The dawn of the third day.
Well... "Dawn" may be a slight misnomer. Down here it's always a dark dawn, as sunlight probably won't make it this far. Still, it IS the third day of the human's life Underground. And these pajamas seem so warm and cozy. It is little wonder the child briefly forgot they were even beneath the surface upon waking up this morning.
Clad in the green and yellow of last night's pajamas, our little monarch adeptly traverses Home. While passing by, they give a curious glance towards the staircase downstairs, but walk right on past it. From crown to sole, there is but a single destination fit for this soul.
"Good morning, Mom!"
There seems to be something small and blue atop her lap, but the child cannot make it out from behind her 72 Uses for Snails book. Before she has a chance to lift her eyes and look at the child, she begins her reply.
Greetings, my ch-child!?...
Toriel rubs her eyes in disbelief and takes a second look at this child, before gently chuckling to herself. She can really be a silly little lady sometimes, can't she?
"... Are you... Are you okay?"
Worry not, little one. I am fine. It is just that... Seeing you dressed like this... Well... It brings back a lot of memories.
The child manages to pick up on hints of sorrow from within Toriel's voice and facial expressions. They seem curious, but chose to hold off on pressing the issue for now. After a few moments of awkward silence, Toriel continues.
I must apologize, I am not up to traveling today. Still, somebody needs to check for fallen humans. Could you be a dear and do that for me?
The child's belly grumbles.
A-after breakfast, of course.
So that's how it is. Still, Toriel has been very accommodating to the child, all things considered. She had already set the rest of their Spider Donuts and Spider Cider on the table for breakfast. Not part of a balanced breakfast, but it's certainly part of a delicious one! Surely, doing this one small favor for her is not unreasonable.
The child takes a seat at table, choosing the smallest chair of the three. When they put the donut in their mouth, they show surprise. It seems they were expecting monster food to do things like "go stale" or "spoil."
While their mouth is still half full with the first donut, they reach out for a second, before catching a glimpse of Toriel's disapproving gaze from the corner of their eye. They laugh silently and nervously, setting down the second donut and retract their arm empty-handed.
Eventually, the child finishes their meal. A few donuts total, eaten one polite mouthful at a time, of course. They get up from the table, and push the chair back in. Before heading away from the table, they stretch and let loose a yawn before patting their tummy at a satisfying meal.
Heading out already? Didn't you make a promise to the rock? In this family, we keep our promises. Be good, alright?
The child simply turns to Toriel and nods. As they head towards the door, she interrupts them one more time.
Oh! Before I forget, I have one last request. This might sound strange, but there's a chocolate bar in the fridge. Could you crumble up a bit of chocolate and give it to the flowers? A quarter of the bar should be good.
The child stares blankly at Toriel.
Silly me. I suppose you are a bit young to be knowing all your fractions. Just break it in half, then break the new piece in half, alright?
I know it sounds silly to give flowers chocolate, but it's become a bit of tradition for me. Of course, your hard work won't go unrewarded. You are free to do as you please with the rest of the bar.
With the traps disabled the only hard part of this trip is the boredom. The monsters also seem to be keeping their distance today. Some seem to keep a respectful distance and calmly move out of the child's path, as if in deference to Toriel's decision to take in the child. Others, however, immediately break down and wildly flee as far away as possible upon the first sight or sound of the terrifying creature who brought even the mighty Toriel to defeat the previous day.
With no monsters and no puzzles to distract them, the path back to the rock found itself to be utterly unremarkable, albeit a little lonely without Toriel around.
Upon entering the room, the child notices the talking rock impatiently rocking back and forth in place. Taking a seat on one of the nearby, non-talking, rocks, these two have a lot to catch up on. This might take awhile.
" Um... I'm sorry. But, Toriel can't make it today." The child apologizes.
"That's a little disappointing. But I'll be okay. After all, you're still here, aren'tcha, pumpkin? By the way, I love your outfit.
"My outfit?..." The child questions before looking down and noticing they are still clad in green and yellow clothes. Green and yellow? Those colors. Discussing these colors seemed to have been what set yesterday's events into motion, was it not? After a brief moment, the rock's voice becomes filled with worry and changes the subject.
