AN: So I've mentioned before elsewhere that I had a few ideas for a series of stories about the Six Souls. The connecting theme of the stories would be that while each soul possesses the virtue that they are traditionally attributed with, their major flaws and eventual downfalls would be that each is lacking in the trait of the next soul in the sequence. Cyan lacks bravery, Orange lacks integrity, so on and so forth. Starting out with both their strengths and weaknesses in mind really helped me formulate my version of the souls more clearly, but when it came to actually telling their stories, I found that they weren't always the central figure in the stories I wanted to tell. They were still interesting stories though, so I decided to press on. Expect long gaps between updates on this, I'm terribly busy with other things and even with careful preplanning these stories can take a while. I do fully intend to finish this though, so if you ever feel like I'm taking too long and you'd like to see more of this, give me a nudge. Knowing that there's someone interested in what I'm doing always gets me really fired up when I start to lose motivation.
He tells himself that it had just been bad timing. That if he'd faced that situation at any other point in his life he would have done things differently. He wasn't really a human hating monster; he'd just acted hastily in the heat of the moment. He tells himself that as a consolation, but to be perfectly honest, it doesn't soothe him at all. How could it? Knowing how that one moment of rashness had shaped everything that came after it. Worst of all was the way he doubted the truth of his own feeble attempts to console himself. Because despite the long years of regret and how much he wished things had turned out differently, he knew that if he could go back and replay that exact moment over again, he would still do the same thing every time. He had to, for all their sakes. But especially for hers.
It had already been weeks since their son's death. It had been that long, and yet they still hadn't brought themselves to hold a proper funeral for him. Ordinarily she would have been the one he turned to for planning something like that. She was practical, caring, and could always handle making a difficult decision with a steely conviction. It's what he'd always loved about her, what he'd come to rely on her for over the centuries long course of their marriage. If this tragedy had happened to someone else she would have already been hard at work, getting the mundane yet difficult to think of details out of the way and doing everything she could to make things easier for the grieving parents. But the two of them were the ones grieving this time, and there was no one to step into that role for them in her place.
He'd decided that they had waited long enough to get these arrangements taken care of. Mustering up his resolve he went to knock on her door. Although they'd always had their own personal spaces it was only recently that they'd started sleeping separately. She'd told him that she'd needed space, that she wanted to do her mourning in solitude. Now she didn't even leave her room if she didn't have to. He knew she was eating but he wanted her to be doing more, going places, talking to people, even if it wasn't to him. Maybe if he offered to take her somewhere to get her mind off things… no, that wouldn't work. Where would they even go? They were both equally familiar with all parts of the underground, and all of it was just another painful reminder of the children they'd lost who'd loved exploring their underground home together. There was no point in even suggesting something like that. "It's me," he called out when there wasn't an immediate answer. "We need to talk about the funeral," he elaborated when she still didn't answer. He started to get worried and wondered if he should just barge in when he heard a shuffling on the other side of the door.
"What about it?" she asked, peering at him bleary-eyed once she'd finally opened the door. She'd thrown a housecoat on and her face had been recently washed. There were dark circles under her eyes; she must not be getting enough sleep. He wondered how long that had been going on. The thought distracted him for a moment and he had to look down at the papers he'd written down his notes for what needed to be done to be reminded why he came.
"Well, we need to have one for starters," he said, giving a tentative half-smile. It was good to see her again, no matter the circumstances. The smile was not returned and he glanced away nervously. "I, ah, I was thinking we could have the ceremony on Saturday, if you're up for it. I've been telling others that's when we'll have it, but it's not too late to change things if it's still too soon for you. I reached out to some of the other monsters that knew them, to see if they'd be willing to say a few words. Most agreed, enough that you shouldn't feel like you have to make a speech in from of everyone if you don't want to. I've been putting albums together of our photos of them, to have on display. I would have liked to show some of the home movies as well, but most of them didn't come out very well." He gave a soft chuckle at that, remembering the running joke in their family about that old camcorder. Like so many things underground, it had been something scavenged from the garbage dump and repaired to a semblance of working order, and even when he didn't forget to take the lens cap off, more often than not something went wrong so that the picture was completely lost.
