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Noelle Holiday is five years old, sitting on the scratchy amber carpet in the Dreemurs home. It’s smaller than hers, she thought to herself, but it smells like cinnamon and butterscotch and is so very warm. She feels hands wrap around her back and is pulled backwards by Kris, rolling around on the ground and poking at her antlers. She screams without any real fear, Kris would never actually hurt her, they’re each others best friends!
Hoof steps follow, and a sturdy hand pulls Kris off the young girl. December, years older and wiser than her little sister, telling Kris off for startling her. Asriel, “Azzy” as Noelle calls him, helps her stand upright and smooths down her hair, ruffling Kris’ for causing trouble. They wear red devil horns and a hand me down shirt, a gap in their teeth showing when they grin mischievously.
Asriel and Dess smile at each other, matching necklaces glinting in the low light from the old box TV. Kris pulls at Dess’ sleeves as if she was their older sister too, and for a second her flannel shirt slips down her shoulders, revealing red lines etched into her skin, scabbed over with dried blood. Noelle looks away, pretending she didn’t see as Dess shrugs her shirt back up over her shoulders.
____
Noelle is nine years old, hiding in her room, covers pulled up over her head, hands pressed over her ears. The twinkling of Christmas lights shine through the window, and the shouting of her family breaks through the silence like strikes of lightning.
December is screaming, her mother screaming back. Noelle can’t quite make out what it’s about, it doesn’t matter why they’re shouting, she just wants it to stop. It’s Christmas, Noelle loves Christmas, they all do, or used to, but instead of hot chocolate and vinyl playing, the only soundtrack to the occasion is hoofs clicking on cold floors and the slamming of a door. Noelle hugs her knees and cries quietly, hoping it will be over soon.
The next morning, December doesn’t come home, and she isn’t at the Dreemurs, where she always used to take refuge from her and her mother’s fights.
The next week, posters go up.
Noelle is still 9, no taller or more grown up, still a coward in her own eyes, still crying when doors slam. She’s clutching missing posters in her hands, hooves crumpling the yellow-tinged paper. Posters cover every table and chair in the Holiday manor, and every lamppost and notice board as far as three towns out from Hometown.
Noelle’s mother, Carol, speaks in a rough, ice-cold voice into the phone, tapping her heels in anger. She has bags under her eyes, Noelle has never seen her look so untethered, and it scares her. Everything is falling apart.
She walks tentatively over to her mother, and hugs her leg, trying to comfort. Carol pushes her off and goes back to the phone. Noelle, spirits broken and shoulders hunched, walks up the stairs, passing her door and stepping into her sisters room. It looks just as it did before Dess went missing. The walls are painted blue and the furniture is black. Broken and dented instruments pile up in the corner, and posters still litter the wardrobe.
Decembers guitar sits in the corner of the room, Noelle sits in front of it, holds it in her hands, trying to remember how it would sound when Dess played, how her hands made the chords, the way she would sing along to her loud metal CDs. Noelle plucks the top string, it sounds wrong and metallic and hollow without Dess, she puts it back in the corner quickly, like touching her sisters things will stop her coming home. Noelle stands, smooths down her dress and walks back to her room to do homework.
____
Noelle Holiday is ten years old, standing on a stage next to her classmate, Berdly. Microphones stand in front of them both and Noelle’s dress itches. The spotlights shine on them both, blinding her and making her sweat. This is the final of the spelling bee, she has to do well. Carol is in the crowd, she has to do well. The words are called, one after another, Noelle remembers practicing writing and saying the words until her wrist cramped and voice went hoarse, acing every word with ease. The final word is called, *December*. Noelle’s mouth goes dry.
December. December. December. The word, the name of who she’s lost, echoes in her mind, filling her thoughts until her eyes fill up with tears. Her legs give out as Berdly spells it, he wins and she is left behind. She is always left behind.
