Chapter 25
Frisk knelt in the snow at the late Frisk Dreemurr's grave, flowers raining from her antlers like the tears falling down her face.
"How could he? I trusted him!" She rested her forehead against the tombstone.
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering; breath puffs of steam. She turned against the monument, leaning back against it, and watched her bare feet go from white to palest peach. The snow was piling high around her.
"Cold."
She shook and shoved her bare hands into her armpits.
"North Star!"
Her cry was lost against the snow. She tried whistling and the sound disappeared in the wind. Frisk squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will the tears that were freezing to her lashes away.
"Little Frisk? What are you doing so far from home?"
Frisk looked up through the snow at a tall, thin man in a long gray suit, a fae with graceful white horns slicking up and back from his head.
"It is too cold to be out." He held out a hand and a gentle smile.
Frisk squinted at him through the growing blizzard. "Who are you?" she managed through chattering teeth.
"A friend."
"You look like… someone I've seen before. On the news. Months ago." Frisk kept looking at those long, slick horns. She reached up and froze. "Your horns… You look like a rabbit."
His hand snatched her wrist. "And you look ready to freeze solid." His smile changed. "And I can't have that." He pulled and she flew up, hitting his chest hard.
Chara came up on the clearing just as they disappeared from sight. He rushed to the grave.
"Teleport. Where?"
He stopped, forcing himself to concentrate, to find the thread of magic and… nothing.
"No!" Chara fell to his knees, head in his hands. "There has to be something! Anything!"
His phone rang: a text. He ignored it.
Another text. He shook his head, ready to bang it off his wife's tombstone, desperate to find the thread.
A call.
Chara let out a held breath and looked. Chrissy.
He swiped up.
"Don't you dare ignore my texts again! I know where it's taken Frisk. I've already called Sans. He's nabbing Muffet and then he'll grab you."
Chara found his feet. "Where are we going?"
"Straussburg. The Farrath's hideout is underneath the parliamentary building in Andorini's capital."
"That information would have been useful weeks ago," Chara grumbled.
"Don't get sarcastic with me, Christopher." Chrissy sighed. "I've been searching for weeks. I couldn't find it. Someone sent me the information."
"Sent you…?"
Sans and Muffet appeared next to Chara in the snow.
"We'll figure it out later. I'm off." He hung up and turned to Sans and Muffet. "I'm ready."
"*looks that way, blue boy."
"Blue boy?" Chara looked down at his hands. His skin was a beautiful cerulean. He saw his dogs, both waiting faithfully for orders. "Both of you, back to the house. I'll bring Frisk home."
The dogs turned and ran off into the snow. Sans put a hand on his shoulder and the world shattered around them falling like glass to reveal a void, an inky black nothingness that went on forever. All the glass shards suddenly shifted, coming together to reassemble reality. When the last piece clicked into place, they stood outside a large white building of tall towers, colorful, round domes, graceful statues, and light filled windows.
"Anyone else find it highly suspicious that the Farrath has his lair under this particular building?" Muffet asked.
"Yeah."
"*oh yeah."
"We need to find a way in and down," Chara said.
Sans turned a full circle, getting his bearings and noticing that things were a little too quiet for this early in the day in Andorini. "*chris said she was putting us right next to a hidden entrance."
"Finding that sort of thing would be my forte," Muffet said.
She threw a layer of webbing along the base of the building and sent a tremor along the delicate threads. A piece of the masonry to the left moved just a little. Muffet jerked hard and it didn't budge. Dropping the silken web, she used all six arms to shove instead, pushing the masonry back. It swung on a well oiled hinge to reveal a dark stairwell leading down. Muffet jumped, gripping the ceiling and spider-walked down while Sans and Chara took the stairs, the door snapping shut behind them.
"That's not ominous," Muffet hissed.
She crept along the ceiling ahead of the boys and paused at the end of the stairwell. It opened into a small room with a naked bulb giving off a soft light. Three unmarked passages led away from the room. Chara and Sans looked at each other.
"Split up or stick together?" Chara asked.
"*depends on whether or not our cells work down here."
Muffet let go of the ceiling with four of her six hands, hanging upside down to be face to face with them. "It doesn't matter if they do or not. We can cover more ground by splitting up."
Chara nodded. "The first to find Frisk is to get her out. We say something to everyone else after that."