She blinked at him for a few moments. "You did all that?" she asked, sounding surprisingly touched by his actions.
He shrugged. "Someone had to," he said humbly. That was the wrong thing to say, he immediately realized when she flinched, like it somehow implied she hadn't been doing her part in this. Yes, someone had to, but he didn't mean to make it sound like she should have to. She'd always done so much for him, for all of them, let him be the one she could rely on for once. "There's still one part I haven't been able to decide on though, a pretty important part," he added quickly, trying to draw out that brief interest she'd shown again. "The ceremony itself. I still haven't been able to decide where to, well, you know…"
"Where to spread his dust?" she asked bluntly, this time causing him to flinch. Trust her not to pussyfoot around a delicate topic. "Did you really not know our son well enough that you can't think of what he liked?" Her tone was both monotone and disdainful, if such a thing were possible.
"No of course not! I've come up with a whole list of things he loved!" he protested, rifling through his papers frantically. "The problem is figuring out what he liked best. There's so much that he loved, your pies, his toys, us, Chara…" Mentioning that last one had been another mistake, he realized immediately, catching the twitch in her mouth as the frown deepened. He scrambled over his notes again, desperate to come up with something so they both wouldn't have to dwell on that thought. A half-idea that he'd scrawled in the margins of his notes caught his eye and he froze, sighing deeply. "My mind keeps coming back to the throne room. Those flowers, you know? They meant so much to bo- I mean to all of us. If I had to pick one thing he liked best, I'd probably go with that place. But to scatter his dust there…" he couldn't bring himself to explain the problem. After gathering the dust in the first place, something seemed so very wrong about holding a ceremony to spread their son's dust in the exact same place that he died. There'd be no closure in that.
She didn't seem to need him to explain. For a brief moment, the hardness of her expression softened, and he could tell she was sympathizing with him. It would have been so easy, in that moment, to reach out and touch her. To remind them both that they weren't alone in their grief. If there was any one thing he could go back and change from that time he would have taken her paw, squeezed it tight, and not let go again until he knew that she was okay. Maybe the rest of it would have turned out better if he did.
But he hadn't, and the moment passed. She looked away from him, fingers curling against the doorframe. "What about Chara? Where were you going to bury them?"
Ah. Chara. Of course she'd ask about their other child they'd lost. He hated to admit he felt the slightest bit of resentment for their adopted child. He'd loved them unconditionally in life, and had been grief stricken by their death, but a part of him couldn't help but wonder if his son would still be alive if not for them. That was an unfair thought of course, he could no more blame them for what happened to his son than he could for the illness that had taken their own life. So he tried to suppress those kinds of thoughts, though he probably wasn't doing the best job of it. "I have their casket stored below the throne room for now," he coughed out, trying not to give away the thoughts that had crossed his mind. The casket had a strong seal on it, to keep the smell of decomposition from leaking out, and the cool basement helped slow the decay. It would have been even colder in Snowdin, but part of him unreasonably wanted to keep the child close for as long as he could. "I know the human tradition is to bury their dead, but there just aren't that many places in the underground with soil that soft and deep. Most of it is solid rock, or frozen over, or marshy like in Waterfall. I was thinking maybe we should cremate them. Then we could spread their ashes in the same place we spread his dust, and they could stay together." He actually liked this idea, thought it fitting that his two children who'd loved each other so dearly would be together for all eternity. But she was shaking her head no.
"No, we should respect those traditions," she explained herself. "I have a place in mind we could bury them, leave that to me. You just figure out where you think would be the best place for our son."
He thought maybe he should argue in favor of his plan, or at least ask about the place she was thinking of so he could give his approval, but this was the first time she'd offered to take initiative on anything in weeks. It finally looked like maybe she was ready to try and move on. He wasn't going to stop that.
So the next morning, when she came out of her room dressed and ready to go scout out the location she was considering for the burial plot, he was relieved to see her off. She'd insisted that she could handle this job herself, and besides, he had other things to take care of. There was still an entire kingdom to run after all. He'd been negligent of his duties in that regard for far too long. Could anyone really blame him for that? So while she was gone, he got some work done in the throne room.
