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Scene 37: The Pursuit of Beauty

or

"Dating Tense!"

Seventy-eight days after the Accession of Undyne, Toriel sat reading while the fire crackled beside her. Alphys, who had that day finally managed to get a wind-powered generator working from the roof of Home's highest building, was in triumphant spirits as she walked in. She paused at the door to the living room just to admire Toriel, then approached with a guilty smile already on her face.

"Hey Toriel?"

Toriel favored her with a familiar beatific look that communicated how happy she was to see her housemate. "Yes, Alphys?"

"I-it's getting kind of hot in here," said Alphys, swinging her tail toward the fire. "D-don't you think you should… roll up your sleeves?"

Toriel glanced with surprise at the fire and back. "It is not unusually warm," she observed. Then an accusatory look spread suddenly over her features. "You are only seeking to look at my bare arms!"

Alphys clutched her hands and fidgeted. "Um… well, would it… would it be so horrible if I were?"

Toriel scowled. "You are asking me to behave indecently! I do not know how to react."

"It's… it's not indecent to roll up your sleeves! I—I do it myself sometimes!"

"I am not against letting you see my arms in principle, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of baring myself for you."

"But…" Alphys stood grinning with one foot grinding meekly into the other. "I think it'd be really sexy if you rolled your sleeves up."

Toriel stared at her. "Do you think being 'sexy' is any of my concern?"

"Well of course it is! You're the s-sexiest person for miles around."

Toriel turned with a huff back to her book. "You may imagine my arms if you wish. I assure you, there are no surprises."

Alphys stepped forward eagerly. "Imagination is great, but it's no substitute for the real thing!"

Toriel's ears pulled back as she looked back at the doctor. "Alphys, I am asking you to respect my personal choice! Please do not ask me again."

Alphys opened her mouth for a playful rebuttal, then stopped short. She looked at Toriel with mounting fear. She looked at herself. She looked at the whole situation.

"Oh god! I'm—I'm sexually harassing you! Oh jeepers. I'm—I'm so sorry, Toriel. I never want to harass you! Um… I'll go away now." She averted her eyes as she hurried from the room. "I'm sorry! I'll never ask to see your arms again!"

Alphys didn't leave her room for the rest of the night. Sans knocked at the door at one point to invite her to dinner, but she declined, muttering about being too embarrassed and ashamed. Sans shrugged and left, and showed up again at her door a minute later with a plate full of food. Alphys took it gratefully and ate it sitting on her bed. She went to sleep wondering whether she'd spoiled things between herself and Toriel forever.

In the morning, she found a note under her door. "Dear Alphys. I would not want you to think that you may never ask to see my arms again. I simply hope that if you do ask again, you are willing to take 'no' for an answer. I hope to see you at breakfast! Sincerely, Toriel."

Alphys was on her best behavior all day.

One hundred twenty-four days after the Accession of Undyne, Alphys set her scientific endeavors aside to write a love poem to Toriel. In it, she compared her graceful walk favorably to the magma tide and the mistral, concluding that only the flow of time itself could equal her evenness, and then only in the long term. She compared Toriel's storytelling abilities favorably to the Rememberers, a traditional gantlet of storytellers from all the monster races who still greeted visitors to Asgore's home. Only the greatest human historians and cartoonists, Alphys wrote, could rival her. She compared Toriel's wisdom to that of the human king Donegan or the first monster king, Grendel. But when it came to disposition, she wrote, there was no one to compare Toriel to, and so the poem sadly had to end unfinished—a 'misdeed' for which Toriel was readily forgiven. Alphys went to bed flushed with pride at what she had written.

The next morning, she asked Toriel if she could accompany her on her walk through the catacombs to water the golden flowers. Toriel acceded, and Alphys bounced nervously all the way. She cleared her throat as her companion started to pour. "May I… may I read a poem?"

"A poem? Why Alphys! I did not know you wrote poetry."

"Um… usually I don't! I just… got inspired yesterday, and… out it came!"

"In that case, by all means!" said Toriel, attending to her work.

