Chapter Text
1977, Kraiy Snowdin, Overground.
Twelve years have passed since the monster-human war declared a ceasefire.
A fragile peace remains.
That is what the posters say, less in the words printed in red and black, and more in the spaces between the gold leafing and the stark white emblem of the Republik. Peace. They say it in every station, every ration hall, every classroom and checkpoint and factory corridor where pipes sweat rust-colored water and the workers keep their heads low beneath the Queen’s painted eyes.
PEACE THROUGH PURITY.
SECURITY THROUGH VIGILANCE.
GLORY TO THE QUEEN.
It’s a cold morning. Every morning is cold in the West Province of the Republik, but this one feels worse somehow. A chill settles deep into alabaster bones as dull black shoes leave scuffs through the snow. White gives way to gray at the roadside, salted with the soot from the heating plants. Overnight, it has hardened into a brittle crust that cracks beneath each step. The gas lamps along the road flicker with dim yellow light. Their glow does not warm anything.
Ahead, the checkpoint stands where it always has, quiet and solemn as it was yesterday and every day before that.
Your name is Sans Serif. Your identification card says so. Your work permit says so. Your residential assignment says so. Your brother’s dependency papers says so. The Ministry says so, and so it is true.
You are nineteen years old.
You are a citizen of the Republik.
You are a legal guardian.
You are an Inspector, Grade Three, Western Provincial Border Authority, Kraiy Snowdin, Gate Two.
You have been an Inspector for one year, three months, and thirteen days. This is considered fortunate.
You are late by two minutes.
The camera above the checkpoint turns to follow you, and you do not look at it. Instead, you fit the brass key into the checkpoint’s lock and twist until the rusted mechanism catches. The door gives a shudder before opening. Inside, the booth smells of dust, metal, damp wool, old graphite, and the faint bitter tang of spent magic. The night heater has failed again. A skin of frost clings to the inside of the narrow window. You step inside.
On the wall waits the Queen.
Not the Queen herself, of course, only her portrait. Her face has been reproduced so many times across the Republik that the paint has become more real than the monster herself. Her crown is dark. Her chin is lifted. Her eyes are benevolent.
There are monsters in Kraiy Snowdin who would trade a finger, a fang, or a decade of their life for state employment. There are also monsters who would thank the Queen with tears in their eyes for the privilege of freezing in a box all day, provided that the box came with a ration card, a private residency, and a coal allotment large enough to keep the stove alive through the night.
You try to remember this as you check the seals on the document drawer. You try to remember gratitude as the metal shutters roll open.
You count the denial slips. You count the approval slips. You check the red stamp, then the green. You test both on a blank square of cheap paper, because a faulty stamp is not a machine error. A faulty stamp is negligence. Negligence is sabotage. Sabotage is treason.
You try not to think about the looming winter months ahead. For the past few months, your brother has been coughing into his sleeve when he thinks you are not listening. Your soul clenches when you are reminded of the way his hands tremble when he carries the kettle, or how he smiles too quickly when you ask if he is warm enough.
The sound of leather shoes clicking together in salute draws your gaze upwards.
“Glory to the Queen, Inspector,” Dogamy says.
In front of you is a tall white dog monster, broad-shouldered beneath his military coat. His fur is brushed flat beneath his officer’s cap. The Queen’s insignia glints at his collar. You find Dogamy’s expression difficult to read. It always is, these days. Then again, every face in the Republik has become difficult to read.
White eyelights flick back from the soldier and to the golden echo flower radio in the corner of the checkpoint. It’s listening, as all flowers do.
“Glory to the Queen, Officer,” you greet back, with rather less fervor.
Dogamy clears his throat. Papers shift in his hands. He does not meet your gaze when he sets them down.
“You are to expect several entries today,” he says. “Grain audits continue. As always, all goods, persons, correspondence, and non-registered magical instruments must be inspected in accordance with Act XIV of the Queen's verdict.”
He clears his throat.
“For the Good of the Republik and Glory of the Queen.”
“For the Glory of the Queen,” you say.
A pregnant pause. Neither of you move.
For a moment, you are nearly certain you can see Dogamy’s jaw move as if to say something more. Perhaps warning, perhaps apology, perhaps nothing. He swallows it all the same.
“Work well, Inspector.”
