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In spite of the insulation and soundproofing, the warbling, wailing sounds of a band of elementary school students could be heard in the small office filled with books and binders and paperwork. While not exactly loud, it was still enough to mask the knocking sound at the door, at least for about ten seconds. Eventually the woman behind the desk stopped typing and looked up in confusion, then finally heard the knocking sound as the aspiring musicians next door stopped before the song's bridge.
“Is someone there?”
The doorknob rattled and the door slowly opened to reveal a face beneath a short but chaotic haircut.
“Uh. Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Carson-
“Frisk??” The woman behind the desk blinked. “Is something wrong?”
The child's mouth opened, then snapped shut, then opened again as the child slowly spoke.
“Possibly?”
“...is there something you would like to talk to me about?”
“...maybe. It's hard to tell. I'm not sure I can... I don't know if it's appropriate for me to talk to anyone else about.”
“Well.” Mrs. Carson nodded at the chair on the other side of her desk. “Better safe than sorry. Come on in, and be sure to shut the door behind you so we can hear each other talk.”
“Right.”
The young child walked into the office, closing the door on the muffled sound of the Dreemurr Elementary School Band's rendition of Wabash Cannonball until the music was just a distant hum through the building structure. Not for the first time, Mrs. Carson wondered about her colleague's choice in musical instruction, but reluctantly had to admit that Danny got results.
Then Frisk sat down in the chair and Mrs. Carson tried to keep her attention on her job.
“So...” the counselor prompted.
“So...” Frisk breathed in and out slowly. “I. Uh. I think that... I don't have proof, obviously. I don't know how this would be measured. But I...”
Frisk trailed off, and Mrs. Carson debated waiting for them to speak again or prompting them to continue for a few seconds, until Frisk finished the thought.
“I think that I might be... making some poor decisions. About. Time management. Or something.”
“...can you explain that in more detail?”
“...I guess. I was... well, everybody was busy during the summer. The trials, the national spotlight after Dr. Aster's magic announcement, taking Toriel's first draft magic instruction course. And...”
“And Chara,” Mrs. Carson finished.
“Yeah.” Frisk nodded. “There were just not enough hours in the day sometimes. So I had to stop being Ambassador for a while. And then I picked that up again at the same time the school year started. I didn't think that was going to be a problem because it was getting back to normal. Only last year... I wasn't spending two hours after school at the All Fine Labs Educational Annex. Because, you know, it didn't exist.”
“Right...”
“I think that... wait. Let me start again. I know that I... when I'm learning something new. I know that my brain will absorb a lot of stuff and retain it, and keep going right up to a certain point, and then everything stops fitting into place because I've painted myself into a corner in how I arrange it all in my head, and I need to go back and adjust all of it to make more room, and then the cycle repeats. This isn't like that, this is something else.”
“I see.” Mrs. Carson nodded. “Have you talked to your parents about this?”
“No.” Frisk's head shook back and forth in the negative. “Like I said. I'm not sure who I can really talk about it with. I know that Toriel and Asgore would both want me to cut back on something. Ambassador stuff, probably. Toriel would not want me to stop going to the classes at All Fine Labs and I don't really want to either.”
Mrs. Carson tapped her fingers on the desk for a moment. “If you did step back from being Ambassador again, what would be the pros and cons of that decision?”
“Pros... I'd have more breathing room to get all my work done. And whoever took up those responsibilities would be performing them with a clearer head than I have right now. Cons...”
Frisk shook their head.
“It does look like there are any Cons. But...”
“...but you're not happy with that choice.”
“No. I don't like it.”
“And that's why you haven't pursued it, because it bothers you for some reason.”
“That's... that sounds about right.”
“...can I trouble you for a refresher course on what you do as Ambassador?”
“It's half research and half public relations I guess. I look up stuff on the internet and in reference books and then contact government officials, non profits, and companies on behalf of the interests of monsterkind.”
“That seems like a job too big to be limited solely to after school hours.”
“Sometimes it is.”
The office was silent for a moment, at least until the band started up again. Mrs. Carson repressed her irritation and tried to focus again on the child in front of her.
