It had been a few days since Error had seen the female abnormality. He had attempted to locate her, but it wasn't like he could track her down. She was as elusive as Ink… or himself for that matter. It wasn't like he couldn't disappear from pursuit and hide in his little slice of anti-void sanctuary, which is what he decided to do after being productive and destroying another alternate universe. Error came back, a little fatigued after destroying so much. That AU was packed, and he had a lot to destroy. He hadn't been particularly motivated, just bored. He also wondered if it would draw attention from that strange anomaly…
Error jolted to a stop as he came upon a blotch of color in his white home. The strange woman was there, sitting on a chair made of purple crystal, a table of the same substance beside her with a drink. Her back was to him, so he couldn't see fully, but she had a pencil and a book, and he had been around Ink enough to recognize that much.
He twitched and launched a series of bones from the ground to shatter the crystal, throwing the woman from her spot.
"Dude! Rude! You just messed up my whole thing!" she scolded him as she sat up from the floor.
"Rude?! You're the one who's in my home, uninvited!"
"Well, where else am I supposed to try and find you?"
Error blinked. "You were looking for me?"
"Well, yeah! Didn't I say we'd meet again last time? I swear I said it," she said, looking as if she was pondering that very subject.
"That doesn't mean I wanted it!" he was about to grab her with his strings again, but she held up a hand.
"Haven't you learned by now? You're just wasting your energy. I can snap your strings, de-materialize your bones, and dodge your lasers."
"So you're as annoying as any other Sans I've come across. What's your point?"
"But I'm not a Sans, am I?" she pointed out.
"No… no you're not," he confirmed. "So what the hell do you want?"
"Didn't I say that too? I'm bored, and you're interesting."
"I'm not here for your entertainment!"
"I know. I just want to get to know you."
"Ugh, not again. You wanna be friends, don't you?"
She tilted her head a little to the side. "Well, that's a mutual thing isn't it? I don't have friends, not anymore, so…" A somber note that even left Error quiet for a long moment, before she continued, "I don't really care what we do. Hell, I had fun with you trying to kill me last time. I'd rather not go through that again, though. Still hurts to be run through, ya know?" she chuckled softly with a smile. "But, I can make it worth your while~. I can get you just about anything, except my soul. Gonna stop you there, buddy, you couldn't yank it out, I can't get it out so that one's off the table."
"Anything, huh? Can you tell me where Core!Frisk is?"
"Core…Frisk?" she parroted, looking thoughtful. "Not off the top of my head. But, I can read code in a way most can't. There's a lot of it, but if you give me time, I could probably find a trail."
"What good are you then? I don't need you for that, I can just lure them out."
"But then you would have done it already. I'm guessing they're careful, slow, deliberate, cautious. Not unlike you when you stalk an AU, right?"
"Are you stalking me, now? I thought you didn't know about me before!"
"Oh, I didn't, and I don't," she grinned. "But I'm good at reading people, and you just seem like the predatory type. Like a cat slowly stalking its prey, or an assassin taking on an army on their own, getting the outliers, the ones that would cause the most issue are removed first. I'll admit, it's a tactic I have used myself. One of my favorites actually. More fun to freak out the others as they find their friends dead."
Error stared at her for a long moment, before he burst out into hysterical laughter. "You're a demented little bitch, aren't you?"
She shrugged a little. "I can be. I don't see the point in cowering from the fact that in the end, everything dies. That's just how our world works. And I'm not going to pretend some people don't deserve to die, but as always, that's a matter of perspective." She snapped her fingers and a flat purple crystal appeared and she plopped back on it, her head hanging upside down as it turned so she could look at him again. This honestly took Error aback a little, but he just watched as she talked. "I'm sure a lot of people think you're evil and deserve to die. It's a thankless job, isn't it? Taking out the garbage all the time?"
Error was utterly confused, glitching a little as her comments seem to contradict each other. "You're the one who stopped me from destroying one of those abominations, yet you call them garbage?"
She blinked, still upside down. "You're still on that? I told you, it wouldn't have truly been dead. Buuut~ I do know several others that are or need to die. That the creators of them want them dead or are abandoned completely. Like I said before, work on the outliers, right?" she grinned.
