Chapter Text
The image of the crown on the pedestal should have been inspiring, a beacon of vindication and conviction after a search that had lasted over a decade. But the empty hall, the echoing fortress walls, told a story of imminent danger. Like an oasis surrounded by the bones of animals that had drunk from its waters, a beacon of life twisted and corrupted by some invisible threat. The answer came to Matthew in yet another flash of enlightenment; the crown was not trapped, it was the trap.
But to come this far, with the weight of all that he had done and seen, and the greater weight of all that he had lost, sacrificed along the way, was impossible. And so, with the reluctant walk of a prisoner escorted to the gallows, Matt approached to claim his prize and his doom.
-Excerpt from The Last Fortress by Matthaus Schmitt, published 1958, digitized by Michael Van Garrett 2003
Finger bones leafed through page after page of papers until Dr. Wing Ding Aster found the one he was looking for and held it out to his king.
"I knew I had it in here somewhere. The timeline is pretty long, cuz we gotta build the tools to build the other tools to build the really important stuff, but the outside curve is about fifty... wait. Thirty years. Thirty surface years."
"I see." Asgore's eyes swept back and forth over the paper he had been handed. "And you're looking at how many people diverted to this?"
"Uh, about seven fifty to start, I thought I had that on there."
"Oh, no, there it is, I am sorry I am..."
"You've had other stuff on your mind, it's all good. Well, I say that, is the queen okay? And the...?"
"The Prince. Asriel, we are calling him."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. Very on brand."
"Hah." Asgore grinned sheepishly. "Actually Tori shot down my first suggestion."
"...oh. Yeah, I can guess."
"Yes. She's certainly doing well enough-"
"-to join in on this meeting."
Dr. Aster and King Asgore both jumped at the sound of the queen's voice, turning in unison to see a disheveled boss monster with tired, sunken eyes clutching a bundle to her chest, walking slowly to the dining room table before sitting down awkwardly in one chair.
"Dr. Aster, if I could see those papers?"
"Like, sure, whatever your Majesty. How are you doing?"
"I am going slightly stir crazy, I think the term is," Toriel grumbled as she took the offered stack of paperwork with one free paw. "And yet I do not believe I slept more than three hours at a time since this one was born. A little change of pace would be nice."
Muffled sounds came from the bundle of cloth, and Asgore moved around the table so fast that a careless observer might have thought that he did not traverse the intervening space.
"Is Asriel alright? I can hold him, if you need a break."
"I believe I have this in hand, Gorey," Toriel winked one eye half-lidded eye as she emphasized the pun, then directed all her attention to the increasingly noisy bundle in spite of herself. The swaddling clothes were pulled back, revealing the white fur of a baby Boss Monster, eyes closed but paws reaching out into the world.
"Oh dear, he is all fussy again." Toriel put down the papers and propped up Asriel against her dress, one paw running over her son's head and back over and over, but the tiny prince pushed against the dress with two shaking arms, head and neck craning back and forth in defiance of gravity.
"Like, every kid is a bit different but not sure that-"
The prince's head stood still, making strange murmuring noises.
"...wait, I think I know what's going on. He's never heard my voice before. I'm, like, new and scary. I can always come back later after you read over the paperwork and sign off."
"...new, yes." Asgore stared at his son. "Scary, I would dispute. If you could stay a bit, Wing Ding. I will make some tea."
"Okay. Won't say no to that!"
Asgore stared at the slumped, exhausted figure of the Royal Scientist, the weight of the responsibility of his position combining with fatigue to make him seem older than he was.
"Six months??"
"At least. We got super lucky man, and how lucky makes me totally freak out when I think about it. People falling into lava is not the worst thing that could have happened."
"Well. Can't be having that." King Asgore looked at the accident report again. "I'd much rather wait six months than have to go door to door and deliver the bad news. Though I suppose I can afford to wait in a way others cannot."
"Could afford, Gorey." The queen commented from her chair by the fire. "That ship has sailed."
To emphasize her point, the queen reached down the side of the chair to rest one paw on... an empty basket where the prince should have been.
"Asriel? Asriel!"
