Frisk and Asten continued to walk down the snowy path. The only thing disturbing the silence was the clanking of Asten's armor, the crunching of the snow underneath Frisk's leather rainboots and Asten's steel plated boots. Both were curious as to the nature of the other. Frisk was thinking to herself as to where this armored figure came from. He had a distinct and odd choice of words when he wrote to her, and why he was armed in feudal knightly gear was lost on her. Asten was curious as to why this girl was down here in a place like this and why she was dispositioned to him using force on this journey. More importantly, he was wondering as to what she, "needed to do first." On what sort of quest was this girl on… he thought to himself. After a long while of silence Frisk spoke up.

"So, you fell down here too, right… in the ruins."

Asten thought to himself, confused as to what she meant. Then he remembered and proceeded to take out his notebook, handing it to her after he had written what he wanted to say.

'Yes indeed. I was climbing atop a mountain when I lost my footing.'

Frisk giggled.

"I guess that makes two of us."

More silence.

"Hey, by any chance did you uhhh… see a talking flower."

'By chance I did. Spoke of you as being a mass murderer and promised to guide me out of the ruins if I slayed you.'

"You don't believe him… do you?" Frisk panned a worried look up at the figure.

'If I did I would probably take the next opportunity to kill you whilst you slept.' The figure looked down at her. She could see the playfulness in his eyes. She smilled.

"Hahaha… well I guess I'll have to sleep with one eye open then huh?" her face, as well as her tone became serious as she spoke again.

"That flower tried to talk me into doing things too… he just… creeps me out, you know?"

'Agreed, I could sense he had some ulterior motives as well. He seemed to be rather frightened by me when I crossed paths with him.'

Frisk began to laugh.

'What's so funny.' Asten began to look down at Frisk in a questionable manner.

"The fact that that flower was so scared of you!"

'So? I am not that terrifying, am I?'

Frisk looked up at Asten with that gentle smile of hers.

"No… at least not to me, but to some people you look like a walking apocalypse! I mean you look like you walked right out of a King Arthur book!"

'Who is this "King Arthur", is he a lord of some sort?'

"You don't know who…! Look, I'll let you borrow some of my books sometime when we get the chance, I promise."

The two continued down the path and eventually reached a cave entrance. As they walked through it became noticeably darker, but not dark enough to the point of losing visibility. It became warmer as well, with all traces of snow gone as they entered. The rivers and waterfalls within the cave hummed with the sounds of rushing water, giving the cave an atmosphere of tranquility.

A small monster began to walk up to the two. He appeared to be a young child. He had a large head, yellow body, and wore a stripped yellow sweater. Small white spikes ran down the top of his head and down his neck. He didn't appear to have arms. He spoke when he came within a foot from Frisk.

"Yo! Are you guys sneaking out to see her too? Awsome… She's the coolest, right!?"

"I wanna be just like her when I grow up… hey don't tell my parents I'm out here. Haha."

With this the child ran off further down the cavern. Frisk looked up at Asten with a questionable expression.

"Should we tell someone…?"

Asten simply shrugged and they continued further down the cavern. They eventually reached a guard post and noticed Sans behind the window. The two stopped to say hi. Frisk ran over to the wooden post with Asten right behind her.

"Hey Sans! What are you doing down here? I thought your post was up in Snowdin?"

Asten gave an enthusiastic wave.

Sans opened his eyes, he was taking a nap before the two had woken him up. Regardless, he was happy to see the two.

"what? haven't you guys seen a guy with two jobs before? fortunately two jobs means twice as many legally-required breaks." With this he began to stretch out his boney arms before setting them back down again.

"i'm going to grillby's. wanna come?"

"Shure, sounds like fun."

Asten gave a nod as they both looked at Sans.

"well. if you insist… i'll pry myself from my work…"

Sans began to walk out of his sentry post, stretching his back before facing Frisk and Asten.

"over here. i know a shortcut."

In a flash of light and a few seconds later, all three of them were standing at the entrance inside Grillby's. Asten and Frisk exchanged a confused look to one another before looking back at Sans.

"fast shortcut. huh?"

Sans gave a skeletal smile to the two of them and then turned to Asten.

"hey big guy, you mind if i have a moment alone with frisk? i've got to ask her something."

Asten gave a nod of acceptance before walking over to the entrance, seemingly standing watch for whoever walked into the restaurant. As he did this Frisk and Sans walked up to the bar on the opposite wall of the room. A monster who appeared to be made of pure fire, was cleaning cups behind the table. He wore a nice suit and a bowtie. He spoke to Sans as he took his seat.

"Hey Sans, weren't you just in here for breakfast a few minutes ago?"

"nah, i haven't had breakfast in at least half an hour. you must be thinking of brunch."

Sans turned then turned to Frisk.

"here get confy."

Frisk took her seat at the bar before Sans began to speak again.

"anyway. let's order. whaddya want…?"

"What about Asten?" She turned and looked at the metallic figure who was still standing vigil at the entrance.

"he's fine, grillby's usually pretty quick with bringing out orders."

"Alright, I think I'll have a burger."

Frisk was pretty hungry, the last thing she ate where some chips that were stashed in Papyrus' fridge. She had been secretly throwing away the spaghetti Pap was giving her. She didn't have the heart to tell him how it really tasted.

"hey that sounds pretty good." Sans turned to the suited fire monster.

"grillby, we'll have a double order of burg."