“Frisk, I think it's very significant that you came to see me today.”
“Well... like I said. I wasn't sure if I could really share it with anybody else.”
“That isn't what I meant. I remember that after the first State of the Kingdom Address at the end of last school year, you came to see me a few times, but that was at Toriel's request.”
“Right.”
“You are one of the smartest students in this school, and I don't need to check your grades to know that. I can tell by your vocabulary and the way you attempt to explain concepts to other people. And I've realized something about that today, talking with you.”
“What is it?” Frisk stared at the counselor expectantly, and Mrs. Carson tapped a stack of papers on her desk.
“It occurs to me that you treat all the problems you face as if they were problems in an assignment in a classroom. You examine the problem systematically to work out a solution if you can, use trial and error methods to make progress if you have to, and you keep working on it until you find an answer or you run out of time.”
“That sounds about right.”
“I wasn't finished. One thing you don't do is ask for help when you're confronted by a difficult problem. At least, today is the first time you've asked me.” Mrs. Carson clasped her hands in front of her on her desk. “I know all too well that Undyne has been doing my job better than me for you and almost every monster child in this building.”
“...yeah. Sorry about that.”
“I wasn't blaming you for that, Frisk. I'm just pointing that out. Just as I'm pointing out that you don't usually call for help until you're in over your head.”
“...that is true. By the time I talk to Undyne about things, they've usually been bouncing around in my head for a week or two without any progress.”
Mrs. Carson nodded. “And if you could tackle it all by yourself, you wouldn't need help, right?”
“Yeah, that stands to reason. Why?”
The counselor was silent for a few seconds.
“I'd like to backtrack a bit before I answer that. You've made it clear that you don't want to give up your ambassadorial duties. Do you know why you are so attached to them, and don't feel comfortable sharing with me, or is that not something you can presently understand?”
Frisk stared at Mrs. Carson for slightly longer than was comfortable.
“I do know why I want to hold on to that part of my life. But I don't know if I can explain it properly to another person. And if I can't explain it to somebody else, then it might just be a product of my own imagination anyway.”
“...then you have nothing to lose by trying to explain, right?”
Frisk sighed.
“I guess I don't. So... when the Barrier was destroyed. Asgore didn't have a lot of options to choose from. But he asked me to be ambassador. I've done what I can to the best of my abilities. It's not just that I don't want him to regret his choice, even if that's part of it.”
The child turned to look towards the door, but from their expression, it was clear to Mrs. Carson that they were too preoccupied with something else to see the door.
“If I have the power to do the right thing, then I have the responsibility as well. Power is equivalent to responsibility. So if I have a responsibility to make sure that the right thing happens, I have to do whatever I can to make it happen.”
Mrs. Carson felt an unpleasant sensation not too far divorced from the hair on the back of her neck standing up. It wasn't the child's meta-logic that spooked her, but the conviction that had crept into Frisk's voice as they spoke.
“...how did you come to that conclusion?”
“Empirical evidence. My... my human parents. When the Guardians got aggressive after Asriel appeared. They started fighting. They couldn't agree if they should join the cult to stay out of the way, or stay apart to avoid the inevitable backlash, or leave town. Arguments turned into screaming matches. The house was either totally quiet or it was too loud. And they were so busy with work and so stressed from fighting they couldn't do anything else. Cook, or clean, or anything. I tried to help and... that tended to backfire. Asriel, and Chara, they keep telling me that it wasn't my fault. That Jason and Diane got their priorities wrong, and put too much stuff on me, too fast and too soon. But... I know. I know in my heart that my parents were scared and doing the best that they could and they needed me to step up and I didn't.”
“...hmm. Frisk, it was Toriel and Asgore that asked you to take a break from being Ambassador over the summer, correct?”
“Yes. They thought it would be too much on top of the magic crash course.”
“Given what happened over the summer, do you think that they were right?”
Frisk sighed. “Yeah. Just... everything that was involved with Chara coming back, never mind all the other stuff, was overwhelming. Being Ambassador would have been the straw that broke the Frisk's back.”
“And you came to see me because even though you believe you have to be able to juggle Ambassador responsibilities, school work, and after school magical studies... you don't think that's what's happening. Correct?”
