Chapter Six: The More We Learn
Author's Note: Due to me being a dingus when it comes to cross-posting formats, Chara's dialogue and any other internal based speech will be indicted with '' from now on. I should be updating a bit more often now as well, with you-know-what no longer hitting the fan. That's all for now folks, hope you're still enjoying!
Frisk had to hurry to keep up with Toriel, with her strides being much longer than his. He had been so used to his grandmother needing support when she walked, that the idea of Toriel accidently losing him because of his lack of speed unnerved him. He remembered how one of his friends talked about losing his mother in a store once; she'd gone to look for something and her son had her in a sea of people. Frisk losing sight of Toriel would have been much worse. He was certain he'd seen a bright yellow flower…
"Are you alright my child?"
'Don't you dare tell her about Flo- the flower monster,' Chara screamed into his skull, 'she'll be even less likely to let us leave if you do!'
"I-I'm fine, no worries over here!" Frisk shouted, with faux happiness rather obvious.
"Are you sure?" Toriel stopped walking and knelt down to his level, "Only, something seems to be bothering you Frisk."
"You said you'd help me get home," Frisk blurted out, "but you haven't said how or when."
"I will explain everything to you when the time is right." Toriel said, "And part of that judgment is that I know you will be able to handle what lies beyond these ruins."
That ended the matter, although the downcast look on Frisk's face. As bad as Toriel felt just looking at that face, she refused to sugar-coat the truth; Frisk needed strength and wisdom if hoped to reach the surface. Determination would get him far, but not far enough if history was anything to go by. Toriel would not allow for another tragedy to happen. She kept walking down the long hallway, putting as much distance between herself and Frisk she could. He would have to be much more powerful to get home, and all power came with a price of some sort.
'She's lying you know.' The other child whispered, 'She won't let you go….she'll keep you here like a prisoner.'
"But she just said-"
'Grown-ups always say that sort of thing…they say everything will be alright….that they'll let you go as soon as they think it'll be okay…'
"S-stop it, you're scaring me." Frisk murmured.
'Human or…monster…they are liars Frisk, they're all liars and you can't trust them!'
"That isn't true." Frisk wanted to yelled and scream, "There are good people, Toriel is good and my grandmother never lied to me."
'Did your grandmother tell you she was dying?' The other child waited for a response, 'I thought not…they lie Frisk…they lie because they think it's 'for the best', because they think the truth will hurt too much.'
Frisk's mouth had dried and his stomach was filled by lead. In the back of his mind, the idea of another person being able to dig through his memories seemed wrong. However the other child's statement stabbed right into his heart (not the one floating near his chest), and made everything feel worse. His grandmother wasn't coming back; she hadn't told him what would happen when she died. Did he have some kind, little-known relatives waiting for him, or would be thrown aside and forgotten?
"Who lied to you?" Frisk asked as Toriel kept walking ahead.
'...I don't remember.' The other child replied, 'There were a lot of them, but I can't remember names or faces…that's what happens when you linger too long.'
"Then why are you lingering?" Frisk thought, "I mean something must be making you stay here."
Frisk was met with disheartening silence. Frisk had heard that lack of words before; there'd been a girl alone in the library with a black-eye and her head to the ground, her jaw tightly clenched. He asked her why she seemed so upset, only to receive a glare and a huff in reply. Later that day Frisk found out she'd gotten into a fight with another child. He didn't know who started or why, the whole thing turned into a tangled mess in that regard, he just knew the girl refused to talk about.
'I don't remember that either,' the other child finally answered, 'it's a….a feeling, something keeping me here.'
"Can you remember your own name?"
'Chara, my name is Chara.'
It was a short and strange sort of name, which rolled off the tongue. Frisk couldn't think of a time he'd heard that such a name, although his name wasn't exactly common either. Frisk thought he should have asked sooner, but it still sounded weird to ask such a question to something in his head. He acknowledged Chara as existing not too long ago, simply because he had no other answer for Chara. At least now he had a name for the voice, he had a word to yell when things got too much or when things when the silence filled the world.
