Archive of Our Own

Loud footsteps echoing in the hall rouse you from your doze, and you shift with a groan.

“Careful,” Asriel tells you, laughter in his deep voice. “You don’t want to fall over.”

You groan again, louder this time, and slap at him gently. “Ree, I told you not to let me fall asleep.”

He chuckles. Truly, he is the world’s worst partner. “But you were so cute,” he protests, like this is any kind of decent excuse. “And there’s nothing wrong with letting you nap, is there? We were up late last night, after all.”

“You hush,” you tell him, cracking one eye open and then the other. “In the first place, whose fault do you think it is that I hardly got any sleep?”

It’s unusually warm for late September, and the two of you are sitting in the garden to bask in the dapples of outside light that filter in through the small holes in the ceiling—Toriel’s orders, to make sure that you’re getting your vitamin D. You curled up with Asriel the way you always do—he’s warm, what does he expect from you?—and he’s such a comfortable seat that you suppose you nodded off despite yourself.

You scowl up at him (or try to, because you don’t have it in you to be angry at Asriel for very long). He smiles down at you, brown eyes infuriatingly soft and beautiful. His horns scribe graceful curves against the yellow vine-covered walls; there’s hardly any white left in his mane these days. What there is peeks out here and there through the messy gold, like your own gray streaks. And you do have to scowl up—there’s so much of him, and he just. Keeps growing. But his sheer mass makes him a very comfortable cuddle, when it’s not making your neck hurt, or causing—other problems.

He’s warm and soft and lovely, and you reach up to stroke the side of his face. He closes his eyes and leans into your touch. It still feels so—new, to be able to show affection in public; you get butterflies sometimes even now, though it’s been three years since you “came out” to the king and queen. The only other person in the garden is Asgore, and he’s over by the door humming and watering plants, not paying you and Asriel any mind, but your insides are still fluttering and you feel giddy.

“Well, you seemed enthusiastic too,” Asriel says innocently. You rub your thumb over the dorky sideburns he models after his old character and consider kissing the smirk off his silly mouth.

The footsteps that roused you are getting steadily louder, though, so you just cover his mouth with one hand to cut him off. (There’s a brief flick of something warm and tickly against your palm—did he just lick you, honestly, he enjoys hearing you squeak and watching you turn red entirely too much.)

The doors to the garden creak, and two small children barrel into the room.

They’re about the same height. The skinny one has bright cerulean skin, a shock of red hair yanked back into a stubby ponytail, and an eyepatch; they’re barefoot and wear shorts and a sleeveless shirt. The more solidly built one has black hair in a thick braid, purple eyes, and dark brown skin, wearing a white dress and lilac ballet shoes. One is a monster. The other is human.

You drop Asriel’s muzzle and wind your hands into his shirt on instinct. Your pulse is rapid in your throat; there’s something long and cold and restless coiled in your guts. All through today your joints haven’t given you any trouble at all, but suddenly you don’t trust your knees’ ability to support your weight. Asriel wraps his big solid arms around you, holding you close and safe to his warm chest, and you try to take deep breaths and still your shivers.

It’s pathetic. Prase is as unthreatening as a monster to you, now; even as boisterous as Rufus can get, you can still be around him without flinching. But put a new human in front of you and the terror boils back up in you without so much as a by-your-leave. It doesn’t even seem to matter that you’ve seen the newest fallen human before (if from a safe distance).

“You’re okay,” Asriel murmurs in your ear, rubbing your back while you shake. You press yourself closer to his body, trying to encourage your heart rate to slow down and match the slower pace of his pulse. “You’re fine, Chara. It’s okay.”

It is for now, maybe. But you can’t keep doing this. It’s been eleven years, now, since you first came here—eleven years of you clinging to him just to make it from one day to the next. Asriel never complains, but it’s not fair to do this to him. At this rate—it may not be soon, but surely he’ll tire of having to baby you through anything even remotely difficult eventually.

You’re trying. But it isn’t enough.

“You’ll be okay,” Asriel says to you again, and he kisses your temple. You take a deep breath and try to force yourself to relax. He’s right. He usually is.

So you turn in the protective circle of his arms and watch as the two children tramp through the garden right up to Asgore, who shifts his watering can from one hand to the other to wave at them and smiles down upon them kindly.

“Well, howdy!” the king of all monsters says to his tiny guests. “What can I do for you two today?”

“Fight us!” shouts the monster child.

“I beg your pardon?” Asgore replies, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re the strongest monster in the whole underground, right? That’s what Undyne said!” the human informs him, jerking a thumb in the direction of her monster friend. “So if we wanna be strong, that means we have to beat you first!”

“Yeah!!” says Undyne. “So put your dukes up, old man!”

And both of them charge Asgore, screaming at the top of their lungs in the way that only enthusiastic preteens can.

You take it back. You’re the furthest thing from okay.

Asgore sidesteps Undyne’s charge, then the human’s, with an expression of gentle bemusement. Both of them careen through the flowerbeds, windmilling, and then rally themselves for another charge.

It doesn’t register until Asriel pulls you back down into his lap that you’re trying to get to your feet. You have no plan, no strategy; all you have is the white roar in your head that you have to intervene somehow.

“Calm down,” Asriel tells you—like you’re a child yourself. Hurt thuds ugly in your chest, horribly like the sensation of freefall.

“She’s human,” you force out of your mouth. “Don’t you realize—if she lands even one blow on him—”

“Just relax,” Asriel says. He sounds—complacent, amused, like this is all some colossal joke. Like this is just the kind of entertainment he needed to relieve his boredom. “They’re just kids. The human’s LOVE is still just one, and it’s not like she means any real harm. On the off chance that she gets a hit in, it’s not going to really hurt Dad. And he fought in the war, before we were sealed underground. He’s used to dealing with humans. He’s not just going to stand there and take it.”

His arms are all corded muscle underneath their soft layer of fat, and he exerts his considerable strength to keep you seated. He leans in to kiss you at the base of your jaw—it’s probably an attempt to soothe you, but the contact just leaves you cold. You’re shaking so hard your teeth rattle; you don’t know whether it’s from your fear or your fury. And Asriel still does not seem compelled to view your distress as anything other than silly.

Across the garden, though, your huge lumbering foster father continues to dodge Undyne’s flailing fists and the human’s stiff kicks with a lightness of foot that you’ve never seen in him—that you would never have expected an aging man to possess, either. The two children have youth and enthusiasm on their side, but they’re uncoordinated; more than once, Undyne has to quickly cancel or divert a spell to avoid hitting the human. For his part, Asgore does not raise a hand to defend himself—you don’t really expect him to; war veteran he might be, but he’s a gentle person now. That he’s always been so kind to you despite everything you are and everything you’ve done speaks more than enough for his tender heart. He seems to be more than content to let Undyne and the human wear themselves out.

Both children are flagging by the time that Asgore steps sideways to avoid their unpracticed attempt at a pincer maneuver, causing them to smack right into each other. The both of them reel back, collapsing into the flowers with grunts of pain.

“Ow!” Undyne yells. “Innig, you dummy!”

“You’re the dummy,” Innig retorts. From your seat, you watch her as she sits up gingerly and cradles her head in her hands. “Why does your head have to be so hard?”

Asgore crouches down in the grass beside the two of them. “Now, now. Shall we go inside and have a cup of tea while we sort this out?” He lifts his head to gaze directly at you, the look in his eyes apologetic. “I believe we could all use a chance to calm down a bit.”

Asriel kisses your cheek again. “I told you it’d be fine,” he says. Amused.

The tears of relief and love that had begun to prick your eyes at Asgore’s words start to sting. It’s no surprise: You’ve always found humiliation harder to bear than worry.

Asgore fetches the little chairs that you and Asriel used as children while you watch the tea. Asriel is already in the living room, offering Undyne and Innig some of the cookies that Toriel baked last weekend. You would want him at your side at a time like this, but irritation is still hot in your veins, and it keeps your mind occupied and your hands steady.

Glancing down the hall shows you that both children are fidgety. Undyne is sullen, kicking her feet back and forth to make soft sounds against the floor. Innig frowns at the tabletop as though she’s trying to burn a hole in it, picking at her nails.

The king joins you in the kitchen, standing beside you to watch the stovetop together. He raises one great hand, settles it lightly on your upper back. You close your eyes and lean into the touch.

When you first came here all those years ago, you were so small that you could perch on Asgore’s arm as if it were a playground swing. His hand is still large enough to cover your entire shoulder; you stopped growing when you were about sixteen, and the top of your head still only comes up to the middle of his chest. But you don’t have to strain so hard to look up at him, now. Puny, inadequate human that you are, you have that small blessing at least.

Asgore rubs your upper back bracingly, and you take a deep breath.

“How are you holding up, Chara?” he says, voice low and kind.

You exhale. “I’m all right. I can go to my room and lie down for a while if it gets to be too much.”

“I apologize for worrying you,” he tells you. “I was not in any danger, but that must still have been frightening to watch.”

At least Asgore isn’t going to treat you like you’re stupid for the way you feel. So—“I’m an idiot,” you admit, pinching the bridge of your nose. The crescents of pain from your nails disrupt the tears that threaten to return. “It’s probably a good thing that Asriel forced me to stay still. Even if I had charged in, I would only have gotten in your way.”

“Perhaps,” Asgore allows. “But perhaps not. Either way, my dear child, your willingness to spring into action in the face of a perceived threat is a rare and admirable quality. You are very brave; I am proud of you.”

You laugh, a little. It’s forced, hollow. “I’m not brave at all. I’m weak. Useless. A coward.”

“That is nonsense,” Asgore says. He turns you gently towards him, resting both his hands on your shoulders. “You have always been courageous. Misguided at times, perhaps, yes. But you could not have come this far—in your recovery, or even to us at all—without a great deal of bravery. Even if the bravery it takes to face small challenges day by day is not something that everyone can appreciate, that does not decrease its value at all. It is enough, Chara.”

Is it really? you want to ask him. Is it really, when clinging to Asriel is all that’s kept you going all this time? Does your strength still count as strength when you’re merely leeching it from someone else?

But Asgore has lived for a long, long time, you remind yourself. He fought in a war when he was young, too. Maybe that’s why he’s so patient with you and your ungainly struggles in the first place.

So you restrain yourself to making a face, and you keep your silence. The teapot whistles, and Asgore gestures with one claw so that the magical flames he lit beneath it wink out.

“I can bring this into the room if you would rather retire,” he offers. “I have a few things I’d like to ask of these young rascals, but I understand if you would rather not be present.”

“No,” you say, already reaching for the cabinet full of teacups. “I can carry the tea in, at least, and I’d like to know what all this is about, too. I promise I’ll find a way to make a graceful exit if it gets to be too much for me.”

“That is very good,” Asgore says, and he smiles at you. “I appreciate the help very much.”

You tray the teacups, and he pours the tea. It’s only a little thing, but you’ve got birds singing and warm sunshine in your chest at how efficiently you and he get the task done. You still want to be able to do more, one day, but—every little way you can make yourself useful helps.

He enters the living room ahead of you; he’s already taking a seat as you set the tea tray down in the middle of the table. Asriel is sitting at the table, too; there’s Toriel’s chair over by the fireplace, but there’s still an open seat that puts Innig on the opposite corner from you, so you pull it out and sit in it.

And if you have to reach out and grip Asriel’s sleeve under the table, to steady your nervous heart—well, it’s not like the children are going to see you do it.

“You are free to help yourselves,” Asgore says, gesturing to the cookie platter. It’s mostly untouched; the only cookies missing in the chrysanthemum pattern Toriel laid them in are on Asriel’s side of the plate. “You are young, but all that physical activity takes energy. Keep your strength up.”

Undyne grabs a cookie and munches on it defiantly, staring at Asgore from the corner of her eye. Innig takes a sip of her tea. You run your fingertip over the rim of your own cup and wait.

Beneath the table, Asriel strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. You can feel the tension in your shoulders relax, as if in reflex, even though you’re supposed to be annoyed with him right now.

Try as you might, you still need him. You’re useless without him. And—you love him, you do; you like to think that you would have chosen Asriel anyway, even without all this. He supports you, treasures you, makes you laugh, makes you feel safe. But the more you think about just how dependent on him you are, the more exhausted you become. If he is a bastion of safety, then you are the ivy wrapped around the walls. You may very well pull him down with you, in the end. You nearly did once already, back when you were children.