Carol doesn’t say she’s disappointed, she doesn’t have to. She simply gives Noelle a cold look, before leading her out of the hall. There were two empty seats next to her, one for December, one for her father, who’s at a doctors appointment after developing a cough. Noelle is left standing at the gate of her home as her mother walks back to her office. She reaches into her cardigan pocket, before realising she left her key at home. She turns to ask her mother for a spare, but she’s already disappeared down the street.
___
Noelle Holiday is eleven years old with her window open, hair blowing in the early summer wind. She looks over Hometown before her eyes settle on the Dreemur house. Mr Dreemur has a suitcase in one hand, and a rucksack slung over one shoulder. It was in the paper when he was fired, something about an accident that her parents had discussed in hushed voices that stopped when she had entered the room. Mrs Dreemur, Toriel, stands in front of the door protectively, arms folded as Asgore turns and walks away.
Noelle sees Kris and Asriel through the window, Asriel talking to Kris animatedly, clearly trying to cheer the human up while Kris just stares at the floor. Noelle notices they have been doing that much more, zoning out and falling asleep in class, not responding with words, just shrugs or actions, and Noelle can’t think of the last time her old best friend smiled at her or talked to her first.
It reminds her of when Kris was first adopted, a toddler pulled out of a difficult situation and placed with the Dreemurs. Noelle had met them not long after, trying to cheer them up by talking and drawing snowflakes and dragons, and complimenting their red horned headband. It wasn’t until Noelle startled at a mouse they finally laughed, a bright cheery sound that made her beam with pride.
The next day Noelle knocked on the door of the previously abandoned old shop, now with a messy sign saying “Flower King” over the door. She pushes into the shop, flowers are set up in hasty bouquets and the tile floor is covered in a thing layer of soil. Asgore greets the other monster with a hug and a smile, offers her any flowers she likes the look of for free.
She picks out snowdrops, their droopy white petals reminding her of the snow and winter back before everything fell apart. She slips money into the register without Asgore seeing, waving goodbye and heading to the, now less busy, Dreemur house.
Kris answers the door when she knocks, dull red eyes looking her up and down, taking the flowers reluctantly and placing them in a vase in the living room, by the TV. When they go to get the flowers water, Noelle notices red lines on their forearms, the same red lines she had seen on her sister years ago. She leaves quickly after that, guilt clouding her thoughts. How could she have missed it again?? Someone else hurting, someone else she loved and cared for.
Noelle and Kris talked less and less after that.
___
Noelle Holiday is twelve years old, sitting in a plastic chair in the hospital waiting room. No one sits at her side, no one comforts her, pencil sliding over paper as she completes maths problems to distract herself. Her name is called and she looks up, crossing the room to the front desk. The woman behind the desk points her to the door on her left, and Noelle steps into the hospital room.
Her dad, Rudolph “Rudy” Holiday, is laying in the hospital bed, breathing shaky and monitors beeping. He smiles at Noelle as she enters the room, pulling up a chair to hold his hand. They talk for hours, the sun setting through the window, Noelle’s hand never leaving his. Rudy looks older than he is, black hair peppered with gray, eye bags heavy, coughing with a wheeze every few minutes.
It makes Noelle scared, though she wouldn’t admit it. Her father had always been strong and funny and so full of life, willing to take on anything and everything for his daughters. He had been declining slowly but surely since December went missing, since Carol shut everyone out. The only people who visit him regularly are Noelle and Asgore Dreemur.
When Noelle is forced to head home, she kisses his forehead and leaves, trying to hide the tears in her eyes, feeling scared and hopeless and utterly alone.
____
Noelle Holiday is thirteen years old. She’s sitting on the floor of her room, wearing dark makeup and borrowed black clothes. Catti was just here, taking photos with a digital camera to make a cover for a CD case. They had fun, laughed, shared secrets and the clothes made Noelle feel free. Catti was also mean, sometimes, not in an obvious way or anything really bad, just judgemental and prying in a way that made Noelle want to shut down.