"Hey, pumpkin, ya alright? Why don'tcha tell me what went down yesterday?"
As was promised, the young child recounts the events of yesterday in great detail. The rock was a very receptive audience. Perhaps a bit too much so. Constantly interjecting and interrupting. But the child didn't seem to mind. With the help of the rock's constant anecdotes and gossiping, mere minutes effortlessly pass into nearly two hours.
"There is one last thing I can't figure out. Toriel sounded sad when she saw me wearing these clothes in the morning."
It appears the child has finally worked up the courage to suggest the possibility there's more to these colors than they know.
"I suppose I've talked your ear off long enough, pumpkin. Don't you need deliver that chocolate."
That chocolate? The child seems to have forgotten all about the chocolate. And, picking up on both this confusion and an opportunity to steer the conversation away from the current direction, the rock begins to explain.
"Every week she brings chocolate to the flowers. I reckon I oughta leaf you alone so you can chlorophyll that delivery, partner."
Leaf? Chlorophyll? Ha ha. Guess she's gotten to you too. Both parties groan and shake their heads no at that pun, though the child's groan is accompanied by a small smirk. It seems as if spending time with Toriel has rubbed off on the rock as well.
The child stands up from their rocky seat, tapping one foot on the ground twice before waving to their companion.
The next step is to jog off alone, towards the entrance to the Ruins. As with the trip to rock, this path seems quite barren if compared to the child's first visit. No puzzles, no monsters. Nothing to distract from the never-ending velvet curtain of the Ruins. Nothing but their own memories of this place, of that first trip through here with Toriel.
Eventually, the child finally enters the room before the flowers. A small grassy patch sits both empty and silent near the room's center. It seems Flowey isn't here this time. That's probably for the best. Making their way through the room, the child stays careful to avoid stepping on the grass. Even if this was where they met that nasty Flowey, it is still a good room. After all, this was also where they first met Toriel.
Alone, they manage to make their way to the flower bed in the room beyond. Due to stopping to speak with the rock for so long, it is already afternoon. Even so, the golden sun's rays shine upon this bed of flowers. The child closes their eyes for a few moments and breathes calmly and slowly. They nod towards the flowers before opening their eyes again.
Two days ago, these very same flowers cushioned the child's fall. If not for these flowers, who knows what fate would have befallen the child? Could they have still gotten up from the fall at all? Or would they have been so weak that Flowey's initial volley would be enough? Or perhaps they would have still been unconscious, Toriel would have carried them Home, and they'd have never shared the experience of that first trip through the Ruins together?
Regardless, now is the time for the human to begin repaying their debt to these flowers. They reach into their pockets, grabbing a the chocolate bar. Back on the surface, it would be a melted mess by now, having been forgotten during the chat with the rock. But, inexplicably, this bar is still intact. Monster food is a wonderful thing, is it not?
Opening the candy wrapper, they reveal half the bar and then break half of the revealed portion off, just as she instructed. Using their free hand and a couple fingers on the hand holding the bar, they carefully wrap the remaining candy back up, returning it once more to the safe confines of their own pocket. They crumble up the quarter bar, debating between whether to grind it into a fine dust or leave it as small, but still clearly solid, chunks. They decide on the latter.
Heading back from their little visit to the golden flowers, the human begins their return trip. Upon reaching the empty patch of grass, they stop. Closing their eyes once again for only a moment, they reach back into a pocket and pull out the rest of the chocolate bar. Taking the already broken piece from the previous room, they crumble it into smaller pieces and spreading it across the green patch where they first met Flowey before carefully wrapping up the remaining half of a bar.
"Hey, Flowey. It's just me for today. Mom said to bring some chocolate to the flowers. And that I could have the rest. But, you can have some of mine. If you, you know, want to."
The human waits there for about fifteen seconds or so, but nobody came.
"Well, it's getting late. I should be getting back Home now."
The human leaves the room, and leans back upon the wall on the opposite side of the doorway. They hear a soft, distant rumbling, followed by a distant voice.
Et tu, Tori?