You hate it when he treats you like a child to be coddled instead of as his equal, but—you’re not his equal, really. You’ve never been. From the day Asriel found you, he’s given you so much, and the only time you might have been able to give anything back, you were doing it more for yourself than for the Dreemurrs. And look where that’s gotten you: This useless body, this fragile mind. You’re doing your best. They all know it—Asgore, Toriel, Asriel. Prase and their family. Rufus and your other friends in Snowdin. They know that sometimes your best is very little, they understand why, and they don’t ask for more than you can give. It’s enough for them.

It just isn’t enough for you. Not anymore.

Having Asriel trivialize your fears and confirm your uselessness grates. Needing to lean on him for comfort immediately after like you are now grates, too. But there’s nothing you can say anyway. You don’t want them to think of you as even more ungrateful than they already must.

So you sit in silence and steep in your bitterness, letting Asriel stroke your knuckles while you sip your tea and watch the children pick at the refreshments.

At last, Undyne finishes her cookie and props her chin on her hands, regarding Asgore sulkily. “You didn’t even fight back,” she says, accusing.

Asgore chuckles at this. “I apologize,” he says.

Undyne and Innig both groan. There’s a spark of—something—some sort of impatience, restlessness, in both their expressions that feels very familiar to you.

But neither of the children voices what complaints they might have out loud. They merely look to one another, making faces tense with frustration and sympathy at each other.

Asgore observes this just as you and Asriel do, and he says “Excuse me” in his gentlest and most courteous tone of voice. Undyne and Innig turn to stare at him as one. “Do you want to know how to beat me?”

“Huh?” says Undyne.

“Yes,” Innig says, quickly. Her eyes are burning and intense. “But you aren’t going to just tell us, are you? What’s the catch?”

“I do not know if I would go so far as to call it a catch,” Asgore says, smiling at them both, “but I am afraid that I will have to teach you a bit about fighting before you will be able to defeat me. I would be overjoyed to have the honor of instructing young folk with the kind of promise you show.”

“You’re gonna teach us to fight?” Undyne repeats. Her eye is wide in blank confusion.

“Yes, if you will have me as your mentor,” Asgore answers.

She stands, then. All your eyes are on her—Asgore watching her with warmth in his face, Asriel with interest on his, Innig as though waiting for a cue. And you… Undyne is still small, and she’s unfamiliar to you yet, but there’s something burning in her that you’re sure is kin to the burning thing that makes its home in your chest.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah!! Teach me to fight, I wanna learn!”

Innig observes her for another long moment, and then she nods: Once at her friend, then at you and Asriel and Asgore. “Okay,” she says. “If it’s good enough for Undyne, it’s good enough for me too. I need—I want to be strong.”

You let go of Asriel’s hand so that you can wrap your fingers around your teacup. It’s still a little less than half full.

“That is a wonderful answer,” Asgore says, smiling fondly at the children. “You may come here whenever it is convenient for you; I will teach you whenever I am available, and my home is always open to you even when I am not. Oh, and we must get the permission of your guardians as well. Innig, you were staying with Gerson, were you not?”

“Yes, sir,” Innig replies. “He won’t mind that I’m here.”

“Nobody’ll care that I’m here either,” Undyne says, shrugging. “Heck, I bet they’ll be happy I won’t be around.”

There’s an answering pain in your heart in response to her words. You narrow your eyes and turn the cup in your hands. The lights play along the surface of your remaining tea as it ripples.

“Nonetheless, I would like to avoid your getting in trouble because of my offer,” Asgore says. “We can begin your training as soon as we get these boring things sorted out.”

Undyne rolls her shoulders. “Ugh,” she says. “Yeah, fine, whatever.”

“My dad’s a great teacher, just like my mom,” Asriel tells the children, smiling. “They taught me everything I know about magic and fighting. I’m sure you’ll do great.”

They both peer at him, curious.

You bite your lip, take a deep breath, and raise the cup to your mouth. The tea is still warm. You drain all that remains at once.

“Asgore,” you say. Your voice comes out timid, and you squeeze the empty cup briefly to steady yourself.

“Yes, Chara?”

You raise your head to look past Asriel to the king. Everyone has turned to look at you.

“If—it wouldn’t be imposing,” you begin, and falter. Take another deep breath. Let it out. “I want to learn how to fight, too. Will you teach me?”

Asriel’s eyes go wide, his expression blank and shocked—but behind him, Asgore breaks out into a wide, proud smile.

“Of course I will teach you, my child,” he says, every word filled with warmth. “I would be more than happy to help you learn to defend yourself.”

Your hands shake a little as you breathe out, relieved. “I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I know that I’m not—very strong to begin with, and there will be difficulties because of my problems with mobility, but—”

“There are ways to compensate for those things,” Asgore says. “If this is what you want, then we will find the methods that work for you.”

Your vision blurs, for a moment. The smile that steals across your face is shaky, probably ungainly and too-wide—it feels so much more natural than the contained expressions you’ve learned to produce for the sake of interacting with strangers. But the birdsong and sunlight in your chest make you feel warm and weightless, and you don’t care, you don’t care; finally, you have a place to start.

Asriel pushes back from the table in a great scrape of wood on wood, erupting from his chair and rising to his full height.

“No,” he says.

Your heart seems to—stop in your chest, for just a moment.

“I beg your pardon,” you say.

“What are you thinking?” Asriel demands of you, and then he whirls around to glare at his father, huge paws spread wide. “What are you thinking? Chara’s way too fragile to be able to fight! Dad, you can’t possibly agree to this!”

Asgore looks at his son with level calm that you can only admire dully. “Chara is an adult, as you are,” he says. “If they wish to learn to fight, that is their choice, and one which I mean to respect.”

Asriel shakes his head at this, as though in horror. “No,” he says again, and turns back to you: “No. Chara, what’s gotten into you? You don’t need to learn something like this! It’s dangerous!”

“You just told a pair of children that Asgore is the best teacher they could have,” you remind him, and clench your fists for resolve. “And—you’re wrong, Ree. I do need to learn. You’re the one who showed me that.”

He staggers back a step as though you’ve struck him. “What?”

“I wanted to intervene when Innig and Undyne challenged Asgore, but you held me back, didn’t you?” Asriel frowns, but you fold your hands together at your middle and go on before he can interrupt you. “Even if you hadn’t, I would not have been able to help. I’m weak; I haven’t been in a serious fight since before I came to the underground, since I was healthy, and I don’t know the first thing about how to fight effectively. Things turned out all right this time for a lot of reasons—because Asgore is a seasoned fighter, because his opponents were inexperienced children, because Innig was not attacking with killing intent. But if she had been a more dangerous opponent…” You shake your head. “I’m the only one whose body isn’t held together by dust and magic. I’m the only one who could have faced her safely, and I would not have been able to do anything. I would have been utterly useless.

“So far, none of the humans who have fallen down here have possessed any ill will towards monsters. But there’s no guarantee that a hostile human will never come. If I’m ever put in a position where I could protect you, I want to be capable of doing that.”

Asriel continues to shake his head at you. “No,” he says. The fourth time he’s refused you this, the fourth knife in your heart. “It’s too dangerous, you could get hurt—you don’t need to do this! You should never be put in a position where you have to defend me, I’m supposed to be the one protecting you! Why can’t that be enough for you, Chara? Just let me look after you like we’ve always done!”

You get to your feet. Your hands are shaking.

“That’s no good anymore,” you say.

“Why not?” Asriel demands.

“Eleven years,” you say. “I’ve lived here for eleven years. Your family has looked after me for half my life. You took me in, made sure I wanted for nothing, kept accepting me every day despite what I’ve done to you, despite that I’m helpless and worthless and all I can do is take and take and never give anything back. I don’t deserve the care that monsters have shown me.”

“Love isn’t about deserving!” Asriel shouts, his hands spread wide. “Chara, you idiot, you don’t have to do anything to earn it! We’re doing this for you because we want to!”

“Maybe that’s true, but I can’t stand it anymore!” The words tear out of you, loud and jagged. Asriel flinches, and it rips at you, but you can’t stop. “You’re trying to learn how to lead your nation, and Toriel and Asgore are governing and teaching you, and I just—sit in the house every day and read books and knit and there’s nothing I can contribute, and I know that I’m just dead weight and I am tired of being your burden! When does it get to be my turn to support you, Asriel? I know I’m just a weak, stupid, pathetic, useless, crippled human, but there has to be something I can do for you besides exist!”

“You don’t need to do anything besides exist!” Asriel yells. “You don’t need to justify staying alive! You’re valuable just for being who you are!”

“I—” You don’t know how long you’ve been screaming, but your face is hot and it’s hard to breathe and you can tell you’re about to start crying. “I know, but it’s not about that! You’re the one who told me all those years ago that I’m too important and special to die! Is my only worth in being your possession? Am I your partner, Asriel, or am I just an ornament to you? Your pet? Your toy? Let me find something I can do to help you! I want to be your equal, I want a way to contribute, I want some way that I can pay you and everyone else in the underground back for all you’ve done for me!”

“Chara…” Asriel shakes his head. His eyes are still round with alarm. His tone is bewildered, woeful, as if he thinks your every word was chosen deliberately to wound him.

“I don’t—have any illusions of being your knight or your savior,” you say. Your voice is starting to crack; your vision is going blurry. Tears of frustration—of terror at the mere thought of rebuke—wet your cheeks. You really are pathetic. A grown adult, breaking down sobbing in front of children, in front of the men whose love and respect you value over all others’. It’s no wonder they think of you as a helpless child. “But—your honor guard. Your last resort, in case of emergency. Something. Someone worthy of standing at your shoulder instead of hiding behind you. Asriel, please.”

He inhales, holds his breath for a moment, lets it out in a rush. “Chara,” he says. “I can defend myself perfectly well. I don’t need you to fight for me. I don’t want you to have to fight at all. Just—just let me protect you, Chara, you’re not strong enough for this.”

You start to giggle.

It’s not funny. Nothing about this is funny, but you can’t stop. You don’t know what to do, so you laugh, and keep laughing, and hide your face in your hands, behind your hair. You laugh and laugh until shortness of breath forces you to stop.

“Chara,” Asriel begins.

You cut him off. “I really am just a plaything to you, aren’t I.”

He winces. You wipe your face.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “This is unsightly of me. I’ll leave for a while. Calm down.”

“Chara,” Asriel says again, uncertain.

You turn away from him. “Asgore, may I continue this conversation with you later?”

“Of course you may,” says the king, patient and gentle. “Undyne, Innig, you two do not mind if Chara learns alongside you, do you?”

“Huh? Uh, it’s fine with me…” Undyne says slowly, looking from Asgore to Asriel and you to Innig.

“I’m all right with that too, sir,” Innig puts in. She sounds more sure of herself.

“Chara, don’t do this to me,” Asriel begins with real desperation in his voice, and you cringe, but—

“Asriel,” says Asgore. His tone is calm, but still firm. “This is Chara’s decision to make.”

He doesn’t argue back, but Asriel bristles visibly, his golden mane and the fur on his arms standing up and making his soft silhouette into something large and imposing.

You turn your back on him, clench your fists so that you won’t shake.

“I’ll go,” you say. You mean it to come out defiant, but it ends up as a mumble.

“Chara,” Asriel says from behind you—a warning or a plea, maybe both.

You flee.

Prase asks no questions when they let you in, even though you must look a mess—you know you’re shaking, red-faced, tearstains still drying on your cheeks. You let your forehead drop to their shoulder, and they wrap their cool arms around you. Their short hair tickles your temple, and they stand in silence while you attempt to gather your composure.

“May I—stay here tonight,” you say, exhausted.

“Of course,” they tell you, and they usher you in.

They let you lay on their bed and feel sorry for yourself while they flip through papers. The house is quiet—Papyrus is having their afternoon nap; Sans is at school, and the doctor is hard at work on the Core.

“Dad won’t be home until late, but I’ll send him an email so he knows you’re going to be here,” Prase says, glancing over at you. They feather their forefingers through their newly short hair; apparently they’re having as hard a time getting used to it as you are, but whenever their hand skims the dark buzzed part of their undercut they smile a little. “He won’t mind, you know he likes you. The kids might want to bother you though. I can head them off if you don’t want the distraction?”

“Maybe for now,” you say, and roll over. “I’ll see how I’m feeling later. Heavens know that brother of yours must want someone to practice his puns on who isn’t going to roll their eyes.”

