There was a legend that the forest around Mt. Ebott was cursed.

Those who entered it either never came back again, or they came back with the daylights scared out of them - depending on which legend you were listening to, anyway. Certainly, there were people who had come back with serious scratches and tales of terrifying and confusing things they'd encountered. To the sensible, the adults, their tales and injuries looked suspiciously like the result of a bear attack. Even that would have been cool, there hadn't been bears around in this country for centuries.

Occasionally someone would ask Frisk, "Hey, you're the resident badass." Then a brief pause for the teacher to yell at them that there was swearing. "Did you see anything strange when you were heading back home through those woods?"

But she would be boring about it, and answer, "No. I didn't see anything that interesting. Not even one ghost."

A ghost she would definitely not smooch.

That didn't stop people from talking about it, though. But kids loved to talk.

Frisk watched them from the other side of the lunch room, munching on a sandwich and keeping her head up with her free hand. So tired. Yeah, other kids never shut up. But maybe it was just bothering her because she had a pretty good idea where the new legends were coming from. Strange creatures in the forest? Long bloody scratches like those a bear would give someone?

It'd been on her mind for a while but maybe today was the point where she got sick of it, or something.

She tried to restrict herself to just visiting her friends on the weekend, but maybe she should make an exception to that today. Swallowing ham and Swiss cheese, the child scrolled slowly through her phone and sent out a text. She was actually glad that the other kids had gotten back into the routine of not sitting too close to her at lunch, because it would have been hard to explain her new contacts.

As always, Sans replied way too fast. Before she'd even finished her sandwich. She had to make sure to also send that he shouldn't actually come out until everyone else was asleep.

That'd be even harder to explain.

Frisk made sure to sneak a couple cans of soda from the big fridge so that she wouldn't be tired when Sans finally arrived in the middle of the night. She sat on her bed in new black and red PJ's as the lights went out all over the building, and she pulled free a can from under her bed.

You drink the Mundane Cola.

It doesn't affect your HP.

Outside her door, the smacking footsteps of the matron making her nightly rounds came close; Frisk reached over and turned off the desk lamp while they slowly faded out again. The only light came from gently whirring traffic outside her window, reminders that this room was not, itself, a concocted dream.

Frisk took another long swig of the cola and nudged an empty flowerpot on the bedside table. What an uncomfortable quiet. She knew she should be asleep, but it just wasn't appealing right now. Maybe that was the caffeine.

She saw a lot of strange things when she slept, anyway.

Not terrible things - the Frisk from the other world, that nicer "Blue" world, told her once that she had terrible dreams. Dreams of being ripped apart, burned alive, stabbed, kicked in the face to death, and countless harmless harmful dangers that killed her before she'd even realized that anything was wrong. Terrible things like that brought Blue Frisk awake in the night, short of breath.

But Frisk didn't see anything like that in her own dreams. She thought she would. She'd suffered horrors too, enough that the idea of heading back to Neo New Home always brought a small spike of anxiety. But when she dreamt, although she dreamt of the underground and the world of monsters, it wasn't scary. It was profoundly uncomfortable, but there was no danger in the dreams.

She hadn't brought them up with anyone. She thought she might get more odd looks. Like how Asgore was so puzzled when she said she'd heard his voice screaming for her to come back in her death throes.

At least she didn't panic and do dumb things like Sans.

Speaking of him. A can and a half later, Frisk sent another message. Sans arrived while she was finishing up the other half of can two, his left eye flaring between red and yellow for an instant before settling back on red. She hadn't been looking for him, hadn't been looking at anything except her new movie posters. So his sudden appearance in the room, accompanied by a sudden tune in her head, was more startling than it should have been. It was a good thing she was in the middle of drinking; rather than scream, Frisk coughed up some soda over her pajama front, and Sans laughed raspily.

"sup, pipsqueak?" he said, lowering his voice when Frisk gave him a glare. "you wanna come over and see how neo new home's getting along?"

Wiping her mouth, Frisk nodded. "That's actually exactly what I wanted. How's the weather over there?"

"cloudy," Sans said with a dry smile, as if she needn't have even asked. "where to, kid? guessing you don't want to be smack dab in the middle of town."

"I actually don't care. Wherever you were last." They'd end up in the middle of town at some point anyway.

