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"Kris...
Thanks for walking me home"
Susie fell back into the dark world, reflecting on the day just past.
It had been a wonderful day, the festival had been wonderful, Noelle had been wonderful, even the dark world adventure had been wonderful despite her initial hesitancy; she had really warmed up to the place.
As Susie landed, she was greeted by a multitude of darkners; clearly, Ralsei had organised a bit of a welcoming committee for her.
"Lancer!"
"Susie!" Lancer exclaimed as he bounded upon Susie's back, "Your back!"
"Heh, you sure are on it", Susie retorted. She'd missed the bouncy boy. Despite seeing him this morning, it had felt like a lifetime.
"Why don't we make our way over to the castle now, Susie?" Ralsei asked politely (as always)
As Susie began to make her way towards the castle and her home, the assembled entourage began barraging her with a cacophony of questions.
From Queen, "Sweety Honey Darling, How Did That Date With Noelle Go?"
To Swatch, "Was your outfit up to code for the festivities?"
Even Rouxls kaard "Did thine bosseth frometh toust latest adventure needeth an assistant?"
"You all want to know how my day went, huh?" Susie remarked as she entered the castle's foyer, where even more darkners were waiting, "Guess I can indulge y'all with a quick retelling"
A loud cheer erupted from the gathered crowd, and Ralsei politely clapped as Susie launched into her epic tale.
She started with the festival, describing as best she could the fun that the three of them had had; she left out most of the parts where she had berated Sans, focusing instead on the positives, which meant describing the shenanigans the three of them had got up to with the various games and stalls.
She then moved on to the lake, much of the content of that conversation had been forgotten, but she still remembered the way Noelle had looked at her, the joy she had felt of just being able to be herself around another, not having to worry about adults or dark worlds, just them, together talking.
This was what love was about, right?
By the time she had gotten to the flower king's dark world, she had expected her audience to be half asleep, bored out of their minds by her (admittedly uninspired) descriptions of Noelle. But somewhat surprisingly, the entire audience was wide awake, eagerly awaiting the next word from her mouth as if this speech was the finest poetry rather than a meandering anecdote of questionable quality.
Onto today's adventure, Susie described Flowery in the way she knew him now rather than her first impression (that had admittedly been one of mild disgust and confusion)
She described Aqua (like Lancer, but plays with knives), Seth (like Berdly, but not annoying), Yellow (cool dude with depression), Blue (cool dude without depression), Green (nice chef, maybe even better than Ralsei) and Orange (rat that wants to beat you up)
She knew that none of these descriptions could ever match meeting them in person, but she wanted to at least try to keep their memory alive.
Finally, she reached their final battle (Kris kicked ass!) and admitted that no, the flowers would not be joining them tomorrow, and yes, Asgore had been kidnapped by the knight. Despite the melancholy tone of the ending, the assembled audience (which by now composed almost every darkener in castle town) erupted into applause as Susie finished, a cacophony of praise like she had never received before.
"But", Susie shouted above the noise ", There is one other thing!"
"We need to bring Noelle to Castle Town. This hero stuff has gotten too big for me and Kris to do alone, so we need her help!"
At this announcement, an even bigger roar emerged from the crowd, and many darkners began discussing Noelle
"I heard she doesn't like mice!"
"I heard she lives in a mansion five stories high!"
"I heard she already recruited a dozen darkners back in Cyber world!"
As a wave of rumours and plans made its way through the crowd, Ralsei approached Susie and said
"Um, are you sure this is a good idea, Susie? letting anyone else into this secret could put them at risk"
"It'll be fine, Ral! Noelle can handle it, you saw how well she managed back in Cyber world, she even stood up to Queen all by herself!"
"If you're sure... how can we help?"
They were making good progress on getting the town ready for Noelle, but Susie had to admit that it was wearing her down a bit. For one, since she was the de facto expert on Noelle, she had to be consulted about basically everything that needed changing, from redecorating the town square with Christmas trees to refurbishing many of the buildings that probably needed a slight touch-up to be in top condition for Noelle's arrival (i.e., they were dangerously close to falling down)
It was exhausting work, to be sure; many darkners were happy to help, but few could be trusted not to make things worse, so a lot of the labour ended up being done by Susie and Lancer who was still full of energy and boundless optimism.
"Do you think Noelle would like it if we filled her room with shovels?" Lancer queried as they began construction on the castle's latest room.
"Uhh, probably not? I mean, she doesn't dislike shovels, I just reckon that she'd have a better time with bells or lights." Susie was uncertain about this assessment. She had been asked a lot of things about Noelle's preferences, and despite winging it in over half of the cases, the darkners took her answers at face value. She worried that if she admitted she didn't know all about Noelle, they might start questioning her relationship.
Susie knew, at some level, that this was a silly concern; this had only been their first date! (not counting the cyber world) They were in love, so it didn't matter, right?
Returning to the construction work, Susie was surprised by how fast it had gone. Noelle's room was already nearly complete, and Ralsei had said that he would source the items for the interior (Susie had made an extensive list with the help of a lot of suggestions from other darkners)
"Hey, Lancer
Thanks for helping out"
"No problem!" Lancer exclaimed as he bounced away upstairs.
Now Susie was alone in a way she had not been for quite a while.
It had been an exhausting day: the festival, Flower King, and now this construction. It had been almost non-stop action and friends. This was what life was about. But she recognised that she should probably get some rest, for Noelle, of course.
As Susie entered her room, she saw Ralsei running up the stairs.
"Oh, Susie, glad I could catch you before you went to bed! I have a few things I need your input on."
"Can't you just choose them yourself? You seemed pretty decisive back in Flower King."
"Oh, um, I just thought that you would want to choose what's best for Noelle since you are the expert on her!"
"I've already made enough choices on her behalf, been doing that all evening! Dunno if it's all what she'd want but I've tried my best."
"But I don't really have as much experience with Noelle as you do; the prophecy doesn't mention her that much"
"I don't have that much experiance ether! We only got talking, like for real, two days ago! I know that we are in love and all, but sometimes it feels like I barely know her. If only Kris were here, they'd know what her favourite colour was"
"S-susie, I'm sorry if we've been putting too much pressure on you. I just want things to be perfect for Noelle too"
Susie sighed.
"It's not that, it's just ... Are we in love? I mean, of course we are, we had such a good time together, she said it, I said it, we must be in love,"
"It's just", Susie continued ", what Blue said, back in Flower King. 'What kind of flowers does she like?' It's such a small question, and if I can't answer that, how can I answer anything about my feelings for her?"
Ralsei stood still for a second, then replied, "It's okay not to know all the answers. Having things you aren't sure about is good in some ways; it means there's more for you to discover about each other. Uncertainty can be scary, but I believe it's a good thing; you've always had a knack for making your own path through our adventures! I'm sure you can do the same thing with Noelle."
Susie reflected upon this for a second, not entirely sure if Ralsei's speech had been helpful.
"Thanks, Ral, I'm heading to bed now"
"Sweat dreams, Susie"
As Ralsei delivered a slice of cake to an already snoozing Susie (a snoozie, he chuckled to himself), he reflected upon their last conversation. How nice, he thought, to have some uncertainty in your life. He knew that such luxuries were not meant for the likes of him; the prophecy was far too rigid for that.
So Ralsei smiled at the girl, with hope crossed on her heart, now fast asleep.