The child seemed to shrink in the chair. “Yes.”
“...Frisk have you heard of something called spoon theory?”
“I've heard of it, but I don't know what it means or how it works.”
Mrs. Carson sat up straighter. “It's a term coined to describe having to prioritize how to manage limited personal resources. You mentioned time management earlier? It's like that, except everyone's familiar with time management, because everyone has the same twenty four hours each day to work with. But there are other resources that need to be managed that many people never think about, because they never go over their limits for them. Or if they do, it's a minor issue. Physical energy, attention span, even emotional composure. The originator of the theory used spoons as an example when explaining it to a friend because they were in a diner or restaurant and that was the most convenient physical representation. The important idea is to be aware of how much you have to give, and then focus on what is most important to you.”
Frisk stared at the desk between them and Mrs. Carson long enough for the band next door to finish one song and start another.
“Mrs. Carson, did you ever see the movie about the Apollo 13 mission and what went wrong?”
“Yes, I vaguely remember seeing that with two of my cousins once or twice. Why?”
“There's a part of the movie where they have to turn the command module back on after turning everything off to save power long enough to get back to earth. There's a bunch of stuff they need in order to survive re-entry and splashdown in the ocean, but they only have so much left in the batteries. They had people working with the simulator to figure out exactly what was needed and in what order, and they threw everything they didn't need away.”
“That also works as a good analogy. You only have so much energy so you have to make decisions about what to power with it.”
“That's not what I meant.” Frisk swallowed. “I've already cut back on everything I can think of. I spend every free moment at home working on something. I can't remember the last time I talked to Asriel or Chara about random stuff like we used to do, but it had to be during the summer I think. Toriel won't let me work on stuff during dinner, so I've had to start working through lunch hour every day, and I've tried setting my alarm sooner so I can do more in the mornings but it woke up Asriel so I can't do that. I've cut out everything I think I can cut out and I still don't have enough.”
“Exactly. You don't have enough to go around so you have to look at what you can avoid again-”
Frisk inhaled sharply through their nose and held their head in their hands for a moment.
“Mrs. Carson. You are focused on the wrong part of the analogy. If there wasn't enough power in the batteries to run all essential hardware, the astronauts would die. They came up with a list in the movie of absolute essentials. I just told you. I've done that. I've cut back everything to what everyone needs me to do. Cutting back any more means that I can't do what people need me to do.”
“Frisk, that isn't how it works. You said it yourself, if the astronauts ran out of power than they wouldn't be able to do everything. You have to figure out how to prioritize things.”
Frisk stared at Mrs. Carson, and for a few seconds, the counselor thought she saw the child's irises start to turn red, before Frisk stood up out of the chair.
“I think I've made a mistake. I apologize for using up your time.”
The child walked over to the office door, pulled it open, walked out and shut the door behind them. After a few moments Mrs. Carson sighed and pulled out her phone, navigating through the contact list and dialing. There was a ringing sound on the other end of the connection that cut off as the call was picked up.
“Undyne here.”
“Undyne, you might want to talk to Frisk later, if they don't show up in your office today.”
“...dammit Carson. When are you going to start listening to people?”
In spite of herself, Mrs. Carson felt a surge of anger.
“Why don't you worry about doing your job and let me worry about doing mine-”
“I AM doing your job because you SUCK at it!”
“...fine. That's fair. Just keep it in mind.”
Mrs. Carson hung up the call, put her phone back on her desk, and stared at the papers still needing to be filled out. She was just about to pick up a pen again when the band started playing Stars And Stripes Forever.
“Alright everybody! Good hustle! Good form! Most of you can head in to lunch. Jade, Frisk, want to see you in my office for a minute first.”
As most of the physical education class headed back into the building, a human child and a gem elemental followed Undyne instead, at a slower pace. When the teacher arrived at her office and sat down behind her desk, she leveled her eye at the monster child.
“Jade, couldn't help but notice you were really gunning for Ben today.”
Shoulders shrugged, and the light reflected off of the angular, faceted head of the child in a way that implied dismissal or possibly reluctance.
