their thigh, resulting in them slumping backwards into the snow. A pained wheeze leaves their chest, maybe like they were about to laugh.
From their blurry vision, they can see that both swords aren’t lodged deep enough to pierce all the way through, but the blood oozing and discoloring the white powder around them does not lie.
“…good luck…” The Knight murmurs, and then its presence is gone.
The wind howls, sky darkened to a bluish-grey—just like the bad winter storms back home, if only those were in a never-ending snowy abyss. It seems as if the tiny hills of powder stretch on for miles, with no usual town or structure in sight.
Fresh snow soars like ice through the air and whistles in the wind, blanketing their wounded form like it’s already a corpse. They haven’t moved—they don’t think that they can. Either way, they’re not supposed to.
The pain is unbearable. Cold and wounded. Padded armor is, at least, a nice advantage here.
It doesn’t make them any less uncomfortable. Even on the stormiest days, Kris can remember being able to find a brief moment of comfort, whether it was from the sun fleetingly poking through the clouds and warming their back, or maybe an awning they could stop under to dry off.
None of those things exist here. Just the constant, uncontrollable shivering wracking their body, tiring them on top of the leaking wounds. Tensing from shivering only makes the swords ache more. Their eyes are so, so heavy. It’s almost as if the bags were pulling them closed. They’re painfully glassy from the wind, fluttering every time they notice they’re starting to close, lashes beginning to freeze together.
It’s unclear what’ll get to them first. Either frostbite or blood loss.
It’s part of the plan. Blood froze to the inside of their nostrils, teeth chattering. They pledged and promised.
Kris lets their mind drift away to better moments, like a pie baking in the oven and heating up the house, burning their tongue when they dig into it before letting it cool, but ultimately warming their stomach. Or maybe, sleeping under their warm comforters on a quiet snow day. Or…
“—is!”
A voice carrying through the wind has them blearily blinking their eyes open. Susie’s voice—something that’s always recognizable to them. And sure enough, even halfway under the snow, they could spot a pink blob emerging through the storm in the distance, tirelessly approaching.
“—ris!” Susie’s urgent voice cracks into almost a whimper: “Kris! Damnit… Where are you?!”
She’s close enough now that they can make out her full figure.
Somehow, she seems unaffected by the snow, trudging through like it was the last thing on her mind. Her eyes are wildly scanning her surroundings, axe hilt clenched in both fists in preparation. She looks absolutely terrified.
They don’t think they’ve ever seen her like this—completely panic-stricken.
Eyes wide and faraway, careless and wild when she moves, her eyebrows furrowed with shaky features. Puffs of air left her snout endlessly, visible through the freezing air.
All because they were taken. Something in their chest swells. The cavity grows.
With great difficulty, they lift their just about numb arm up from the snow, unburying their gauntlet and exposing it to the wind. Susie’s eyes dart over right as the wind overpowers them, and it drops back down limply.
“Kris!” She yelps, slipping down into the snow on her hands and knees from how fast she tried to scramble towards them, standing up and slipping again before crawling the rest of the distance.
Susie stops next to them, panting, shoveling the snow around them with her fingers until she’s able to drag them out of the kris-shaped hole from under their armpits. They’re pulled halfway into her lap, their pauldrons jutting into her waist and the rest of them lying across her legs.
Kris flinches, whining lowly with a bite to the inside of their cheek. Too much jostling, but they’re glad she’s here. Really—they couldn’t be happier.
“Yeah. I know. I know you’re cold, just—“ They watch the realization crawl over her expression, her eyes looking off in horror at the swords and then to the blood-stained, snowy cocoon she pulled them out from.
“Fuck!” She cries, exasperated. Kris is dragged further into her lap as her hands scramble on what to do.
“Damnit! Should’ve guessed it’d—of course it would, it—you were alone and—fuck!” Susie hits herself on the side of the head, dropping down and pressing her ear to their chest.
Kris could feel how slow their heart was beating against their cuirass. It would be a beautiful adagio.
Judging by the way she squeezes her eyes shut, counting, they’re unsure if she could actually hear it through the armor. They’re also unsure why she’d feel the need to do this in the first place.
Next, her hand is hovering over their mouth. Something in her shifts as she collects herself—or, collects herself as much as she possibly can as Susie, Kris figures.
“Okay, s’fine, you’re good—you’re gonna be fine. Just gonna heal you and you’re gonna be fine. It’s okay—we’re good.” She’s talking through clenched teeth, clutching onto them like they’d be pulled away from her again.
