The first monster the flower encountered was a dog. It was panting whilst looking at a pile of snow. The white dog wore some kind of armor and its eyes burned with perseverance. After taking a look around the area, Asriel realised that piles of snow were scattered absolutely everywhere.

The dog attempted to pick up some snow with its paws and added it into the pile. It then gave little pats on the side of the structure to make sure its proportions remained consistent all the way to the base.

Oh ! It was making a snow structure. He suddenly realised. Those piles of snow were likely what remained of previous failed attempts at building it.

The golden flower popped up in front of the dog and asked. "Do you want me to help ?" This sounded like something he could do. He had built snow monsters with Chara a long time ago and was fairly confident he would be able to do better than a dog. Although he would have the admit the dog was actually doing a fairly decent job at it for now.

He was not given a proper answer, however the small dog's tail began wiggling at faster speeds whilst it looked at him and extended its mouth even more. Asriel took it as a yes.

It was only when he had to get started that the prince wondered if having vines instead of hands would make the process more difficult. The lack of fingers was certainly not very convenient, but on the other hand, those were far more agile and could reach far higher than the paws he once had.

The flower wasn't even sure what they were trying to build exactly. So far, it looked more like a big snow cylinder than anything else. But he kept going.

The snow kept piling up and up... Asriel wondered how big were they going to make this thing. By now, it was significantly taller than him to the point where even the dog could barely reach it whilst he personally struggled to see where the top was which made working with vines more difficult. Very soon, it would be too tall for the dog and he would have to continue building it alone, which would be quite the issue since he didn't even know what they were making and it wasn't like that dog was going to tell him.

Or so he thought it would go.

When he glanced at the dog again, it had gotten considerably more exited to see how much progress they had made. Although, the prince could swear that the monster was a bit shorter than that just a minute before...

They kept building. The dog was still barely able to reach the top although Asriel was sure it should have been too big for it by now. It was only then that he realised that the dog's neck had gotten longer.

The taller the structure got, the more exited the dog was. The more exited the dog was, the longer the dog's neck became and the more they could continue to make the construction even bigger. What kind of vicious cycle had Asriel drawn himself into ?

Asriel noticed among the piles of snow what looked like the crushed remains of a dog's face made from snow. Wait. Were they building...

They were building a snow dog, weren't they ? More specifically, they were building its neck. But the more they built, the longer the dog's neck got and the more they had to build. They were never going to finish this snow dog at this rate. Not before it fell apart into a pile of snow just like the others.

"Hang on !" The prince called out. "Listen to me"

The dog tilted its head towards the flower.

"Try hum... Looking away for a few minutes ? I'll finish it. Then you can look." He proposed. If it couldn't see the snow structure growing, it wouldn't get more exited, the flower hoped so at least. Preventing the dog's neck from extending even further would be necessary in order to complete the snow dog.

After adding just a little more snow to match the height that the dog neck's had already reached, Asriel started working on the dog's head. The snow dog was four times as high as the sentry station near it at this point so it was quite difficult to give it a realistic face from this far down below. Nevertheless, the agility of the flower's vines eventually prevailed. The prince was himself surprised as the full extent of just how useful his vines could really be became clearer to him.

The last adjustments he made were on the base of the dog, so that it looked like the dog's armor. Since the slightest mistake could cause the whole snow dog to fall apart, Asriel took his time before calling the dog back once he was done.

"Here you go." He flashed a fake smile.

His smiles as a flower were almost robotic, they looked very happy on a quick glance, but a deeper look into the flower's eyes would reveal that he was empty inside. Those smiles were just masks he wore. It was forced, it was artificial, it meant nothing. Just a happy face that hid a profound sense of detachment from the world around him.

=)

But the dog was happy... That was all that truly counted, wasn't it ?.

So Asriel kept going further east.

More puzzles were on the way. Presumably set up by Papyrus as no other monster around appeared to like puzzles all that much. Whilst the prince did somewhat enjoy puzzles, he had a kingdom to save and decided not to waste more time. Thus, he simply avoided it by digging underground and coming back out on the other side.

He found himself in a room full of "Snow poffs" as they used to call them. Before Asriel could recall any old memory however, he was interrupted by the heavy breathing of a nearby Gyftrot.

A quick look at the frustrated monster was all it took for the prince to notice all of the mess that had been shoved into its antlers for some reason. Before the two of them exchanged a single word, the flower summoned a couple vines to get all of those weird decorations off of its head. "Thank you. A weight has been lifted." The relieved monster expressed its appreciation for the gesture before walking away happily.

Well, this had been very easy. Being nice wasn't all that difficult sometimes. Just providing a bit of assistance selflessly could go a long way it seemed.

The flower had almost made it to Snowdin town, but the bridge was blocked by two monsters arguing. Ice cap and...

...Jerry.

Asriel sighed.

