"Loneliness"

Author's Note: This isn't an Undertale fanfic. At least, not exactly. There is a new fangame in development on GameJolt called "Undertale Yellow". This website won't support links, but this game is easy enough to find. It was greenlit by Toby Fox himself, and the demo is out now! It's completely free, and faithful to the source material, while adding plenty of new content to change things up a bit. You play as the Yellow Soul, named "Clover", who does not appear in this story. I suggest you go and play the game before you read this, because this will spoil a lot of things about a certain character. Credit for this character and his backstory belongs to Spasco; I own nothing!

Dalv finished sweeping the floors of his small house and propped his old broom in its appointed corner. He pursed his lips in a firm little frown as his lavender finger traced an imperfection in the broom's wooden handle. "I've never noticed that before. I'm surprised I've never gotten a splinter. Oh...this must have happened when I tripped on my cloak and you flew from my hands and hit the corner of my writing desk. Sorry...I should have been more careful."

He heaved a deep sigh, then brushed off his cloak out of habit. His pointed canine teeth scraped his lower lip as he contemplated his current state. "I just apologized to a broom...and this doesn't strike me as being odd. I mean...it's not like a broom can answer back, is it? No...but maybe that's sort of the point? And a broom can't abandon me when I need it. I don't have to worry about impressing a broom. A broom won't get impatient with my lack of reciprocation. A broom doesn't care about my not being a 'huggy' sort of person, does it?"

Dalv's dark eyes strayed from the broom to a large, framed portrait of an ear of corn. The name 'Penilla' was scrawled in the lower-right corner of the painting, and the monster reached out as if to touch it, but stopped. He was depressing himself again. This was a habit he intended to break...someday. "Was it you? Were you the one who used to leave corn on my doorstep every morning? I don't even know who that was. If it was anonymous, how can I know? I...I know it must have seemed like I was ungrateful, because I didn't thank you, but I just...I couldn't think of anything that was good enough to leave in return. And then, you just... I was grateful. I just didn't know how to express it. I still don't. One of my drawings would have been a rather self-serving thank-you, wouldn't it? I couldn't leave you one of those. Besides, I'm trying to put together a children's book, and I haven't copyrighted my ideas yet. Still...you left. Whoever you were..."

He felt the sting of tears threatening to come to his eyes as he explained himself to a painting before he angrily shook his head and entered his bedroom. He dusted off his pipe organ for the third time that day, but couldn't muster the desire to play any music. His soul just wasn't in it. Maybe his would-be friends were right to abandon him when he failed to respond the way they probably wanted him to.

Still, it wasn't his fault that emotional attachment frightened him, was it? After all, just as soon as he was almost ready to open up and let these monsters into his life, to accept them as friends, they gave up on him!

"No," his soft voice grew stern. "even if I was given a proper chance to respond, what would it have been for? They would have moved on as soon as someone better came along. And this place is so dank and dreary compared to the rest of The Underground that most monsters shun it. I was right to seal off the door to Snowdin, and I was right to ban visitors. I don't need fake friends. I'm doing just fine with my broom, thank you very much."

The broom just stood there, as patient and reticent as ever.

Dalv smiled, imagining the broom's response. "You're absolutely right. I have my music. I have my projects. They will never leave me. After all, who needs fair weather friends who will turn their backs on you as soon as you get a little bit gloomy? I don't need them." With a decisive nod to no one at all, except perhaps himself, Dalv left his bedroom and pulled up the hood of his cloak, carefully poking his horns through the holes he had cut for them.

As he left his house to patrol the Dark Ruins, Dalv continued his conversation with himself. "I feel like a true friend would be more understanding about what might be holding a monster back. I've been on my own ever since I was a small boy. No one had time for an urchin who was afraid of his own shadow, and no one has time for the man he's become. That's okay..."

There was a scuffling sound in the distance, and Dalv paused in mid-step and remained absolutely still. Yes, someone had been there. And now they were gone. He sighed with impatience...and, perhaps, a dollop of relief. "I suppose I should re-paint my 'No Trespassing' sign. It must be getting faded if someone dared to venture this far onto my property. This is unacceptable."