“...are you still mad about that accident in the music room last year?”
“It wasn't an accident!” The child protested, their voice echoing. “He hit me with a trombone! On purpose!”
“Whether or not it was an accident or on purpose, you shouldn't be holding onto a grudge all summer long. You had two and a half months to get revenge on him then.”
Frisk sighed and rubbed their forehead. “I don't want to go over your head on this Undyne but are you sure that's the lesson you want anybody to take from this? Get revenge right away?”
“No, no, I'm just pointing out how unhealthy it is to keep stuff like that bottled up.” Undyne waved her hand. “Do you feel better after tagging him out seventeen times today?”
“...maybe a little.”
“Alright then. As long as you can work it out of your system without hurting yourself, or anybody else, or any part of Ben except his pride, then that's okay. But don't let stuff like that fester.”
“...is that all?”
“Yeah. Got get something to eat, punk.”
As Jade got up and walked to the door, Undyne directed her gaze in Frisk's direction.
“...this doesn't have to do with gym class, does it.”
“No. Not really.”
“...Mrs. Carson said something.” Frisk shook their head. “I knew that was a mistake.”
“She gave me a call. She didn't give me any details.”
The human child said nothing, and Undyne's office was silent for a few moments.
“...Frisk?”
“I'm fine,” the child responded, almost before Undyne was done speaking. “Asriel's back, Chara's back, Toriel and Asgore have their kids back, and I'm back at work again. Everything is fine.”
Undyne narrowed her eye at the child, but Frisk didn't say anything more.
“...hey. There's still a lot of time left in the lunch hour. How do you feel about sparring? Show me what you've learned at the lab so far?” Undyne grinned a massive grin that only an amazonian fish warrior could manage. “I've only seen you in action a few times and I was always distracted by other things.”
“...there's no fighting on school grounds.”
“Fighting means trying to hurt somebody. This is a demonstration of skill! Or, since I'm a teacher, we could call it a training exercise.”
“...sorry. I don't think I really have the time. Or the...” Frisk trailed off before finishing the sentence.
“That's fair.”
“Can I go now? I have stuff I have to work on.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” Undyne watched Frisk stand up and head towards the door before the words registered in her mind. “Hey, actually, one more thing.”
Frisk stopped, but did not turn around.
“Given that it's lunchtime, most people would say they needed to eat, not get to work. And earlier, you were talking about everything being okay because Asriel and Chara and Toriel and Asgore were all a family again, and you added yourself on at the end as back to work. Like an afterthought. Or, not an afterthought. Like Zoidberg on Futurama.”
“...yeah. I said that.”
“...I don't understand even a quarter of the science that Alphys and the Asters came up with to get Chara their own body and Soul again. But I did understand the parts where Alphys would toss and turn all night because worrying about what would happen to you if anything went wrong was keeping her up. And the thing is, I think you understood enough of the science to know why she was worried. Right?”
“...yeah.”
“...that was really hardcore, then. Putting everything on the line for somebody else's sake. Not just for Chara. For Asriel to hold his sibling again. For Toriel and Asgore to see both the children they lost.”
“It had to be done. Chara was stuck, they didn't have anything to really call their own anymore.”
“...the fact that it was necessary does not change the fact that you went above and beyond in order to make it happen.” Undyne got up and walked around her desk over to where Frisk stood. “No act of legislature you convince some human politician to write or vote for is ever going to compare to the looks on the Dreemurrs' faces.”
Undyne saw Frisk's hand shake, before they started to speak.
“Undyne... if I tell you something, can you promise me you won't tell anyone else? Not mom or dad or even Asriel and Chara? Not even Alphys?”
“Of course I promise. Do I look like Mrs. Carson to you?”
“...I'm not sure I can keep doing this.”
Undyne waited for Frisk to continue, but the child had lapsed into silence again.
“Keep doing what?”
