Eclipse landed in the middle of some sort of campsite, putting Shine down before gathering some wood into the pit in the center. Shine blinked a couple times, his eyes flickering, he knew he should feel fear but the emotion that was coming through, though it was vague, was curiosity. Eclipse set a fire in the pit and watched it flare to life. Shine looked at the fire, silently. Eclipse sat on the other side of it.
"Would you mind untying me? I'm completely helpless without emotions and they're not exactly easy to bring up," Shine broke the silence after a while.
"I don't know if I can trust you to stay put or not."
"Where exactly could I go?" Shine asked.
"... Fine..." Eclipse said, untying him.
"Thank you," Shine sits more comfortably and looked back at the fire.
Eclipse went back to his spot on the other side. They sat there in silence, Shine figured Eclipse wasn't much for conversation and Shine himself really wasn't either, especially with someone he didn't know.
"You're not much of a talker, are you?"
"Not with people I don't know. No. Most of those I am around speak to me first. I don't usually initiate a conversation unless I'm feeling emotional," Shine said.
"Feeling emotional?"
"I'm sure that you can tell by sitting there that I am very different from how I was when we fought," Shine blinked.
"Yeah. You're honestly kind of interesting, Kid. Never seen anyone like you."
"Aside from Edge, Essence and Uncle Nightmare I've never seen anyone with such dark emotions," Shine said, then added, "You might have a more negative cloud around you than Uncle Nightmare."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Eclipse said.
"That's good," Shine faked a smile, "Neither type of emotion is bad from what Dad's taught me, even if too much negativity hurts him and too much positive hurts his brother."
Eclipse went a bit quiet before saying, "Your name is Shine, right? I heard some of them calling you that during the fight."
Shine nodded, "Yes that's right."
Eclipse went quiet. Shine blinked and went back to staring a the fire. Eclipse was staring into it also. It felt nice to have a little bit of company for once. Shine's eyes sparked slightly, he gave a barely audible chuckle.
"Hm?"
"You said you discarded positive emotions yet I can feel something there; its small, like one of my flickers, but it's there," Shine said.
"Whatever."
"Mom said you remind him of Uncle Papyrus... You remind me of Mr. Dust though," Shine said, "His universe was normal for a while some genocide, some neutral, some pacifist. Suddenly his human started doing what your human does. Constant genocide. After a while he couldn't take it anymore. Want to know what he did?" He was sure the answer would be silence or no so he went on, "After a reset he killed everyone before the human could leave the ruins... He wanted to max out his LV to fight the human and finally beat them. He started to enjoy killing though and kept doing it."
Eclipse looked up a little bit.
"The person he was the most brutal with was his Papyrus... Sure he killed the human as soon as they came back from their save but... What he did to his Papyrus..." Shine's eyes flickered, he sighed, "Mom, Dad and Ink eventually stepped in and they were able to help him out of his madness... Mom and him are together now... They had my little brother Sprinkles who is a few years younger than me."
"I see..."
"I know you don't believe you can be helped but if Mr. Dust has taught me anything anyone can be helped," Shine said, "Some just need an extra push."
Eclipse stared at him for a while before looking down again, "I still honestly doubt that you can help me… I lost my hope a long time ago."
"You know what I think?" Shine said, "Too much hope will drive you mad. The fact that you've never experience a pacifist run is why you're not another Dust. You still have some mercy. Don't say you don't because earlier you literally had my soul and seen the shape it is in... you could have killed me then and there."
Eclipse went quiet. Shine blinked, he suddenly summoned out his soul. The cracks had healed from the fight. It was how it normally was again, Shine's eyes crackled, "I figured the happiness would have done more," the crack wavered.
"How did that even happen, anyways?"
"The crack? When I was born the magic went wrong. It resulted in me having a broken soul, in shards... I think it was because of Mom and Dad's stress and they're both very emotional so it wasn't normal stress... Ink was able to heal most of it but the four cracks stayed... If I wasn't Dream's child I probably would've just been dust immediately," Shine said.
"Interesting..."
"It use to be a normal plus but for some reason it's gotten worse... Which... I don't understand... I use to eavesdrop on my parents a lot... They'd say maybe if I felt something it would heal it... Which it did sometimes... But around the time I hit puberty it got worse... Now it seems to just do what it wants..." Shine said, his eyes flickering again, causing the crack to waver more.