She had asked about Kris, why they stopped talking to Noelle, why they were so quiet. Noelle had shrugged and laughed it off, saying “Kris is just Kris” but the words were hollow and she knew she was wrong.
Noelle had been seeing the red lines more and more on Kris, wrapping round their arms as fresh blood dripped onto the floor by their desk. Noelle had never told them she saw, but she would slip bandages into their locker through the small gaps, praying to the Angel in her mind that they’d be okay.
She wondered why the people she loved would do these things. December had been bright and happy and amazing, Kris had idolised her even more than Noelle had. ‘Maybe it’s my fault’ , Noelle thought, ‘maybe they do this because I’m too weak to stop it. Maybe I’m being punished for being too scared’.
A small, dangerous and sharp fragment of her mind wanted to know how it would feel, to be powerful, to be stronger. Maybe that was how people got stronger. Maybe through hurting herself, December had got the courage to pack up and leave, leaving Noelle behind. Maybe through hurting themself, Kris had been strong enough to push her away, to be independent, to not need anyone anymore. Maybe it would feel good, feel better, maybe she would be stronger if she just knew.
Noelle opened her drawer, and pulled out a small penknife, flipping it open. She sat on the end of her bed, and held the blade to her wrist, breathing deeply. The moment she felt cold steel against her skin, her heart began to jackhammer, blood pumping through the veins and arteries. The thought of opening herself up and bleeding began to make her head spin and her breathing turn shallow. She snapped the knife shut and hid it deep in the back of the drawer, shaking and almost crying. ‘I’m still too weak’ ,she thought to herself as she wiped off her dark makeup and hid her black clothes in the very back of her wardrobe, behind her old angel wings that still hung in her closet.
Noelle dressed herself in her normal, societally acceptable, daughter-of-the-mayor approved outfit, and, looking in the mirror, forced herself to smile. Her eyebrows are knitted together and her smile is shaky, but it holds enough for her to go downstairs and face the empty house again.
___
Noelle Holiday is fifteen years old, in class, when Susie walks in. She’s tall, taller than Noelle and towers over everyone even more standing at the front of the class. Her jeans are tattered and her eyes are covered by dark messy hair. She makes a slightly mean spirited joke and flashes her teeth, sharp and crooked and yellow, and Noelle feels her heart jump into her throat, red nose glowing slightly.
Susie sits at the back of the class, leaning back in her chair and rolling her eyes at any and all instructions. Noelle offers her a pencil, earning a confused look and tilt of the head, but Susie takes it with a mumbled thanks. Noelle sits back in her desk at the front of the class, shaking too much for such a small interaction and zoning out while her teacher Ms Alphys talks through whatever book Noelle knows she should be paying attention to.
At the end of the day, Noelle realises halfway down the corridor her pencil case is still in class, she sighs and turns back towards the classroom door. Instead of stepping inside, she listens as she hears Susie talking to someone. Kris, she’s talking to Kris. It makes Noelle feel jealous in a way she chooses to ignore, especially when realising this is certainly not a friendly chat. Susie is holding Kris by the front of their sweater, yellow eyes scowling at them while she snarls cruel, bullying comments.
Noelle knows she should stop, she should step in, Kris is her friend, this is bad, she shouldn’t be listening, but can’t force herself to step forward, to interrupt. She hears Kris mumble something, but can’t hear what, and a second later the door swings open, the tall purple girl storming past Noelle without a word, shoulders hunched over. Noelle hurries into the classroom, grabs her pencil case, and gives Kris a worried look, to which they don’t respond, just watch her as she leaves.
Noelle feels guilty, she feels horrible and rotten from the inside for eavesdropping and not trying to stop Susie, and especially for wanting to know her better, wanting to be closer to her, even if that meant taking Kris’ position of being bullied and tormented.
Despite Noelle knowing she’d be an easy target, Susie never antagonises her, another thing Noelle tries not to think about too hard, failing miserably at doing so.