“You’re both awful about those things,” Prase retorts, but there’s fondness in their voice and they’re grinning. “Better you than me, at least.”

The smile you force is halfhearted and it slides off your face too easily. Prase still doesn’t ask, but they do raise their eyebrows at you like they want you to know they’re ready to listen.

There’s no winning against them in a contest of endurance. You know this better than anyone, except perhaps Prase’s own family; they are, after all, your best friend after Asriel.

So you explain—or you do your best to, anyway. Prase sets their papers down and hears you out with their face propped on one hand; halfway through, they get up from their desk and cross the room to sit on the bed with you. They leave their hand on the mattress near yours, so that when it gets too hard to talk without contact, you can hold on to them.

They’re quiet for a while once you finish, and then—“I’m really proud of you for standing up to Asriel like that,” they say.

You make a face. “He means well. It’s just…”

Prase sighs heavily. “Yeah, you’re both pretty messed-up and it doesn’t help things, I know. I’m still proud of you for not backing down. You really want this! You’re allowed to want things to do with yourself too.”

You groan. “I’m blaming you and Rufus for this, mind,” you say. “You both keep so busy, and I feel like a housewife or something in comparison.”

“Being a housewife probably isn’t so bad if you actually decided to be one on your own,” Prase remarks thoughtfully.

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Exactly.” They lean against you, and you let them. They’re not as big as Asriel—not as solid or soft or as warm. They’re no kind of replacement. But they’re steadfast, and they understand you, and that’s all you can ask for right now. “Chara?”

“Yeah?”

“You can stay here for longer if you need to,” Prase says, looking down at you.

Groaning again, you roll onto your front. “We’ll see. I might want to, if things are awkward.” You take a deep breath. The mattress doesn’t smell like safety; there’s no white fur stuck to the sheets. It smells like fabric softener and Prase’s shampoo. “I’m—sorry. For imposing.”

They stroke your back, hand firm and steady. “It’s okay. I know you’d put me up at your place if something happened to me, it’s fine. I’ll call Toriel and make sure we have your meds for tomorrow morning; you can stay in my room tonight.”

You make a face into the bedclothes. Though you won’t actually have to deal with it until tomorrow, the prospect of taking your medicine already sounds incredibly unattractive. You’re feeling decidedly low now and will almost definitely be worse then, and there’ll be no good-morning kiss from Asriel to reward you for taking care of yourself properly. To motivate you to swallow the pills instead of just pretending, for fear that he’ll catch you out mid-kiss.

Prase pats you between the shoulder blades. “Don’t worry about that medication,” they say, cheerful. “You’re going to need to take it if you want to exercise with Asgore, and if practicality’s not motivation enough, I’ll just give it to you mouth to mouth.”

“Eugh,” you tell them.

“It’s a sacrifice, yeah, but one I’m willing to make,” Prase tells you, mock-sober. “What are friends for?”

“I love you too,” you inform them, sarcastic; it makes them laugh.

Asgore decides to hold your first lesson in the garden, while Toriel has Asriel off to practice his public speaking and royal comportment. It’s good to have him out of the house while you change from yesterday’s outfit into an old t-shirt and boxer shorts, though it ties your stomach in knots just entering the bedroom. You’re out and running as soon as you’ve replaced your knee and ankle braces.

Everyone else has already arrived ahead of you. The thrones have been moved to lean against the wall in the far corner, and Asgore stands in the middle of the room, formal cape and robes eschewed in favor of plain black pants and one of the sweaters you made for him. The light that filters through the holes in the ceiling is not quite as bright as it was the other day.

You pull your hair up and back, twisting a rubber band around it to keep it out of your face. Both of the children turn to watch you as you approach; Innig’s expression is calm, and Undyne’s is curious.

“I—apologize for my lateness,” you say.

“That is alright,” Asgore assures you, smiling. “Today we will simply be assessing everyone’s prior knowledge, discussing what everyone would like to learn, and getting you all started on the basics. Innig, Chara… for the two of you we will have to work on your footwork especially, as you cannot counter a monster’s bullet patterns with your own.”

You make a face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been that active.”

“We will start slow,” Asgore promises you, and you try to keep your groan on the inside. “It is not as though you possess no experience at all.”

Both the kids are looking at you curiously. “Did monsters actually fight you when you first came here or something?” Innig wants to know. “Even though the royal family adopted you, and you had no magic to fight back with? That sounds… unfair.”

“No one actually meant any harm,” you say, and sigh. “It’s just that—at the time I fell, many monsters didn’t know what a human looked like. They knew I was a child, so they would encourage me to practice my magic with them, and…” You shrug. “Many were simply curious, too. I wasn’t well-equipped to deal with it at first, but Asriel and the king and queen helped me acclimate to monster spells. It was—fun, then, for a while at least. Getting to meet new monsters and seeing how they used magic.”

And then your anxiety and despair and the pressure of the monsters’ expectations had slowly crept back up on you, and everything that had been fun for you upon settling in stopped being quite as enjoyable anymore.

“And then you got sick,” Undyne finishes.

You smile bitterly. “Yes,” you say. “I did indeed. Asriel isn’t—wrong, when he says that I’m weak and shouldn’t be doing this. I know better than anyone else how badly I ruined my body when I poisoned myself. But I still want to try.”

“He is so wrong,” Undyne says. There’s real heat in her voice, for some reason you can’t fathom. Her eye is alight with passion. “Like—that’s stupid? It is SO stupid. Yeah, maybe you’ve got to do things different from other people ‘cause of what your body can and can’t take, but there’s still ways.”

“Very well put,” Asgore agrees. “Chara, you will have to build your strength and stamina back up, and even once you have, long battles that require a great deal of energy may be difficult for you. But difficult does not mean impossible, and a lack of available strength can always be made up for with strategic thinking.”

“I hope so,” is all you can drum up in response.

“With that said, I believe we will begin with Undyne and Innig—Chara, I would like you to pay close attention. Once I have them at a point where they can practice on their own with basic supervision, then you and I will decide on a good place to start. Is that alright with everyone?”

“Sure,” you say.

“Sounds great!” Undyne puts in, and Innig says “Yes sir.” You retreat to the wall to watch, leaning back against the ivy and golden brick.

“The two of you both seem somewhat used to combat,” Asgore observes, looking down at the girls. “Do you have any practice other than sparring with the local monsters?”

“There’s a ghost that’s possessing a dummy that lives near my house,” Undyne volunteers, matter-of-fact. “We practice on them.”

“We’ve got permission, of course,” Innig says. “I’m friends with their cousin, so that’s how we got to know them.”

“The ghosts of Blook Farm?” Asgore asks, and both children nod. You tilt your head; that’s Toriel’s favorite place to get snails, you think, but you haven’t passed through Waterfall by yourself very much these past few years. If you want to go visit Rufus, you always take the Riverperson’s ferry, which is faster. And he’d come to see you by himself every time if he wasn’t busy training to take up after his parents—or, to be fair, if he didn’t know you like the excuse to go play with the dogs. “Please send them my regards when you see them next. It is good to know that my new disciples are in good hands even when I myself am not there to watch you.”

You can see Undyne puff up a little in pride to hear Asgore call her his disciple, and from the curve of Innig’s cheek it looks like she’s dimpling up. You can’t blame either of them. Asgore and Toriel are respected leaders for a reason; they have the same effect on their subjects as they’ve always had on you.

“Take a moment to stretch,” Asgore instructs the kids. “You will move more easily if you limber up beforehand.”

Innig immediately sits down in the dirt with her legs pointed out and leans her upper body down, stretching out over one leg. Undyne copies her, movements less practiced; when she stretches out she doesn’t seem able to get quite as flat. It occurs to you after you’ve watched the children fold their bodies over and around their legs for about a minute that perhaps you ought to be doing this too. Your lower back protests as you lower yourself into the dirt. You frown. Prase’s mattress is a little harder than your own, but not so much so that you’d expect to be stiff. Either you’ve just been too sedentary lately, or you’re going to be getting your period soon (you wish it were more regular; you hate the way Prase and Rufus can both keep track of theirs so easily, it would make your life so much more convenient if you could do the same). Neither of which is a possibility you like very much, if you’re going to keep up the fighting lessons.

You stretch your legs out in front of you, feet together, and try to reach your hands out towards your toes, tracing old memories of gym class on the surface. Your spine starts to reject the movement almost immediately, aching from the middle of your shoulder blades down to the small of your back. Stubbornness might hurt you, you’re not sure, so you just sit back up with a wince. Dirt has gotten under the cuff of your right knee brace; you wiggle your fingertips under it to scrape it out.

“The two of you seem familiar with this,” Asgore tells the children, off to the center of the room. You raise your head to watch again; both of the kids are still going. “How did you develop your warm-up routine?”

“Innig,” Undyne grunts, still bent over.

“I did ballet when I lived with humans,” Innig says, nonchalant. She’s bent over too, but it doesn’t seem to obstruct her breathing the way it does with Undyne. “So I’m used to it. I’m still pretty flexible, I think.”

If this is something that Undyne only learned after meeting Innig, then maybe that means there’s at least some hope for you, too.

“That is excellent,” Asgore tells her. She’s smiling as she gets to her feet. “Judging from our, er, skirmish yesterday, I surmise that your preference is for unarmed combat?”

Even through the flowers, you can tell that Innig has risen onto her toe as she lifts her leg up in an arc that you didn’t think people could make in real life. “Yes sir,” she says. “I know I’ve got strong legs.”

“And you, Undyne?”

The monster girl pops up to her feet upon hearing her name, flashing a grin full of pointy, slightly crooked teeth. “I’m working on my bullets! Check it out.”

She holds her hands out at her sides, closing her eye in concentration. Her body flashes briefly as she calls up her magic—it’s a little white ripple, like an invincibility bubble in the handheld video games kids used to play on the bus next to you when you were little. Then the glitter passes through her palms, forming a ring of sharp lances around her, evenly spaced: It puts you in mind of a neat fence, pickets and all. The bullets fade as Undyne lowers her hands, and her shoulders relax. She opens her eye and shakes her head, impish. “I can hold ‘em for a while already, but I wanna make it so I can use ‘em as melee weapons too! Like your trident.”

Asgore chuckles, clearly pleased by this. “Good, good. That is excellent, both of you; spears are versatile weapons, and it is always good to take advantage of the strengths you already have.

“For today I will have you both practice your dodging, and then give you some basic drills to go through together while I work with Chara.”

You try stretching again while he has first Undyne, then Innig, then both of them at once duck back and forth through one of his simplest fire patterns. The bullets are live ones, but Asgore restrains the damage output so that even when the children get hit, it only results in little scrapes and scratches.

Undyne is the better of the two at dodging—it’s immediately apparent when you’re watching them both at once, even allowing for the clumsiness that comes with getting used to team play for the first time. Innig defaults to what looks to you like dance steps when she moves: For all that her turns and steps are precise, they’re easy to see coming—Asgore is able to intercept her lunges with his bullets almost every time.

Asgore doesn’t correct her yet, though; he simply tells both children that they’re doing very well and sets them up with simple strike-and-block combinations to practice. Then he turns towards you.

You make a face and attempt to get to your feet, pulling yourself up on the wall ivy. Asgore has already reached you by the time you manage to get upright—he offers you a hand to steady yourself, and you take it.

You don’t know if you can do this, but you’re determined to give it your best, and even if that means exposing your unsteadiness to Asgore—well. It will mean you can conserve your energy for learning, which is what’s most important right now.

“All right, my child,” Asgore says. “Do you have any ideas as to how you would like to go about this?”

You laugh a little, uncertain. “As I’m unable to summon bullets and I’m nowhere near as durable as Innig, I believe the only course of action for me is to take up armed combat. Of course, the only weapon I actually know how to use is… not something I’m allowed to have anymore.”

“I am afraid so,” Asgore tells you. “Unfortunately, I cannot return your knife to you quite yet, Chara.”

You nod; this comes as no real surprise. Toriel and Asgore took it from you soon after you arrived in the underground, in an effort to keep you from hurting yourself; at first you tried to convince them to give it back to you, but after everything with the buttercups, you had to accept that you’re almost certainly never going to see it again. You haven’t directly asked for it in years.

“I do have a suggestion, however,” he goes on, and holds out his hands.

Red light gathers into them.