Error blinked, staring at her for a long, hard minute. "Are you… saying you want me to destroy those AUs?"
"Well, duh, that's your job isn't it?" she smiled as she rolled over on the crystal, laying on her stomach now. "I'm not against things dying, hardly. It's part of life. But, there are so many things that need to die that you're not even aware of."
"So why haven't you done it? You can get into the code."
"I can't. The only thing I can do in the code is fully reset. I can erase all the multiple timelines, just bringing it back to the core timeline of the AU, or a single variant. You're the only one who can destroy them, fully, it seems. I mean, I could probably go in and help you kill everyone, but I can't destroy the world as a whole."
"You could… you would help me?" he asked, a little confused, but that idea didn't sound all that bad to him.
"Yeah, totally!" she grinned at him. "Though, I got this thing with killing kids, unless, ya know, they're murderous little assholes, like Chara, so you might have to deal with those. But, even if they're normally what I wouldn't just outright go kill, if they attack me, well… my life's more important, ya know?"
"Then why didn't you attack me?" he questioned.
"Because you're interesting!" she grinned at him. "You're the first interesting thing I've found while traveling through these AUs. The last thing I want to do is kill you, or scare you off. I know it's weird and random, but I don't want to be alone anymore. I'll take any kind of interaction at this point, even you trying to kill me."
"That's… surprisingly pathetic."
"Oh, I'm sure you weren't much different when you finally found something to latch onto."
Error grew silent, his mind flashing back to bits and pieces, of finding Toriel in those ruins, talking to her, not wanting to go back to the anti-void, ignoring its calls… He shook his head of these thoughts. "You don't know anything."
"Well… maybe not," she smiled at him. "But I know you look a little tired. You wanna give one of these a try?" she asked, pointing to the crystal she was on. "They're surprisingly comfortable for being rocks," she grinned.
Error kind of stared at the purple crystal, uncertain how he felt about it, the color… everything. Then he looked down to the mess at their feet, from when he destroyed the last chair she was in.
She looked down and blinked. "Oh. Don't worry, I got it," she said, snapping her fingers and all the crystal disappeared. All that was left was her spilled drink and her sketchbook and pencil.
Error rose a brow, but he opened a portal in his world, dumping the spilled drink out of his world, into UnderFell, because, where else?
"Hey, my book!" she called out as the sketchbook teetered on the edge of this portal. She tried to run for it, but it fell.
Error, not knowing why, quickly grabbed it at the pencil before it fell on FellSans' head and yanked it back with his strings, closing the portal. He caught the book in his hand, along with the pencil, and looked at the page, noticing it was him on the page, but it had a thick gash from the pencil going through it… from when he attacked her. "Why the hell were you drawing me?"
"Like I said, you're interesting. Honestly, it's the first thing I've drawn in a long time."
Error stared at it for longer than he thought he would. "Well, you need practice," he said as he tossed it back at her, pencil and all. She caught it awkwardly, trying not to bend the pages. Ironic how clumsy she was with this, when just the last time, she so eloquently rolled with everything he threw at her. "You got my face all wrong."
"Well, it helps to have a live model of that, ya know," she smirked at him, getting her book settled. "I was going off the short memory I had from the one second you weren't trying to kill me."
He rose a brow, then looked around, a little awkwardly. "What does… a live model do?"
She giggled a little. "Just whatever you want. I can work with you moving around, doing whatever. But, really, do you want a chair? There's nothing in here."
"I like it empty. Sitting on the floor is fine."
"Come on, a chair's not going to take up too much room."
He looked at her, fighting for the sake of just arguing. "I don't like the color. Purple, really?"
"Well, I like the purple," she grinned. "But I have red and blue as well, and you can't argue you don't like those. You've got both in your clothes."
Error found himself unable to argue that point, and he began to mutter, "Fine, red," he almost whispered under his breath.
She grinned and snapped two red crystal reclining chairs, causing Error to jump back a little as it appeared a little too close for his liking. He watched as she also pulled in a table in the middle with snacks… his eyes focused in on the chocolate in the candy bowl.