____
Noelle Holiday is sixteen years old. She’s in a white gown, in a city of flashing lights, hiding in an alleyway as Kris talks to Queen, a blue robot woman who seems hellbent on making Noelle her “peon”, whatever that means. Kris is in shining armour and their skin is tinged blue, a pink sword hanging at their belt. As they talk to Queen, then Berdly when he shows up, their voice sounds, different. The same different, Noelle thinks, as last night, when they’d cornered her outside her gate, asking her odd questions and staring blankly.
The Queen and Berdly leave soon enough, Kris agreeing to a “truce” with Noelle, though she never really thought they were on different sides, and beckons her to follow them through the city. Noelle follows, she’s lost and confused and knows she couldn’t handle this alone.
A fight breaks out, somehow, Kris tells her to “defend” as they do the same, bringing a shield up in front of themselves as Noelle cowers. Next, Kris tells Noelle to cast “iceshock”, she obliges, bringing her hands up towards the strange neon coloured enemy in front of her. The enemy is encased in ice, frozen still. Noelle expects to feel horrified, did she just, hurt someone? But her head is fuzzy, and she feels, strong.
This pattern continues, she follows Kris, they defend, she freezes the enemy, she feels stronger. Until the duo encounters a shop owner. He smiles, calls them a couple, which Noelle quickly denies. She expects Kris to back her up but instead they say, in the same flat tone, “we’re something else.”
The shopkeeper smiles at that, and offers them a ring instead, just outside their apparent price range.
“get it.” Kris says. Noelle protests, they don’t have enough money, she can’t get it.
“get it.” They say again. She tells them again, she can’t.
“get it. get it. get it. get it.” Kris repeats, flat, monotone, firmly, staring at Noelle, pushing her until she feels like she’s going to scream. Her mind clouds over as they repeat themselves again and again and again, and when she looks up, Kris is holding the ring, the shopkeeper is gone.
Noelle and Kris continue onwards, she follows them, white gown billowing in the wind. She continues to freeze enemies, Kris’ voice drilling into her skull, it feels, good. She feels stronger, she feels better. Her thoughts and memories bleed together, and doesn’t even really feel it when Kris slips a ring made of thorns onto her finger, drops of blood splattering on the concrete of the city. She continues to follow them, they ask her to solve puzzles? She proceeds. Only once does the thought of this being wrong occur to her, that maybe Kris is wrong, maybe she should stop them. They tell her it’s normal, though she doesn’t remember voicing her fears out loud.
Kris stops suddenly, staring at another enemy, Noelle at their side, readying iceshock again. Then a voice, not Kris’ voice, not even their new weird voice, cuts through the fog in her mind. Berdly’s voice. She blinks, and it’s not an enemy, it’s Berdly, regular, normal ,annoying but well-meaning Berdly. And she was going to hurt him. She reaches out to talk to him, and suddenly.
“Snowgrave”
What? That’s not one of her spells.
“Noelle, cast Snowgrave”
She tells them again, that isn’t a spell she knows.
“Snowgrave.” They insist again. She tells them no, they insist.
“Fine! Let’s see what happens when you ask me to cast a spell I *don’t know*!”
Her eyes glaze over white, her bloodied, thorn covered hand reaches up towards Berdly and suddenly.
Berdly is gone, a chrysalis of ice stands where he was.
Noelle gasps, realising what she may have just done. Kris looks no different, not scared or happy just, passive. Noelle runs off, she doesn’t let her think about what happened a second longer.
____
Noelle wakes up in the library, Berdlys alarm going off. Kris and Susie are standing there, she must have fallen asleep, it must have been a nightmare, that’s all. She smiles, she’s safe, she didn’t hurt anyone, and she still feels strong. She hurries out the library with a smile to Susie and Kris, Berdly doesn’t wake.