“Always do.”
Whatever it was, it was time to get to work. You glance down and read the newest amendments.
ACT XIV — Commercial Purity and Border Preservation Mandate
Revision 441-C
Effective Immediately.
Food products from outer settlements are now prohibited without a Ministry-stamped agricultural transfer seal.
Handwritten seals are invalid.
Damaged seals are invalid.
Seals printed before the last month are invalid unless accompanied by a renewal document.
Renewal Documents are invalid unless accompanied by a witness signature from an approved agricultural officer.
Agricultural officers are stationed three districts away. You stare at the notice, then stamp the date into your logbook.
Act XIV had been updating for as long as you had been alive. Its first record dated back to pre-war policy, established in effort to protect monster industries from being overtaken by their human counterparts. That wasn’t to say that human industry would have certainly triumphed over your people’s own. No, the integration of magic into technology made sure of that. Instead, and especially when the war first started, the true purpose of the mandate was to keep humans out. To ensure monsters remained in control of monsters.
That was all many, many years ago. In truth, such rules could be considered obsolete now, though no one had the gall to say such a thing aloud. Intellectuals who dared question the Republik’s protectionist policies were not called intellectuals for long. First they became seditionists, then dissidents, then contaminated parties, then nothing at all but a name read once on a list before being crossed out from school records and Ministry documents.
A disease must be treated. And as sick as they were, they were disposed of as thus.
So, in a rather morbid way, you were grateful for those obsolete rules. Afterall, if not for them, you wouldn’t have a job right now. Remembering gratitude becomes a little easier at that reminder.
The morning narrows into documents. The first traveler arrives before the bell finishes ringing. Then comes the second, and then the third. Names, origins, occupations, permits, goods, weight, purpose of visit, duration of visit. Stamps, signatures, discrepancies. Passed through or detained, red or green. The work is much too simple in that regard.
By midmorning, the snow has thickened. The line of monsters outside sagged, hunched against the wind. The bell rings again, and the next arrival is a bunny monster wrapped in a patched wool coat. Her fur is a dull gray and eyes wet from the cold. A small wagon sits behind her, wheels half buried in the snow. Burlap sacks lay beneath a tarp.
“Name.”
“Belle Kepke, Inspector.”
“Occupation.”
“Shopkeep, Inspector.”
“Residence.”
“Kraiy Snowdin, West Province, Trade Row. “
Your gaze scans over the documents. Citizenry files, work license, travel permit. Family dependents, two. Business license, conditional. All present and all valid and dated to the dot. Your eyelights flick up and towards the cart next.
“What is in the wagon?”
Belle’s ears draw closer to her head.
“Goods, Inspector.”
“What kind of goods?”
“Dry goods.”
You look at her. She looks at the floor. The checkpoint is silent save for the radio, which emits a faint, cheerful hum as it waits for the top of the next hour.
You stand. Belle, wisely, does not move as you step around the desk. She does, however, twitch when you pull back the canvas cover on her cart. A tied sack, burlap, and another beneath it. You slit that one open with a sharpened phalange and grain spills pale and clean into your palm.
“Agricultural seal?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Agricultural seal.”
This time, when you look at her, she meets your eyelights. For a moment, neither of you speak. Then you return to your desk.
“Title VII, Section Three, Act XIV,” you say slowly, seated again and hands carefully folded. “The import of outside food products without approval is prohibited.”
“Please, Inspector, it’s only some grain.” When she finally speaks, her voice comes out weak and pleading. “It was my cousin’s. From the east road! They had extra after the storehouse count and—”
Your gaze hardens.
“Failure to declare prohibited goods at a provincial checkpoint. Attempted evasion of commercial purity audit—”
“No! No,” Belle cries too quickly. Her paws wring together nervously. “No, Inspector, I wasn’t evading, I only—I only thought because it was personal—”
“As a shopkeep, your actions escalate from civilian infraction to commercial misdemeanor,” you continue to speak, even as her fists clench and shaking worsens. You reach for your stamp. “Your right to business will be subject to suspension pending review by court of law.”
“Trial?” says Bell. “Wait, Inspector, please—my sister and I cannot afford to lose the shop. My child needs to eat.”