"It's alright, your Majesty, he's right here." Dr. Aster leaned back in his chair, lifting up one leg, where a young boss monster in a star-shaped onesie had wrapped both arms and legs around him. "I saw him crawling out of the basket like, as soon as I walked in the door, but I didn't want to seem like I was trying to distract from the accident or downplay the severity, so I didn't say anything, but I had an eye socket on him the whole time."
"...as a scientist, do you have any theories why Asriel keeps being drawn to you whenever you visit?" Asgore managed to pry his son off of the Royal Scientist, then carry the squirming bundle of limbs over to the queen. "I may not have your genius but I can certainly identify a pattern."
"Like, no idea man. Kids are weird like that." Dr. Aster turned back to the pages of his report, one eye light swiveling to keep track of the prince, who was still staring intently at the royal scientist even from his mother's arms. "Actually... hold on a second."
With careful, exaggerated slowness, Dr. Aster took one sheet of paper out of the stack, placed it flat on the table, and began to fold the paper in on itself, over and over and over, until the resulting triangular shape was picked up in two skeletal fingers. Dr. Aster threw the paper airplane, and Asriel's eyes widened, mouth open in shock or delight or both, and the prince giggled hysterically at the sight of aerodynamics in action.
Carefully, carefully, wooden cubes engraved with letters and shapes and other symbols were lined up, edge to edge.
Asriel stared at his work, then picked up one block, moving it carefully to the other end of the line, lining everything up just as carefully.
Toriel, in turn, stared at Asriel. Her child had taken to the wooden blocks he had been given with the same single minded enthusiasm as every other toy he had been given.. Literally, as the bouncing spring toy had occupied Asriel's attention for long enough to straighten it out, then was discarded as he bounced the ball off of various surfaces, and then finally staring intently at the boss monster-shaped doll for up to an hour at a time.
"How is he?"
Toriel jumped at the sound of Asgore's voice; just as Asriel had been consumed by the task of stacking blocks, she had been completely focused on watching Asriel, to the exclusion of all else.
"He is alive, he is growing, and he is, I think, learning. That much is enough to be grateful for. Everything else still confuses me."
"In that we are agreed." Asgore stroked his beard in what was probably intended to be a contemplative manner, but instead just made him look even more confused than Toriel already felt. "Perhaps we should talk to Wing Ding when he brings his next report. This may simply be one of those things that children do. And if it is not, he may be able to tell us that as well."
"Like, your guess is as good as mine, man." Dr. Aster stared at Asriel along with his parents, as the young boss monster reached with unsteady paws toward the side of the table and, with no small amount of difficulty, leveraged himself upright. "I mean, Papyrus liked to get into boxes of spare parts and try to put them together, or break them if they wouldn't fit. But I think that reflects more on him personally, and the kind of monster he'll grow up to be. It's not a general trend I don't think-"
"Hup!" With immense concentration, Asriel took a step away from the table, then another, then another.
"He's walking! Toriel, he's-"
Before Toriel could run in from the kitchen, Asriel's legs slid out or collapsed beneath him, or some combination of both, and he fell forward with a grunt.
"Oh dear."
"Is he grinding his teeth?"
Asgore blinked as he recognized the sound that Dr. Aster had noticed first, and then as Asriel pushed himself up with both arms, he could see that the prince's teeth were bared, his jaw moving back and forth in time with the sound.
"He is walking, you said? Oh, oh dear." Toriel rushed over to help Asriel up. "You've fallen, haven't you?"
"Ah." Asriel reached out for the table as he rose past it, then blinked in confusion before turning to look at his mother.
"There, there, everything will be- good heavens!" Toriel's comforting tone was suddenly replaced with surprise as Asriel reached out for her ears, pulling against them at the same time his feet tried to find purchase on her arms and shoulders.
"Now that, Papyrus didn't do. Sans, on the other hand-"
"Would someone kindly assist me?!" Toriel said with barely contained bad grace as Asriel's foot found purchase on his mother's muzzle and he managed to climb onto her head.
"Huna! Huddawa!"
"Sorry, didn't catch that," Dr. Aster replied to the young monster's attempts to communicate. Beside him, Asgore covered his mouth with both paws in what was clearly a futile attempt to not laugh.
"Baba?"
"Daddy? Can you say daddy?"
"Hudda!"