He'd thought it would be difficult to concentrate in in the room where his son had died, but it was surprisingly soothing to sit and go over his reports there. He'd have to credit it to the flowers, and the dappled sunlight. This close to the surface, the ceiling above was one of only a handful of places in the underground with cracks large enough to let natural light in, rather than the dim indirect lighting powered by magic that gave most of the rest of the underground a perpetual twilight atmosphere. The cracks were too high up for anyone to crawl through, and even if they tried the barrier would stop them from getting very far, but that didn't stop light from coming in for a few hours each day, warming the skin and filling the room with a yellow glow. Chara had been delighted when they discovered a stray seed from above had fallen through the cracks and somehow managed to take root by working its way under the tiled floor, and they and his son had commandeered the room for their own personal gardening project. Carefully they'd managed to coax life out of the plant, and before he knew it a small patch of yellow flowers had blossomed right in the center of the throne room. It wasn't the most dignified thing, to hold meetings with his advisors while trying not to step on any of the flora underfoot, but watching them play together there had been some of the happiest moments of his life, and these flowers were a gentle reminder of those times rather than a painful one.
A soft thudding overhead dislodged some earth from the ceiling and he glanced up crossly. The humans were still trampling around aboveground. They'd followed his son up the mountain in their pursuit of the monster, and had been wandering around up there periodically in the weeks since. It kind of surprised him this was still going on. What exactly were they expecting to find? Hopefully not his son, he could only imagine the kinds of things people who'd pursue him so doggedly would want with a dead monster. Maybe they were looking for the entrance to the underground. Did they not know where it was? Probably not, it'd been so long and human memories were short. Short when it came to anything other than hatred and fear that is. Well, if the humans had forgotten where exactly it was they'd chased the monsters into the caves and sealed it off, that was fine by him, preferable even. They were less likely to try and come finish them off this way.
Though if they kept stomping around like that, the ground might give way under one of them someday and they'd fall through right on top of him. He gave the ceiling second consideration at that thought. An unlikely event, but not an impossible one. He should talk with the monsters that studied the structural integrity of the vast cave system that was their home to see about reinforcing the weaker spots like this one. Wouldn't want an accident like that happening.
That thought taken care of he turned back to his reports. The news was not good. There were huge drops in morale all over the underground. That was to be expected really. Everyone was upset by the deaths of his children, and if the loss of the young prince wasn't enough his own despondency had distressed many citizens who were used to seeing him and his wife as unshakeable leaders. This drop in morale was affecting everything, from snail farming to trash scavenging, as no one was able to focus on their work. Even puzzle making was showing a drop in productivity. Puzzle making, for lands' sakes, a job that had been created specifically for the purpose of getting monsters' minds off their troubles! At this rate the entire underground was going to wither away to dust.
He needed to get things moving again quickly. The first step would be going in public and showing a strong front. The funeral would be best, if he and his wife could maintain composure through the ceremony. Monsters needed to know they could still rely on the two of them for strong leadership. But that wasn't going to be enough, there needed to be something for everyone to rally around again, something that gave them hope for the future.
The future… Chara and his son were supposed to be the future for humans and monsters. Was the weight of those expectations partially to blame for what had happened? If so, then he himself was wholly responsible for that. Prophecy or no, it'd be foolish to claim it had never occurred to him the benefits having a human ally on their side. It was only a matter of figuring out a way to get them out onto the surface again to plead the case for their release. That wasn't going to be easy of course, but if the Royal Scientist couldn't come up with another way before their son was grown, he would have gladly made the sacrifice himself for the sake of the children and everyone else. In the meanwhile, though, he'd cautiously approached Chara about their feelings about returning to their people. The child… had not been happy about the idea. They begged and pleaded with him to be allowed to stay, told him the humans they'd come from were cruel and terrible and would never agree to breaking the barrier. He had no doubt all of that was true, he could only imagine what they'd had to suffer through, until it got so bad that they had run away to the mountain and found themselves here. But Chara was proof that there were humans who would sympathize with them out there too, and when he'd stressed how important this was, that freedom for his entire people was at stake, he thought they'd understood. Perhaps they'd understood too well, as he couldn't imagine anyone but Chara giving his son the idea to do what he'd done.
