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Your hands grip the wooden handle of the shovel you swiped from the shed in Asgore’s garden. The old wood is coarse in your hands, and you fear you might get a splinter if you grip it the wrong way. You forcefully shove the head of the shovel into the dirt, slicing through golden flowers. You flip spadefulls of soil off to the side of the cavern, the dirt splatting and scattering on the dusty stone. Your shovel pulls up the flowers, ripping them from the soil or taking them with the larger chunks of earth. The beautiful garden that Toriel tended to for nearly a century reduced to a pile of nothing.
I still don’t get why you’re doing this. I try to tell you again that you won’t find anything of note. You know what bones look like. You spend so much time with the brothers their house is like a second home to you. There’s no point in pulling up a corpse like this. I suppose at this point you may as well though, you’ve already torn up the flowers Toriel tended to, you may as well fully desecrate my grave.
Yes I know you’re not trying to desecrate it. You told me you had a reason but I’ve yet to hear it, and I’m beginning to fear this is just more of that horrible sentimentality you carry for everything. You’ve dug up most of the grave already and decide it’s time for you to take a break. You sit down on part of the dirt mound you’ve made and pull out a water bottle and the tupperware of Butts Pie Toriel made you bring from your backpack. You hesitate before eating and I have to remind you that if you don’t eat you might end up passing out at a steam vent on the way back, and we haven’t saved for a few weeks. Also you do need to eat. You’re a teenager now, and while I do understand not wanting to eat I will take over and take care of your body for you if you keep being lazy about it.
Frisk I am not dignifying that comment with a response. Do not pretend you would like that.
Frisk I am in your head I cannot blush.
After your break you get back to work on the hole. You have to stand fully inside it at this point, and I’m honestly Impressed you’ve been able to keep your energy up this long. I suppose digging up a long dead child fills you with Determination? Right, there’s no save point, but in my opinion it’s the thought that counts. You’re at the point of just blindly shovelling roots out of the hole when you finally spot it. You were expecting a coffin. I was too.
Sunk into the dirt is what seems to be the bones of someone’s leg. You sweep some more dirt aside and see that the person would be slightly shorter than you are now, but likely taller when you first fell here. You try your best to shovel around the bones, and slowly uncover more of the skeleton. You see they are wearing clothing, although said articles are unbelievably soiled. A green sweater with a single yellow stripe and brown shorts cover the skeleton’s torso and upper legs. You don’t have any way of knowing the color though, they’re all far too stained with dirt and some other substance.
Eventually you’re able to expose the entirety of the remains. A golden heart locket sits on the skeleton’s chest, and a pair of knitting needles are clutched in one of its hands. You gently pick up and pocket the needles. You seem to stare at the locket, waiting for something.
You ask me permission. You never asked Asriel permission to take his locket in any of your runs. I suppose that is a bit different though.
I’d like you to have it, Frisk.
You undo the clasp as gently as you can, trying with all of your will to avoid disturbing the remains. You manage to get the locket off, and fasten it around your neck. You tell me it’s our neck. Frisk, this is your body. Mine is just bones sitting in front of you. I don’t deserve hey wait why are you giggling? Oh. Right yes this is my corpse. Yes I know I have been intentionally avoiding calling it mine, but this body, this vessel is not me. I discarded it when I became one with Asriel and when I became one with you.
Yes I understand that “being one with you” would mean that your body is also mine. I still am not going to see it that way and your whining is not going to change that.
Sorry that- yes that was uncalled for. I am fine with you saying it is our body. I just, I am not there yet.
You lean down over my bones, examining every feature you can. Your hand reaches out and runs over the surface of my skull, almost like you’re trying to keep it to memory. Your hand trails down to one of my hands, and you grasp it in your own. I am unsure what to say to that. I get the intent at least, but you must know holding one of your own hands is much better for this. I do appreciate it, though.
You call my corpse beautiful. You say you love every part of me. You say you’re glad that I’m with you and not just something in the ground. You are crying, or maybe I am. I think we both are.
I don’t wish to know a universe in which I am not with you, Frisk. I hold onto your, no our shoulders. I give a gentle squeeze to you and count down from 10 in our head. You eventually calm yourself, and wipe your tears on your sleeve. You thank me.
You begin slipping the green sweater off of the corpse. It’s tedious, and again it is so caked in dirt that there is no way you could possibly clean it. You scoff at me and finally get the sweater off my bones. You hug it to yourself, getting dirt all over your front.
You jokingly say I am blushing again, and I am obviously not Frisk you know that is not the case. You hold our hands together and keep insistently calling me beautiful which is just clearly self-centered as we share the same face. You point out the warm feeling spreading through our cheeks. I do not comment on it.
You climb your way out of the hole and begin the arduous process of filling it back in. Truly you are a masterful grave robber. It’s much easier than the digging up part, although you end up having me do about half of the work as you get more exhausted near the end. You do your best to set the flowers back how they were, although it’s clear many of them are beyond saving.
You stuff the dirty sweater into your backpack and begin your walk back towards the Ruins. You catch one last glance backwards at my grave, looking over the patch of golden flowers.
You say they’re quite pretty, and that they suit me. You say they remind you of me.
I think you’re beautiful too, Frisk.