"Very strange indeed."
"I just want to be normal... I want to feel emotions like I was supposed to," Shine said, his eyes turning green, the crack in his soul shook, "You want to know the first time I experienced happiness? Just a few minutes before you kidnapped me. I'm fucking 18 and I've never experienced true happiness before that!" He was suddenly crying, "I... I just... want t-to be n-normal... I d-d-don't deserve th-thi-is! N-no one de-des-serv-ves thi-is!"
Eclipse was a bit speechless seeing him like this. He seemed to hesitate for a little before sitting next to Shine. The dark aura around him seemed to disappear.
Shine started hyperventilating, "A-and... when-n I... finally... st-start feeling s-somethi-ing... i-ts s-so m-much... I-I can't... I can't con-control-trol it... an-and I do-n't kn-no-ow... wh-what t-to do... and I ju-ust-st... let my bo-body do... wh-what it wa-ant-s. An-nd-" he starts coughing, his soul shaking; the crack wavered.
Eclipse put an arm around him. "Hey. Look at me, Kid."
Shine tried to look at him, shaking, he was coughing and couldn't speak now, he suddenly let out a pained noise as a new crack ripped into his soul, he coughed up some blood.
"S-Settle down, Kid!"
"I-I-I c-can-an't! Pl-plea-ease... I-I d-don't know... wh-what to do-do... H-help m-me!" Another crack ripped into his soul.
"Take deep breaths, okay?"
Shine shakily tried breathe normally, his soul shook less.
"That's it. Slow, deep breaths..."
Shine slowly brought his breathing back to normal, his soul becoming stable as he did so. Eclipse gently rubbed his shoulder. Shine blinked as his breathing evened, he looked at Eclipse, his eyes still green, "Th-thank you," he hugged him.
Eclipse froze a little bit. Shine blushed and pulled back, "S-sorry..." his eyes began to slowly flickered back to normal.
Eclipse stared at him as his eyes became normal and the blush vanished, along with evidence of the panic attack, aside from a few tear stains, his soul was completely still but dawned two new small cracks going through the middle of it diagonally.
Eclipse blinked a few times before heading to the tent and setting up a place for Shine to sleep. Shine looked at his soul, his eyes gave a tiny flicker and he sighed, and put it back in place.
Eclipse went over to a cooler and started grabbing drinks and some food out. Shine looked at the fire watching it flicker and crackle. Eclipse started cooking some of the food over the fire.
Shine slowly blinked, before letting out a small yawn. Eclipse finished the food and handed some to Shine, "Here, Kid."
Shine took it, "Thanks..." He slowly began eating.
Eclipse nodded and started eating. Shine was silent as he ate, his eyes gave small flicker as he wondered how everyone else was handling this. A tiny amused grin gracing his face as he thought of Blue and Paps frantically putting together search parties as Happsta, Dream and Ink tried to calm them down.
"What'cha thinkin about?"
"My Mom and Uncle freaking out as they try to find me," Shine gave a small chuckled, "Uncle Paps might be really laid back but he's super protective of all my siblings… especially Sprinkles and I... Even more than he is of Mom."
"I see… must be nice."
Shine's eyes flickered, "Eclipse... What was your universe like before the human showed up there?"
"It was great… I lived with my dad and my brother in Snowdin, had a lot of great friends, and I was even second in command of the royal guard underneath Undyne… I was helping my brother try and get in… But… then the human came… they had no problem going through and killing everybody in the ruins, which actually was a public attraction at the time, supervised by the Queen… After they got through the ruins, I tried to stop them… but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough to stop them from advancing to Snowdin… They were killing everyone in sight… and right when I got there to try and evacuate people to a safer location… I saw the human… kill my dad and my brother..." Eclipse was starting to shake a little bit.
Shine blinked his eyes sparking, "They sound nothing like the humans from the other aus... They always completed a neutral or pacifist run before doing a genocide... At least from what I've been told... Anyway."
"Like I said… my human has never done a neutral or pacifist run ever. It's nothing but constant genocide… a-and no matter what I did… I-I couldn't stop them..."