He tried to concentrate on his work again, but that thought had shaken his focus so badly that he found himself rereading the same paragraphs over and over, unable to retain a single word of it. Frustrated, he got up and wandered around the throne room, noting the details of the walls, the chairs, the flowers. Hmm, the flowers were looking a little wilted. He was sure the children had left a watering can around here somewhere…
It was almost a relief when he heard the familiar sound of his wife's footsteps in the corridor outside the throne room. She was back later than he'd expected, and he was eager to hear about if her trip out had been successful. Perhaps they could talk about it over tea, or maybe even an early dinner, as he realized just how late it was getting. But as her footsteps rapidly approached, and he realized she was almost running towards him, concern pushed out all thoughts of a pleasant evening.
The sight of what she was carrying sent an all too familiar echo of the past racing through his mind.
"Mom, Dad! I found someone. They're hurt!"
"Dad? Chara's really sick! I'm scared…"
"Stay determined, Chara! You are the future of humans and monsters…"
"A human," he whispered, once the initial shock of what he was seeing passed enough to let him breathe again. A human child, to be precise. If he was going to be completely accurate it was a dead human child, but he wasn't ready to process that adjective just yet. He had to remind himself that this wasn't Chara, despite the obvious differences between them. This child had pale blond hair, for one thing, plaited in two braids, though the ribbon that had been holding one of braids in place was gone, and the hair on that side of the head had unraveled, long wavy locks falling across their face. They were slightly taller than Chara had been, making him guess their age to be a year or two older. But so, so, thin. Chara had been malnourished when they first found them, the stunted effects of years of abuse, but this was something far more rapid and recent and extensive. Their pale arms looked no wider than the staff of his spear, and he was certain if he were to remove their clothes, he'd be able to count their ribs. There was no questioning the cause of death for this poor soul. Starvation was a terrible way to go. "Where did you find it?"
"The Ruins," she told him curtly, moving forward to look for a place to set them down. Her eyes glanced over the flowerbed in consideration, but she eventually moved around it, placing the child gently down on one of the empty thrones. Propped up that way, they almost looked as if they were sleeping, if not for their gaunt face and the exposed soul. Their soul was heart shaped, like Chara's had been, but this one was a brilliant shade of cyan. Although they were long dead, a human soul was persistent, and could continue to exist after death indefinitely, if left undisturbed.
The Ruins. Of course. It all made sense to him now. The place where Chara had first fallen, one of his son's favorite places to explore. The cavern there would have been a perfect final resting place. Peaceful, secluded, and with access to sunlight and soil, it was almost just like the garden they'd started in here. He was almost ashamed for not thinking of it himself. She'd gone there to scout out the area and found this instead. But the Ruins weren't completely uninhabited, so then why…
"Why didn't you help them?" She demanded, almost at the same moment he'd thought it. It took him a beat to realize that she wasn't talking to him, that they weren't alone. A whimsun and a froggit had trailed after her, barely able to keep up with the larger monster. He knew how difficult it was for these creatures to brave the elements outside of the sheltered ruins. Only something as dire as this would have given them reason to come all the way here.
The whimsun coward behind its friend, and even the froggit was trembling. "We, we tried! But it just wouldn't let us get close. Every time we tried it would back into a corner and cry until we went away."
"Or attacked us if we kept trying to approach after they were cornered," the whimsun elaborated with a shudder at the memory. The froggit nodded in agreement.
This human must have been absolutely terrified of monsters, if they reacted so badly even to harmless little whimsuns and froggits. It was unfortunate someone else hadn't been there to calm them down. A monster gentle enough not to seem threatening, but strong enough that they wouldn't die easily from an attack if the human lashed out at them in fear. "How long were they down there?" he asked.
"Weeks," the froggit answered with guilt. "After the first few days of trying to talk to them without any luck, most of us thought it would be best to just leave it alone until they calmed down and came to us, but that never happened. We tried leaving out food for it, flies and moss and things we like, but they wouldn't touch any of it. By the time it became clear they were going to die if they didn't get help, the human was too weak to even leave the cavern, and none of us were strong enough to carry it someplace else. We tried to go get help, but the snow outside the ruins was too deep and we nearly froze to death ourselves. Her majesty found us, but by the time we brought her back to the human, it was too late."