Alphys read her work as proudly as she could, but her delivery was halting and more than once she laughed nervously at her own discombobulation. At last, Toriel looked up accusingly and interrupted. "You are making fun of me, doctor!"

Alphys was taken by surprise. "N-no! I'm not making fun of you! I would… I would never do that…"

She smiled slyly. "So when last week, you offered to make Sans shoes with laces in the shape of my ears, so that he could have the pleasure of tying them in a bow, you were not making fun of me?"

Alphys blushed. "W-well, I guess I was… making fun out of the idea of you? B-but that's not the same thing as… making fun of you."

"I see. Well then, perhaps this poem is making fun out of the idea of me. That is all right—let it not be said I am unable to take a joke! Please continue."

So Alphys did, but the idea that her heartfelt poem was a joke distracted her, and she did little more than mumble her way to the end. "Um… so. There's my poem."

Toriel was finished tending to the flowers now; she got off her knees and smiled to Alphys. "That was very amusing. Thank you for the entertainment. Shall we return?"

Alphys was too shy to ask whether Toriel had liked the poem, or to insist that it had been genuine, not parody. "Um… yeah! L…let's go back." She crumpled the paper in a ball, and once they got back home, she threw it in the fireplace.

Five days later, as they were sitting quietly in the living room after dinner, Toriel asked Alphys whether she thought Sans might like to hear the interesting poem she had written about her. Alphys squirmed in her seat. "Uh, sorry," she said. "I didn't keep it."

"Oh. That is a pity!" said Toriel, her face falling.

One hundred eighty-one days after the Accession of Undyne, in order to celebrate a particularly balmy day, the three friends lounged at the entrance to the catacombs, drawing with chalk. They were joined by a few Whimsuns willing to drag the comparatively huge sticks with their tiny bodies. Alphys had already sketched the foundry of Home as she imagined it had once looked, and the original plans for the Core Gaster had once shown her, and the electric grid she someday hoped to build all across Home, gleaming with majestic power stations. Her mind was roving without limit! Having exhausted these ideas, the next drawing she made was of Toriel… sans clothing. She drew her removing a pie from the oven, wearing a light apron but otherwise bare from head to toe. A Froggit on the shelf looked on with a little exclamation point. Alphys giggled over her chalk drawing as she added details, completely forgetting that Toriel was nearby and capable of looking over to see what she was doing.

Which she did. Alphys didn't see her initial reaction, but Sans later told her, "her mouth was just as round as her eyes. I didn't know it got that round. she stayed like that for ten seconds—i thought she might've been stuck."

But she was not stuck. Alphys felt a hefty hand on her shoulder and looked up to discover a mystified, horrified, flattered boss monster peering at her handiwork. "Doctor Alphys! What do you think you are doing?"

"Oh! I'm… I'm sorry. I was just drawing… um… you!"

"So I see! But you seem to have left something out of your depiction."

Alphys blushed. "Um… you mean, um… clothes?"

"Yes, that is precisely what I mean!"

"You're—you're right! Thanks for reminding me—I totally forgot to draw any clothes!" She hastily reached for the lavender chalk and sketched in a robe, outlining the familiar Delta Rune in blue, and then covered the arms with white sleeves. "Yep… aheheh… it looks a lot better this way. I knew I was forgetting something!"

Toriel's brows were low, her nostrils flared. "You were not forgetting anything. That drawing was exactly as you liked it."

Alphys tittered uncomfortably. "Wh-what do you want me to say, Tori? Sorry—I just got a little c-carried away."

"And so you decided to depict me undressed to all who enter these catacombs?"

"I—I didn't really decide anything. I wasn't thinking."

"I think that you may have an unhealthy obsession."

Alphys looked up pleadingly. "Is—is it really unhealthy to love someone?"

"Of course it is not, and you know it!"

"But then… is it really unhealthy to want to see the person you love… without anything hidden? To see them how they really are?"

A strong hand squeezed her shoulder. "We have had a nice outing, but perhaps it is time we made our way home."