Sans' smile became a little less of one, though, and it irritated her. "you sure you wanna leave it to me like that, 'cause..."

"Ugh just take us there already!"

He'd grumbled. And then Sans held on to her as he did his... thing. His weird, disorienting thing where his eye flashed and they both vanished without a sound or any ado at all, and then suddenly there they were in an entirely different place. His shortcut thing.

The melody in her head shifted to accompany the change.

They ended up beneath a sky so dark it was threatening rain again, in front of a house that was bright and colorful. It was one of several that stood out in a half-built city (well, city was stretching it, as all of it was small enough that no humans would be able to glimpse it above the forest line) with grey Romanesque buildings that looked like they'd been made centuries ago.

Even Papyrus and Sans' house was that same log cabin, though at least the snow was gone. Frisk kind of figured that the monsters would update their look a bit instead of making carbon copies of their old houses on the surface. But then, she did see some (colorless) neon lighting gracing those Romanesque buildings that wasn't there before, so that was a... start.

The building that they were right in front of, though, that made Frisk's heart sink.

"You were visiting Toriel?" She said, with a grimace.

Sans fluffed his jacket with an aggressive jerk and put his hands in his pockets. "don't you got friends you visit in your spare time, squirt? she's not as bad as you think she is."

"She's exactly as bad as I think she is."

"well she's gotten better, how bout." He looked at her through only one half-lidded eye, the other one closing. "bein on the surface is doing a lot of people good. matter of fact she's hoping you'll visit sometime if you ever feel like it. no pressure or anything."

Frisk rubbed her arm and looked out towards the bright front door, imagining how familiar it must look inside. "-I don't want to," she mumbled, as if Toriel were an old and awkward relative.

Sans smirked. "yeah see, you shoulda picked a place."

Neither of them had an umbrella; as she scowled at Sans, Frisk became terribly aware of the fact that the clouds above were so heavy that it was surely about to pour rain on them. She opened her mouth to say that they could go right into Asgore's castle then, when a noise from off to the side killed the words.

"Hmmm... hmm, hmm..."

Toriel peeked out at them from behind her door, opening it only a little. Frisk could see just a bit of her face - one yellowed eye and her fanged mouth - and the edges of her robe, which wasn't tattered and covered in soot anymore. That was all the child saw before looking away, crossing her arms across her chest.

The door opened a little wider. "Sans, I thought that it might be you coming back. Did you forget anything?" Quiet, deliberate words.

Sans was sweating again, looking from Toriel to Frisk as his permanent grin scrunched like an accordion. Frisk hoped he was already regretting his decision. "nnnnwell, uh. just helpin the kid with somethin."

"Oh? Is it something I can help wi-"

"No."

Toriel's head tilted gently and she closed her mouth at the response, the door opening just a little bit wider. Frisk's heart was starting to make some noise; she prayed, as she tightened her crossed arms, that the door wouldn't open any further. Not because she was afraid anymore, but just because. She cleared her throat. "I don't need anything from you."

"Perhaps not," was Toriel's reply. "I do not think you would appreciate any snacks from me either, oh dear. Well I hope it is nothing serious."

This time, Frisk waited until just after she had finished speaking. "It's not. What have you been doing since you moved up here?"

"Well, recently," she began, but then a small rumble interrupted her. "Goodness. Perhaps you had best come inside."

Sans had taken one step towards Toriel's front door when Frisk said, "No." He emitted a soft harsh breath like a sigh, but Frisk didn't budge. "You can tell me out here."

"Mmm," Toriel directed a troubled hum to the sky, but did not press the issue. That eased Frisk's shoulders a little, though a faint rattling from Sans betrayed his own tension. "Alright. I did not do very much at first, aside from make a comfortable place to live for myself. Being - on the edge of town as I am, I have not gotten many visitors. Mm, Asgore did drop by the once, when he heard I was in town, but he did not repeat it.

"Recently," she added as she gave a glance towards the forest that surrounded Neo New Home, "there have been a few disturbances. I do my best to take care of them, with the others."

Ah, there it was. Frisk didn't expect it to come from Toriel specifically, but it probably wouldn't have mattered who she asked. "Disturbances?"

"Humans who wander into the forest." She said it so matter-of-factly, with her big white hands pressed together. "In the interests of keeping things simple, we have been having to drive them out without our revealing our existence, rather than..." Suddenly her gaze returned to Frisk. "Repeat the mistakes of the past."

