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It was beyond the closing time for his bar, and while Ramb would love to pull down a plank over the counter, crawl in his bed, and mutter a goodnight to himself - his legs were found to be solid stone.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen a darkner succumb to the cold. During the late nights he would sneak out of the TV studio into the desolate, chilly wastelands and lay beside the entombed darkners at the edge of the cliff. Some of them still had one foot into the grave as they slowly, but surely, sunk in the snow into their icy-cold coffins. Many of them enjoyed his company within the lonely winds. Many, if not on the verge of death, were genuine gratitudes of a statue when he came every once in awhile to brush the snow off their shoulders.
No one would come to visit them anymore, nor would anyone be there for him when he turned into a rock. Ramb didn't mind. He didn't expect anything less, because not even the winds hugged him with solitude. The bar was utterly devoid, stale, and as stuffy as the stone climbing up his thighs.
And Kris. Kris... He knew how useless his role was in the TV world. But he never felt as worthless when it called for Kris' happiness and joy. Kris was scared. Scared of the stupid game he had made them play. The game he slaved his back working on, even hiding from his bartending duties until Tenna sent someone to stuck him back behind the counter, all because he thought it would make Kris happy.
This was the kind of game Kris liked back then. Or maybe, he never really knew them, and he deluded himself into believing so.
He always felt like a father to them. Kris likely hadn't felt like the child they were with him. Ramb was the creepy, weird darkner in their eyes. Not the father figure he thought he was.
He wasn't a Tenna. He wasn't a Toriel. He wasn't an Asriel, nor an Asgore. Nor was he the deer, that Kris was so fond for.
All he was was a remnant of the past, someone who lived in the past, and someone who was never fired because of that said nostalgia from the past. Kris was the reason he hadn't petrified staring at the same counter everyday for an entire decade. They were the sole reason he kept smiling. Now there wasn't any reason to, but he still smiled until it was permanently etched onto his face.
It was true his heart was stone, as not even the toughest mason could break through bedrock fortified around him. There was probably more stone within the stone and inside the stone was snow.
Yet on the impenetrable fortress he built around him - the tiniest cracks seeped through. Cracks with memories wedged in between them. Memories as the main pillar supporting the massive weight he carried; the fragile diamond chipped from a rock.
Ramb was a ghost of the past. Everyone knew, and at the same time they didn't. Because they all had forgotten. He was the only one who had remembered of the countless faces on the cliff, the spoons of sugar someone prefered in their drink, and the rarest conversations, albeit short, stuck with him until the end of time.
He hadn't forgotten any of the sweet and sour tastes of those memories. The bartalks with the mailman, the smokes with Battat, or even Tenna drunkenly rambling about the early days. And how he and that TV were one of the comforts Kris had before everything had fallen apart.
Tenna crumbled under the shock, and perhaps he became the shock itself. Overt, loud, like how the news of the divorce shattered the studio. He was practically the broadcast, alerting everyone of the tragic event. Not even Elnina or Lanino could weather the storm surge their boss was.
Right in the tornado's eye, Ramb fell too, quietly. As the light rain, and spiraled a slow descent into the widening cracks of the family. Until, those gaps were his entire world. No one wanted to go out to get him out of the hole and get wet, or get lifted and blown away by the angry storm. Instead he was left alone before, during, and after the chaos. Buried by mud after the storms had subsided.
Yet, he hadn't bothered to dig himself out, hadn't called out for help. And as observant as he was, he hadn't seen the way the soil ruffled above him. He dug into the cracks deeper and deeper, darker yet darker, so no one could reach him. The grave he rested himself into was made of stone; a fossil curled in bedrock, and behind a bar. He was so deep in the surface no one could ever find him.
The realization emerged when the light that is Kris peaked through the crack. Kris. Kris, the child the entire studio was fond for and would vow to protect. It was what kept them all together. But he, Ramb, only believed he was the one who could make Kris happy, did he? Besides Tenna, he was far more special than the other darkners in the studio. All because Kris played with him more.
It was odd, but easily explainable. He couldn't be the sun for Kris, yet be the snow, stone, and rain all at the same time. He couldn't be hard and soft then cold and warm. No. He wasn't any of that. Ramb was a fake, plastic charger outlet. Not great nor special, but backstage. Plugboys like him were the backbones of something greater. When they were plugged in, the magic came to life. They were the makers of nearly all possible things. The builders. Workers. It was a plugboy's purpose.
Ramb couldn't even do that. He wasn't an american charger outlet, so nothing had fit him, and he didn't fit in anywhere else. Yet despite everything, he was once special to someone. He had brought joy long time ago.
His eyes caught Kris', and before they could enter the room, the lights turned off. He wished they didn't see him like this. Stiff and dead. At least... He was smiling for them.
The voice from his left ear fell to a lull. It was rough, harsh, yet quiet too. Not unlike the acceptance of death at all. A pippins had been talking to him by his side, and really, he thought it would be lonely in his departure.
It was a comfort - Kris and that random pippins. Petrifying wasn't as bad if someone was there to let him go. Death was freedom. Freedom forever.
The darkness wavered under the light, then it was absorbed by his own little world---and the light was a poignant dot in the void. Ramb was a nobody. He once was someone, yet that someone slipped from his thoughts, and everybody else did too. The warmth had left him, and finally the cold had gone after.
Ramb was nothing. Not useless, worthless, foreign, weird, nor out of place.
He was nothing.
And for the first time, he could truly rest.