"Help yourself," she said as she hopped into her chair, curled up with her legs under her, even though the chair was able to recline.
Error eyed her for a moment before moving to cautiously sit in the chair. It was crystal, it was hard… but surprisingly it wasn't uncomfortable. It shouldn't have even been an issue, he sat and slept on the floor all the time, but it was like… it was softer than it looked… and it was warm to the touch.
"See? Not so bad," she smiled.
Error didn't say anything, but he did take some chocolate from the candy bowl… eyeing the lighter brown squares in it. "What… is this?"
She glanced over, chuckling. "Caramel. My favorite," she grinned.
Error continued to stare at it before popping the whole thing in his mouth.
She blinked, watching him. "You're not supposed to eat the wrapper…"
He stared at her a moment before, using his tentacle tongues, pulled the wrapped out of his mouth.
She blinked rapidly at the sudden appearance of the strange version of a tongue he had. "Well… that's… unique," she laughed.
Error rose a brow at her. "What? You told me not to eat the wrapper."
"I meant your tongue," she said, sticking her own out at him. "It's strange enough that a skeleton has one at all, let alone tentacles for one."
Error couldn't quite hide his embarrassment, a tint of blue appearing on his cheeks as he roared out, trying to hide it with anger. "Well, no one asked you!" He crossed his arms, looking away from her.
Jewel watched as he practically pouted, and she chuckled softly. It was kind of cute if she was honest with herself. She grabbed a chocolate from her candy bowl and held it out toward him, which after a moment, he caught from the corner of his eye, turning just slightly to look back at her.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't making fun of you. I just laugh when I'm at a loss for words, something to fill the silence, I suppose…"
Error slowly turned back around, staring at her hand with the chocolate. He hesitated, staring at it for longer than what should have been considered normal. His hand started hovering, nervously, over her own before he managed to quickly snatch the chocolate from her, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Too close…
She watched him for a long moment, before leaning back in her chair. "My name's Jewel… by the way," she said softly.
The black and red skeleton turned, looking at her. "Is that why you can summon crystal?"
She blinked then laughed. "Oh wow. Ya know, I never thought about it. But no, I don't think it's related. I mean, Jewel's not even my real name."
Error blinked. "Huh? What is then?"
She shrugged a little. "I dunno. I can't remember. I just… know that I decided to change my name from what it was. Just like you," she said, turning to face him. "I mean, you're Sans, there's no changing that. But you call yourself something different, right? Like you called those other two Sanses Blueberry and Ink."
He stared at her for a moment before leaning back with a soft chuckle. "Right. That's what they call themselves, however, not my name for them."
"So, what's your name?"
"Error," he introduced himself. "Sans abomination #1," he said with pride.
Jewel blinked before letting out a soft chuckle. "Ya know, I like that. You own what you are, that'd admirable."
Error almost choked on his chocolate, sitting up and looking at her. "Admirable? Me?"
"What? Never had anyone tell you that before?"
"Well… no. Most everyone hates me because I killed all their loved ones, etc."
"Well, I suppose that's fair. But, I don't have anyone like that. So guess I'm safe in that regard," she smiled.
Error just stared at her for a moment. "You're insane, you know that? Why do you wanna be friends with me? I'm not a "friend" person!"
"I never said I wanted to be your friend," she pointedly told him. "You're the one assuming I want to be your friend."
Error just sat there, confused.
"Ooh! That's a good one!" she grinned, snapping a photo with her phone of his expression.
Error blinked. "Hey, what did you do!" he almost reached over to grab it, but he realized how close he would have been to her.
"Sorry, that was a good expression! I wanna capture that!"
Error just stared at her for a long few moments, watching her pull out her sketchbook, going to an undamaged page and started to run her pencil across the paper. He sat back, pouting a little. Great, she was going to draw that expression now. He hid a blush of embarrassment, lifting his hood over his skull.
It was nice though… to not be alone. She could be quiet, especially when she was drawing. The scratching of her pencil was a little annoying, but he was able to tune it out after a little bit. The chocolate helped. He wound up pulling the bowl to his lap and just started eating it, even a bit of the caramel. It wasn't bad… he just preferred the chocolate.