Sans and Muffet nodded, both taking opposite passages. Chara took the middle and kicked it up to a run, sending a flame spell ahead of him to light the way.
xxxxxx
Frisk woke up in a large, empty room, walls painted white so as to reflect the little bit of light coming from a small hanging lamp. The plain, brick red tile under her was dusty. She sat up with a groan, her body aching from sleeping on the hard floor. She sniffed and hugged her knees to her chest, shivering though the room wasn't particularly cold. She put her forehead against her knees, pressing her lips together to keep from sobbing, even as she shuddered. Letting out a small mewl she flopped backward on the floor and stared up at the blank, white ceiling. She sucked in a hard breath of unhappy realization through her nose. And let it out in a sigh of resignation.
"Rescue isn't coming."
The saying it out loud hit her like a train and she curled on herself for a moment, tears filling her eyes before shaking her head.
"Got to get out."
Frisk found her feet and looked around, finding a set of double doors. She tested one of the doors and it clicked against the floor and top of the door jamb, locked in place. She tried the second and it opened on a long hallway filled with similar doors, each one marked 'Storage.'
Frowning, she walked across the hall and opened a door. Inside were rows and rows of neatly stacked chairs, upholstered chairs in red and gold. She softly shut the door.
"help…"
"help please…"
Frisk turned back, swinging the door wide.
The room was still just rows and rows of stacked chairs.
"help us…"
"save us…"
"Those aren't chairs," Frisk breathed.
She stepped back and the door shut with a bang. She cringed against the sound and turned to the left, running down the hall as fast as she could and crashed through a door marked stairwell. Climbing as fast as she could, she kept going until she reached the top, rushing past door after unlabeled door. She bent over, gulping air when she reached the top. Below, she could just barely make out voices, and slid back, away from the sound, hiding against the door.
When the voices disappeared behind the slam of a door far below, she breathed a sigh of relief and stood. The door she opened revealed a long banquet hall of red and gold, opulent and glittering. A long table covered in red linens and gold chargers ran the entire length of the room. Shining platters awaited food and crystal goblets awaited wine. Everything dark but for the light of numerous candles which rested on the backs of statues: fae men and women contorted into painful positions, arms extended, stone faces grimacing in pain or screaming in horror.
The red and gold chairs were here too.
Frisk quick stepped through the room, careful to not touch anything or make a sound only to stop at one of the statues.
But it wasn't a statue. It was a fae woman, blue skinned, violet haired, and bent into a tortuous curve held by several thick ropes. The candles set on her back and arms dripped hot wax over her bare skin, burning it's way down to drip on the floor.
Frisk's hands ran along the fae woman's arms, fingers tracing over the ropes that held her. "You're alive."
She reached up and pushed at the candles covering the woman. Held in place only by hot wax, the candles crashed to the floor, rolling this way and that.
The fae woman's red eyes opened, and a fierce whisper slammed into Frisk. "Run, Child! Through the doors behind me, down the stairs, and out the first door you see! Escape while you can!"
"No. I can help you. We can leave together." Frisk pushed the rest of the candles off and the woman sagged against her bounds.
"Rescue will come for you, Child. Go. Leave me!"
Frisk cringed, tears threatening, before sucking in a breath of determination. "No one is coming for me." Started on the ropes, working the knocks.
The chime of a gong reverberated through the Hall, dragging agonized cries from the walls, pillars, paintings, furniture. The plates, platters, and goblets vibrated, crying out in pain.
Frisk froze, staring all around her. "Everything is made of… people."
"Run, Child! The Farrath knows you have escaped!"
"It didn't really lock the door behind it." Frisk returned to the knots, unbinding the woman. "You're almost free!"
The doors at the end of the Hall burst open with a scorching wind, the heat blistering Frisk's exposed skin. The last rope came free and the woman wrapped her arms around Frisk, protecting her from the blast, teeth gritting against the heat as her skin blistered and bubbled.
The Farrath strode through the doors casually, as if it walked through a park on a sunny day, impeccable gray suit looking dapper. A smile that might have been pleasant if seen from very far away graced its lips. It grabbed the fae woman by her long violet hair and jerked her away from Frisk, dragging her backward.
"Now that I have the royal welp, I no longer need you, do I?"
Frisk snatched the largest candle she could and swung at the Farrath, connecting with its face. The still burning flame caught its hair. The Farrath's smile turned into a sneer. As Frisk came around to strike him again, he dropped the fae woman to back hand the girl. Frisk hit the floor and curled into a ball as another blast of hot air came at her.
The fire in the Farrath's hair blew away with the wind, undamaged. It snapped its fingers and the ropes slid along the floor wrapping around Frisk and the fae woman, binding them together.
"Since you are so keen on saving this garbage seer, I'll let her live long enough to watch you become my throne."
It snapped its fingers again and the ropes dragged them both through a door on the right and down into darkness.