“Everything. Schoolwork. Magic Studies. Ambassador stuff. I'm spending every spare moment working on one of them and I'm still falling behind and I don't know if it's because I'm not organizing things right or if I just don't have anything left to give. There's so much I need to do and I'm slipping and I don't know what's going to happen when I finally lose my grip and Mrs. Carson was just telling me to not do one of the things that I have to do because it's obvious I'm not good enough to do everything everyone needs and that's why she talked over me and didn't listen to me because-”
Frisk clapped their hands over their mouth, and Undyne realized she had taken a step back as the child's voice had suddenly gotten angry. It was an unfamiliar tone that the teacher had only heard from Frisk a scant handful of times before.
“...well. I think we can agree that Mrs. Carson needs to step up her game. As for the rest of the stuff... well. If you wanted to keep this secret. Obviously you haven't talked to Toriel or Asgore about it.”
Frisk shook their head, still covering their mouth.
“I remember Toriel and Asgore asking you to step back from Ambassador over the summer so you could focus on your education. You were okay with that, right?”
Frisk nodded, and Undyne stared at the child for a few seconds before reaching up and adjusting her eye patch. The gym teacher got down on one knee next to Frisk.
“I have a theory. I think that if Toriel or Asgore said that you had taken on too much for this year, and requested you just focus on education again... you would probably be okay with that, eventually. But you think that if you go to them, and you say the same thing... it wouldn't be the same at all.”
Frisk nodded again, and their hands came down so they could speak again.
“I told them it would be okay, I told them I could do it, I thought I could keep up but I was wrong but I told them I could do it.” There was a rasping noise as the child sucked in breath again. “I told them they could trust me, I told them I would always be there for them no matter what and I can't keep up. I can't keep up and it's all falling apart.”
Undyne placed one hand on Frisk's shoulder.
“It's not all falling apart. Monsters aren't going to be driven back underground just because you're overworked. Chara and Asriel aren't going to disappear just because you tried to do too much, too-”
Undyne stopped talking for a moment, and sighed.
“Frisk... I know you're like Alphys. You're both really smart. And when you run across problems... it's only natural to try to solve them. But if you can't find a solution, that's not on you. And even if Asriel and Chara are sparse on the details. I know enough to know that what you went through growing up with your human parents. That was unsolvable. Even if you had managed to do everything you thought you had to do, and do it perfectly... it wouldn't have changed. They wouldn't have stopped being bad parents. Not because you didn't deserve better, but because they couldn't be what you needed.”
Undyne pulled Frisk into a hug, which the child returned almost immediately with trembling arms.
“Undyne...” Frisk's voice came out hoarse and soft enough to be difficult to hear. “I thought I was past this. I thought for a long time... the reason Jason and Diane did what they did, was because I screwed up. And if I stopped screwing up. They would... they would start to love me again. I know now. That could never happen. I know what happened to me. That wasn't normal. It wasn't right. But... it's carved into my brain and it's never going away. I am broken, and I will never be whole again, and I can't ever be what everybody needs me to be...”
The office was silent for a minute, and when Undyne opened her mouth again, she found herself trying to speak around a lump in her throat.
“All we need you to be is Frisk. A ten year old kid who loves to read, and work on puzzles, and watch shows about transforming robots, and who rides their bike like a lunatic, and likes to beat people at the radio quiz show, and cares about everybody very, very much. Literally everything else is optional. Ambassador, straight A student, everything. In the end, all we need, and all we really want, is for you to be you. Can you do that for us?”
Undyne felt Frisk's breathing slow, and the movement as the child nodded.
“I'm going to tell you what your human parents should have told you. And what I hope Asgore and Toriel have told you. But if they haven't, it's because they didn't realize they needed to. And that's not anyone's fault. So listen carefully. It's okay to be broken. It's okay to screw up, and get in over your head, and get frustrated, and quit, and go back to something that you don't have to run yourself into the ground to get done. And it's okay to backslide. To try to move beyond something, and have it catch up to you. That happens to all of us. You are allowed to be a normal person, with all the limitations and drawbacks of any other human or monster. All the other stuff you've done... nobody wanted Jordan Cater anywhere near you, never mind you having to fight him. Nobody even knew Asriel could be brought back until he was. And I meant what I said earlier about helping Chara. What you've done for your family, for monsters, for everyone in this town... you've always been there for us, no matter what was happening. You don't owe anybody anything more. You just have to be you. That's all.”