You’re staring—you think your mouth must have dropped open, too, because Asgore takes one look at your face and chuckles at you.

He continues to hold the trident out, and you reach out with timid fingers to stroke its red hilt. “I can’t possibly,” you say, though your mouth has gone dry and your voice is hushed and reverent. “It’s much too heavy for me. Even if my wrists could handle the strain, I don’t think that I could lift it.”

“I do believe that Tori and I will be able to find a way around that,” Asgore says to you, gentle. “Would you like to try it?”

You can’t pull your hands away. You think you’re probably about to start drooling. Lying is impossible anyway, so you may as well be honest: “I would,” you admit, “very much.”

“All right,” he says, and shifts the weapon to one hand, out of your hesitant grip. “Bear with me for a moment.”

He shows you the basic stance—feet set wide, hips lowered, knees loose and ready for movement—and then has you mimic it, correcting you here and there. The posture is unfamiliar, and uncomfortable with it—your foot doesn’t like to point out like this, and your shoulders itch with the urge to stand up straight. But every time you so much as think of moving, Asgore prevents you, patient. “If this begins to cause you pain, then we will find an alternative stance for you to use, but give yourself a chance to get accustomed to it for now.” He’s reasonable about it, so you tolerate it to the best of your ability.

“Now your arms,” he says, and reaches out: Then stops, and asks “May I?” to which you respond “of course” because Asgore is one of the safest people you have ever known. He shapes your elbows and hands to the proper angles with one great paw, the thick pink pads much rougher to the touch than Asriel’s but every bit as careful. There’s a little black blotch at the very heel of Asgore’s left hand, disappearing under his fur; it segues into a little spot that’s more peach-colored than golden. You don’t watch the king as closely as you do his son, for obvious reasons, so every time you notice it anew it comes as a surprise.

“I will help support you as you hold it,” Asgore assures you, “but I would like you to feel what it’s like to hold the live weapon in your hands. I believe the whole stance will make more sense that way. If you would like me to move, please say so.”

“All right,” you tell him. You’re glad for the warning. Asgore stands at your side and wraps one arm around your back so that he can support his trident with both hands while he rests it in yours; as much as you trust him, that might have spooked you a little if he’d just done it with no announcement.

“Like this,” he says, above you and slightly to the right.

You tense up automatically when the weight settles into your palms, but Asgore says “No, stand at ease” and you take a deep breath and try not to flinch away in anticipation of your wrists starting to crackle and twinge. He never lets go of the trident haft, and you clench your fingers around it experimentally. It’s very solid, for a weapon made from magic. And even if you’re not bearing it up yourself, everything in your body seems to align: Everything that was nonsensical to you five minutes ago feels perfectly natural now, from the angle of your elbows to the directions Asgore told you to point your feet.

“It’s definitely too heavy for me,” you say. Swallow. “But I would feel—” you search for the words “—powerful, if I could ever wield it. Like a—a real person.”

“We have ways to support your wrists and compensate for the weight,” Asgore tells you. He lifts the trident, and though your insides cramp with unhappy greed to release it, you let go so that he can step back. “They should be ready by tomorrow. For now—I think we will work on your dodges and your footwork.”

You smile weakly. “I’m sorry beforehand for whatever horrible underperformance I’m about to give.”

“You’re—what is the human saying? ‘Getting back on the horse’?” Asgore tilts his chin to one side, an unbelievably comical gesture from so large a monster, then shakes his majestic head and beams down at you. “Regardless, you have not attempted this in a decade. It’s only natural to be rusty. I will be using green bullets, and you must tell me if your knees or ankles begin to bother you; I don’t want to push you too hard.”

“I will,” you promise.

“Very good,” he says, still smiling. “First, I’ll explain a few useful stretches for warming up; then we shall give this a brief try before I must return my attention to the children.”

You take a deep breath. Exhale. Muster your determination and smile back. “Okay,” you tell Asgore. “I’m ready.”

By the time the lesson is over you’re out of breath and aching, grass stains all over your clothes. Asgore bids the children goodbye, and he lets you lean on his arm as the two of you return to New Home. He brings you to Toriel’s chair, which you sink into gratefully, letting your legs splay out—you’re too tired to curl up.

“Will you be returning to Dr. Gaster’s residence tonight, or would you like to stay here?” Asgore asks, hovering at the side of the chair.

There’s no real pressure to answer one way or the other—his tone of voice is completely neutral. You appreciate that. It lets you consider the problem in terms of your own needs, rather than trying to please him.

“I’m not sure,” you answer. “I think I’d like to stay here at home if I can, but if something comes up I may go back to Prase’s. They’ve already said I’m welcome to stay as long as I need.”

“I am glad,” says Asgore. “It’s good that you have somewhere else to go if you are not comfortable here. Shall I make you a cup of tea?”

“Yes, please,” you tell him, and close your eyes.

The one grace of your smarting muscles is that they don’t let you drift off, and when you hear Asgore’s footsteps come back into the living room from the kitchen, you’re able to open your eyes and coax your body upright in time to accept the tea he brings you with a smile and a thank you. It’s a flowery blend—familiar, but not enough that you can recognize it by scent. When you take a sip, it’s smooth, and warmth seeps through your throat and chest like liquid light. You take another sip, then another, and with Asgore smiling at your enthusiasm you drain the cup, letting that sense of relaxation permeate your tired skin.

“Oh, Gorey! There you are,” says Toriel from the other end of the room, and you jump up in the chair a little. Teacup and saucer clatter against each other in your hands. The queen is smiling at you and her husband—and Asriel is standing at her side, staring at you in round-eyed surprise. “We did not know if you would be done yet.”

“We finished not long ago,” Asgore tells her, taking one step forward and then another as she sweeps across the room to meet him. They press their hands together, palm to palm, and bump noses briefly, both smiling. “It went even better than I had hoped. Innig and Undyne have a great deal of potential, and Chara has retained a surprising amount of their childhood skill. All three of them are excellent students.”

You blush all over and shift your grip on your cup to your ring and pinky fingers so that you can hide your smile by scratching your nose. It somehow makes the praise feel more real when Asgore is saying it to other people—like his gentle boasting is proof that he’s truly proud, and not just saying nice things to make you feel better.

“That is good,” Toriel says. She tilts her head so that she can look directly at you past her husband’s shoulder. “Chara—you will let me examine your knees and ankles later, will you not? I do not see any undue swelling, but it is best to be safe, and I may be able to offer you better braces for exercise if your current ones get in the way.”

“Of course,” you agree. “I—do hurt a little, but it’s all over, not my joints. Plus, nothing feels wrong yet, so I think it’s just that I’ve been so active today. I’d appreciate you taking a look, though, just in case. If I need to be more careful, I’d like to learn in time to prevent any accidents.”

“Exactly right,” Toriel says, and beams. “I will give everything a look after dinner, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes, please,” you tell her.

“Chara,” Asriel says quietly.

You bite your lip and look at him. He takes a deep breath and enters the room, one cautious step after the other. Anxious and irritated as you are, you still feel better to know that he’s nervous too.

He stops on the far end of the rug, a distance too great for either of you to reach out and touch each other—and more importantly, he’s too far away from you to loom over the chair or use his bulk to hedge you in. You appreciate the courtesy for your personal space.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His eyes are wells of concern, honest and loving.

You nod. “I’m fine, I promise,” you tell him, smiling a little despite yourself. “It’s a little bit strenuous, yes, but that’s just because I’m out of shape. You heard your parents. They’re doing their best to make sure I don’t overdo it and harm myself accidentally out of inexperience. It’s actually sort of fun, being able to learn like this.”

“Hmm,” Asriel says, like he’s not fully convinced. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Chara, I—I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings yesterday. I know I wasn’t being very tactful. I just sort of—panicked.”

You wrap both hands around your teacup and school your expression to careful neutrality. “Hm. Okay.”

“Like… the things that you said about feeling like you have to be useful aren’t really good, and I—I do worry that you’re going to get hurt, even with Mom and Dad looking after you,” he goes on. He opens his eyes and looks up at you without turning his head. “Chara, I can defend myself just fine. I don’t really need you to fight for me—even if you tried to be my bodyguard and all, I think I could take care of any hypothetical threats perfectly easily by myself, faster than anyone else who’s supposed to be guarding me could. I’m okay on my own, so you don’t have to do this.”

A sigh wants to rise up in you, but you suppress it with all the strength you can. You figured things were going to go in this direction when Asriel apologized for everything but what hurt you most, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

“Asriel,” you say. He jolts a little, gazing at you hopefully. At least part of that is either subconsciously or purposely his attempt to look cute so that he can get his way, you know, but you feel like you’re kicking a puppy all the same. You’re not very good at gentle-but-firm, but you have to try it anyway. “I already told you yesterday why this is important to me, and I don’t want to argue about it again. If I try to reiterate it to you, we’ll just wind up fighting even more—which would be pointless, because I don’t intend to stop. We would just hurt each other and get nowhere to show for it.”

“Chara…”

You fold your lower lip between your teeth for a while. “I know that you can defend yourself, but I don’t think that the extra help would go amiss,” you say carefully, deliberating over each phrase before it leaves your lips. “If I can prove to you that you aren’t as infallible on the field of combat as you think, would you be willing to accept me as your honor guard once Asgore deems me ready?”

Asriel blinks at you. “Not as infallible on the field of combat as I think? What’s that supposed to mean, Chara?”

You lean back in the chair. “One hit,” you remind him, holding up a forefinger. “A human with truly murderous intent would only need to strike you once for it to be fatal. If I’m able to hit you even once, that means that you would be vulnerable in that particular situation—especially if your opponent were more able-bodied than me. Therefore, it would be safer if I were there to help you. Don’t you think so?”

He stares at you for a moment—and then begins to laugh, which cuts you much deeper than the scorn and upset you had been expecting. “Chara, there’s no way you can beat me. I’m bigger, stronger, and healthier, and I have magic too. If that’s really what it’ll take to satisfy you—trying and seeing how pointless it is—then okay, I guess you can try. But you’ll never be able to touch me in a fight. It’s just not possible.”

Your temper is fraying merely listening to him dismiss you again, but you just give him your most superficial smile. “We will see about that,” is all you say.

Asriel lets your words slide without comment.

You’re able to have a bath without any real disruption, and dinner passes peacefully as well—largely by virtue of you eating in steady silence and letting the Dreemurrs fill the living room with small talk. It’s a lot better than you thought it would be—and Asriel doesn’t try to dissuade you again, so after you’re finished eating you call Prase and let them know that you’ll be spending the night at home.

“Take care of yourself,” is all they say. “Remember, you can still come back here if you need to.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” you reply.

When you return to your bedroom, the lights are low, and Asriel is sitting on the bed in a pair of pajama pants and nothing else, watching you quietly. You take a deep breath, then cross the room and sit down beside him. You’re already wearing your own sleepthings, so you don’t have to worry about getting changed, anyway.

Asriel rests his hand on the mattress next to yours, the way he does when he wants to touch you but isn’t sure if you’ll be okay with it—making himself available in a way that’s simultaneously as obtrusive and quiet as he can. Even when his craving for attention annoys you, you’re glad that he’s trying to be mindful of your needs.

So you lift your hand, and wait for him to turn his palm-up so that you can rest yours along his, weaving your fingers together. It feels good to touch him like this, no matter how angry at him you are. He’s still so much of what’s good in your life.

“I missed you last night,” he tells you. It’s a quiet statement of fact—not accusatory, not sultry, just an admission. You smile a little and lean against his shoulder.

“I missed you, too,” you say.

When he leans in it’s cautious, his eyes flicking back and forth across your face. And you’re angry with him, you’re hurt, you are, but—not being able to hold him has been hell. So you reach up and rest your hands along his cheeks, twisting your upper body and then your hips so that you can shift one thigh up onto the mattress and rise to meet him.

Your eyes close, automatic, when his soft mouth presses against yours. The tension in your shoulders and your spine relaxes, and he snakes his arms up around your waist and back. You wrap your own arms up and around his shoulders, folding your fingers against your own palms to keep yourself from giving in to the urge to grip his fur.

“Chara,” Asriel mumbles into your lips. He kisses you again, a little sloppier and more roughly. “Chara…”

The tip of his tongue rolls at your lower lip, soft at first and then insistent, and gravity shifts when he opens your mouth and slips his tongue in to rub it against yours. You think you probably whimper; you aren’t sure. Swooping up into Asriel’s lap is maybe more his doing than yours, but hooking your thighs around his wide waist and pressing yourself up to his front—that’s all you.