Alphys sighed and started gathering up her chalk. When would she learn to stay inside the lines?

Two hundred forty-six days after the Accession of Undyne, with Sans and Alphys out for the day, Toriel decided it was time to clean the kitchen. It had been too long, and the adventure of three people living in a small house had led to more than the usual rate of spills, footprints and accumulated grease. So she got out her bucket, mop, and scrubbing sponge and set to work. When Alphys returned from casting steel plates for her various devices in construction, she found Toriel in the kitchen on her knees, robe hiked and sashed at the thighs. Oh god, she thought, frozen in the next room. I can see her legs!

They were sturdy and covered in fine wool, just as one might imagine them. It was the exact thickness of the ankles and knees that transfixed Alphys, to say nothing of the curve of the calves. What made this particular set of proportions so perfect, she wondered? Obviously they were flawless, but could one arrive at this shape from theory alone? Surely there was some logic that would lead there… but what could it be?

That was when Toriel glanced back and happened to see Alphys standing there. "Alphys! You are home!"

Alphys couldn't help chattering her teeth, making it clear she was up to something. "Y-yep! Just got back! The… the plate casting is going well. Soon I should be, um… able to make cases and boxes the way I'm used to."

Not surprisingly, Toriel was suspicious. "Doctor! Are you ogling me?"

"Um! I was… I was ogling a little, because… well, I don't remember ever seeing your knees before, and… and they're really nice knees!"

Toriel yanked her robe down and climbed to her feet. "Honestly! My knees are completely ordinary. There is nothing remarkable about them whatsoever!"

"B-but that's what makes them so great! They're perfect. They're so perfect they make you forget a pair of knees could be any other way."

Toriel sighed in consternation. She left the room and walked past Alphys. "I am going for a walk to clear my head. If you would like to finish scrubbing the floor, you are welcome to it."

Alphys did scrub the floor. She was tired from her day of work, but she scrubbed and cleaned it so thoroughly it gleamed, just as flawless as what she'd seen for such a tantalizingly brief span. She knelt there on the floor for a few minutes, looking at her refection and imagining it was Toriel's.

Two hundred ninety-seven days after the accession of Undyne, Alphys and Toriel sat in chairs they had moved to the foyer, clasping each others' hands while tea steamed in their cups. Both had enjoyed successful days afield, and upon getting home, they had made tea and crumpets (Alphys liked hers with sassafras jelly and cinnamon), and now sat together in the foyer, speaking in a hush for no particular reason. The conversation had turned to childhood dreams, and thence to childhood fears. They had taken turns sharing, and had then fallen without trying into a roleplay in which Toriel portrayed a ward of the nursery where Alphys grew up, only infinitely more kind than they had actually been. It was as if Toriel was letting Alphys have the childhood she could and should have had, soothing the hurts of long ago and injecting love retroactively into her early life. At one point Alphys found herself choked up. She sat there, overwhelmed and unable to talk, and took in her own condition with amazement.

"Alphys, dear? Are you all right?"

A trace of laughter almost found its way from her throat, but it was swallowed up in the soothing blanket that coated all her emotions. "I… wow. This hardly ever happens to me." She closed her eyes. "I'm so… Oh, Tori! I'm so happy that I'm.. I've gone right over the edge and I'm exhibiting physiological signs of sadness! Oh my gosh…"

"You are crying with happiness, doctor?"

"I'm—" Alphys sobbed sharply. "I'm crying with happiness! This is so rare! Tori, you've made me so happy… so happy…" Alphys seized her tea and swallowed it in three smooth gulps—the temperature was perfect.

Toriel's own face was streaked with tears—this state was more easily reached for her. "I am very glad that this exercise was able to do such good for you," she murmured.

"It's not just… not just the roleplay!" sobbed Alphys. "It's you! It's everything you do for me, and it's… it's this life… this wonderful life… oh, Tori! I love you so much!" Her hand squeezed the larger one harder. "I love you so, so much! I just can't express how much I love you."

