Despite being in Dublin for a little under two months, Frisk had yet to actually visit the city docks more than twice – the first time being when they first arrived in Ireland, and the second to greet a ship full of new prospective monster citizens. Though they would've liked to explore every last inch of the city, like they explored the Underground, their duties as an active ambassador – and now the threat of unknown assassins – had left no time for playing tourist.

Still, they couldn't help but notice, in all their travels, that city docks tended to look more or less the same. Wooden boardways leading up to where ships docked, people rushing back and forth even in the early, foggy hours of the morning, unloading and loading crates of goods to be shipped overseas, and, of course, the open sea. If you faced the sea and didn't look at the backdrop of the city behind you, there would be no real difference between them. Heck, even the ships looked the same – old vessels that had been repaired in the aftermath of the Crash, rather than repairing the significantly more technologically advanced ones that had been almost completely destroyed.

This was the third time they'd visited the docks, and they looked no different than the previous two. There was a ship resting just at the end of the boardwalk, a great big metal thing, where crates of goods were being unloaded, but save for that, there wasn't much activity, and the dock hands were sitting in groups, mercifully ignoring the tiny ambassador shifting their weight from foot to foot and their adopted mother as they waited for another ship to pull into shore.

"Frisk?"

Frisk jumped, then fixed a small smile on their face and looked up at Toriel.

"Yes, Mom?"

"Are you alright? You seem a bit nervous…"

The monster's voice trailed off, and Frisk stifled a grimace. She noticed.

"I'm fine, Mom. I'm just a bit…" Their grimace began to surface then, as they cobbled together a quick excuse. "I'm a little worried. I mean, that assassin came after me only a little over a week ago. What if someone comes after Sans and Papyrus?"

The Queen's gaze softened, and she reached out to ruffle their hair with affectionate reassurance. "They will be fine, my child. They are adult monsters, are they not? More than capable of taking care of themselves."

Frisk kept their expression until the Boss monster had turned to stare back out to sea, then let the half-smile, half grimace shift into a worried frown.

It was true that the skeletons could take care of themselves. It was also true that they were worried about the assassin, and any of his comrades that might be around. Too many runs had been ended by them being careless, and getting a bullet in their ribs from behind just as they thought they might be safe.

But that wasn't why they were worried, not today. They knew that Sans and Papyrus could take care of an attacker – they were the monsters that were killed the least in timelines post-Barrier. They were worried because of who was coming with them.

In all the runs they'd gone through, Flowey had never, ever left the Underground before. When other monsters surfaced, he always remained behind – partially out of leftover guilt, they were fairly sure, from when he turned briefly back into Asriel, and partially out of a leftover sense of Mercy. After all, who would want a soulless, murderous flower who could kill people out of boredom wandering the surface?

But Flowey was coming here. Now. In this timeline, which had already changed so much in the course of a couple years, just because they had replied to an email.

Regardless of what he actually had to tell them, the flower monster's presence here might be enough to launch yet another series of changes that could severely alter the timeline – or, for all they knew, spur on the next Reset.

And that was without worrying how violent he might've gotten with his main visitors traveling overseas. Hopefully he would behave himself.

*Hey, stop brooding, the ship's here!

Frisk started out of their thoughtful silence, not brooding, and looked up. From the early morning fog, the shape of a boat was emerging – large, metal, possibly a refurbished whaling ship that had been adapted for the world after the Crash, and approaching with surprisingly little sound for such a large vessel. They squinted up at where the deck was, scanning what few figures they could make out from this distance for familiar ones – and found them. Two pale figures, one extremely tall and topped with a splotch of red, one arm up in the air and waving furiously in another blur of scarlet, and one shorter, leaning on the railing, and mostly blue.

They were here.


When the ship docked, Frisk was halfway expecting Papyrus to launch himself over the ship's railing with a cry of "HELLO HUMAN FRIEND!" regardless of how far it was to the ground. They'd seen him jump out of a three story building once – twice – actually, they'd seen him do that a lot.

So it was a surprise to see him actually use the ship's exit ramp once it had anchored at the docks – admittedly at a dead run (Chara snickered at the unintentional pun), and still waving one arm furiously, because he wouldn't be Papyrus if he didn't, but still. Ramp.

The reason for this abnormal behavior quickly became apparent when Frisk spotted a blur of yellow petals and ceramic clutched in the skeleton's other hand, just before Papyrus literally swept them off their feet with his greeting.

"HELLO FRISK! IT IS I, YOUR BEST FRIEND, THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

Suspended in the air by a deceptively strong one-armed skeleton hug, Frisk couldn't help but laugh, and did their very best to return the hug, despite both of their arms being pinned. They ended up just squirming a bit instead.