His breath is ragged against your cheek, and the low urgent sounds he makes vibrate in your bones where you’re crushed up against him. You’re getting lightheaded. There’s a hunger pulsing in you, a pull thudding low in your belly, and you want nothing more than for Asriel to lean back and hitch you up against him, shimmy you out of your clothes while he peels out of his. You want his hands to soothe your fever, you want his soft fur on your bare skin, you want his mouth on your chest, and god, you want him inside you. To just—go back, fall into that warm place again, where you and he are all there is and everything is right with the world.

But you can’t go back. Trying—pretending to forget—is only going to be harder on you in the long run. You have to follow through on what you’re reaching for.

So. It’s the hardest thing you’ve done in a long, long time to skim your hands down until your palms are flat on Asriel’s chest and push until he rears back out of the kiss in confusion. But you do it all the same.

“Ree, I don’t think this is a good idea right now,” you murmur. Your lips still feel hot, bruised, from being pressed up against his so hard.

“Huh?” he says, blank, woeful. You sigh.

“You and I are kind of in the middle of a fight,” you remind him. “We can’t just smooth it over with sex—that will probably only make things worse. I’d rather wait until I’m less upset.”

Asriel makes a face. He looks acutely uncomfortable. He doesn’t try to silence you with a kiss or reel you back in, but he doesn’t remove his hands from your waist either. “Yeah, but… You know it’s not—the best idea to go for a long time without… y’know. It’ll be hard on you if we don’t.”

You breathe out, long and slow. “We know how to deal with that if we have to,” you remind him. “I’m not in the mood tonight.”

“But—”

“No means no,” you snap, and push at him again. Asriel flinches and lets go of you; this allows you to wriggle off his lap and get to your feet.

“Chara, where are you going?”

“I’m just going to walk around the house and clear my head,” you tell him, and rub your arms to shake off the shivers you get from not touching him. From deliberately choosing to step away. “I’ll be back later. Just go ahead to sleep, don’t wait up for me.”

He doesn’t answer you—he just keeps watching you with bewildered eyes. You turn and slip out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind you.

The lights are off; Toriel and Asgore’s doors are both closed. You cross the hall into the foyer with quiet steps—and spot something bright in the living room.

When, curious, you enter the room, the light is revealed to be from flames in the hearth: Toriel’s, you presume, as she is seated in her chair there, glasses on her snout and sewing in her paws.

She raises her head at the sound of your footsteps. “Chara? I thought you had already gone to bed, my dear. What is the matter?”

You make a face. “I just needed to cool off.”

Toriel smiles. “You may come sit here with me, if you like. I would be glad of the company, and you are free to tell me what is on your mind. Whether you would prefer advice or just to have someone listen as you get matters off your chest, if I am able to help, that would make me happy.”

There’s just something about the way she says it—her calmness, you suppose, or how welcoming a figure she makes next to the fire. Whatever it is, you find yourself sitting on the rug at her feet, back against her chair.

“Is Asriel being a bother?” she asks gently. You exhale, hissing your breath out between your teeth.

“Sort of,” you say, and then: “Yes. Yes, actually. I want him to understand and accept that I’m going to do this—that my choice is something that will help me, and him, and both of us. But he’s just—when he’s not actually trying to make me change my mind outright, he’s treating me like everything I think and feel is silly, or trying to distract me with sex.” Belatedly you realize that it’s Asriel’s own mother you’re speaking to, and you feel your face heat up, but you have too much momentum built up to stop here. “I don’t like being upset with him either. I’m used to us being able to comfort each other when we want or need it. I hate fighting with him. But I don’t want to let him just make it like all of this never happened and go on like we have been. I want this—I mean, I want to learn to fight. I want to be Asriel’s equal. I’ve—” you frown at yourself, a little. “I’ve been wanting this for a while, now that I think of it.”

“I see,” says Toriel, after you’ve been silent for a while. “It is wise of you to take the space you need in this situation, I think. Asriel is merely afraid, but you have a right to your feelings and desires, and it is a brave and difficult thing to stay true to yourself when someone who means so much to you is pressuring you like this.”

You lean more of your weight into the chair. There’s just the snap of the fire and the soft sounds of Toriel pulling her needle through fabric for a little while.

“How do you and Asgore do it?” you ask. “You’ve been together for ages and ages and even as long as I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have one serious fight.”

“Part of it is the ‘ages and ages’ we have been together,” Toriel says. “We had our arguments and rough spots in our youth. But now we understand what our strengths and weaknesses are, and we have learned to respect one another. We can resolve most minor things via discussion because of that.”

“Right,” you say, and sigh. Asriel respects your boundaries, usually. He doesn’t respect your judgment. And you understand why—really, you do. No one could understand better. You just hope that this will be enough to convince him that there are times now when he can and should.

You sigh again, and don’t slump to the floor because you know your back will exact its stiff and crackly revenge on you tomorrow if you do. “I do realize that there’s a lot of irony in just—that I’m trying to convince Asriel that it’s been half our lives and I’ve grown, when arguing with him like this makes me want to die a little.”

Toriel’s movements still. You bite the inside of your cheek. You must be very tired, to have so much trouble controlling your tongue like this. Now you’ve gone and upset her too, and—

“Would you come up here, please, Chara? If you are comfortable with it,” Toriel says.

You turn to look up at her, puzzled. She’s shifted her sewing to one hand, and pats her lap with the other when your eyes meet.

The breath catches in your chest. You’re a little less wary of her these days than you used to be when you were a teenager and things were rawer, but she knows you still get nervous sometimes and does usually try to give you space.

Toriel continues to watch you calmly, waiting for your answer. She won’t take it badly if you turn her down, and—knowing that is what makes you pull yourself up on the arm of the chair.

On your feet, you look at her timidly. “If—it’s all right,” you say in a small voice.

“It is,” she assures you, smiling.

So you take a deep breath and sit—at the seam of where her thigh meets the chair arm, trying to take up as little space as you can. Toriel fits her arm around your waist slowly, asking “Is this okay with you, my child?” as soon as she has it in place, and only putting any strength into the one-armed hug once you nod. You close your eyes and rest your cheek to her shoulder.

Toriel is warm, solid, and formidable against your brittle human body. All three of the Dreemurrs have the same build, give or take a little muscle and fat, and Toriel in particular is about the same height as Asriel, albeit less softly padded. You couldn’t mistake them even with your eyes closed, though—even without Asriel’s greater girth, he smells like flowers and sun where Toriel always carries the faint scent of smoke and spice. There are still times when you fear her, yes, but right now it’s nice—knowing that her strength is here to keep you safe.

“Asgore and I have decided to give the two of you space to try to work things out on your own, but if you feel that it has gone too far, please let us know,” Toriel tells you, her voice low. “We will intervene.”

“Thank you,” you reply. “I think I do want to—to keep trying on my own a little longer. Asriel is the most important thing in my life, and what we have deserves any effort I can spare.”

Toriel’s soft nose presses to your temple briefly. “I am proud of you, Chara,” she says. “You are growing into a fine adult.”

You blush, open your mouth, and close it.

“Take a look at this, my child,” she prompts you, and you open your eyes as she extends the paw holding her night’s project towards you. With careful hands, you take it, minding the needle still holding the seam in place. The fabric is made of some kind of smooth, light weave that feels silken under your fingertips; you want to rub it over the insides of your arms and not stop, and only the knowledge that Toriel probably wants to finish it keeps you from giving in.

“Is this some sort of glove?” you ask, turning it over. “It’s lovely.”

“It is for you,” Toriel informs you. “These are made to support your wrists and the joints of your fingers, and when they are finished I will enchant them so that they will reduce the weight of whatever you hold. The mass of Gorey’s trident is something that you will have to deal with on your own, but I think that these will serve your purposes quite nicely.”

You press your free hand to your mouth as your vision begins to blur. “I—I don’t know what to say,” you manage after nearly a minute. “T—thank you. Thank you so much. God. I—I don’t understand why you’re always so—nice to me.”

“It is because I love you very much, my dear,” Toriel says, and she kisses your temple again. You try to sniffle unobtrusively, and use your pajama sleeve to dab at your eyes under the cover of adjusting your hair. “If you feel alright staying up a bit longer, I would like you to try this on once I have gotten to a good stopping point, to check if there are any adjustments I should make.”

“Sure,” you tell her, and rest your head back on her shoulder. She’s given you the perfect excuse to avoid going back to your room until you’re sure Asriel is asleep, and it’s Toriel, so you’re sure it’s on purpose. You’re so happy you could float.

Toriel reclaims the glove from you, then reaches around your waist to resume sewing.

(You wake up the next morning stretched out in Toriel’s chair, covered in three quilts, lying amidst a sea of pillows that appear to have been arranged carefully to keep you from rolling into a position that would hurt your back or legs.)

For the second lesson, Asgore explains that he intends to alternate, and start with you while Innig and Undyne observe. It’s an odd, anxious feeling to have the kids staring at you—but it’s not as unbearable as you might have expected. Neither seems judgmental; Innig’s gaze is neutral, inquisitive, and Undyne’s eye on you is bright.

You pull on your gloves. It’s time to put this to the test.

“What will we do if this doesn’t work?”

“We can find another way,” Asgore reassures you. He summons his trident, one long elegant sweep of his arm that sends envy singing through your blood like adrenaline. “But let us try this one first.”

He holds the weapon out to you with both hands, and you walk through the flowers towards him.

You take a deep breath and reach out to touch the red haft. Anticipating the strain on your wrists makes it hard for you to fold your hands around it properly—instinct urges you to pull back, like it’s going to bite you or something. But you remind yourself: You want this. Even if it’s painful for a moment or two, you can handle that.

Asgore continues to hold onto the trident once you have a firm grip, and you can feel him watching you as you clench your fists and breathe steadily. Slowly—slowly, his hands begin to unfold.

You stop breathing.

There’s an agonizing moment when Asgore stands with his palms up underneath the trident and doesn’t drop them, and then he finally lowers them, removing them completely from the weapon.

And—pain doesn’t lance through your arms. There’s no crackle in your wrists. Weight doesn’t pull you to your knees in the flowers. The trident in your hands is balanced, lighter than a metal pipe. You let your breath out, lift and lower it in wonder.

“I take it that Tori’s gloves are a success?” Asgore asks. When you look up at him he’s smiling at you, eyes all a-twinkle with pride as though it was all his own idea.

“I think so,” you say. You swing your borrowed weapon, twirling it hand over hand in slow motions like a baton. That is, until its sheer length trips you up, the prongs catching in the plants and the haft twanging back so that it nearly bops you in the nose. You yelp and drop it, jumping back in alarm.

“Perhaps we should start you on simpler passes before you attempt any of the flashier techniques,” Asgore suggests. You bend, wincing as the sudden movement strains your knees, and collect the trident with your ears burning in shame.

“Maybe,” you say.

The peanut gallery is silent, at least. When you peek over your shoulder, Innig is carefully examining her ballet shoes, and Undyne has her chin rested on her crossed arms, which are in turn propped on her tented knees. Both of them seem impassive.

“Here,” Asgore says, and leads you to stand across from him. He then summons a second trident, which is very impressive and a little unfair besides. “Watch me first.”

He shows you three strikes—a high one, which for you would catch an opponent in their face or atop their head, but for him would sweep cleanly over you without so much as brushing a hair; a middle strike, that for each of you would hit an opponent your own size in the chest or stomach; and a low one across the legs. Each one is a sweeping strike—a slash, you suppose, instead of a thrust meant to skewer your opponent on the trident prongs. Asgore repeats the three strikes, has you imitate them until you can reproduce them faithfully, and then shows you a block with which to counter each strike. The process repeats.

Once you can reliably execute the three blows and their respective counters, Asgore moves to stand across from you, and explains that he will drill you on each of them personally—strike first, and then block.

You look up at him, doubtful. “I’m not sure how well this will work out, given that you’re so much taller than me. You’ve had me practice as if for someone my own size.”

If your complaining irritates him, Asgore does not show it. “Asriel is taller than you as well, my child. You intend to prove how incorrect he is in combat, do you not? Then you will need to see what it feels like to adjust your strikes for a larger opponent.”

You sigh and give up. “That’s true.”