Later that night, Noelle hears a knock at the door. She’s home alone, her mother works late and her dad is back in hospital. Opening the door she sees Kris, sweating and panting like they ran to her house. They look, scared. They tell her Berdly will be fine, they tell her it was a prank, that they’re sorry, and they use her name, and they speak normally. “Sorry about today Noelle, don’t tell anyone about this.” Then, they reach for her hand and pull out a single thorn, slipping it into their pocket, before disappearing into the night.
____
Kris actually showed up to church, and Susie too. It makes Noelle happy to see them again, it’s good, they haven’t been in years, and Susie looks well, cute, in Asriels hand-me-down clothes. Kris avoids her eye contact, talking to everyone except her, until she finally plucks up the courage to ask if they want to work on group projects together, she has something she wants to talk to Kris about. Susie smiles at her when she offers, and Noelle feels like she’s blessed.
After church, once the two of them are at the Holiday manor, Noelle pulls Kris away to speak alone in her room. They look scared as she sits them down. They didn’t look scared yesterday, Noelle thinks to herself. She has to know if it was really a prank, this will be a good talk to have.
“Who’s going to hear?” Noelle asks, and in real time, she watches Kris’ scared look glaze over, replaced by apathy as they say “me.” in an undeniably off voice.
They reach into their pocket, and pull out a single thorn, the thorn from last night, a rusty brown colour from the blood dried onto it. They reach forward, every nerve in Noelle’s body trying to get her to leave, screaming at her to get away from this thing pretending to be Kris, but she’s frozen still as the thorn digs into her finger, feeling like her entire life cracks and shatters as fresh blood beads around her finger, and Kris leaves the room.
That night, long after Kris and Susie are kicked out by Carol, Noelle is curled up in bed, staring at the thorn in her hand. She was so scared before, but now can’t remember why. This is good, she’s strong now, she’s not going to let anything pass her by. She just, needed Kris to push her. That’s all. She always just needed a push forward. She knows what needs to happen, how to leave this town and the world and everyone who pushed her into the same little cycles day after day after day for years. Her sister was stronger than that, Kris is stronger than that, and now she’s stronger too.
_____
The festival was, good, really good. Noelle and Susie got to spend the day together, they had fun. Susie’s spontaneous, and funny, and a little oblivious, and Noelle still likes her. Noelle knew how the evening was going to go, she’s been replaying her speech again and again, so much so that she forgot to be nervous with Susie, holding her hand and pulling her around every silly couple thing she could find. At the ferris wheel, Noelle leaned against her shoulder, feeling Susies heart rate spike up and a blush form across her face, and it felt good, happy. She should have one more happy day before everything changes.
When Kris arrives at the lake, Noelle is waiting. They look terrible, their eyes are red like they’ve been crying, eye bags under their eyes, hair unbrushed and shirt sleeves pushed up, revealing thin white scars crossing their arms, scars just like December, scars just like the ones Noelle had been thinking of for eleven years, scars etched into everything and everyone she had ever cared about. Living breathing proof that this town was rotten, that her and Kris had to escape.
Noelle tells them she knows they’ve changed, that she wants to change too, that she can break her cycle now that she has them to put her on the right track. She stares into red eyes, eyes that look scared and somehow so wide and so clueless. In a small voice Kris tells her to proceed, filling Noelle with manic joy, she was right about everything. She grasps their hands as they repeat it again and again, the two step into the lake, cold water biting their ankles but Noelle doesn’t care.
Noelle doesn’t care when the water rises to her chest, squeezing around her heart, her hair floating in tendrils in the water around her. She steps back and back and back, pulling Kris with her, until she can no longer reach solid ground with her hooves. She pulls more and more, Kris shouting at her to proceed, she feels good, she’s freezing cold and she knows what she’s doing is insane but it’s good, she’s going to break the cycle just like December did, just like Kris wants her to.
Noelle opens her eyes under the lake, hearing Kris’ voice one more time, before the opens her mouth and her lungs are filled with icy water, dragging her best friend with her.