"What about mommy? Can you say mommy for us?"
"Adda. Adda!" Asriel's head pivoted back and forth as he looked from Toriel to Asgore and back again. "Bahada!"
"Hey, like, sorry to interrupt-"
Before Dr. Aster could finish his sentence, Asriel's eyes grew large as saucers and he pointed with one paw at the skeleton scientist poking his head into the living room.
"Attah! Atter! Atter!"
Asgore blinked, then turned to look at Toriel.
"I think he's trying to say 'Aster' when he-"
"Atter! Atter! Athter!"
"...am I the prince's first word? That's..." Dr. Aster watched as Asriel managed to push himself upright and reach for one of Asgore's horns, using the king's snout and beard as toeholds. "Actually that's probably kind of awkward, right? It's not just me, right?"
Toriel held up one paw, an orange light flickering above her cupped fingers, and Asriel stared with rapt attention.
"This is magic, Asriel. This is what makes us who we are. Our hearts, and our minds, and our wills. Brought into the world. Thoughts made real."
The queen held out the fireball to the prince, who took it in two grasping hands and immediately tried to eat it.
"...that is not what I expected."
Asriel coughed and pulled the fireball out of his mouth, stared at it for nearly ten seconds without blinking, and then let go, flames flickering into being above his own paws.
"Oh my goodness, I- Asgore! Asgore, Asriel is-"
Asriel's fireball, much like that produced by his mother, was stuffed in his mouth. A few seconds later, the prince spat out the fire, which dissipated into flickers of light, and the process repeated with another fireball. This one bounced off the ground, the far wall of the living room, and came to a rest on the floor before fading out.
Asriel stared at the spot where the fireball faded, then turned to look at the fireplace where a much larger flame was burning merrily, despite the lack of firewood or other fuel.
Toriel managed to grab her son a split second before his legs started moving.
"No, no, no. We'll have none of THAT."
A clawed finger tapped close to an illustration of a bird, but with very little force behind it, in deference to the age and the condition of the book itself.
"This is a bird. Bird."
"Berb."
"Bird."
"Ber."
"Bird."
"Birb."
"We shall get there." Toriel turned the page with her thumb, an involved process that could not be avoided as her other arm held Asriel upright in her lap, more as a precaution to keep him from jumping off of it in some flight of fancy. "And this is a boat."
"Boot."
"Boat."
"Bot."
"Boat."
"Boat."
"Very good!" Toriel turned another page, and had enough time to recognize the detailed wings before Asriel pointed at the illustration-
"Shmitterling!"
"...Asriel, that is a butterfly."
"Shmitterling?"
"Butterfly."
"Bu...boot...er. Fly?"
"Butterfly."
"Booterflin."
"Butterfly."
"Booot...fly..." Asriel shook his head suddenly. "Shmitterling."
"...we will come back to this later." Toriel turned the page and gestured to the pointed ears and exaggerated whiskers. "This is a cat, Asriel."
"Kat... katzen?"
"Cat."
"...Cat."
"Yes, very good."
Dr. Aster stared at the prince, or to be more accurate, the piles of books on each side of him.
In the time between when he had arrived to give his report to Asgore, the pile on one side had shrunk considerably, and the pile on the other had proportionately grown.
"That... like... looks like most of what's in your bookcase."
"Indeed." Toriel rubbed the top of her muzzled. "I was reading picture books at first, but there were words and letters as well. Of course, that was almost certainly their purpose, to provide a simple connection between visual concepts, sounds, and text. But I could never have imagined it would... click. So quickly."
"Four years old. And reading at... probably at least fifty words a minute, just doing the back of the envelope math." Dr. Aster nodded. "He's definitely smart. And that might explain all the other weird stuff, he's trying to figure things out faster than you or Asgore or anyone can explain, and it takes him in weird places."
"Not vierd. Ex. Sen. Trick."
Dr. Aster turned to Toriel and saw the same confused expression on her face as was likely on his.
"That I can't make heads or tails of. But... with your permission. I just had an idea."
"I am listening."
Instead of speaking, Dr. Aster turned around, held out one arm in front of him, and closed his eyes. Blue light flashed around his hand for a moment, and then he turned back to face the queen.