Calling them mistakes went a long way, but Frisk wondered how many of the monsters here would have that same wording. "So you just scare them away. Right?"

"oh shit," Sans cut in with a chuckle, forcing himself back into the conversation, "i got in on this one time when this human uh, i dunno what they were but they were having their friend record themselves with a phone and sayin all this spooky shit about ghosts and dead people living in the forest, like some kinda news anchor. so me and papyrus took off our-"

"SANS please! That story is too lewd for a child!" Toriel shrieked, her eyes opening wide and nostrils flaring; although Frisk jumped half an inch at the sudden volume, Sans started laughing uproariously.

Frisk's face twisted into a scowl, starting to burn; not because she thought that a skeleton could be 'lewd' (if the word meant what she suspected it did,) but because of the feeling she was starting to get that this was all a big joke, one that she'd been locked out of. She stuck her hands in her pockets. "You guys are idiots. You know that people are talking about you over in Ebottstadt right? Even at my school."

His guffaws fading out, Sans peeked at her through his fingers. "eh?"

"They're talking about you. Kids in my school, people in the news-" She was keeping up with the news more often since her own name appeared in it, shortly after returning home. "-Just, in general. You guys are like yetis or fairies to them."

Sans and Toriel exchanged looks. "ehhh, talking's okay. i'm okay with bein a cryptid. just don't want 'em to get too close, right? not till we're ready to make ourselves known."

Her stomach went cold for an instant. "You want to make yourselves known?"

"Truthfully it is up to Asgore, but I expect we will need to someday," Toriel mused. "Once everyone has moved above ground, it will become harder and harder to hide our existence."

Not everyone was up yet, and Neo New Home was already too big for the clearing it had been started in; on her last visit, Frisk had seen buildings overtaking the village at the base of Mt. Ebott. Knowing this, that wasn't exactly an unreasonable position. The child didn't respond, but just stared off somewhere adjacent to the monsters she was talking to.

Rain started dripping in a couple haphazardly placed dots, and then turned into a drizzle on the three of them. Eyesockets empty, Sans made a noise like halfway between a sigh and clearing his throat. "aaaah, can we go inside now?"

"I assure you that it is dry, and safe, inside," said Toriel, gesturing towards her entryway as if there was no reason the child would possibly have to stay out.

Frisk didn't think she hated Toriel anymore, but she hated that. "You can go in. I have to go talk to people."

Sans cracked his shoulders and looked to be about to speak; before he could, Toriel took a step outside her door and said, "Oh, do not walk through this rain by yo-"

"Bye."

No waiting for Sans, no waiting for Toriel. The child picked up her feet and started squelching down the half-paved path deeper into Neo New Home. She thought she knew the way well enough even if Sans wasn't playing the taxi.

Now that it was properly raining, there weren't a crowd of monsters outside - the ones she saw were scrambling to get shelter. That was how she preferred it; so many would stop and stare, or wave, or otherwise do something that forced her to pay attention to them.

She didn't quite recognize most of them. A lot of the monsters that had moved to Neo New Home were the ones that lived in New Home and Waterfall, the monsters of Hotland finding it too cold above ground and the monsters of Snowdin finding it colder up on the mountaintop. Frisk wondered if they would start coming down here, especially when the seasons changed.

Well, a few monsters she recognized. When Frisk saw Alphys scurrying down the street towards her new lab, the child ducked between two buildings just in time to avoid being spotted in the rain, and then watched her pass. She wasn't alone; back in his boxy outer shell - albeit now on a well-built pair of legs instead of a single wheel - Mettaton was racing after her, sparking and flashing and saying something about waterproofing.

The sight made Frisk giggle. She waited for about a minute to see if anyone else would be coming through, and when no one did she stuck her hands in her pockets and kept going. By now she was already soaked, so there was no point to hurrying and getting out of the rain.

Asgore's house loomed in the center of town, as much as it could loom and remain inconspicuous to humans. Pointed spires, cracked stone, jagged edges, and a long solid shadow that it cast all around it. Despite that, it wasn't nearly as big and imposing as the castle underground, and inside it wasn't quite as unpleasant. Although Frisk had only entered it once. Now, she knocked with the ornate metal knocker and stood in wait, arms folded.