So: You stand across from your surrogate father, slowly exchanging the high block and counter, then the middle, then the low. Not in that order, either, necessarily; he calls “high” or “low” when you’re transitioning from one blow to the next, sometimes keeping you on one kind of strike for a while, and sometimes changing them up.

It’s a struggle to keep up, at first—Asgore keeps the exchange at a steady pace, but he’s relentless, and the way that your hands keep wanting to slide out of the grip you’re supposed to be using and move closer together is a lot more of a problem when someone else with a trident is attempting to whack you with it. You narrowly miss getting your fingers caught more than once.

You find your stride a few minutes in, and your mind seems to fade away, leaving you present and yet weirdly detached from your body—it’s a sensation similar to when you’re very ill or having an attack and stop feeling like yourself, but much more comfortable. This may be what people mean when they say they’re “in the zone”—though you don’t have any reference but for when you were very small and learning how to knit from Toriel, having to devote all your attention to the yarn and needles, back before everything went wrong.

And then you lose your stride, just as quickly.

You’re not sure what’s happened, at first. Your arms feel heavier; your shoulders ache and slow you when you move to make the overhead strikes and blocks. Something sears in your lungs when you breathe. Your face feels hot. Across from you Asgore frowns and eases back out of his block; you think hazily to score a tap on him and avoid the whole debacle with the bragging rights that would earn you, but your arms won’t move fast enough, and you’re left feebly tugging the trident upwards in a motion that saps your energy and sends you sinking slowly into the grass.

“Oh dear,” Asgore says, and kneels as you sit there like a fool, red-faced and hyperventilating. “Undyne, would you please fetch us some water?”

“Sure,” she says from somewhere far away. You bow your head instead of turning to look; that makes it easier to fight the desire to just lie down completely.

“It appears that I have pushed you a bit too hard for today,” Asgore says. He touches lightly at your temple and the side of your throat, most likely to gauge your temperature. His paw pads are cool against your skin, and you lean into the touch shamelessly. “I apologize. I should be minding your stamina more carefully. Are your knees all right, Chara?”

Air alone rakes your throat like claws when you breathe, so you shrug in lieu of struggling for words. They ache just like the rest of you, but there’s none of that horrible twanging that so often precedes a flare-up.

“I see,” Asgore says. “For safety’s sake, I believe that we must call an end to your lesson here. We may be able to resume it after I have spent some time with Innig and Undyne, but I would not get my hopes up if I were you. I apologize. Please rest for now.”

And he taps your trident to vanish it, not giving you any say in the matter.

He’s right, though; you’re exhausted. It felt so nice to move, to learn and practice, that you’d quite forgotten to pay attention to any warning signals that your muscles and lungs were trying to send until you’d already gone too far. You’ll have to tell him later that this is your own fault as much as his.

Someone passes you a water bottle with the cap already loosened. Your vision hazy, you pull the cap off and raise it to your mouth—you want to upend the thing over your head to cool off, but you know from past experience that you would be better off putting liquids in your face than on them right now.

It still takes about a minute before you can drag yourself to your feet and stagger out of the way, up against the wall, where you can sit with support and drink more water and wait for your ruined pathetic weak body to cease falling in on itself long enough to pay attention to your surroundings again.

The girls’ lesson is just about over by then, though—you’ve missed anything you might have hoped to glean watching them. So you just sit and seethe while Asgore corrects the angle of Innig’s kick and gives Undyne a few tips for keeping her bullets stable.

“I’m ready to keep going,” you say once he has turned to you, and pull yourself up on the wall ivy to demonstrate your resolve.

Asgore raises an eyebrow at you. “My child,” he says, “you are ready for a shower and a few more hours’ rest at the most.”

“But—” you begin.

He holds up one hand to silence you. “There is no use in destroying yourself to see your goals to the end, my dear. Your body is not your enemy.” You frown—what is he talking about, when it’s this useless sack of meat you’re bound to that hinders you every single day of your life? “Your body is your ally—an important tool that you must care for so that it can serve you to its utmost. In order to keep it in the best possible condition, so that it can become a tool that you trust and rely on once more, you must listen to it—and rest it when it needs the rest. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” you reply honestly. “But I suppose what you’re saying does make sense.”

“I encourage you to think on it,” Asgore tells you. “But I do think that in between lessons it might be a good idea for you to work on building your stamina back up in small ways.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Do you mean like working out?”

“Not quite that intensive, if you still wish to reserve energy for the combat lessons themselves,” Asgore says. “I was thinking more along the lines of being more active in small ways—taking walks and the like, perhaps.”

“If they’re gonna work out in between lessons, they’re gonna need a spotter, right?” Undyne pipes up out of nowhere. You look at her, confused—she’s starting to grin.

Asgore smiles at her. “I do believe that they will.”

“Then I’ll go with,” she volunteers. “I love working out! This sounds way more fun than just sitting around waiting in between all these meet-ups.”

“If Undyne is going, I think you’ll probably need somebody else along to keep her and Chara actually in line,” Innig says. She’s smiling so that the corners of her eyes crinkle, one dimple deeper than the other. “So I’ll go. It does sound fun, and I don’t want to get left out when all three of us are still supposed to be training together.”

“My only other condition for these stamina sessions,” Asgore cautions, making all three of you turn back to him, “is that you have an adult or friend help you keep them reasonable. Toriel and I would do so ourselves, but we have our jobs to look after.”

“That’s fair,” you say. Undyne’s expression has darkened, and Innig is looking at her dubiously. “And because we have to do this with me, I will be the one to come up with something. Does that sound all right to you two?” you append a little awkwardly, folding your hands at your waist and turning towards the children.

Undyne looks you up and down. “Yeah,” she says at length. “Show us what you got.”

The only exercise Prase gets is in chasing Sans and Papyrus around (they remind you of this when you call them to ask, just in case), so from the beginning you only really had one option. Luckily (you suppose), enthusiasm is his middle name, and he loves to make himself helpful.

Rufus meets the three of you on the border of Snowdin and Waterfall, grinning broadly. He’s wearing sweatpants and a sleeveless shirt, his old bandanna tied around his left bicep, hair as unruly as ever. “’Sup, Chara! Hey, Innig! Who’s your friend?”

“This is Undyne,” Innig introduces. “She’s my best friend, she’s the one I told you I was picking a fight with King Asgore together with. We’re learning to fight from him together now. Rufus’ parents are in the Royal Guard,” she explains to Undyne. “He’s a trainee.”

“Nice to meetcha!” Rufus says to Undyne, effervescent as ever, sticking a hand out for her to shake.

Undyne sizes him up, starting to grin back at him. “Same here,” she says, and grasps his hand with probably more strength than is strictly necessary. “If you’re already a Royal Guard trainee, you must be less of a wimpy loser than you look!”

“So you already know Innig,” you observe aloud. All three of the kids turn to look at you. They cut a comical picture—Innig is stately next to Rufus despite being three years younger than him, and they’re about the same height. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“He came to introduce himself and say hi exactly a week after I moved in with Gerson,” Innig tells you.

“I suppose that shows more restraint than you used to have,” you inform him, thinking of the attempt to come meet you in New Home that you only learned of after the fact. “Prase has been a good influence on you.”

He grins and shrugs, like ain’t I a stinker but a little more benign. You smile back.

“Prase,” Undyne repeats. “That’s the other human, right? The one that fell when I was a kid, that lives with the Royal Scientist now.”

“Yeah,” Innig says. “I’ve only met them once or twice, though.”

“You’ll both get to see them more often, especially if you continue to be around New Home a lot,” you assure both of them. “Prase is my best friend—we have them over a lot; they teach me sign language and I let them go through the family’s personal library when they’re bored or want research materials. Which isn’t as fruitless as it sounds—Asriel keeps finding new books at the dump; I don’t know how he does it.” The smile fades from your face a little when the reality of your fight with him surfaces through ever-present things like love and habit.

“Man, forget him,” Undyne says, so loudly and with such ferocity that you jump a little. You’re not sure how long it’s been silent since you trailed off—you’ve just made things awkward again, haven’t you. But Undyne doesn’t give you the time to wallow in anxiety; she goes right on. “You’re gonna kick his butt and he’ll see how wrong he is about, like, everything in his life and it’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

“I hope so,” you say before you can stop yourself. Then make a face. “It’s pathetic of me to complain to children like this. Just ignore me.”

“Dude, it’s okay,” Rufus tells you, reaching out to pat your upper arm lightly. You’ve been all right with casual touch from him for a few months now, but he’s still careful about it; you could cry, if you want to be honest with yourself. The people around you are so good; you don’t know what you ever did to deserve it. “But we’re here to exercise so that you CAN kick his butt, right? So let’s get started.”

“What are we actually doing?” Undyne wants to know.

Rufus shrugs. “We’re gonna walk all the way to the other end of Waterfall and back! When everybody can keep up with the pace we’ll be jogging it. Like, I’d suggest just going through Snowdin and back, or doing the jump puzzles in Hotland, but doing that crap in the snow takes energy and those puzzles are kinda, uh, unforgiving. We gotta start small and build up from there!”

For your sake. Because you’re still so weak. But he’s too kind to say it. An urge to reach out and tousle his hair surges in your chest, brief and strange. Before you can really examine it in detail, it’s gone.

“Hotland and Snowdin both suck, anyway,” Undyne says.

Innig is giggling. “There you have it.”

Rufus grins. “’Kay then. I’ve got water and snacks and stuff, so let’s get started.”

He’s off, then, in barely-restrained skipping footsteps. You and Innig and Undyne follow after him.

New Home and the old capital hold your dearest memories in the underground, but you like Waterfall. Its deep blues are soft, calming; you like the sound of running water and the false stars set into the ceiling. There are some times when you have a hard time being around the echo flowers with their soft whispers, but your memories of the surface get more distant each year, and so increase the days when the muffled sounds of hundreds of monsters’ wishes are just benign background noise.

It’s also quiet. There are plenty of monsters living here, but they’re few and far between when you wander the pathways, preferring to gather nearer to wherever they dwell. This affords you and the children relative privacy as you walk.

“I figured this’d be pretty boring ‘cause it’s just walking,” Undyne says after a few minutes have passed, the whole party slowing whenever you take your time across flowery bridges, not wanting to slip and land yourself in the river. “But it’s actually kinda nice. Beats just sitting on my butt waiting, anyway.”

“We’re basically hiking,” Rufus says. “It takes stamina, which is, like, the point here. You guys are gonna come out of this with really strong legs. Or, uh, stronger legs if you’re Innig, I guess.”

She giggles. You duck your head to hide your smile behind your hair.

“It’s a bit nosy of me, but while we’re here anyway,” you say at length, “we all appear to know what stake I have in these fighting lessons, but what about you two? Challenging the king of monsters to a fight seems to me like the result of a long story.”

Silence, for a while. You’re beginning to wonder if you’re overstepping your boundaries and are about to append a “you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to” when Undyne sighs.

“It’s dumb,” she says.

“My own reasons are pretty foolish too,” you tell her. “I won’t judge you.”

“Your reasons are really good,” she argues back, not looking at you. “Mine are dumb. I know they’re dumb! I just want to prove how tough I am, ‘s all.”

You think about some of the expressions she’s worn, the past few times you’ve seen her. You watch her shoulders for a while as she walks ahead of you, small and angry, red hair fluttering. “Prove to whom? Anyone in particular?”

The shoulders go up and then down, too restless and stilted to be a shrug. “I dunno. Everybody. Me. I hate having people tell me I can’t do stuff.”

“I had enough of people telling me what I couldn’t do back on the surface,” Innig says. She’s closer to you; when you look at her profile you see that her eyes are cold. “I won’t stand for people I care about getting treated like that, too.”

“It’s not the same,” Undyne says.

“I don’t care,” Innig replies. It sounds like an old argument to you.

Rufus, who’s been listening quietly from further ahead this whole time, stops in his tracks and turns, folding his arms and watching you. His expression is mild and his eyes are kind.

“I guess you’re all here for the same reasons then,” he says.

Innig makes a noise, somewhere between confused and disgusted. “I’m just here for moral support! And because learning to defend myself better is fun.”

“It counts!” he says. “Let’s sit down for a minute or two. We don’t want to get worn out this soon, we’ve still got half of Waterfall and then like the whole way back to go.”

So you lie on your back in the soft moss and stare up at the jewel-encrusted ceiling. You don’t really feel winded, but you trust Rufus’ judgment better than your own. Asgore might get upset with you if you don’t make a cursory effort to not run yourself into the ground, anyway.