“Gotta, uh, take these out first, though. Then I can heal you. Yeah, okay…” Sweat drips from her forehead. Her fist wraps around the handle of the sword lodged inside their lower torso, adjacent to their bellybutton.
Susie’s as careful as she can be, pulling the sword out with clumsy, shaky hands in the middle of a snowstorm. Kris bites their tongue so hard it bleeds, forming a liquid ball at the corner of their mouth and trailing down their cheek.
They’re writhing. She murmurs something next to their ear in the same voice she’s had since she found them. It’s something about how she’s got them. They can’t make out the rest over the ringing in their ears and only pick up on a little bit of her panic that results from her not being able to heal them properly once the swords are gone.
The green glow of her hands turns more intense, to no avail, as red paints over their vision, snow littering over the two.
Magic, along with what we know as “healing items,” only corresponds to the call of a SOUL; they remember Ralsei stating over tea three Castle Town visits ago.
They’d visited him in the middle of the night, again, after a particularly rough breakdown, laying bare the fact that the SOUL was locked away at home instead of locked away in their chest when they entered the castle. If a SOUL is weak, I can usually sense it… along with simply seeing someone visibly injured, that is.
But… Kris. If you go without your SOUL in a Dark World, then…
Maybe that’s why their eyes are so heavy.
They’re bathed in a moment of warmth, head lulling to the side, vision fading. The feeling of their shoulders being shaken is disregarded. Their mind slips back into the memory of pies in the oven.
And then, they’re forced abruptly back into their body, waking with a gasp.
“Woah! Easy… C’mon, lay back down,” Susie’s voice, which pacifies them like magic itself.
Everything’s warm and hazy, like that honey feeling from before.
Even her gruff voice. It still has a hint of nervousness to it, but it’s back to how they recognized it before.
They’re guided into equally as much warmth with a firm press to their chest. Kris attempts to blink the haze out of their vision.
It’s unarguable that they’re no longer in a snowstorm.
The snap of firewood makes their ears twitch. She found what looks to be a small cabin bedroom, a fireplace crackling to their left and filling their nose with the scent of burning wood. There’s a window behind them with a storm raging on outside. Visibly, there are other cabin-like buildings, including tall, sky-scraping trees. A forest… and town.
Susie’s head is behind them as they look over their shoulder.
“Hey,” she breathes, searching over their expression. Whatever she’s looking for is given up instantly. Instead, the sides of her mouth twitch into an antsy smile.
It’s starting to become increasingly clear why they’re this warm.
Susie has her arms wrapped snuggly around their middle, their back lying propped against her front under a mountain of blankets, lounging on a couch parallel to the fireplace.
Kris’ head gingerly tilts back to the fire. On the ledge before the open fireplace rests a combination of the two’s equipment, including clothing.
That checks out.
There’s an annoyed huff from behind them. “Look—your, uh, clothes and stuff were soaked through, dude. Rule number one to not gettin’ your ass kicked by the cold is taking off anything that’s wet. So, yeah. Deal with it. Y’almost froze to death, dumbass.” Susie grumbles, tightening her grip. “Also, I'm cold too,” she adds.
Kris timidly peeks under the blankets, letting them slip off their shoulders. Her arms are around them, as they figured, and she seems to have left them in the biker shorts that their pants, shirt, and armor usually went over. She’s down to her shorts and a tank top.
Instead of dwelling on the rush of staticky feelings that wash over them, their eyes make contact with, apparently, bandages. There’s a thick layer tightly wrapped around their lower stomach, the middle where it aches turning the white strips a little pinkish. The one around their thigh seems to only be wrapped twice, with nothing seeping through yet.
Kris’ fingers brush against the middle of their thigh. They jolt, sucking in sharply through their teeth.
“Quit it!” Susie pries their hand away, adjusting the blankets and grumbling. “Just worked my ass off on these, by the way!”
She sighs, sinking further into the arm of the couch. “Well, I mean… There’s a Darkner downstairs who stitched you up…”
There’s a beat: “But I dragged us here, and…” followed by another, “Screw it—not gonna lie. You really scared the shit out of me, Kris.”
“I… I should really say that the Knight scared the shit out of me. How it just… took you like that.”
“But… Why don’t you ever fight back? Kris, you didn’t even struggle when it grabbed you.” She squeezes them tighter, her voice cracking. “Just… why? Why can’t you value your life a bit more?”
Kris determined that there’s nothing that hurts more than worrying someone as strong and as kind as Susie. It hurts, in a tugging kind of way, that feels like their guts are being emptied out into the snow. They’re sick to their stomach, face hot and shoulders tense.
It’s hard to say.