Well, he did say he had to get a happy ending for everyone, right ?

Ice cap was attempting to convince Jerry to look at its hat, however the monster was too busy tapping its phone whilst complaining about the poor quality of the wifi instead.

The prince guessed that he should deal with this the same way as the rest, by finding a way to satisfy everybody. The flower popped up behind Ice cap and poke its hat using his vines in order to get its attention.

"Cool hat." Asriel attempted to compliment it so that it would forget about Jerry and focus on the attention it was getting from him instead.

"Where's YOUR hat ?" The monster responded arrogantly by pointing out his own lack of a 'cool' hat. There was less and less doubt in the prince's mind that monsters as a whole really had gotten more rude since his previous life following the years of war and the lack of hope.

"I don't have a hat, i wish i had a hat as great as yours." Asriel continued to flatter the monster.

"Envious ? TOO BAD !" Ice cap mocked him, no longer paying attention to Jerry. That being said, it didn't look any more satisfied than before.

Jerry let out a yawn before bringing out some powdery food and eating it by licking it directly from its hands. The loud licking noises that accompanied every mouthful were quite annoying.

"Hey ! You !" The flower addressed Jerry. "Cut that out."

"HELLO ? My hat's up here !" Ice cap pointed out, disappointed that Asriel was no longer looking at its hat.

"SHHH ! Im THINKING, guys !" The annoying creature ignored the flower's request before continuing to mumble to itself loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Man, the wifi sucks here."

The prince flashed a smirk. As tempting as it was to just ditch Jerry, he had to do something to help it. However, that didn't mean he couldn't do it in a way that would be appropriate for this monster.

"Maybe its because you're trying to connect to the wifi in the middle of an ISOLATED BRIDGE ? If instead of complaining all the time, you actually used your brain, you could walk to Snowdin town and actually get some wifi there !" Asriel mocked and gave advice to Jerry at the same time.

"OK ! I'll ignore you too." Ice cap decided before leaving to buy some nice cream instead.

Jerry muttered something under its teeth as it left for Snowdin. Glad to have at least dealt with one of the monsters, the flower turned around to take care of Ice cap now.

Wait... Where did Ice cap go ?

...

Hum... Mission accomplished ? He guessed ? The flower was unsure what to think of being ditched by Ice cap. Especially considering it hadn't even ditched Jerry...

Well, no matter. Asriel continued to Snowdin town. This place had seen very little changes over the last few decades. One thing that caught his attention however was a bear monster deposing a present near a decorated tree.

"What are you doing ?" He asked, suddenly appearing in front of the bear.

"Awful teens decorated a local monster by decorating its tree-like horns. So we started giving that monster presents to make it feel better. Now it's a tradition to put presents underneath a decorated tree." The monster explained as it got up. Asriel quickly made the connection between the decorated Gyftrot he helped and the monster's story. It seemed he had indeed done a good thing. The bear looked pretty happy with itself, looking at the tree. It appeared to not be needing anything right now.

Other than that, the streets were surprisingly quiet. The prince wondered where everyone went. He checked the inn, wondering wether there would be anyone inside, but all he found was a message from the owner saying she was at Grillby's. Now having a lead as to where he could find people, the flower went on the search for this "Grillby's" place. Probably a restaurant judging by the name.

It didn't take long for him to find it as the name was written in huge letters on the front of the building. And as if that wasn't enough, there was a neon sign near the entrance. The flower read the sign. It was actually for a special occasion : Grillby's was having some big discounts for today.

He summoned a vine and reached for the door knob.

Many heads turned towards him when the door opened. Most of being dog heads. There was a big dog playing poker with another dog smoking dog treats, as well as what he could only assume to be a dog couple which were all staring at him, along with some drunk bun mumbling something about new people. A few more people were sitting by the jukebox including a few rabbit ladies and a couple guys trying to play it cool but they did not turn around to look at him.

A few people were sitting on the seats of the bar behind which a fire monster was drying a glass using a towel, which the flower assumed to be Grillby. A monster was laying back on two seats at once, which Grillby was apparently okay with, one was munching on a burger, and the last two were talking together. A young lady and a skeleton with a bottle of ketchup in hand.

The flower looked around, this place was pretty crowded. And dirty. This was probably because of this special promotion going on. His roots already felt soaked with grease. It wasn't very comfortable.

Nevertheless, the flower made his way through the bar slowly, taking quick looks at everyone on his way there. they seemed to be pretty happy at the moment. Except for the smoking dog which appeared quite annoyed to be losing his poker game and one guy who was complaining to the ladies about how city folks might be moving into Snowdin in the future.

Asriel attempted to read the barman's body langage, but he hardly gave him anything to work with. Although judging by how many people were there, he was likely in a good mood as he must be making a lot of G right now.