“I wanted to dance and be pretty,” Innig says from a short distance away. Her tone of voice is controlled. You don’t want to risk looking at her expression, in case it bares too much. “I wanted to be me. Gerson says that nobody will try to take that away from me anymore. I do want to believe him. But I want to make sure of that with my own strength too.”

A few moments later, you recognize Undyne’s harsher voice: “I’m just tired of people telling me I’ll never learn to be a good fighter without depth perception. I’ve been fine without it my whole life. I want ‘em to shut up.”

You breathe in and out. “I want…”

The sentence hangs for a while as you consider how best to phrase it.

“I want to feel worthy,” you finish at last. “I want to be a better and stronger person. Maybe Asriel is right about that not being something that anyone can or should feel they have to earn. But I still want to find the things that I can do and start doing them.”

It’s very quiet for a while.

“You’ll do it,” Rufus tells you at last. “All of you can do it. You’re good and brave people and as long as you don’t give up things’ll work out.”

I hope so, you want to say, but this time you successfully keep it inside.

“That’s enough rest,” he announces after another minute or so of lying still. He bounces to his feet, rocking back and forth from heel to toe. “We should get moving again!”

Innig and Undyne both pick themselves up quickly, but as usual it takes you longer; you have to mind your knees even with all the help your braces provide. It would be easier to get to your feet if you had something to grab; typical lack of foresight on your part.

“Do you need help?” Innig asks, extending a hand towards you.

Even after all these years, something unpleasant still jolts in your stomach, and you freeze. Your throat locks up. You’re farther away than the real night sky, but still you are nailed to the ground and trapped in this horrible cage of flesh.

“Uh, hey,” Rufus says. His voice is tinny. Distant, distorted, as though transmitted along a tin can telephone wire. “You might want to give Chara a little more… space. They’re not so good with new humans.”

“Oh,” Innig says. It’s like you’re sitting on the seafloor, listening to sailors on the water’s surface. The small brown fingers that loom so huge in your vision retreat, a little. You breathe. Your ribs are steel bands around your lungs. There’s not enough air. If only Asriel were here, but—no. He isn’t. And you can’t keep clinging to him, besides.

“Oh, c’mon.” You think that’s Undyne, but you’re just retreating further and further away. If you could still use your hands reliably you could at least pinch yourself a little, try to draw yourself back in.

Then there’s something fuzzy and stripy blocking your vision. You blink.

A hand seeks out yours. You blink again. It’s small, blue, and the texture against your palm is weird, more damp than human skin. You blink again. Take a deep breath. Undyne stares down at you with her eyebrows raised. You shake your head and look up at her.

“I’m a monster,” she says. “So this should work just fine.”

You blink again. Allow her to pull you upright. She’s strong, for a child her size, or maybe you’re just underweight.

She’s also got the hand Innig was holding out for you in the other one of hers. Innig is smiling at her. Rufus is too.

“It seems as though it does,” you observe. Swallow. “Thank you, Undyne.”

She grins hugely, all big crooked teeth and cheer, and swings your joined hands. It’s oddly endearing. “It’s no big deal,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Undyne doesn’t release your hand or Innig’s, and you follow Rufus through the tall grasses together in single file.

“I’m sorry,” you call after Innig at length. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault—you couldn’t have known that I’m like this.”

She turns to look at you over her shoulder, and smiles at you, brow furrowed just a little. “It’s okay,” she says. “You didn’t ask for this, it’s not your fault either.”

You take a deep breath. Let it out. “I didn’t, did I,” you murmur aloud. Your hand has gone to the locket you still wear beneath your shirt, despite everything.

Undyne, between you, doesn’t say anything, but she squeezes your hand hard. You can feel your expression softening. They’re both good kids.

You sit out of the small talk for a while—it’s better to save your breath anyway, given how much you still need to walk.

“Are we going to go the long way or take the shortcut?” Innig asks as you pass the shop and the stairs down to the Riverperson’s boat.

“What shortcut?” Rufus wants to know.

“Straight ahead,” Undyne says.

“Isn’t that just a dead end?”

“Not if you can jump the gap,” Undyne says with a scoff.

“There’s a bird that lives there and likes to carry people across, too,” Innig puts in. “If we go that way, you’ll probably be fine too, Chara.”

“Hm,” Rufus says. “I was planning on stopping when we got to the quiet spot. Are you all ready to take a break again or can you keep going for a while longer?”

They all turn back to look at you here. You can feel the heat creeping into your face.

Do you need to rest? Your heartbeat’s still a bit fast from your earlier attack, and adrenaline may be dulling your sense of pain. Your knees and ankles don’t feel that bad to you now, but you might not be the most trustworthy judge at the moment.

“I’m not sure,” you answer at last.

“Then we’ll take the shortcut, better not to risk it,” Rufus replies immediately. “C’mon, let’s go. How’d you guys find out about it anyway?” he asks the girls. “I’ve been here three years and I had no idea there was a shortcut.”

“Well, I’ve been here for twelve years,” Undyne informs him, all arch condescension. “It’s the short way from between where I live and Innig does, we take it every time we wanna hang out. Taking the long way can be fun but it’s also too long.”

So instead of turning right down the path, the four of you continue straight. The phosphorescent water spans out just wider than you can jump—wider than you could jump even if you trusted your ankles to be able to properly absorb the shock of landing. But there is a (very small) bird there, as you were promised, and it does pick you up by the back of your t-shirt and carry you over the gap. Somehow.

(You check your shirt for tears afterwards as surreptitiously as you can, and let out a not-at-all-surreptitious sigh of relief when you find none. It’s your favorite for having to run around in and for just lying around your room being lazy, because its fabric is soft and comfortable and manages to never ever irritate your skin, even when your brain chemicals decide to be capricious and scramble your sense of touch. It’s black and has Chanbara Johnny at an angle across the front in faded blocky caps. You think it’s cute. Asriel thinks it’s dorky because he has no fashion sense whatsoever.)

The others all manage to jump the gap on their own power, because of course they do. You take petty comfort in the fact that Rufus has to take a running start to make it.

He stretches after he lands, grinning like that was the most fun thing he’s ever done in his life. You are pretty sure that that’s how Rufus would term most of his experiences; you can’t even be bitter and petty about that because his wide-eyed enjoyment is wholly devoid of any sense of superiority.

“You said you live around here, right, Undyne?” he says. “Should we just take a break at your place, or would your folks be annoyed with us inviting ourselves over?”

Undyne grimaces and rolls her eye, planting her hands on her hips. (You wish you had the teeth to pull off a grimace like that.) “They wouldn’t get annoyed, it’s just… They’re all well-meaning and want me to stop doing this and do ‘normal kid’ crap instead. They only let me hang out with Asgore and you guys because they think I’ll get fed up and throw in the towel.” She growls. “But I never give up! I HATE giving up!! I wanna be the kind of person who can ALWAYS persevere in the face of adversity and never let anything get in my way, like Gerson and the king and queen!!!”

And she screams at the cave ceiling, just like that: A loud, toothy NGAAAAAAHHH!! that echoes through the dark corridor.

“I think you’re already that kind of person,” you tell her.

“Whuh? Nah…” She scratches at the back of her head. “I mean, I’ve still got a long way to go. But it’s pretty cool of you to say so. For a grown-up, you’re not that bad.”

You can’t help but giggle. “That’s certainly high praise.”

“Okay, so Undyne’s house is out,” Rufus says agreeably. “Do you just wanna sit down in the square, or what?”

“I’m friends with Undyne’s neighbors,” Innig volunteers. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind the company.”

“The ghosts?” Rufus asks, and makes a face. “Sure, if it’s just Napstablook, but their cousin drives me up the wall. I can’t stand that guy.”

“He’s not that bad,” Innig says, smiling.

“Okay, be fair, he is kinda obnoxious,” Undyne chips in. “I can respect his lifestyle, though.”

“I bet you just like him for his stash of weird old human opera tapes,” Rufus says, scowling deeply enough to make you raise your eyebrows. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him express his dislike of someone this vehemently before. Was any member of the Blook family that much of a character? You haven’t been here since you were young, and even then only once or twice, accompanying Toriel on errands. Maybe this is a recent development. You’re pretty sure that you would have remembered a ghost using “he” pronouns if you’d met him, since the rest of the Blooks use “they” just like you, and when you were a child that had made you happy and relieved enough to cry.

“It is nice to have somebody to enjoy that stuff with,” Innig agrees, bringing you back to the present. “But I just like people who are true to who they are, that’s all.”

Napstablook reacts to your motley ensemble inviting yourselves into their little house with mumbling and a blush, but they seem pleased nonetheless. They’re just how you remember them—introverted, but lonely enough to appreciate company.

Innig turns down their offer of ghost sandwiches with a diplomacy that you certainly don’t possess (and which you’re fairly sure Undyne and Rufus don’t either). They’re frankly ecstatic—or what counts as ecstatic for a habitually sad ghost—when she says you’re here so that you can all lie on the floor and feel like garbage together, and they put on some spookwave at a low volume for mood music.

Your heart slows in your chest, lying on the floorboards with Rufus to one side of you and Undyne on the other. He’s tapping his stomach with his fingers—he probably needs the idle motion to keep from getting bored; she’s quieter than you would have expected. Innig’s breathing is slow and serene; Napstablook is humming along to the music.

There’s an ache in your legs, in your knees. You know that you’ve only taken your first steps along a road that goes on and on, its end a haze against the horizon; it’s frustrating, and you’re impatient. But you think that despite all of that—you feel all right.

You feel determined.

The thought makes your mouth bow up. There’s a warmth in your chest, old, nostalgic, and it’s not a bad feeling at all.

You close your eyes and let your body sink into a soft half-doze.

The lessons go on—every day, sometimes every other day when Asgore’s work as ruler is too demanding to let him spare the time. You still exhaust yourself regularly, but it takes longer each time. It feels silly to practice your stances while you do the dishes, but you’re willing to try any suggestion from Asgore, and it works—stepping out of the stance, stepping back in. It starts to feel like a natural part of you—like breathing, sometimes uncomfortable or painful but nevertheless a thing you can do without having to overthink it.

Your reflexes return—slowly but surely. Asgore continues to use green bullets with you for over a week, but when you can more reliably weave through his most complex patterns, he switches to live spells for his easier ones. You find yourself laughing, sometimes—grass stains all over your knee braces, scratched lightly, winded, but airy and breathless for the joy of moving. Magic is such a huge part of who monsters are, and you had assumed that being able to take part in these friendly spars and dances in what limited way you can was something you’d lost as a child, just another consequence for your second botched suicide attempt. You’ve never been so glad to be wrong.

After a week’s time, the only break you and the kids take in your daily walks is the now-routine stop at Napstablook’s house. Sometimes their cousin is home—you judge this by the loud sounds of showtunes from next door—and Innig goes over to hang out with him while you rest, but you never see him yourself. It’s nicer on the floor—a bit uncomfortable for your back, but still calming. You feel at one with the universe in small moments. Other times, you make terrible ghost puns in an attempt to make Napstablook laugh. You privately think that they don’t have much sense of humor, but that actually makes it more rewarding when you can finally get them to smile.

Asgore praises your progress, telling you that your determination makes you a natural at this. Toriel announces that your muscle mass is beginning to build, and that your lungs have not been so strong since before your poisoning. Prase puts band-aids on your scratches and laughs at your training stories. Rufus encourages you. Innig corrects your form and gives you stretching tips. Undyne tells you that you’re pretty cool, for a human.

Asriel has nothing good to say about your efforts, so you avoid the topic. He’s unhappy to see less of you, but you’re unhappy to see less of him too, so it evens out. You think it does, anyway. You sleep back to back and don’t speak to one another. Sometimes you burn to turn around and kiss him and touch him—you shift your arms to lie over the covers to remove any possible temptation.

It still feels like all your resolve would crumble just like that, if you gave in and clung to him. Too much like surrender, when sex is supposed to be more like gentle triumph. It’s terrifying, to be so close to Asriel and not turn to him, lean on him all the time. But you can’t reach the place at his side that you so covet if you give in here, so: Stay the course. Hold your own desires close and don’t let them go. Pray that you aren’t mistaken this time.

Anyway, if you gave up now, Innig would be disappointed in you for being untrue to yourself, and Undyne would probably call you a big weenie or something.