For a few seconds, the office was quiet, until Frisk let their breath out. The small arms wrapped around Undyne squeezed even harder before relaxing.
“I... I think I'll talk to mom and dad about stuff. Tonight, after school. Uhm. Thanks. Not just for the advice. For... for letting me say what I needed to.”
“Good. Good for you. Let me know how it all turns out, okay?”
Frisk nodded and let go.
“I will.”
“Sweet. Now you better head to the cafeteria to make up for lost time. And remember, you owe me a sparring session someday soon. I want to see all the new tricks you've picked up.”
Frisk managed to smile.
“That's fair.”
6:38 PM CoolSkeleton95: UNDYNE I HAVE AMAZING NEWS!
6:38 PM CoolSkeleton95: THE KING AND QUEEN WERE SO IMPRESSED WITH MY TEMPORARY AMBASSADORSHIP OVER THE SUMMER THAT THEY OFFERED ME THE POSITION FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR!
6:40 PM: sry was away form hpone what
6:40 PM: OH
6:40 PM: NICE
6:41 PM CoolSkeleton95: YES INDEED!
6:41 PM CoolSkeleton95: FRISK IS GOING TO BE BRINGING ME UP TO SPEED ON SOME OF THEIR LATEST PROJECTS OVER THE WEEKEND, AND THEN IT SHALL BE OFFICIAL!
6:42 PM: that's AWESOME youre perfect for the job!
6:42 PM CoolSkeleton95: INDEED! I'M GOING TO CLEAR MY SCHEDULE FOR THE NEXT WEEK OR SO TO MAKE SURE THE TRANSITION IS SEAMLESS! BUT FIRST I MUST CONTINUE TO SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS!
6:43 PM: thats great you have fun doing that
6:43 PM: you earned it
6:43 PM: sorry gtg watching shows with Alphys talk to you later
6:43 PM CoolSkeleton95: OKAY! HAVE FUN CONTINUING THE THING YOU WERE PREVIOUSLY DOING!!
Undyne locked her phone and prepared to return it to her pocket when the messaging client beeped again. One eye rolled as the phone was unlocked...
6:44 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: evrything went beter than expected
6:44 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: thank you :)
6:45 PM: glad to hear it
6:45 PM: Papyrus just told me he got promoted
6:45 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: yeh
6:45 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: he does good work
6:45 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: and no I can breath again
6:45 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: will let you kno wwhen that spar match is good ;)
6:46 PM: awesome
6:46 PM: its going to be EPIC
6:46 PM: gtg watchin a new show w Alphys
6:46 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: AUDIBLE WINK
6:46 PM: OMG
6:46 PM: ITS AN ACTION SERIES
6:47 PM: YOURE TWO YOUNG TO BE DOING STUF LIKE THAT
6:47 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: ok ok ok
6:47 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: srsly tho the Alphys Undyne ship is unsinkable :P
6:47 PM: your damn right
6:47 PM Legendary Flirtmaster: lol good night have fun
Undyne made a noise halfway between an annoyed grunt and a snicker, locked her phone again, and returned her gaze to the TV screen. One hand made its way to the bowl of chips Alphys was holding.
“Sorry, Papyrus and Frisk both texted me with good news to share. What'd I miss? Don't tell me I missed a big fight. Looked like everyone was going to tear each other apart next.”
“Just some introductory exposition. Explaining the setting conventions. Humans and Demons, the politics of the demon world, the existence of human heroes, stuff like that.”
“Yawn.” Undyne reached one arm over onto Alphys shoulders without any subtlety. “I thought you said this series was full of action.”
“It is. This is just the setup phase.”
Undyne watched glowing lines and symbols on the floor light up around two of the characters. “Okay, is that an alchemy thing? I remember that.”
“Different series. Maria is a succubus and she's going to link those two with magic so Basara will always know where Mio is and...”
Alphys trailed off as the scene progressed. Slowly her scales turned red, and next to her, Undyne's scales began to take on a red hue as well.
“Alphys, when you said Sister New Devil was full of action... you didn't mean fights, did you.”
“Well. It's... n-not all fighting.”