"Chara…" Frisk repeated, letting the name slide out of his mouth as he pronounced each letter carefully.
"What did you say?"
Frisk hadn't noticed that Toriel had stopped in her tracks; honestly hadn't been paying much attention to anything outside his own head. That's trouble with living inside your mind too much. Frisk finally faced her and saw wide-eyed shock plastered on her face, and he was almost certain her fur paled a couple of shades. Chara mentioned her previously, so the two must've known each other. The question was, exactly how…
"I…I said…" She would have answers, but Frisk didn't need to give her another reason to keep him in the ruins, "Can ya….as in can ya believe how high the ceiling is, I can't even see it!"
"Do they not have high ceiling on the surface?"
"I can still see them, but I can't see the ceiling here." He answered, "I mean…that's what the top of a mountain is called when you live inside it, right?"
"I believe that is one way to refer to it, yes," Toriel mulled over his question, and why she though she heard him say a certain name.
She had heard that name so many times, her own brain dragging up memories she only wished to leave buried. She recalled another human child who had fallen into the underground, who she thought had said that name as well. In fact Toriel seemed to have imagined all the human children saying the word Chara at some point; perhaps it came down to guilt or a similarity in those children.
Neither of them said another thing as they kept walking, passing by a half ruined pillar. Frisk pondered why the monsters seemed to have created so many of them, when they didn't appear to serve a purpose. This one wasn't holding anything. However its ruined nature did not detract from its beauty, with detailed cravings of almond-shaped leaves etched onto its base. Had more monsters lived there previously, or had Toriel made them all by herself?
"This place is really big for just you." Frisk said, "I mean I guess the froggits must live here too, but where are they?"
"They live here and there." Toriel's voice barely was barely audible, her eyes looking elsewhere, "They much prefer to be closer to water larger bodies of water than what is found in the ruins, those living here do so out of…well I am not truly sure why."
"Is it obligation?"
"Excuse me?"
"That's…that's what my grandma used to about our neighbours." Frisk looked to his feet, "They didn't stay because they liked where they lived, but because they were…obligated to. S-she said s-something about a…an old relative."
"I do not believe there is anyone they are obligated to stay with."
"Are they your friends?" Frisk peeked up to face her, "b-because maybe they don't want to leave you here all alone."
"That…could be part of the reasoning." Many of the older froggits knew who she was, and might have felt the need to stay close by, "However froggits to do live like you or me, I've never seen one in a house that was their own."
"So they're homeless?"
"No my child, they simply prefer living in open."
"Oh…I heard a couple of people talk about people like that."
Frisk pretended to understand what she meant, though really he couldn't fathom what sort of person chose to live like that. He'd come to the conclusion that monsters were people rather quickly; it made sense in his mind. People were humans but not animals, despite him hearing that humans were animals, because people went to work and wore clothes and live cities and alike. Sure not all people did that, but they at least did one of those things
As near as he to tell, monsters seemed to have a similar way of leaving…even if the froggits didn't wear anything. Then again they did seem to like water, so clothes would've gotten ruined. Anyway, despite not being human, they were people. Possibly animals too, depending on how one looked at the definition of things. Toriel did look like a goat, and the froggits did look like frogs. Frisk thought back to all those books his grandmother read to him years ago, with a hedgehog in a dress and a goose with a bonnet and pink cape-like thing. He couldn't remember what that was called.
"Do you know anyone called Peter Rabbit?" He could hear Chara deflating in the back of him mind, like a balloon slowly releasing air. A little over the top if Frisk were honesty.
"I do not think I have heard that name before," Toriel answered, "however there are monster that…resemble rabbits down here."
"Do they live in nearby?" Frisk felt a small burst of joy, maybe he another one of the books he read would be proven to hold a small bit of truth. "Can we see them?"
