Title: With Kindness
Author: RanMouri82
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Toby Fox owns Undertale. I own my fangirling.
Notes: Frisk suffers a setback in the Ruins and must decide what price they will pay to continue. Flowerfell AU
Flowerfell AU created by Sanei (underfart-snas / siviosanei) on Tumblr
Main Flowerfell Fic "Overgrowth" by SociopathicArchangel on Archive of Our Own
With Kindness
Frisk woke up, flat on their back once more, and opened their right eye.
Only their right eye.
Their view of the dingy bedroom ceiling was chopped in half. Everything to the left of that fuzzy edge was black.
The human lifted their shaking hands and brushed the buttercup petals covering the left side of their face. Until now, with each death the thin stems and flowers had jutted through their forehead, tangling their brown hair and slowly blocking the vision on their left side like so many floral extensions. Now Frisk's left eye saw nothing.
Panic surged. Earlier, reset after reset, Frisk had stuffed down their fears of how far the flowers could encroach on their body, of the damage they could do. More and more, they had gotten the hang of dodging Toriel's fire attacks, or so they hoped. Dodging a few more bursts of searing flame might tire out Toriel or make her think twice, make her stop wanting to fight, to kill. This endless battle could finally end.
They had been so close. Now they were half blind. How many more tries was this going to take?
Was it all pointless?
The voice in the back of their mind still said, stay determined.
But they did not want to listen.
"Frisk!" Flowey cried from the dresser, twisting toward them and extending his stem from the soil in his boot to look them over. A few seconds passed as Flowey took in Frisk's movements. He had grown used to his human friend searching for each newly sprouted flower, jumping awake and feeling the ghosts of their charred or sliced skin, or huddling under the blankets in fear and exhaustion, but this time, Frisk's red eye was wide open in horror, and their left eye…. Flowey groaned. "No."
Frisk swallowed hard and took several deep, shuddering breaths before gripping the maroon comforter and sitting up yet again in their bedroom in the Ruins. They had lost count of their runs as soon as they stopped counting their flowers.
Flowey stared at the carpet. He hated asking the obvious, but he wanted to be sure. "Your left eye. It's blind?"
Nodding, Frisk rose to their feet and walked toward an oval mirror that hung on the far wall. The first time Frisk saw it, they found its walnut frame with the Delta Rune carved into its base charming. Now they dreaded looking at the glass.
Flowey sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault," Frisk replied, offering the flower a weak smile. They opened their right hand and touched their thumb to their chest. Fine. With trembling fingers, Frisk then examined their pale reflection and started counting the flowers again. It was by no means a guarantee, but maybe they could gain some estimate of how many more resets they had left before going blind completely.
"You know," Flowey mumbled as he curled his leaves, "There is another way."
Frisk stiffened.
"Monsters are vicious and can utilize powerful magic attacks, but their bodies are tied to their SOULs. That's their weakness. Because humans are physical, you're stronger than monsters by nature and could overpower even the strongest boss monster if you, um," Flowey said, dangling one of his vines into the old toy chest by Frisk's feet, "gain LOVE."
"To do that, I have to kill," Frisk said, their voice clipped. They clutched the worn sleeves of their striped sweater. As more flowers grew on their arms, they had to be careful of even that simple gesture. "No."
"I wish any other way would work, but I think she won't stop unless we can make her stop. She's too far gone." Flowey turned a dusty toy rabbit over with his vines. The third human had loved cuddling with it and nuzzling its nose. Now the black thread beneath the doll's plastic nose had snapped and unraveled. Tufts of stuffing poked out from its stitched mouth. "We're running out of options. And resets. If things were different, maybe we could try being sweet, doing whatever she wants, and just hoping she'd let us go, but—"
"You mean," Frisk said, blinking at Flowey with their good eye, "killing with kindness?"
"Huh?" Flowey tilted his blossom in confusion.
"Human expression. Means winning someone over by being kind." Frisk shook their head and traced the scroll patterns that were carved into the mirror alongside the Delta Rune. They dug their fingernails into the grooves but could not quite reach their center. "All I know is I want to be kind, not kill. Never kill."
"...Right. The more LOVE you have, the easier it becomes to kill. And the more you kill, the harder it gets not to kill," Flowey said, wincing and glancing away. That was the only way he could make sense of how his mother, the same kind woman who used to teach him math, read him stories, bake him sweets, and urge him to be a wise, discerning prince could use her magic to broil Frisk to ashes—a human with a red soul like Chara. "I get it. And I don't want to hurt anyone, either." Flowey's face crumpled. "But it's not fair. You don't deserve to die."
"I can't live any other way." Frisk shrugged and smiled sadly at Flowey. They angled their arms in front of them with open hands, turned down their middle fingers, and nudged their hands forward. Mercy. "And I don't think she's 'too far gone'. Nobody is. Not if they can choose."
"Hope so," Flowey sighed. With effort, he straightened his stem and stretched tall. If Frisk would be brave, so would he. Smiling, he spread out his vines and added, "Then why don't we practice dodging? I've been trying to memorize her moves."
"Thanks. Please watch her next attacks, too," Frisk said, gripping their hands at their sides into fists. It felt silly getting energetic over something so horrible, but this was the choice they could live with. This way, they were determined to move forward. Frisk was willing to pay that price. "Can you?"
"Piece of pie," Flowey said, sticking his tongue out and winking.
Frisk laughed at that. Flowey aimed an array of bullets after Toriel's pattern, and as Frisk suspected, their view of the battle was much different now. Not entirely blocked, but limited and off. They bobbed and weaved, relying on muscle memory, but after their second leap to the right, a pair of bullets grazed the left shoulder of their sweater, and Frisk knew Toriel's fire would have burned right through their arm. They had to be careful.
But that was okay. They staggered to their feet and chose to give kindness yet another chance. They chose to continue.