Toriel clenched her jaws tight, made nervous by this effusive display. She spoke softly. "It gladdens me that you are happy, Alphys… and that I am the cause of your happiness. Aside from that, I do not know what to say!"

"You don't need to say anything! You just need to… sit there and let me love you!"

Toriel swallowed, her eyes vulnerable. She did not speak. Alphys clutched her hand in both her own and stared in loving wonder. Toriel did not dare to finish her tea.

Time went by and Alphys had yet to release her hand. "Would you like to return to our game?" asked Toriel quietly.

"I'd like to, yes. But… but I'm not done loving you yet," pled Alphys.

"Will you tell me when you are finished loving me?"

"Yes!" nodded Alphys several times. "Absolutely!"

"Then we shall sit in silence until then," declared Toriel.

And they did.

Three hundred thirty-nine days after the Accession of Undyne, Alphys came into the house dancing as if with an imaginary partner, and for all that she could describe who was she dancing with, she might have said it was with science itself.

Toriel sat knitting in her chair, but she set down her shirt in progress (a clean white one, for Sans) and stared in disbelief when she saw the reptile twirl waltzing through the door. Rather than interrupt, she gave the spectacle the respect it deserved, which afforded Alphys enough time to spin about before Toriel's chair and offer a gallant hand. Her movements were not graceful or well wrought, but they were executed in such earnest that Toriel found them utterly compelling nonetheless.

"Doctor Alphys, what has gotten—"

"Tori! Would you li—may I have this dance?"

In accordance with instincts shaped by years of graciousness and hospitality, Toriel rose from her chair and let herself be pulled into the doctor's reverie. She took graceful, sweeping steps, letting her reach extend down with each maneuver, as was necessary if she was not to pull the diminutive lizard off the floor entirely. Alphys was flushed with delight.

This went on for a good minute before Toriel finally ventured to ask, "Doctor Alphys, what is the occasion?!"

The scientist grinned, arching herself dramatically upward for four steps before dropping her arms. "Oh, nothing! Just the biggest break in the barrier project since maybe the beginning!"

Toriel's spirits stirred. This was good news, but she was always timorous about the idea of destroying the barrier, knowing how easily destruction and ruin might stem from it. "Alphys! What has happened?"

They kept dancing. "It's Sans! He told me a secret he'd been keeping forever. He said I could tell you too, if you promised not to let it spread!"

Toriel swallowed as she performed a swing-out. "I will keep his secret," she promised. "What is it?"

"You know how everything becomes a hundred times easier if we actually had a human in the Underground? Well, it turns out… we do! Sans knows a—a so-called monster who's actually secretly human! And he's going to ask if he's willing to help!"

Toriel felt blood rushing to her face and hands. "That is amazing, Alphys! I… confess that I am a bit nervous about this news. I had no idea. Is this human safe? Can he be trusted?"

"Sans says he's safe. He doesn't know if he'll be willing to work with us, but he wouldn't hurt anyone. I think it's just a matter of privacy. And I can't blame him—with Undyne's army the way they are, if I were secretly human, I'd be paranoid too!"

The dance continued, though Toriel's gusto was flagging. "But who is he? How does Sans know him?"

"He hasn't told me yet, but apparently they're old friends. It's just such… such a shot of hope! It's like I've been hit with a barrage of healing bullets!" Alphys laughed freely and led Toriel across the living room in a side step. "We could actually get out of here! All that… all that Empress Undyne is doing to break the barrier, and it's going to be us—the people in exile—who end up taking it down!"

Toriel repressed her laughter. "Alphys, are you not getting ahead of yourself?"

The lizard's smile was as huge as Toriel had ever seen it, and whiter than her wool. "I'm completely getting ahead of myself! I love getting ahead of myself! It's so much fun—you should try it!"