You do not answer. You do not look at her hands. You do not look at the grain. You do not think of Papyrus standing on a chair to reach the highest cupboard, cheerfully declaring that a great chef must first understand restraint. You do not think of him folding his too-short scarf twice around his neck before school because the heating in classroom three has been intermittent all week. You do not think of how much grain fits into three sacks. You do not think of how a body is never warm when the stomach is never full.
Belle’s paw darts through the slot of the booth and closes on your wrist. Her grip is weak.
“Sans,” she says and your eyelights go sharp. “I’ll share it—! Half? More than half! Please, I know your brother has been ill. Certainly if he—”
Grain flies through the air as jagged bones erupt in place of where the small wagon stood prior. All that is left of the caravan is torn burlap and splintered wood.
Belle falls to her knees. The hour has turned and the radio begins its usual broadcast. All you can hear, though, is your own breath.
“Apologies,” you hiss, “I thought I heard you compare me and my brother to an enemy of the State.”
Clawed phalanges tear grooves along your desk. How dare she. How dare she. How dare she even suggest—nay, even mention—your brother. If you didn’t know better, you’d think her words were a thinly veiled threat.
“Leave,” you say through gritted teeth. “Now.”
She gathers no grain, no goods, nothing from her carts. There is nothing to gather that would not condemn her further, especially now after your attack. She only takes her papers, clutches them to her chest, and staggers out into the white morning.
The red stamp remains unused on your desk beside your logbook. For several seconds, you stare at it. Then you place it back beside the green. Denied, then. A mercy.
You tell yourself that for the rest of the day.
“Citizens of the Republik, rejoice!” crackles the static voice of the radio. “Another day of vigilance is another day of peace. Report suspicious behavior to your nearest district officer. A loyal citizen has nothing to hide.”
You stamp the next passport. Admitted. The next. Denied. The next. Detained. By evening, your hands are stained with red and green and black. You received no citation, no reprimand, and no commendation either.
When you return home, the apartment is dark save for the stove. Your brother is sitting beside it, knees drawn up beneath an old blanket and a book open in his lap. He is younger than you by enough years that you still remember carrying him when he was little, though now he insists he is too old to be fussed over. He is too young to remember the time before the ceasefire. You tell yourself it is better that way.
He looks up when you enter, straightening. Every day, you swear he gets taller. He’s all narrow bones and long limbs and a shape still deciding what it wants to become.
“Sans,” he says and smiles.
You remove your coat and hang it by the door. Snow melts off the hem and drips onto the floorboards.
“Papyrus,” you smile back at him, some of today’s chill from the checkpoint melting away at the sight of him. “You eat?”
“Yes.”
You look at the pot on the stove, still half full. He follows your gaze.
“I ate enough,” he amends, trying not to sound petulant.
You sigh. Stepping further inside, you stand right at the edge of the stove and look down at the beige mix within. A good amount is still left. He didn’t eat enough.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
His smile falters, then strengthens. He’s been practicing that lately. “I saved some for you!”
“Papyrus.”
“I was not hungry.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It is a strategic redistribution of household resources,” he says all fancy-like. The words make him sound just like one of the civic morning broadcasts.
You stare at him. He stares back. And then something like laughter breaks between the two of you. For a moment, you feel warm. Or you felt warm up until Papyrus’ coughing starts up again. He turns away to do it, folding his hands over his mouth. The sound is small and muffled and awful. You’re holding him before he can object.
“I am fine,” he says and you draw him closer to yourself. Maybe if you held him close enough, you could give him all your warmth.
“You’re cold.”
“It’s Snowdin.”
“You’re sick.”
“I am improving.”
Your hands slide down to take his wrist. His bones are too cold and too thin. Anger you hadn’t realized you were holding onto from the checkpoint has nowhere to go now. It drains out of you, leaving only a familiar fear beneath it.
“I’ll get more coal,” you say once his coughing dies down.
“No,” he says quickly, expression changed.
“It’s fine.”
“No,” Papyrus says again, trying to stand. You have to help him to his feet. “It is not fine. We already received our allotment.”
“There are supplemental requests,” you try to soothe him. You wish you could ease his worry and sickness with a word. You wish he didn’t have to pretend he was warm or full. You wish for so much.
Papyrus is shaking his head, pushing your hands off of his shoulders. “For workers in priority offices. For soldiers.”
“I am a worker in a priority office.”