The fire monster wrote down the order and walked through a pair of double doors behind the bar table. Sans began to scratch the back of his head before saying,

"so what do you think… of my brother?"

Frisk turned her head to Sans, confused as to why he would have to ask a question like that in private.

"He's cool."

"off course he's cool. you'd be cool too if you wore that outfit every day. he'd only take that thing off if he absolutely had to. oh well. at least he washes it and by that i mean he wears it in the shower."

Frisk began laughing as she heard this.

"Wait… are you serious!?"

"yup… 100 percent kiddo… anyway, cool or not, you have to agree papyrus tries real hard. like how he keeps trying to be part of the royal guard. one day, he went to the house of the head of the royal guard… and begged her to let him be in it. of course, she shut the door on him because it was midnight, but the next day, she woke up and saw him still waiting there. seeing his dedication, she decided to give him warrior training. it's, uh, still a work in progress."

"Wow, I didn't know Pap was so… dedicated to his job. I mean I can… you know… because of when he tried to fight me…"

"yup, he's my brother alright and as you can tell he's a pretty kind-hearted guy under all that seriousness, you know…"

There was a pause as neither of them spoke for a moment until Sans spoke up again, this time in a more serious tone.

"oh yeah, i wanted to ask you something."

He paused, looking around the room and then back to Frisk.

"have you heard of a talking flower?"

Frisk thought back to her encounter with Flowey, the experience still spooked her. She didn't know Sans knew about him too.

"Yah, why do you ask?"

"so you know all about it. the echo flower. they're all over the marsh. say something to them, and they'll repeat it over and over… well, papyrus told me something interesting the other day. sometimes, when no one else is around… a flower appears and whispers things to him. flattery… advice… encouragement… predictions. weird, huh? something must be using an echo flower to play a trick on him. keep an eye out for me ok?"

Frisk was becoming disturbed by what Sans had just told her. She thought to herself, thinking back to Flowey, 'can that thing really be trying to sway other people to do things too? I know it tried to talk Asten into killing me.' She didn't want to worry Sans about it too much and opted not to tell him what the flower had tried to influence Asten to do.

"Yah… that's pretty strange… I'll definitely keep an eye out for you."

"that's not everything… you know the big guy, right?"

Frisk looked over to where Asten was standing, still in the same spot as before. She turned back to Sans.

"Yah, he seems like a nice guy… why do you ask?"

Frisk was becoming confused as to how Asten was connected to the conversation. He had already told her how he knew what the flower was, but he told her that he didn't believe what it had to say. 'Does Sans know what the flower said to him?', she thought to herself.

"he is a nice guy, he looks like he went through a lot in his world."

Frisk was confused by what Sans meant by what he meant by this.

"What do you mean by 'his world'?".

Sans paused for a brief second before continuing.

"haven't you wondered why he writes the way he writes? why he wears that old timey suit of armor? why he's armed to the teeth?"

"Yah, I have but…"

"look, just trust me when i say this, but i just know. ok? he's from a place other than our own… a world similar to ours but different in some ways. in his world, it's a very dark and violent place… a place violent enough to require a guy to need all of that armor. don't get me wrong, he's still a good guy underneath all that iron, but i could feel there's something that happened to him before he got here. so just take the time and try and talk to him in the way you do. ok."

Frisk sat there, taking in all the information Sans had just given her. She wanted to ask how Sans knew all of this but she thought that he wouldn't give her a straight answer. He was mysterious when it came to some of the things he said. Not only that, he was evasive when it came to giving her an explanation if he thought it necessary. She also thought of Asten, 'I knew something was bothering him, at least I'm not the only one who could see that…'

"I will… thanks Sans."

"that's not all…"

Frisk was staring at Sans, unsure as to how he could drop another bombshell of information in one meal.

"when that behemoth over there stumbled into this world i could feel something else come in with him. something… dark. whatever it is i don't think it'll be as friendly as our buddy over there."

Sans made a gesture with his tumb, pointing at Astren from behind him.

"just… be sure that you stick close to 'a' for me… if anyone knows what came into the underground with him, he's probably our best bet. Both of you stay safe out there for me… alright?"

Frisk gave Sans a reassuring smile.

"Thanks Sans, will."

"good."

The flame monster reappeared from behind the double doors, and placed two plates with a hamburger on each onto the bar table, across from Frisk and Sans. As the plate touched the table Sans spoke again.

"thanks for the chat frisk."

He dismounted his stool as he said,

"welp. that was a long break. can't believe i let ya pull me away from work for that long." Sans winked at Frisk as he said this.

Frisk had already started to engulf the hamburger on her plate. She quickly swallowed her last bite before speaking to Sans.

"Wait, aren't you going to eat?"

Sans turned around as he walked toward the door.

"nope it's for the big guy."

"What about the check!?"

"tell grillby to put it on my tab."

Frisk then politely asked Grillby for a box for the second hamburger as Sans opened to the door, heading out of the restaurant. Before he left, he turned to Asten, still standing guard by the entrance.

"hey… take care of frisk for me will ya?"

The armored figure replied with an affirmative nod of his helmet. Sans gave him a smile as he walked out, seemingly back to his post.

Frisk walked up to Asten, looking up at him through the slits of his helm as she always did.

"So, you ready to head out of here big guy?"

Asten took out his notebook and proceeded to write something, tearing out the page as he did so.

'With pleasure.'