Now Toriel's laughter escaped. She embellished the dance. "Very well, then! After we have broken the barrier, we will send a very nice gift basket to the humans. They will return a reply saying, 'Our monster friends! We had no idea that you were still down there! We had thought that all of your beauty and diverse wonder was lost. We are so sorry for our forebears waging war against you. Let us make up again!' And we will move into the spaces across the countryside and make homes for ourselves again among humankind." She swung Alphys off the floor and set her in a chair, then whisked her up again. "We will rekindle all the warmth that once burned between our races, and there will be no conflict, only joy and camaraderie, and monsters will be trusted with human children, and everyone will wonder how we ever let ourselves remain apart for so long."

Alphys squealed with pure joy. She cycled her legs, smacking the furniture with her feet, until Toriel set her triumphantly down in the easy chair. Both women were flushed, and each took a moment to regard the smile on the other's face.

"W-wow, Tori! You're… really good at getting ahead of yourself!"

"I am as surprised as you are! It is a pastime in which I seldom indulge."

Alphys reached up. "You've got a really nice imagination!"

Not knowing what the doctor wanted, Toriel lifted her and cuddled her as a child in both arms against her bosom. "Perhaps! But it is nothing compared to yours, doctor."

Alphys blissfully set her hand on one of Toriel's breasts. "I guess I'm pretty good at dreaming stuff up. But you… your imagination is so perfect and pure! I wish—I wish you would use it more often."

So here she was. She was holding a reptile in her arms who had chosen to touch one of her mammaries, as if to covet what she had never possessed. "Alphys, do you realize what your right hand is doing?"

Alphys looked at her hand in sedate shock, then drew it back. She blinked. "Oh! Oh, Tori, I—I'm sorry. Did that make you un—uncomfortable? I d-didn't mean to…"

"It is no worry," said Toriel, surprised at how unbothered she was. "I only wondered whether you realized."

"I, uh." Alphys blushed. "I wouldn't t—I wouldn't touch your, uh, breast without your permission. That was just an accident!" Her eager look and flipping tailtip, however, suggested that she dearly wanted more.

Toriel's brows knit together. "And I suppose that you want permission?" she asked evenly.

Alphys hesitated only a moment before nodding eagerly.

What now? What good could come from this particular barrier coming down? But then again, were there not humans on the surface who might ask the same thing of the barrier imprisoning the monsters? Perhaps the dissolution of a barrier was a good in its own right.

"Please be gentle," said Toriel. She almost could not believe the words had left her mouth.

But Alphys was gentle, so very gentle. She felt each shape through the lavender robe with the tender reverence of a mother tending to a baby, though her yellow jaw shook. Toriel did her best to remain serene.

"I cannot imagine why this gives you such pleasure, Alphys. But so long as it does, I am content."

"I… I'm not sure I could say, either! It's like… I guess it's like… reaching into a gift basket to find the b-best stuff? But… but that doesn't even… that doesn't even come close to…"

"It is all right, Alphys. You need not explain."

The nimble little fingers finally gave their quarry a double pat, then withdrew. "Thanks so much, Tori," their owner murmured. "I don't—I don't suppose I could convince you to… to let me um… reach down your, um…" She drew back, hearing her own words. "Never mind. Forget I said anything. Thanks again."

Inwardly, Toriel sighed. She did not wish to be groped. Feeling through cloth was one thing, but… "I am delighted by your excellent news, my friend. Thank for you sharing this moment with me."

"Um… y-you're welcome, Tori." She wiggled a little, and Toriel set her down.

The two stood looking at each other, and Toriel felt there must be more to say. "I am so very fond of you," she declared. "And yet…"

Alphys lifted her posture, waiting for the end of the sentence.

But it would not come. Toriel bowed her head, letting her eyes close and ears droop.

"Oh, Tori," said Alphys sympathetically. Sadly.

"It is just so strange."

"Oh Tori!"

She opened her eyes and walked into the kitchen. Be still, my fluttering heart. You are not hers. You will never be hers. You belong to the Asgore who once was. You belong to—

She stood over her kitchen counter with moist eyes, knowing that she wanted to bake something, but lacking the first clue of how to begin.

A/N: In case it isn't clear, this chapter's events are interspersed with those of the previous chapter.

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