“You are an Inspector.”
You look up from his wrist at that. There’s something not quite accusation and not quite not in his tone. You release his wrist and allow him to pull away.
“Yes,” you say. “I am.”
Guilt immediately flashes across Papyrus’ face before he tries to smile for you again. His hand trembles where it smooths over the page of his book. You know it's unread. He never reads when you are late. He just pretends to.
“Sans,” he says, quiet now. “I just… I do not want you to get in trouble.”
“I won’t.”
“You cannot promise that.”
You stand. The radio on the shelf hisses faintly. Neither of you look at it.
In the morning, you submit a supplemental request for coal and medical broth. It is denied. Two weeks later, you submit another. Denied again.
A month after that, Papyrus collapses in the corridor outside the apartment while carrying water up from the pump. Miss Leux from the second floor helps him inside and says nothing when you thank her. Her husband was taken for questioning last winter after a joke in the bread queue. Since then, she has become very good at saying nothing.
The doctor at the public clinic barely looks at Papyrus before asking for your employment papers. You present them. Inspector, Grade Two now, Western Provincial Border Authority. The doctor’s expression softened in a careful way, which was to say it did not truly soften at all.
“Rest,” she says. “Heat. Regular meals. No unnecessary exposure.”
You nearly laugh at that. Absurd. If you had wanted a more useless prescription, you would have gone to a beggar on the street. You have half a mind to say so, to spit the words back in her face and ask if she could even follow those instructions herself if she were sick, if her family were sick?
Instead, you ask, “Medicine?”
She closes the file. “The necessary medicines are restricted.” She sounds almost apologetic.
“I work for the State.”
“They are still restricted.”
You look past her to where Papyrus sits on a bench beneath a poster of the Queen embracing a child. The Republik Protects Its Young, it reads. Your brother is trying not to cough.
“He’s my brother,” you say, and she follows your gaze. She is quiet for a long moment, then her voice lowers by half a breath.
“There are lists.”
“There are always lists.”
“Some lists move faster than others.”
You understand then. Not a bribe, a bribe would be treason. No loyal citizen, nonetheless official, would ever participate in bribery. But there were contributions. Priority petitions. Gifts and proof of exceptional service. There were ways to be seen. There were ways to become useful.
That winter, you began staying later at the checkpoint. You caught things you might have once missed. A forged work permit. A pamphlet folded inside a coat lining. A human-made antibiotic hidden in a false bottom tin. A prayer card bearing an old royalist symbol. A letter written in childish hand to an aunt across the border, full of dangerous phrases like I miss you and I hope the fighting never starts again.
You confiscate it all. You write reports. You detain. At first, the reports are clumsy, full of facts and plain descriptions. Citizen attempted to bring prohibited item through checkpoint. Citizen refused questioning. Citizen requested leniency.
Your supervisor marked them in red. You improve.
Citizen attempted unlawful transport of restricted medical supplies of a human manufacture, indicating potential participation in black-market networks and susceptibility to foreign influence.
Citizen disregarded orders of a state officer when confronted with an ACT XIV violation, including appeal to private sentiment and disregard for civic duty.
Citizen possessed unauthorized cross-border correspondence containing language parallel to reconciliationist sympathies and humanist sentiment.
The reports are approved. Your coal allotment increases. Papyrus’ medicine arrives in a brown envelope with no sender. You do not ask where it came from. He does.
“What did you do?” he had asked quietly while you stood at the sink, washing ink from your hands. Red stains linger in the joints of your phalanges.
“My job.”
He had been silent for too long.
“I do not like your job.”
You scrub harder.
“You like eating?”
“That is not fair.”
“No,” you say, “it isn’t.
That was the last time either of you spoke of it plainly. The years passed in stamps. 1979 arrived with stricter identification requirements and a new portrait of the Queen in every public office. 1980 imposed that possession of foreign newspapers was now a criminal offense. 1981 brought the Human Contamination Trials, though no humans were actually tried since there were no humans in the Republik. Monsters are tried instead. Teachers, translators, doctors, a librarian from the capital city who had preserved banned media in a locked archive because, she said, history is valuable to preserve.
The radio had called her a foreign agent. The crowd outside of the courthouse had called for dust. You had listened to it all from the checkpoint radio during lunch. Papyrus, at home, had stopped listening to public broadcasts altogether.