"Sometimes when we dig stuff out of the dump, we really hit pay dirt..." Dr. Aster's eye lights drifted to one side, where Asriel had looked up from the book in his lap, and eyes as big as saucers were fixated on the much larger text in Dr. Aster's hand. "It's a reproduction, but it's accurate. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. Asriel?"
"Ja?"
"This is a very important book. It has all sorts of Science in it." Dr. Aster walked over and handed the book to Asriel, noticing how the prince's paws shook even before accepting the weight of a tome almost as large as he was. "This is important stuff, you know?"
"Ja. Science. I vill readen all ze science. I vill help breaken ze Barrier. Und mama und dada vill be jumpen vith de happiness."
"...is that why you want to read all the books?"
"Ja, ja. Mama, she smiling when I reading to her. She smiling when I... question, answer. Smiles und learning. To... mmm. Maken ze more smiles, I must be learning. Barrier gone and ve all learning of ze surface and even more smiles." Asriel held up one index finger in a manner distinctly reminiscent of how Toriel would gesture in order to emphasize a point.
"...you know what? I believe it. And that's exactly the attitude we need to get out of here." Dr. Aster patted the book with one bony hand. "Can't wait to see what you pick up from this."
Dr. Aster opened, with great care, an old book that had clearly spent far too much time soaking in the Waterfall garbage dump.
"So, like, I think I figured out what the prince is saying. It's another Surface language. The queen set us up to switch everything to English, but about a quarter of the words Asriel is saying match the words in this book. It's a, like, translation guide. One of the languages is English, the other is called German. Now, how he knows these words when nobody ever used them around him? Like, no idea man. It's really weird. Same with saying the English words with a German accent, we found some old video tapes that match his voice. Big muscled human playing a robot or something. It's kinda like, ya know, skeleton accents? But he's a Boss Monster going back at least five generations, right?"
"Six, on my side," Toriel corrected.
"Same. Back in the old days I think both of us would have been thrown out on our horns if there had even been rumors we'd been, uh, dallying with skeleton monsters." Asgore shrugged his massive shoulders. "They really got hung up on things like social circles back then-"
"Prost! Hahahaha!"
The king, queen, and royal scientist all turned to see Asriel riding what appeared to be an improvised scooter made from various pieces of wood, a single roller skate, and some sort of gardening utensil with a single wheel on one side. In a span of less than a second, the prince had entered the living room and collided with the wall on the opposing side.
"...ow."
As Toriel rushed to help her son, Asgore turned to Dr. Aster.
"And the fascination with all things mechanical and electrical? Or the complete disregard for his own personal safety?"
"Like, that's just what being a scientist is like, man. Some people are born with it, and some aren't."
"...I don't suppose you have an internship position open right now?"
Dr. Aster laughed, then abruptly stopped and rubbed his chin with bony fingers as if seriously considering the prospect.
"Wing Ding that was a joke."
"Oh, like I know that. I totally knew that. But if this isn't just a phase? I can always use another set of hands in the lab."
"There, all better," Toriel lifted one paw off of Asriel's head, green flickers of light fading.
"Ow. The vall vast in mein path."
"Yes, of course. Walls do that. Shall we go into the kitchen and you can watch me make dinner?"
"Ja!"
The Royal Scientist stared at a pile of Crab Apples, their pincers twitching faintly.
"Okay, like, that's a little weird. They weren't supposed to do that."
"That's ain't the least of it! Check this out!" Gerson pulled out some sort of appliance from behind the store counter, one that looked like an audio playback device that used magnetic tape cartridges. Upon pressing one of the buttons on the front, the store was filled with the sound of upbeat music.
Abruptly, the twitching apples started to move even more energetically, and perhaps more importantly, in unison.
"ZOIKS!" Dr. Aster jumped back in surprised, before leaning over one in fascination. "Like, how long has this been happening, man?!"
"At least a few weeks. Making it mighty hard to sell, if people are afraid the food will eat them first! Wa ha ha!"
"Okay yeah that's totally not supposed to happen. I'm gonna head straight over to the Food Generators and figure out what the heck is-"
"aaaaAAAAAAWASZUMTEUFUL-!"