"They had stayed in that first cavern? They never went further into the Ruins?" he asked surprised. Even if they were scared of the monsters, going further in would have offered better shelter than that cavern. At some point desperation at least should have made them seek out food and water further in. And going into the Ruins could have shown them that monsters weren't really anything to be scared of, if they gave them the chance.
The froggit shook its head mournfully. "Never any further than the stairs. I don't think it wanted to stray too far from the hole it fell through. I don't really understand why."
"They were waiting to be found," his wife spoke up with utter certainty. As soon as she said it everything clicked into place for him. If they'd been down there for weeks, they would have fallen not long after what happened with his son. Maybe this human had been with one of the original groups that had followed him, or at least had followed after them. And a child this young, well, he knew what they had probably been told to do in the event they got lost. The same thing every parent tells their children to do if they get lost, the same thing he himself had told his son to do when he was small and still too young to go off on his own. Don't wander around, stay where you are, wait for us to come find you. This child must have been following instructions like that as they waited patiently below the hole in the cavern, certain that someone would be looking for them. And look for them they had. God, even now they were still looking for this child. Those footsteps overhead weren't a hunting party or lynch mob; they were a search party! They'd probably keep looking until there was absolutely no chance of finding the missing child alive, and even then a good while after that. That's what he would have done if it were him, at least.
The room fell silent as he processed this, before the froggit spoke up again. "Um, your Majesty? We just really wanted to say how sorry we were this happened. I mean, we tried everything we could think of to help this human, but in the end-"
"I should have done more!" the whimsun wailed out suddenly, bursting into tears. Its companion tried to console the tiny creature, but everything they said just made them cry even harder. This death was clearly hitting them hard, either due to witnessing it firsthand or just because of the horrible timing of it all.
"There, there," he comforted the two small monsters gently. "It'll be alright. You've done very well. Thank you for watching over this child all this time, and making sure that they were safely brought here. That was very good of you. Now go, get some rest, and let us handle things from here." The froggit nodded in understanding and the whimsun's cries slowed down into manageable sniffles, before the two of them turned and headed back out the throne room. Poor things. Hopefully they'd be able to eventually make peace with the things they had and hadn't done.
That left just him, his wife, and the dead child in the middle of the throne room. "Poor child, it must have been so terrible for their final moments to be spent scared and alone," she mused, voice full of pity and sorrow. She stretched her paw out to them; at first he thought so she could tenderly brush a stray lock of hair off of their face. But as her paw moved away from the child's face and downward, closer to the trembling, icy blue soul that hovered just above its chest, a sense of foreboding seized him. Without thinking about it he moved quickly, grabbing her wrist and yanking it away from the body.
"What are you doing?" he demanded sharply, panic making his voice come out angrier than he'd intended. It was the closest he'd ever gotten to yelling at her, the closest he'd ever needed to. She didn't answer him right away. As he tried to read her face to better understand what was going on he realized she wasn't looking back at him. In that entire time since she had set it down she had never once looked away from the child.
No, not the child. The child's soul.
"This child, it isn't like our Chara," she started to explain, choosing each word slowly, calmly, but with a nervous swallow with every breath that gave away her tension. His grip on her slackened at the name, a horrible premonition sinking in about what was to come. She wrenched her arm out of his hold and carried on. "They had a family, people who cared about them, who were looking for them. People who are still looking for them." With effort she tore her gaze away from the soul to look at him. "If Asriel had died on the other side of the barrier, wouldn't you have wanted someone to bring him home?"
There was a roaring in his ears and the world seemed to stop at the sound of that name. Speaking it aloud was like an invocation, one he hadn't been able to say on his own. Even thinking it had been painful, but now that she'd spoken it he could almost feel Asriel's presence enveloping the air around him. There was no escaping these memories, no softening the blow by thinking of him as just 'his son,' instead of calling him by name. "What, what do you want to do about it?" he stammered out, hoping against reason that her answer wasn't the one that came to mind.