"Not today," Toriel stiffly replied, "at some point in the future we should be able to visit them."
"How long will it be before I can go home then?"
"A…it will be a while my child."
"Why?"
She didn't know how to explain it. Toriel was well aware of how small the ruins were for a child, or perhaps they were simply lacking in life. She even had to leave the ruins to buy a full set of groceries. Snails were surprisingly hard to find, despite the one tree growing by her house, so she needed to go to a specialist farm. And yet she doubted Frisk could be allowed such free movement, at least not without some kind of disguise. She needed to get him a mask of some sort, perhaps a fox or cat.
"I will…need to plan it all, my child."
"So we're far away from the exit."
"Yes, my child."
"…Are we not supposed to go there?"
She wanted to smile a little; this child appeared to pick up on things quickly. And yet Toriel realised her assisting this human child in such a wat would cause a ripple, because siding with a human so directly when against everything. The other monsters of the underground wouldn't agree with her choice. It also went against her history and perhaps against the greater good of her people, after all what was one child compared to their freedom. Didn't her previous failures justify keeping Frisk hidden away?
"The exit is…on the King's property, which means we would be trespassing."
"It's not against the law, so long as we don't' damage anything."
"And how would you know this, my child?"
"My grandmother told me."
That just created more questions than answers. As if Toriel needed another reason to worry about his home-life; as if she needed another try and convince that keeping the human child with her was right. It seemed none of the human who fell into the Underground had happy stories, all runaways and steeped in neglect. She remembered a girl with feet sore from pursuing dreams no-one was interested in hearing. She thought of the boy wrapped up in old televisions shows, who carried a toy pistol like it was real. If they had stayed, they would all have lived.
"And how would she know?" She asked; her voice was still sweet and kind.
"I…I accidently broke into a house" The look on Toriel's face made him explain, "I was playing hide and seek with some friends and I climbed through a window and hid in the house."
"Why did you think that was a good idea, my child?"
"It looked like a good place to hide." The other children never found him, "No-one was in there…but I felt kind of bad afterwards and I thought I'd be in trouble."
The pair finally came to a stop at a door. It's much larger than those the child had previously seen, dwarfing himself and Toriel with ease. Frisk never thought he would find a simply intimidating, but somewhere between the stone that absorbed all light and the strange craving around its frame, Frisk felt fear. He expected it to simply swallow him whole.
"My child, I must ask you to stay here." Toriel said, pushing open the massive thing without a tiniest bit of trouble. "I need to make sure that the room ahead is ready, so just wait for me right here."
She fussed around with her purple robe, searching in pockets that Frisk hadn't known to be here. Eventually, having dug around her impossibly deep holding holes, Toriel pulled out what a mobile would have looked like a decade or so ago. It had a big and bulky shape, rather unlike the slim and elegant design he'd seen a few of the older kids in school use. The number keys were bigger than a finger's point, although its screen seemed comparatively small. She gave to Frisk, who just looked at the device.
Frisk held down the button with a green phone printed on it. The screen light up with an eerie green colour and a tinny ringtone, which was reminiscent of the theme tunes for videogames older than the boy who played them. The details on screen were done in blocky, black pixels and it seemed to have no indicator for how well charged it was. It also lacked any slot to plug in a charger, and he guessed that pulling away the back plane of the phone would reveal something other than a battery.
"If you are need of my help, all you have to do is call me on this cell phone." She began to leave, "I believe the phone has a game known as 'snake' on it, it is rather fun."
So off Toriel went, with the door creeping shut behind her. Resigned to the fact that he would have to wait, he fumbled through the various menus on the phone. The phone had not been used before, or at least whatever evidence there was of said use had been deleted. No messages or past phone calls; all he found where a couple of game that came with it and a single number; Obviously Toriel wasn't going to forgot that little detail
'At least it's got chess on there as well.' Chara murmured, 'something tells me we're going to be waiting for a long time.'