"Grillbz says he's glad to see a new customer." Some monster on his left called out to him. The flower was unsure how it could know that as the one he could now confirm to be Grillby hadn't said anything, but he assumed it to be true. "Its not frequent to see new faces around here." It continued. "We usually always see the same regulars. Like that bun over there" It pointed at the drunk bun. "Or Sans, he's the most regular of all."

Hearing his name being mentioned, the short skeleton told the lady he was discussing crosswords with to give him a minute before coming the meet the prince. he wore a large permanent grin and a blue jacket.

"hey little flower." Sans began whilst holding his hand out to him. The prince instinctively summoned a vine to take it but as soon as he did, a loud farting sound resonated through the whole building.

Multiple monsters giggled, including Sans who pulled back his hand to reveal what he had hidden in it.

"heheh, the good old whoopie cushion in the hand trick. its always funny. anyway, im sans, sans the skeleton, what's your name lil' bud ?" The look in Sans' eyes did not match with what he was saying. Despite his friendly small talk, the monster seemed to be studying his looks. Hadn't he seen a plant monster before ?

"Im... Asriel" the prince responded.

"asriel ? like the king's son ?" the skeleton wondered.

"Y-yeah. We got the same name." The prince improvised. He hadn't expected that this monster would know him as the others did not make a connection between himself and the old heir to the throne.

"huh. that's funny." The skeleton shrugged before drinking some ketchup directly from the bottle.

"say." He added after putting the bottle down with an intrigued look. "where'd you come from ?"

The flower stayed silent for a few moments. unsure what to answer.

"we don't see new people in snowdin often and talking flowers aren't exactly a common occurence." Sans winked at him.

"Oh... Well... I was only recently born." The golden flower responded. Which was both the truth and a lie at the same time.

Sans somehow managed to make an expression that felt like he was raising eyebrows in interest despite having no eyebrows.

"where are your parents ?" He wondered.

"I have no parents." The prince responded.

Sans looked to the side. "must be tough growing up alone."

Oh, wasn't this just great ? Another pun enthusiast...

Asriel decided to ignore the skeleton's joke entirely. "I can take care of myself."

Sans kept examining him like he was a test subject while they were talking. That combined with his constant grin which never faltered and his odd curiosity regarding his past made the prince a little uncomfortable. It gave him a bad vibe. He wanted to tell the skeleton to mind his own damn business and stop asking things which didn't concern him, but he couldn't do that of course... He was supposed to be friendly with everyone.

Instead, the prince attempted to get it over with that guy as quick as possible. "What would make you happy ?"

"me ?" Sans seemed to be thinking for a moment. Asriel couldn't tell wether he was unsure about what he wanted or if he was wondering how much should he tell to the flower. "i think im good, i like doing what im doing."

"Which is ?" Asriel got curious for a moment.

"absolutely nothing." Sans winked again. Not getting much of a reaction from the prince.

"if you wanna make friends though, you should meet my brother." Sans mentioned.

"Papyrus ?" The golden flower wondered. Its not like he had met that many skeleton monsters since his rebirth.

Sans blinked. "so you met him already ?"

"Yes." The golden flower answered honestly. "He is an interesting person."

"he's pretty cool, don't you think ?" The small skeleton's grin intensified.

Asriel hadn't seen that much of Papyrus yet, but he had to admit the skeleton certainly has a sort of charm of his own. Especially compared to the other Snowdin folks who didn't stand out very much. He ended up giving a little nod as the tall skeleton had at least made a pretty good first impression.

"hey, you'd be pretty cool too if you put this much effort into things." Sans brought up.

The flower frowned. Sans had no idea how much effort he was already putting into his objective...

"hey, what's with that expression ?" The skeleton asked before his own expression shifted again ever so slightly. "am i wrong ?" Sans attempted to prompt him to answer.

Instead, Asriel laughed it off with a fake smile and giggle. Meanwhile, the sound of fists being slammed against the table in frustration could be heard coming from the table of the poker playing dogs.

"welp." Sans put some G on the table. "here's for my tab, grillby." The monster walked out of the restaurant under a wave of goodbyes from the regulars.

"Bye Sans."

"See ya, Sans."

"Bye bye Sansy~"

That nosy skeleton seemed surprisingly popular. The flower thought.

Overtaken by curiosity, the prince decided to follow him to see what were his occupations. The golden flower burrowed himself underground and appeared outside of Grillby's a mere second after the door closed behind Sans.

But the skeleton was already gone. Asriel tilted his head in all directions, but Sans was nowhere in sight.

Where did he go so fast ? And how ?

As he had little motivation to track down the short monster throughout all of Snowdin forest, the prince quickly gave up on the idea of following him and instead decided to go search for Papyrus' home, surely it should be somewhere around here, right ? Plus there were good chances he would find Sans again anyway wether he wanted it or not by hanging out with his brother...

"have you ever heard of a talking flower ?"

- Sans