Kris hasn’t valued their life in a long time—it was one of the reasons why it made this plan so easy to follow in the beginning, back when they chased away everything they cared about.
Throughout these adventures, though, they’ve only been reminded about what they do have to care about—that people value them when they really think they shouldn’t. It’s easier to not value or be valued. They’d rather let the hurt deep within them be used up.
Susie should’ve left them in that snow.
But she cares about them, and that hurts even more, considering the intense care they have for her, too. Kris lowers their head.
“No—none of that.” They felt one of her hands slide away from their torso, moving to pinch their chin, gently directing their head to face hers again. “Look at me.”
And… they’re reminded of how close she is to them, her eyes radiating with undying hope. Hope for them. They’re wounded and soulless in her arms (all part of the plan until the Knight returns, but they’re a useful asset, so they know they won’t die here), the life slowly draining from their form until they’ll inevitably succumb, again, to the exhaustion being soulless brings them.
She has hope for them, regardless. Incessantly.
“I don’t care, like, whatever the prophecy says about you, or whatever anybody else thinks, ‘cause you’re important too.” Her hand fully cups their cheek, taking them back to the moment she found out about the fate of the world. “Your life has value just as much as ours does. Me, Ralsei, Noelle… all of us. So I don’t want you thinking otherwise anymore. Got that?” Susie finishes.
Her gaze doesn’t falter, so they continue to stare back. Maybe she has been waiting for them to say something, any kind of confirmation that they’re listening and that they’ll swear to not think otherwise.
She has them trapped like a bug in a spiderweb, tangled in her. Her arm around them, other hand on their cheek. Their back to her front, her eyes beaming into their own.
The silence stretches. They couldn’t risk untangling the words and feelings that were jammed up inside their throat. There’s no outside power here to pluck out one of their thoughts for them, so they’re stuck freefalling.
While, at the same time, it’s not as if they haven’t spoken to Susie before. It’s just, now… they’re truly alone.
“… I’ll,” they croaked, despite the fact that they’re unsure if it was audible, voice harsh with disuse.
Her thumb brushes over their cheekbone with doubt, something they hadn’t expected in the slightest. It shocks them so much that the already messy words building in their throat dissipate.
Kris promptly presses their lips together to keep them from quivering, but then their focus falls on the feeling of her breath on their face. They make the mistake of letting their eyes linger upon her lips a second too long, because they forgot how clearly she can see their gaze through their bangs right here, and then the realization spreads across her face. It was a whole conversation held without any words at all. It solidifies the fact that there’s not much they can hide from her anymore.
“Dude, I’m… I’m just telling the truth? Kris,” Susie snickers, albeit awkwardly. Her eyes dart away as she shakes her head. “That doesn’t mean you have to kiss me.”
Kris’ eyes widen, stunned as if she’s just slapped them. She shoots them a stupid smirk, but it doesn’t land because Kris is already steering their head away from her again. Is that what this feeling is? Her words took their breath away, heart sinking into the deepest pits of their body. They shouldn’t want that, but they do, don’t they?
Susie seems to groan, and they can physically feel the way she throws her head back.
Her thumb and index finger squish into their flustering cheeks, forcing their head around much more directly than before. The emotion on her face is needling, as it looks to be one filled with many. There’s something complex there that Kris can’t figure out, and maybe this is how others felt while looking at them.
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that, I… Plus, I want you to talk to me, so just—”
“How did you mean it then, genius,” they find the confidence to interrupt even through their shyness, considering how thoroughly confused they are. Their words are toneless, but Susie still snaps from her own building embarrassment. It ends up soothing their racing heart knowing they have the advantage here for a moment.
“Okay, fuck you, asshole! I just wanted you to know that, uh, I wouldn’t like, mind, if you wanted to kiss, and—“
Kris’ lips tremble, their mouth clamping further shut.
“S-Stop smiling!” Susie yells.
“You—you drive me crazy!” Susie bares her teeth, using the hand that was previously squeezing their cheeks to run a hand through her hair. “First, you get kidnapped. Then, you almost die. And now you’re just… you… ugh!” She throws herself back against the couch. Noticeably, her face is very hot.
“Okay,” they breathe, falling back into previous seriousness and leaning back into her. As the situation progresses, they find the word reaching them naturally, their fear from before melting into the back of their mind. “Sorry.”
“It’s… fine, Kris. You just—you scared me. I’m glad you’re, uh, mostly okay and stuff.” Susie’s voice dampens in volume, lowering into that soft, gruff tone she had earlier. It’s one that makes the hair stand on the back of their neck.