She glanced away from him, seemingly unable to look him in the eye for what she knew was a dangerous proposition. "I wouldn't have to come in contact with the humans, wouldn't even enter the village if I can avoid it. I'd just get close enough so that I can leave the body someplace it will be found. And then-"
"And then I'll be left with yet another funeral to plan!" he snapped at her, voice rising uncharacteristically loud. It was far too easy for him to foresee the multitude of ways this could go wrong. All it would take is one moment of carelessness, her getting too close in some reckless attempt to make sure this child would be discovered. Or else, if after her mission were complete, the temptation to make full use of her newfound freedom would cause her to go seeking out souls to break the barrier herself. There were just too many ways things could go wrong, and they all ended the same as what had happened the first time. Worse than that really, because when a second monster crossed the barrier so soon after the first, the humans would certainly interpret it as the start of an invasion and take to the offense. And once that happened, it would be foolish to think that the location of the underground would continue to stay hidden forever.
She looked shocked at his anger for a moment, before a demanding expression crossed her face. "Well, how would you have us do it then?" she sniffed dismissively. "Obviously by that same reasoning you are too much of a coward to do it yourself. Whoever we send would have to be old enough to remember the surface well enough to even stand a chance of success. A soldier would be best because they'd understand the risks they'd be taking in doing this. I'm sure Gerson wouldn't hesitate to agree to it if you ask him. We'll-,"
The slap reverberated around the throne room, a shocking noise that cut her off abruptly. She slowly raised her paw up to brush against her cheek, feeling the spot that was tender to her touch. He was equally shocked, staring at his open paw as if he were unsure it was his own. This wasn't like him, violence was never the answer in his opinion, and that was doubly true for laying a hand against his wife. He'd just… needed her to stop talking about this plan that was making him dizzy with nausea just thinking about it like it was a sure thing they'd do it and she was just working out the kinks to get him to go along with it. His problem wasn't with who to send up there, it was with sending anyone at all. Why didn't she understand that? His gut reaction was to apologize, to drop to his knees and plead and beg for her forgiveness. But in doing that he'd probably end up conceding to her plans, and the thought of that was unacceptable. He'd have to stand firm on this. "No one is going through that barrier; do you understand me?" he heard himself growl out, colder and harsher than he'd thought his voice could get.
Nostrils flaring and pulse racing, he did his best to stare her down. This was when she'd tear into him, he was certain; when his defiance would be thoroughly quashed by her regal demeanor. She'd always been better at that than him, getting her way by sheer intimidation and stubbornness. No one wanted to be the monster that tried to deny her when she was set on something. A single look was usually enough to send them cowering. But there was too much at stake here for him to simply back down now. So he breathed deeply, straightened himself to his full height, and waited for when she would challenge his declaration.
Surprisingly, that challenge never came. He wished he could know what it was she saw in his eyes that day, what specifically made her decide not to fight him on this. Maybe it was better that he didn't know. He didn't exactly like the idea of acknowledging what part of him could intimidate even her. For whatever reason though instead of the long and bitter argument he expected all she did was give him a seething glare. "You'll see that I'm right about this someday, Dreemur," she spat at him before turning and storming out of the room.
His determination rushed out of him the moment he was alone again, and he sank down to kneel in the flowers surrounding him. "Never," he muttered to himself, grateful these were simple non-magical blossoms and not echo flowers. He didn't need to be both figuratively and literally reminded of just how wrong everything was.
She wasn't going to give up as easily as this, he was sure of it. This was just a temporary retreat in the battle of which of them was right. He'd never come around to agree with her plan, but she'd keep pushing for it, get friends, advisors, anyone she could think of to advocate for her until he gave in. And if he did, that look on her face told him she wouldn't trust anyone but herself to see this through, despite the concessions she'd tried to make for him. She'd cross the barrier, and he'd be left both a widower and childless. He couldn't bear to lose her in the exact same way they had lost Asriel.
Why did a human have to show up now? Why did a human have to show up at all? Given time, he was sure he and Toriel would have been able to heal the scars that had come between them. Things wouldn't be the same as they were before, but they'd be together, and that was all he really wanted at this point. But now all chance of that ever happening was gone. And it was all because yet another human had fallen down here.