If Flowey were here, he'd probably say something like it was a bad idea to talk to Asgore, and she could have told him to shut up and stop being such a chicken.

The double doors cracked open and Asgore peered out from between them, in much the same motions as Toriel. It was hard to tell, especially with it being night, but he might have been wearing pajamas. "Frisk?" he rumbled, deep and cautious and probably tired. "Howd'you do. I was not expecting you tonight."

"I just wanted to check some things."

Asgore looked off somewhere to the side, and then took a step back. "Will you come in?"

"No, that's okay." No glares, she simply shook her head.

But that seemed to be the wrong thing to say, for his brow furrowed and he made what sounded like an irritated growl. "Hrrr, what is it?"

So she scowled, after all. "First off, have you been attacking humans that come around here?"

"Driving them away, you mean. Not attacking."

"The - okay, then." Frisk swallowed her sentence, stumbling over it. "Then next fucking - question, are you planning to tell the humans about you guys too?"

His bloodshot, yellowed eyes crinkled. "Eventually, they will learn of us either way. I do prefer that it happen on my terms, yes."

"When are you gonna do that? Like, in a week, or a month, or?"

Rather than reply right away, Asgore straightened up and looked upwards. He curled his index finger before his lips in thought, uttering a low growl that may have just been his own breathing. Through all this, his expression barely changed... but that was normal for him. "At our rate of progress, it would be best to do something about it in the next month or so, yes."

Another cold anxiety spike. Frisk gripped the ends of her sweater. "Isn't it kind of stupid that you spend all that time making humans afraid of you like-" What word had Sans used?" "-cryptids, and then you assholes all come out announcing yourselves as being real scary... cryptids, to them?"

"Well, I had originally planned to kill all of you," Asgore said in a monotone. "This is a step back from that."

Frisk chewed the inside of her cheek. "And you're not worried that they're gonna call the military on you guys or something?"

"That has as much likelihood of happening if we stay quiet and try not to be found out." A low sigh. "I am not bothered by any possibility, as long as we do not get trapped under another barrier.

"I do understand you. Despite the occasional... child to fall under the mountain, our kingdom has not interacted with human society in hundreds of years. Maybe if we..." He looked like he was about to say something more, and Frisk cringed. But he didn't finish the thought, only tilting his head at her. Then the moment passed. "Was that all?"

She shrugged. "I just really think you should be more careful about scaring the living daylights out of people. And telling people where you are and that you're free."

"I will take your suggestions under advisement. Goodnight, Frisk."

"Wait I was gonna-" The doors to Asgore's house closed, and Frisk was left out, alone again in the rain. She screwed up her face. "Okay then, asshole."

What was the world going to be like in a couple months, when the secret was out and monsters were declared real? As Frisk turned around and tried to shake her head of the music of Neo New Home, she pictured tanks and dust, or mayoral meetings and throngs of curious people. Angry protests and skirmishes that turn into real fights, or else celebrations and her new friends all over the news. Would they live with humans? No, that didn't seem to be the case with even the monsters in the blue world, and if anything these ones liked to keep to themselves even more.

It turned her gut. And yet, it was Asgore's problem. Not hers. Even though it had been enough of her problem to drag her all the way out here just to check they weren't killing campers. Not hers.

She had already said it, right? Just because she set the monsters free - just because she had some monster friends - that didn't mean she had to worry about what happened to them after that. Just because the other Frisk, Blue Frisk, decided to become the royal ambassador for their own world's monsters, that didn't mean she had to. It wasn't her problem.

But it kept rising up in her mind.

Like the chill from having soaked clothes. She hadn't been thinking that one through; when she returned home there would be no way to explain their condition to the teacher. Frisk shook her wet head and continued on.

Maybe she could just drop by Papyrus' house and dry off there. So with that idea in mind, Frisk whirled around and started walking. Admittedly, she wasn't as sure how to find it from where she was now. But what was the harm in getting lost in this grey city for a bit? The caffeine would keep her awake for a while.

While she walked she thought she'd have some respite after all, as the rain suddenly stopped falling and the night sky grew clear.

But in the next instant it was raining again.

And that wasn't the only thing to shift.

Author's Note: I hope that weather thing has happened enough in this series that it's clear what it means by now hmm

Next Chapter: World of Grey