By 1982, you were no longer an Inspector. You were a Senior Inspector Serif, West Province Border Office. There was no formal ceremony. The old Senior Inspector disappeared on a Wednesday after asking, in the presence of witnesses, whether the Queen’s Verdict was meant to be temporary. On Thursday, his name had been removed from the duty board. By Friday, your pay increased by six percent and his chair became yours.
Dogamy congratulated you with a salute that would have been unbefitting of your position four years ago.
“You earned it,” he says.
You look at the new badge in its black velvet case. Polished gold gleams beneath the checkpoint light. “Did I?”
Dogamy’s ears flatten. “Careful,” he says. The word is barely audible. The echo flower radio hums. You close the case.
“Of course.”
That night, Papyrus does not congratulate you. He merely looked at the badge on the table as if it were nothing more than a stone on the side of the road.
“It means more money,” you tell him.
“I know.”
“Better medicine.”
“I know.”
“Then say something.”
He raises his eyelights to yours. He has grown taller. You are not sure when that happened. Some change had occurred while you were still in the checkpoint counting papers and searching bags, and now your little brother is taller than you, quieter than you, and farther away than any border.
“Congratulations, Sans,” Papyrus says.
It is perfectly polite. You hate it. You keep working.
The Republik rewards useful monsters. This is one of the first lesson every child learns, and unlike most lessons taught to children, this one is true. Usefulness, however, is not the same as goodness. A good monster obeys. A useful monster notices.
You notice discrepancies in travel patterns. You notice which citizens and officers return from the border fuller than when they left. You notice who avoids the Queen’s portrait, you notice who pauses before saying the pledge, you notice who uses old place names instead of the approved administrative districts, you notice loopholes that allow you to sort the useful from the not and the sick from the good.
You notice, too, that your brother has begun taking longer walks.
He says he needs air. You say nothing. He says he has friends. You say that is good. He says some of them believe things could be different. You ask who his friends are. He does not answer. You tell him not to become influenced by their propaganda. He does not answer. You tell him you love him. He does not answer.
You did not sleep that night.
In 1983, the Ministry of Public Harmony became the Ministry of Civic Truth. Everyone pretends this is what it has always been called. The checkpoint received new forms, new stamps, new language. Contraband was now ideological material, unlicensed medicine was biopolitical terrorism. Your reports were circulated as models of exemplary work, and then a representative from the capital arrived in Kraiy Snowdin to meet with you.
He had presented you with a file with your name printed at the top. Beneath it, there were numbers. Detentions, confiscations, report accuracy, subversive material interceptions, civilian compliance rating. Red and green. In recent years, there is almost no green.
He had said that there was a new office formed under the Ministry. Internal Civic Assurance. Commissariat division. Investigative authority. Better pay. Better housing. Better medical access.
That year, Papyrus’ cough stopped entirely. The new house—a full house, not an apartment anymore—had a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, an office, a guest room, and a room for you and your brother each. There was gas heating built into the walls. The windows were sealed well enough that frost did not so much as even touch the glass. The first night there, you bring home fresh fruit.
Papyrus doesn’t look at the oranges though. Instead, he stares at your black Commissariat coat. It's better than the old one. Warmer, heavier, with a collar rising high to the neck and a silver insignia of the Republik emblazoned beside your medals. Internal Civic Assurance, what a ridiculous name.
“Well?” you had asked.
Papyrus stared at the insignia for a long moment, then at you.
“It fits.”
Commissar Serif. It takes time for you to grow used to the title. Others grow used to it quicker.
At the checkpoint, Dogamy salutes you with his jaw clenched.
“Glory to the Queen, Commissar.”
“Glory to the Queen, Officer.”
He looks older than he did five years ago. So do you, perhaps. It’s difficult to tell with skeletons. Wear appears less physically and more so in posture. Yours shows in amount of time you can look at an old acquaintance before looking away.
“You’re here for inspection?” he asks.
“Review.”
“Of us?”
“Of procedures.”
He gives a short nod. Procedures means records. Records mean errors. Errors mean someone must answer for them. It’s standard protocol. There should be no need for him to be concerned.
Inside the checkpoint, everything is smaller than you remember, though nothing has changed. There’s the same desk, the same reinforced glass, the same radio in the corner, albeit upgraded to a newer echo flower with a brass Ministry seal around its pot.