"Hi, Papyrus!"

"Papyrus, please, be a little more careful!" Toriel scolded. "Frisk is still recovering –"

"Mom, I'm fine." Frisk interrupted, turning their smile to her. "The monster candy fixed me up, remember?"

"ARE YOU SURE, FRIEND? I SAW THE CHANNEL THAT HUMANS CALL 'THE NEWS!'"

Their smile turned rueful. So he saw, huh?

"Oh come on, they're fine!" Yellow petals peeked up and around Papyrus's other arm, along with beady little black eyes. "You don't see them crying or screaming or anything, right?"

And there went the moment. Frisk sighed heavily. "That doesn't necessarily mean that someone's fine, Flowey."

"Oh trust me, I know!" The flower gave them a sickeningly innocent smile.

Uh-oh. I know that smile. That's his "I hurt somebody while you were gone and I don't want to tell you about it" smile.

Unable to demand an answer out of the monster in their present company, Frisk instead satisfied themselves with a stern glare. Flowey only looked more innocent in response.

*Shit, he hurt somebody really bad.

They swallowed, then quickly forced themselves back into a chipper act. "Well then! Where's Sans, Pap? We should get going! I want to show you guys around Dublin before we head back to the hotel!"

"'m right here, kiddo."

Flowey gave a little shriek, and Frisk almost followed suit – even though they'd expected it, Sans had this habit of appearing right behind them and startling them out of their skin, regardless of the timeline. Luckily, though, they managed to keep their head and instead turned to look down at the shorter skeleton.

"Hi Sans."

"Hey." He gave them a lazy little wave, eye sockets half-lidded in apparent lazy disinterest. "Ya said something about showin' us around?" Just out of sight from the other monsters, one hand made a series of signs in quick succession.

How soon can we talk kid?

"Yep!" They squirmed a bit more until Papyrus put them back down, then grabbed the tall skeleton's hand and gave both of them a wide grin. "And some stuff to tell you guys, too! You'll never believe who invited me to a party this month!" With their other hand, as Toriel and Papyrus turned forward and Flowey was blocked from sight, they signed back.

At the hotel. Soon.

Hopefully. They really did have a lot to talk about.


Several hours later, they got their wish. The skeletons were settling down in their own hotel room, a little down the hall from Frisk's, when Toriel left the room to make a call – apparently the skelebros had met a couple of monsters on-ship that had said something about Asgore wanting to talk to her – and some sweet-talking on Flowey's behalf got Papyrus out of the room soon after.

"Y'know, I bet that Undyne will be reaaally happy to hear from you, Papyrus!" The little flower said with another beaming smile. "You should go surprise her before the queen tells her you're here!"

"WHAT A GOOD IDEA, FLOWEY! I SHALL RUN TO HER HOUSE IMMEDIATELY!"

"Might be better to just call her, bro. She might be at work now, remember?"

"OH! OF COURSE, HOW COULD I FORGET! I SHALL CALL HER IMMEDIATELY!"

The taller skeleton bolted from the room, practically slamming the door shut behind him.

There was silence, for a moment, as the three remaining listened for footsteps, voices, or other signs that people were returning. Once they were certain they had at least a few minutes without interruption, Frisk turned to Flowey with a frown.

"Okay, Flowey, Sans said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Wait!" Several vines sprouted from his pot and began feeling around the room. "I have to make sure there's nothing here."

Bewildered, Frisk exchanged a glance with Sans – who shrugged – then watched as Flowey carefully checked every corner, the bed, the air above the bed and around the room, and as much of the floor as he could reach before he finally sighed and pulled the vines back into his pot.

"There were some things in the Underground," he said bluntly. "They were vibrating so fast I couldn't see them, but I could feel them."

Things that he couldn't see – wait.

"What do you mean by things?"

A huge grin – excited, a touch malicious – spread across the flower's face.

"Things." He stressed. "People. People that weren't humans or monsters."


Hey, would you look at that, new chapter! I almost thought I wouldn't finish this in time - the computer I use to type this stuff up had to be taken into a shop for repairs, and it took several days, so…

Hope you guys are hyped for this! I'd say that I was sorry about leaving you on a cliffhanger like this but… I'd be lying. Gotta get my kicks somehow, right? :3

Also, thank you to the people that told me what they thought about my Artemis Fowl/Starbound fanfic idea! Once Magicae est Potestas is over, I'll probably start working on that - people on Archive of Our Own seemed REALLY interested in it - but eh, we'll just have to wait and see.