The light fixture in the ceiling of the shop flickered as something slammed into a nearby cave wall; with the kind of intuitive pattern recognition forced on him by having a son that occasionally tried to stick live electrical wires in his jaws, Dr. Aster held up one hand, purple light shining from the hole in the palm, then vanished in a flash of blue light.
On the bank of the river, something white and waterlogged drifted by, and Dr. Aster held out the same hand, but before he could do anything else, Gerson had already waded out into the water and grabbed Asriel.
"Like, how'd you get there so fast?!"
"Took a short cut! WA HA HA!"
"So did I man- whatever, not important!" Another flash of light and Dr. Aster was hip deep in the water next to Gerson. "Is he breathing?"
As if in response to the Royal Scientist's question, Asriel hacked and sputtered and wheezed, spraying his rescuers with water.
"Ach. Ow. Ow. Vat happen. Vy am I drippings mitt wasser."
"You tell us! We just heard somebody yelling and something slammed into the walls, then here you are going for a swim!" Gerson waded back to the shore, deposited a shaking Asriel on relatively dry land, and tapped the metal contraption on the prince's back with his walking stick. "Don't suppose that little whatchallit had anything to do with it?"
"...ah. Ze. Rebreathen. Air compress. Vaterfall ist much undervater."
"Like, that's what the bubble taxi is for, man."
Asriel didn't reply, in the way that all children failed to respond when their previously unassailable logic was pierced by the astute questioning of an adult.
"Whatever man. Just glad you're alright."
"Ach. Do not. Informening. Asgore, Toriel. Zey vill be most unhappiness."
"They'll be a lot less happy if they find out we didn't tell em!"
"Bitte, please. Do not be vanting to alarm."
"Is it just me or are your words getting more scrambled up?"
"Mein head hurts. I assist mitt shop, science. For silence."
"Ya shouldn't be writing IOU's like that kiddo! Everybody thinks retail is easy until they have to do it! Wa ha ha!" Gerson grinned. "But tell ya what. Almost drowning and a splitting headache seems payback enough for taking silly risks for silly reasons. Just be careful in the future, okay?"
"Like, makes sense."
"Ja, ja! I vill achievement of maximum cautions!"
"Vhy ist un bug hunting ze same single bug... how can ze bugs be- vhat vas zat noise?"
"Is someone there? Please... I need help..."
"Ah! You haff fallen down, ja? Here. Take mein hand."
"Agh. My... my name is Chara. What's yours?"
"Chara? Das ist... das ist nice name. Mein ist Asriel. Are you...?"
"Everything... hurts."
"I vill assist! Hup!"
"Agh! Ow, ow-"
"I apologizen. Ve must hurry. Mein mutter bemuttern, she vill make all things right! Hold on! RUNNING TIME IST NOW!"
Chara reached out to touch the pulsating energy, trailing their fingers across a space that lacked substance, yet resisted any movement as much as a solid wall.
"I understand now what you meant about not being able to go home again."
"The Barrier has resisted all efforts to break, bypass, subvert, or otherwise neutralize it... excepting the experiments that the Aster family performed many years ago." Toriel's voice had shifted into a cadence immediately familiar with anyone who had spent any amount of time in a public school. "The vast machine you saw in Hotland is built upon that discovery."
"It may take years. Decades even. But we will be free. And we will bring you home." Asgore wrapped Chara's hand in his massive paws. "This I swear, as King, and as a father. On the honor of the Dreemurr name, and all those who came before me. Everything will be alright."
Chara looked up at Asgore's face; even kneeling down, he towered over the human child.
"Honestly, I was under the impression that you were all going to eat me earlier. So finding out that is not going to happen means that today is already much better than I anticipated."
"Zat vould not make sense. You are being the first human to fall in the Underground. There vould be no way to support ze population if monsters ate humans. Is simple ecology. Trophic cascade."
"I know what some of those words mean."
"I vill explainen ze ozers, ja?"
"I think I'd like that. What was that about trophies?"
"Ah, ze trophic cascade... hmmm. I vill need diagrams."
Above the heads of the two children, one of whom was drawing pictures of light in the open air with the tip of one claw, and the other watching with rapt attention, Toriel and Asgore looked at each other.
Both king and queen had barely contained expressions of amusement.