You run one gloved phalange along the desk. The grooves you carved years ago are still there. You had forgotten them…. No. That wasn’t true. You remembered them, just incorrectly. Seeing them now, you remember the grain bursting through the air, the bunny monster on her knees, and the mistake of her walking away.
“Commissar?” Dogamy says.
You remove your hand.
“Bring me the detention logs.”
“Yes, Commissar.”
The work is different now.
As an Inspector, you waited for citizens to come to you. As a Commissar, you go to them.
You enter apartments before dawn. You stand in the back of classrooms while teachers recite approved history. You review factory shift conversations transcribed by echo flowers tuned into from floors, breakrooms, and alleyways. You question monsters who have done nothing except receive a letter, hum an old song, hesitate before a pledge, own a book printed before the ceasefire.
At first, you tell yourself you are protecting Papyrus. Then you tell yourself you are protecting order. Then you stop telling yourself anything at all. Instead, you look at the forms. There are forms for everything.
Form 12-B: Domestic Search Authorization. Form 31-D: Property Forfeiture Privacy Waiver. Form 44-A: Emergency Detainment Without Guardian Notification. Form 19-E Confession Addendum.
Name, occupation, known associates, risk category, recommended action. Life becomes contained to neat little boxes alongside your thoughts. It makes the work easier. You remain professional. You do not sneer, you do not enjoy arrests, you do not raise your voice unless the room requires it. Some monsters begin to prefer you for it.
“If it has to be someone,” one detainee whispered once as you escorted him down a Ministry holding room, “I am glad it is you.”
He was a bear monster, a printer by trade. He had been caught producing unauthorized memorial cards for families of the disappeared.
“You should not be,” you told him.
“No, probably not.”
By the end of the week, his name disappeared from the citizen registries. Commissariats are issued a new standard uniform coat. It’s the color of dust.
At home, Papyrus grows quieter. He no longer needs medicine. He eats regularly. His bones no longer feel like ice when you touch his wrist, though he has stopped letting you do that. You buy him new gloves. You buy him books from approved shops. You buy him a new scarf, bright gold and made of silk so fine it once could have paid for a month of food for the two of you. You’ve never seen him wear it.
“Do you hate me?” you ask one evening.
The question surprises you both. Papyrus stands by the sink, drying a cup that has been dry for some time.
“No,” he says. You wait. He sets down the cup carefully. “I miss you.”
“I’m right here.”
“No,” he says, “you are not.”
The radio hums on the shelf. The Queen’s evening address begins. Papyrus turns it off. Your phalanges twitch.
“You should turn that back on.”
“Why?”
“Because it is required during civic hours.”
His mouth trembles with a rare, bright, living anger.
“We are at home.”
“Home is not exempt from law.”
Papyrus recoils as though you have struck him. For a moment, he looks very young again. He no longer looks like the tall, distant stranger in the apartment you bought with your obedience, just your little brother, hurt and frightened and trying not to show either.
The moment passes. His voice turns bitter.
“Of course, Commissar.”
He turns the radio back on. The Queen’s voice fills the room, warm and maternal and merciless.
“My children,” she says, “remember that loyalty is love made visible.”
Neither of you spoke for the rest of that night.
By 1984, the ceasefire has lasted nineteen years. A fragile peace still remains. Human states beyond the border remain enemies in every practical sense. Trade occurs through military channels and negotiations continue in neutral cities no ordinary monster will ever see. Maps in schools now show the Republik in warm colors and the human territories in gray. Posters warn of infiltration, contamination, false pity, decadent freedoms, and the ever looming threat of drastic fallout and another monster-human war.
It’s a cold morning. Every morning is cold in the West Province of the Republik, but wrapped in Commissariat gray and in a house lined with heating pipes, the chill no longer touches you. Polished black shoes click down a velvet carpeted corridor in a Ministry building. The electric lamps along the hall hum faintly in the still air.
Ahead, your office stands where it always has, quiet and solemn as it was yesterday and every day before that.
Your name is Sans Serif. Your personal access card says so. Your commendations say so. Your office plaque, address line, phone book, and medals of award say so. Your brother’s dependency papers says so. The Ministry says so, and so it is true.