“I think all I really want is to see you defend yourself and not everybody else for once.” Susie pauses, glancing elsewhere before reiterating, “… stop defending me for once.”
The fire snaps and the wood crackles. Wind rattles the windows, humming lowly down the fireplace. If they ignore the rise and fall of Susie’s chest against their back, they can feel the pain creeping up, spreading through the respective limbs in waves, but still, like a wildfire. They must’ve been given some sort of pain reliever to dull it before, because when they were coming to, all they could feel was the warmth of Susie and the room. Now, it’s a mixture of both.
Defending Susie. They both have their strengths, Kris’ swiftness against Susie’s tankiness. She’s able to withstand large attacks, sure, but her timing’s usually late enough to where Kris is able to defend her after defending themselves. Maybe she never noticed. At the same time, avoiding attacks coming directly towards them to shield her counts as dodging. But…
They know that they’d do it even if it meant risking their life, which is what she’s referring to, of course. Their recklessness. Out of everyone, Kris can’t stand seeing Susie in pain.
Susie, who happens to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, always. When her hand met mystical glass after the fight with the Titan, they had watched in an uncomfortable daze as her hand trembled, clenched so tight the blood flow stopped like a tourniquet. Opening and closing her fist, wincing and shuddering. They had watched the way her throat bobbed, shoving her fears deep down inside. The way she grinned with broken eyes. No—they decide that they absolutely cannot stand it.
The dream of overpowering the Roaring Knight: they think that, if they’re pushed far enough to their limits, the images of all the people they care about in such horrific positions, it can become a reality, despite the Knight’s confusing intentions. They’ll more than likely choose their friends, but it’ll cost them.
That’s fine.
Kris can bear it all if it means doing as little damage as possible to the ones around them, though they already know the fate that they agreed to. Something careless in them from weeks ago said they could watch the world burn without so much as a single twitch.
It’s unbelievable.
“Though I, uh… meant what I said earlier, and...”
Kris snaps back into the moment, glancing up to find Susie’s maw centimeters from their own. Somehow, they have almost managed to forget about her words from before: Susie basically admitting to being okay with kissing them. It’s still shocking to them that she picked up on the bubbling feelings inside that they couldn’t decipher. Has she kissed someone before? They don’t know why that’s their second thought.
Susie bumps the front of her snout against the corner of their lips. They suppose they’d kiss her too if she were to be wounded, left for dead in the snow. It’s still shocking to them that she’s okay with this, because Kris is… they’re…
They shudder. Their arms circle the one she has around their torso. She’s kissing them as if they’ll disappear, leaving them dumbfounded by the sudden, bold fondness. They suppose it’s only natural, in a situation like this, to feel…
They’ve been partners through all of this, so it makes sense that she’d… that she’d care this much about losing them.
Her mouth is pressing against their own, gentle despite the awkward angle. Some part of them grows nauseous, allowing this to happen, knowing the Knight is off somewhere with their SOUL terrorizing their other friends, but the desperate side of them wins.
Susie sweetly presses deeper with the tilt of her head. Their lips part, head leaning forward, and they tentatively kiss her back. A choked heave leaves their mouth at the same time as their eyes squeeze shut. She doesn’t notice.
They can pretend that they’re innocent, just in this room. That she shouldn’t be digging her hand through the bandages and into their wounds to make the suffering they brought upon themselves much, much worse, and instead, waste such a gentle kiss on them. That she shouldn’t throw them out into the storm and scream at them, demand more answers, and punch their face in until they couldn’t keep their head up anymore.
It crosses their mind that they’ve yearned to die, and maybe that’s why they agreed to all this. Anything is fine, as long as they’re not there to witness the consequences. To give up control of themselves and be used, they had expected things to go smoothly. They hadn’t contemplated that being guided around doesn’t make their thoughts and voice disappear.
Ralsei ruminates over what being Ralsei-like even is. Kris doesn’t know who to be, either. Susie will find out that everyone around her is fake.
It’s unbelievable.
Susie pulls away and out of her trance, and they hadn’t noticed her hand found their cheek again. Her expression is pinched, corners of her mouth settling into a deep frown. What happened?
“… You’re crying,” she murmurs, cautiously. It makes sense now what that nasty feeling building inside is—why they’re choking. The desperate side of them must’ve lost after all. Or, maybe this is what it looks like when it wins.
“Are… are you in pain?” Susie searches over their drained expression, smoothing the salt away from their cheek with a knuckle. Intently, over the lid of their eye with her thumb, too. Her gaze drifts down to the bandages.
Yes, Kris considers.
Yes, I am.