Flowey breaths in and lifting his petals for a brief moment, before sighing and lowering them back down. It's like he's shrugging his shoulders. Except, you know, he's a flower. So he doesn't get shoulders. But if he did have shoulders, he'd be shrugging.
Anyways, Flowey picks up some of the crumbs with one of the small leaves on his stalk. He stares intently at them before working up the courage to put a few in his mouth. After a few seconds of swirling the crumbs about in his mouth, his eyes light up slightly.
Flowey proceeds to scoop up more of the chocolate, one leaffull at a time, and eats it. As he begins to become more and more animated in his consumption of these confections, his face shifts slowly into a form the child had not yet seen. This new face reminds the child a little bit of Toriel. Only far younger. Eventually, Flowey eats all the chocolate left there before facing the doorway and letting out an amused snicker.
Golly, that's ADORABLE. Hiding behind chocolate bars and old shirts, like they can actually protect you? You naive idiot. I-I'll...
Flowey pauses and sighs. His next several words come out with an uncharacteristic tinge of defeat.
Fine. We can play by your rules this time.
Surprised and confused, the child seems uncertain as to their next course of action.
Pathetic, is not not? I cannot kill even a single child.
Sensing a ceasing of his usual violent tendencies, the child walks to the front of the doorway, revealing themself to Flowey. Still trembling slightly, but trying their hardest to put on a brave smile.
"F-Flowey..." they say, voice breaking. The child kneels down, arms wide open and ready to embrace.
Flowey's face changes back to normal. But rather than his trademarks of sarcasm or faux niceties, his speech seems agitated.
Look. I don't like this. I'm just doing this because I HAVE to know what happens. How much longer before you break? How much longer before you KILL or BE KILLED?
So much for being friends, huh? Looks like the hug machine is out of order today. With this last verbal assault, Flowey burrows underneath the soil once more, nowhere to be seen. With nothing left to do here, the child begins their rather uneventful journey back Home. Eventually they run across the rock yet again.
"Howdy, partner!" the rock exclaims.
"Hi again. It's getting late, isn't it? I hope Mom isn't worried."
Are they suggesting they don't have time for the rock now? The rock seems to be slouching slightly towards the ground at such an implication.
"Actually, I have a favor to ask. Could you keep Flowey our little secret? I don't want to make her worry any more than she already does."
The rock whines in disappointment at this request, but nods in acceptance. Seeing Toriel react to that news would have been priceless. This rock usually appears to be hopeless gossip, but when it really matters, can actually keep a secret. After all, during their previous discourse there was no discussion concerning Toriel's ex or her child.
The child finally returns to the familiar comforts of Home. Upon noticing Toriel still sitting in her reading chair, they announce their return.
"I'm back."
Welcome back, my child. I've been thinking about many things while you were away.
If she was worried or disappointed over how long the child was absent, she's doing a good job at hiding it.
And I realized something. It would not be right for me to keep thinking of you as someone else, now would it?
Toriel reaches down to her lap and picks something up. It is a blue shirt with two purple stripes. Is that what she was hiding behind her book this morning?
Here, I have something I'd like to give you. Consider it a reminder of sorts, for the both of us. Of the person you are, and the person you may yet become.
The child's face is positively beaming. They approach the great reading chair to claim the present. When they grab the shirt, they can't believe how soft it is to the touch. They start giggling and rubbing it across their cheeks. So warm, too, isn't it?
"I-it's perfect! Love you, Mom!"
I love you... Too?
Toriel smirks in the emptied out dining room. The child was so excited they didn't even leave her enough time to finish her sentence before running off to brush their teeth and try out the new clothes.
Author's Notes
August 27, 2016 (post-release): Re-reading some chapters and noticed I missed some underlines for Flowey's dialogue here. So fixing that now.
July 15, 2016 (release)-Chapter 10 is finally up. I am expecting four more chapters for the Ruins arc of this story.
July 4 2016-More tweaking, decided to post chapter 1 of the sequel since this one is taking longer than expected (currently at about 1800 words)
June 20, 2016-For those not familiar with what Flowey said in his first line this chapter, it's a reference to Julius Ceaser (real life ancient Rome ruler and, later, also a Shakespeare play).