A week passes, and then a second and a third.

The first time you saw monster magic as a child, it terrified you so badly that all you could do was freeze in place, trying to make yourself small. It had worried the Dreemurrs, you know—for so many monsters you were the first human they’d ever seen, and the people weren’t familiar with the fact that you couldn’t actually respond to bullets with your own.

It was Asriel, who was still working on his own magic and needed to play so that he too could learn, who came up with the solution. He had Toriel and Asgore teach him how to make green bullets, and showed you that these wouldn’t hurt anyone. You remember laughing, saying that this made them more like friendliness pellets than bullets.

Knowing that you wouldn’t be harmed made you bolder during your playfights with him, but even as a child Asriel was skilled with magic and his bullet patterns were too complex for a beginner like you. He’d count up the hits you took, declare his victories, and laugh in the joy of having overwhelmed you. He liked to win—he still does, though he’s learned self-restraint as he grew bigger and stronger and had more responsibilities to shoulder (like your well-being). But he was unbearable about it back then. Fair play was for other people, or so he seemed to think.

In the end you got tired of it. The only way to resist an unstoppable force, as everyone knows, is with an immovable object—so because the green bullets weren’t actually harming you anyway, you refused to “die” and admit you lost.

You were forbidden by Toriel from scuffling with Asriel directly because of your human strength, and she’d forbidden him just as firmly from using real bullets against you, so you reached a stalemate, and found other ways to entertain yourselves.

Things got ugly for you before Asriel grew up enough to play fair, so you haven’t had a mock battle with him in eleven years.

Here in the garden, the sun is shining. Birds are singing. Asriel stands at the far end of the room, in front of the doorway that leads to the barrier. He hasn’t even dressed any differently from the way that he usually does, as if he doesn’t see you as even a potential serious threat. You knitted that sweater he’s wearing. His shoulders are broad, his profile stoic and severe, gilded in surface light. Trepidation and annoyance and love war in you, and you have to take a breath to steady yourself.

You’ve come here in exercise clothes: The gloves Toriel made for you, your knee and ankle braces, an old t-shirt and boxers, your hair tied up out of your face. You know there’s nothing impressive about how you look. But that’s fine. If he gets overconfident, so much the better for you.

Take a deep breath. Clench your hands around Asgore’s trident. You can do this. You’ll be fine.

“We don’t have to do this,” Asriel says. His voice is low, but it carries in the empty room.

“I think we do,” you answer.

He sighs. His shoulders heave along with his chest, slump for a moment. Then he squares them. “All right. If you really won’t give up until I show you how impossible this is… I won’t hold back any more than I have to. If you actually get really hurt, we’re stopping right away.”

“That’s fair,” you say. “This will end either when I’m unable to continue for whatever reason, or when I get a hit on you.”

“You won’t get a hit on me, Chara,” Asriel says, sounding tired, like he’s indulging a child.

Well. You’ll have to see about that.

“Let’s do this,” he says. You nod.

There’s a soft snap in your head—your sternum popping as your soul comes out of your chest to hover in the air before you. What with how long it’s been since you last got into a real fight, you haven’t actually seen it in some time. The red seems more vibrant than you remember it being.

Asriel rises up onto his toes, arms spread out at his sides. Perfect five-point stars gather in his hands, shimmering, iridescent. You take one step forward, then another—the star bullets rise into the air and fan out in a perfect chrysanthemum pattern.

They start to fall towards you. You swing the trident low across your body so that you won’t tangle your legs in it and take off running.

Maybe your charge has startled him. You weave past the first few stars easily enough, but then the rest rain down at you in a deluge, scattering sparkling shrapnel as they hit the ground. They skim your legs, bright lances of pain, and you’re forced to stop and swing the trident, deflecting stars that come too close to your chest and head.

Across the garden, Asriel winces. “Just give up, Chara,” he calls, his voice tense. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But you have been, you would shoot back if you could afford to waste breath. It’s probably better that you don’t engage with his banter.

You take a breath; regather your stance. Asriel raises his fists to the ceiling, and you lower your hips, not daring to blink. You remember him working on this one.

Lightning makes a pillar from the floor to the ceiling, and you barely roll to the side in time to dodge. Asriel doesn’t let you get to your feet, either, firing a second bolt. It would be easier if you could just somersault forward, but your spine can’t handle it and if you lost your grip on your weapon for too long you would be in a great deal of trouble.

The second bolt is followed by a third, and you stagger up into a crouch and start to run again—just when Asriel cuts off the path ahead of you with a stream of smaller bolts.

You aren’t small enough to weave between them. You grit your teeth and charge through, even though pain lances through your soul and rattles in your bones, in your fingernails.

Asriel’s not an idiot. He knows that he’ll actually be in danger if he lets you get in close enough range. He’ll be aiming to keep you at a distance until you exhaust yourself, or until he can hit you until you’re in too much pain to continue.

And you? You have just got to get to where he is, plain and simple.

“I forgot how stubborn you can be,” Asriel remarks, not even winded. He lifts up his left arm, magic looping around it to form a cannon you recognize from his childhood drawings. The nerd. “Why won’t you just give up? You can’t possibly keep up with me!”

Lines of soft red light issue from the cannon’s tip. You hold still until Asriel fires, and duck past the streams of bullets. He recovers quickly, chasing you, but the lasers marking his targets make the bullets easy to dodge—

—until you catch your foot on the ground and stumble, and Asriel fires more streams of bullets than his previous attacks. You dig your heels into the soft earth and swing your trident up, numb-fingered. Turning it in a quick circular sweep knocks most of the bullets away, but the mouth of Asriel’s cannon opens up and sprays stars and your arms are starting to burn, and even the ones you knock aside erupt into sparkly shrapnel. They bite into your arms and shoulders like ice, and splinters of pain run through your soul.

“Chara—” Asriel hesitates, dismissing the cannon he’s made. You’re so close, close enough to see his brow furrow as he narrows his eyes, but your legs are shaking and you cough every time you try to breathe deeply. You still have a chance, if your body can stand the stress. “Chara, please. You don’t have to do this! I care about you! There have got to be other ways for you to get what you want, right?”

You are filled with determination.

He falls back a single step when you rush in, both hands swinging up to grasp long black swords. You only miss the first slash because your knee buckles; he winds up for a second and you scream and swing the trident with all your might.

The flat of the prongs and the haft catch Asriel in the belly. All the breath rushes out of his lungs with a comical whoof! noise; his bullets destabilize as he staggers back in the flowers, slips, and falls on his behind.

And you—you’re still standing. You rest pointy prong-tips against the ground so that you can lean against your weapon’s sturdy haft, you’re panting and your chest is seizing up horribly and your knees are fire and hell and your coughing is only barely subsiding, but. You’re standing. He’s not. You got a hit in, you knocked him down.

“I win,” you rasp. If you had enough saliva you’d spit sideways. You feel like death.

“Chara,” Asriel says, squeaky, his eyes so wide you can see the whites all around the iris. He looks at you like you’re the sky. It’s so cute.

“I’m doing this,” you say, and swallow, and wince because your dry throat feels lined with sandpaper, “because I love you.”

“Huh?”

You let the trident drop to the earth with a clang. Stagger one step, two steps, three steps forward and let your legs fold, let your body finally finally sink into Asriel Dreemurr’s lap. You hold his face in your hands, lean in and kiss the tip of his nose. The short soft fur there is velveteen under your lips. You want to kiss his mouth, too, and sink your face into his front and breathe in the smell of him, because oh, you have missed him so. You won. It’s safe now.

“I’ve been thinking something for a long time, and it scares me,” you tell him instead, and rest your chin on his shoulder.

His chest shifts underneath yours as he swallows. “What is it?”

“You’re so brilliant and curious and you’ve spent the last eleven years taking care of me,” you say. “I couldn’t blame you if you ever got tired or sick of having to baby me all the time. If you got bored of me because all I do is sit at home and read books and knit. I want to do things, I want to give back—I want to become the kind of person who’s worthy of standing at your side and helping you, somehow. I don’t want you to leave me. I want to stay with you. I’m afraid that if I don’t do something now, I’ll end up losing you.”

Asriel’s arms reach up and fold around your waist.

“I’m—” His voice cracks. “Gosh. I’m scared too, Chara. Maybe it’s bad of me. You’re—you’re a lot stronger than I ever expected. But I want you to stay with me, too. Sometimes I get scared that you’re only with me because you need me. And if you don’t need me anymore you’ll just—leave me, and go off with your other friends, and I’ll never get to hold you like this ever again. I want you to let me protect you because I—because I’m scared of losing you, too.”

“I do need you,” you say, and close your eyes. “But I want you. I want you. Even if I stop needing you, I’ll always want you.”

“Thank you,” he says. A pause. “I’m never going to get bored of you. You’re the only thing in my life I’ve never gotten bored with even once. I love you, Chara.”

You wind your fingers into his sweater. “Ree. Will you let me stand at your side?”

He sighs. “I guess you did win. But don’t leave me, Chara.”

“I won’t leave you.” It’s such a strange thought. Asriel being afraid you’d ever stop loving him. But maybe he thinks it’s silly that he might ever stop loving you, too.

It will be good for you, you’re sure, for him to loosen his hold on you a little—let you stretch out, give you more freedom to choose.

But for now, the circle of his arms is warm and comfortable, so here you will linger.

Your appointment to office isn’t big and flashy; there is no pomp, no circumstance. There is only Toriel and Asgore standing before their thrones, Asriel at your shoulder, and Undyne and Innig standing with their backs to the wall, granted special rights of attendance as your fellow pupils.

You kneel in the flowers, and smile as Asgore gently taps your shoulders with his trident.

“Rise, my child,” he says, and offers you his free hand. You take it, and use it to pull yourself up. He presses his nose to your forehead, which probably isn’t very professional, but you enjoy it anyway. “I am very, very proud of you. Though you are still in training, I hereby dub you Asriel’s honor guard.”

Your whole face flushes with pleasure and pride. Innig and Undyne begin applauding from the side of the room, and after a moment, Asriel joins in.

“There will be more expected of you from now on,” Toriel tells you seriously. “Alongside your training, you will need to learn royal deportment, and study the basics of all the same subjects which Asriel studies. You will have to accompany him to public events, when you are able. It is a great responsibility, but I believe that you are ready to rise to the challenge.”

You nod. If you tried to say that you aren’t nervous, it would be a lie, but this already sounds much more interesting than being cooped up all day and hoping that Prase will come over or Asriel will come back soon.

“Chara,” Asgore continues, “our appointing you to this position means that we trust you with our son’s very life. Tori and I believe that it is time we demonstrate a measure of our trust in you.”

He turns to Toriel, and the two of them smile at each other and nod while you tilt your head, mystified. Toriel draws something from the pockets of her robes—something small and oblong, wrapped in soft white cloth. She holds it out to you, balanced on both palms.

You look at her to make sure that it’s really something you’re allowed to take, and she nods, so you carefully lift it and begin to unwrap it.

The cloth falls away. You catch your breath.

It’s your knife.

The nick in the hilt, the red sheath patterned in pretty swirls—they’re just as you remember them. You draw it with shaking hands. The blade is silver, glittery as a mirror—it’s been maintained carefully. It was getting rusty when Toriel and Asgore took it away from you.

You sheathe the weapon. Your vision is hazing, your eyes are hot and itchy; you don’t want to cry all over the blade after all the work that must have gone into keeping it pristine for you.

“Your life has value—to us, to Asriel, to the underground,” Toriel says, gentle. “By giving you this, we mean to demonstrate that we know you will not use it to destroy that which we value.”

You can’t speak. Your face is wet and you can’t see straight. Asriel rests his hand on your shoulder, and you’re glad of the support.

“Raise your head, my child,” Asgore says in a soft, soft rumble. “We are proud of you, Chara, and we love you very much.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Rub your forearm across your face. Try to speak. Your voice won’t respond. Consider signing instead, but you don’t want to let go of your knife—back in your hands at last, finally, when you thought you’d lost it for good. This part of you that, sharp-edged though it may be, is still dear to you.

It’s about time.

You take a deep, deep breath, until the air starts to bubble in your half-healed lungs. And you smile, wide and bright as you can manage. And you gather your voice, and every mote of joy you feel.

“Thank you,” you say. And again: “Thank you. I love you all, too. I’m—going to do my best.”