Having lost his train of thought, Dalv stopped talking to himself and went back to his house to retrieve a can of purple paint from underneath his desk. As he went back and checked his signs, some of which were a little faded, he realized that this wasn't really the problem. Many of his signs were hidden behind an overgrowth of thick green vines. "Well...this is typical. Nothing's ever easy, is it? I suppose I can't blame them for not obeying my warnings if they couldn't see them, and besides-"

He cut off whatever he had been about to say and gasped at the sound of crinkling paper. He looked down to see what he had stepped on, then bent to pick it up. "What's this?" He squinted as he tried to make out what was written. Was this what his unknown visitor was doing? Leaving him a note?

It appeared to be a poem, written in in green crayon on faded yellow construction paper. The handwriting was atrocious, and certainly not the work of Penilla, so he was able to rule her out immediately. Little yellow flowers were drawn in the margins, but these were difficult to make out at first. Yellow upon yellow was not a very good design choice, in Dalv's opinion.

'There once was a monster pathetic,

addicted to his own bad rhetoric,

his projects and hobbies

were all that he cared about

limericks are hard, Dalv sucks!'

Dalv slowly crumpled the piece of construction paper in the palm of his hand, his heavy purple brows drawing down in a hurt glower as he deadpanned, "Someone thinks they're clever..."

CRACK-FIZZZZZ!

A single flash of purple lightning, and the offending 'poem' was reduced to smouldering ash, which sifted through Dalv's fingers like burnt flour. He watched the ashes fall to the cavern floor, and felt his spirits falling with them as his brief burst of anger faded into the dull ache he was so familiar with.

Dalv retrieved his paint can and turned his back on the offending pile of ash. "This just proves my point. Friends don't act like that. Clearly, whoever left that for me to find is not a friend."

He was silent for a little while as he walked, and his long strides became a stroll, and then a shuffle, and finally he stopped and looked down at his immaculate black shoes. "Who am I kidding? I don't have any friends. I've pushed them all away because they got mad at me for my shortcomings. I mean, why wouldn't they? What's to like about a monster who complains and mopes all the time, and can't even say 'thank you' when he's supposed to? Look at me! I'm doing it now!"

No answer, save for the echo of his own voice. He gave a hitching sigh and returned to his home, stopping to dip his ash-covered hand in one of the monster-made ponds on the way to clean it. The ashes washed away easily, but their memory left an indelible mark on his soul. One of many.

He closed and locked his front door, stood there for a moment as he fought to keep his emotions in check, and when he felt that he'd succeeded he began to sweep his floors again. It was his hourly routine, after all, and he was an hour late.

The broom was solid, real, dependable.

More dependable than he ever was.

"No...it's not me. It's not me. It's them."

No answer from the broom. As per usual.

"It's them!"Dalv insisted, squeezing the broom handle tightly for emphasis, his voice wavering a bit more than he would have liked. It was only then that he realized his face was wet. His death grip on his broom softened, almost to the point of being apologetic, as if a broom could feel pain.

This pain...his pain...

This was exactly what he wanted to avoid.

But he couldn't.

Dalv pulled his hood down far enough to cover his eyes and slid down the wall into a slumped sitting position, hugging the broom to his chest as if it could offer the same comfort a living monster could provide, if either he or they would give it a chance.

"What's wrong with me?" he wept, brokenly.

The broom, as usual, said nothing.

Note: In case it wasn't obvious, Flowey is a jerk. This little vampire look-alike might be a bit of a Debbie Downer, but he didn't deserve that, did he? Dalv is probably my favorite character in Undertale Yellow, but he's really a very sad person. The others actually want to be his friends, but he's so afraid of rejection that he pushes them all away. Then he's lonely. You can't have it both ways, sweetheart. Play the game! Be his friend! He needs hugs. Although...he'd probably resent the invasion of his personal space, because he can't decide what he wants and keeps changing his mind!