What was he even going to do, now that he had this human and their soul? An angry, bitter, part of him toyed with the thought of using it himself. Prove her scornful accusations wrong and show that he was no coward, then show those humans who'd killed his son exactly why they should be afraid of monsters. But in truth, even as a fantasy he knew he didn't have it in him to follow through with such a thing. She was right, he was too much of a coward to try and cross the barrier himself, for any reason. What's more, he had his people to think of; it would be irresponsible to cross on his own.
His people. Surely the other monsters would hear about this fallen human soon enough. Even if Toriel's rush to bring the child here wasn't seen by everyone, word would spread from the monsters from the ruins who'd been there when it happened. Sooner or later someone would suggest using the soul to cross the barrier, if not for Tori's purposes then for the sake of monsters. Things were unstable enough as it was. If he didn't have a good alternative plan in place, he wasn't sure he'd be able to quash the public outcry demanding it be put to use.
The reports he'd been reading before all this happened crinkled beneath him, scattered on the ground at some point during the clamor. Maybe…maybe there was a way to handle both problems at once. Give his citizens something to hope for and rally around while at the same time creating a reason not to use this human's soul to send someone across the barrier. He didn't like it, the idea that was forming in his head as he plotted out its course, but it could work. He could make it work. If the choice was between this and potentially losing everything, he would make it work.
Days later, after the funeral was over and everyone had left, Asgore Dreemur sat once again alone in the throne room. In the end, he never did come up with a better choice for where to scatter Asriel's dust. It was like whenever he tried to come up with a name for something, usually just going with whatever first came to mind. Now there was no one to tease him about his simplistic naming conventions, but there was no one to call him out on how problematic this choice had been either.
Toriel had gone and locked herself back in her room after what had happened. At least, he thought she had. When he tried to go talk to her again after he'd made his declaration, one last desperate attempt to see if they could work things out, there had been no answer. Not even the faint scuffling of someone purposefully ignoring the person on the other side of the door. He considered breaking down the door, but knowing for certain that she was truly gone was more than he could handle right now. So he put up a strong front for the mourners who came to the funeral, told them that she was still too bereaved to sit through the ceremony, and hoped no one noticed that the container of dust that he scattered seemed a lot smaller than it should have been. Or that no mention was made of the funeral for Chara.
To his relief, no one noticed any of that, or maybe they just knew better than to bring it up. The topic on everyone's minds was the plan for breaking the barrier he'd announced. The other monsters had eagerly latched on to his plan to collect enough human souls to shatter the barrier. Considering how conflicted he felt about it, he almost wished there had been more resistance to his proposal, but at least their acceptance was a sign this really could give them something to look forward to for the future. That wasn't to say there was no resistance, but Gerson was a good soldier, he'd never publically oppose him on what he knew was a matter of state. Privately that was another thing, but he trusted his old friend to respect his decisions in the end.
The human's soul had been carefully moved to a glass cylinder, spelled closed to keep it preserved and untouchable until he was ready to use it. He wasn't sure how long it would take for that to happen, if it would ever. As for the body, he had another coffin made and was keeping in down in the basement as well. This time it wasn't about wanting to keep the memory of the person close though, not like with Chara. This was simply for security reasons. If he kept the humans and their souls closely guarded no one would be able to misuse their power on their own. Not even Toriel.
Did he think that what he was doing was the right thing? If it brought back even a speck of hope to his people, then maybe. It would be a fair price on him, if that were the case. If it kept her from suffering the same fate as their son, then definitely. Even though he knew he'd lost her either way, he'd do the same things a thousand times, and endure the heartache that came with it each time, if it meant preventing history from repeating itself that way. And if it were that another human never fell down here again? Well, if that were to happen, he'd be more alright with it than one might think. This really was just to give everyone something to hold on to after all; and to keep anyone from trying to use the soul they already had in a way he didn't agree with. If he never had to follow through on his declaration, that would be fine by him.
That sort of thinking was foolishly naïve of course. How did that saying go, never twice without a third? The pattern had already set itself in motion. He knew that another human was going to fall down sooner or later. And another, and another, until he'd no longer have any excuse not to break the barrier. Hopefully he'd be ready for it once they finally got to that point, but if not… well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. It was all going to happen eventually. He just had to be patient.