Two Worlds, Two Souls

Chapter 7: Rekindling

Angel's Point of View:

Sans and I had been chatting for the last week.

It'd nearly been two weeks since my sister and I had fallen into the world of the monsters. Since then, Toriel had calmed herself quite a bit more. However, my sister and I still hadn't dared to ask her much about the outside world. We kept quiet about it and I would feed my knowledge both from reading as well as speaking with Sans when he'd visit in the night.

Sans had made it more of a habit to try and come every night, only one or two mornings that had been where he'd had to stay home for his younger brother Papyrus to keep him from worrying. I was very excited to meet this skeleton brother set of Sans and Papyrus in person. However, I knew that wasn't a wise idea. I was a human, and until I could get it out of the older brother if he would hate our kind or not, I was too afraid to tell him.

But if I was ever able to leave, would he know what a human looked like?

It constantly plagued my mind, worried that he would attack and capture my sister and I. They only need one more soul, or at least that's what Sans said, in order for them to break the barrier and leave this place. I couldn't help but feel constantly responsible, even if it wasn't my fight, nor my fault at all. I still felt like it was my own sin due to it being my own family that did this to them. I was constantly going back and forth between feelings.

My sister had picked up on that quickly, asking me what was wrong. I had denied her that knowledge, feeling it was probably better if I avoided telling her. She wasn't like me, these sins that weren't even my own wouldn't bother her normally, but I didn't want to take the risk. Just telling her our family was involved was hard. Explain the depths of my feelings and fears? Absolutely not.

It was early in the morning on the fifteenth day we'd been in the underground. I had just spoken with Sans only half an hour prior and learned a bit more about himself and his brother. While he was still slightly allusive as to what he did besides being a sentry and going to Grillby's, he talked often about his younger brother who was named Papyrus. Apparently, the differences between the two of them were much like night and day, quite like most siblings. Sans had noted that Papyrus was much taller than him, not truly giving me an estimate on his height. I didn't even know how Sans looked to compare other than the two were skeletons. But that didn't give me many details…

The squeaking of the boards a few feet away from me gave away another person up. I looked up from my work to see instead of my sister, it was actually Toriel that was standing a few feet away, nervously watching me. She was glancing through at the tenth or so map that I was recreating of the underground for if my sister and I ever left this place so that we had an apparent idea of where we were going. Besides that map, I was making was many of the notes I'd taken. I'd fairly well made a book of all the scribbles I'd taken to understand that of the monsters' history, or what they'd wrote of our kind and they're own and all their actions.

"Angel… perhaps…" Toriel hesitated as she looked at me. "Could we… talk?"

I couldn't help but feel somewhat angry and quickly covered my work. "Are you going to destroy this map too? I've been working hard on this for the last few days after you burned the last set. I'd rather not go through this again."

This caused Toriel to sigh and look away from me. She held her arm like she normally did when she fidgeted. When she had the courage to look at me once more, the same angered face flared back at her.

"I won't…"

I watched her carefully, not sure if I believed that answer. It was highly possible that she was just waiting for myself to move. In that time, she would throw some fire magic at my map and burn it. Yet… the longing feeling that came from her, the incredible guilt made me think again. I debated again with myself to see if I could trust her.

"Promise me that you won't. I'll know if you mean it or not."

The woman who'd taken us in looked at me with such emotion filled eyes that it almost swayed me. "I promise."

I could feel the genuine comment from her in that moment. I hesitated a few moments longer to see if that changed, but it didn't. I sighed finally after a few more moments of staring her down before standing up from my work, giving her a chance to talk to me.

"Very well." I couldn't help the bitterness in my voice. I was still somewhat angry about what had transpired. All I wanted was answers from her, yet she had snapped and acted aggressively even to the point of locking us up within her home while she made her normal rounds. "What do you wish to talk about?"

"I would like… to stop fighting…" Toriel was able to get out the words after a few moments. "I know it was wrong of me to keep you two trapped here, but I was so angry. I didn't want to lose another child to Asgore and his pathetic ways of trying to free us. He sits there, locked up inside his castle, waiting for a human to fall before taking their soul. He has six now that have been collected over the generations of us being here. With only a single human soul, he could have crossed the barrier and taken however many more he needed to free us."

"And because of that, you locked us up here without even a chance to try?" I sighed and sat back down at the table, my demeanor calming and Toriel relaxing a bit more around me. "Toriel, I never have had the intention of going back to the surface. What I wanted to try was to possibly befriend the monsters down here and make a place of my own. A place to raise my sister and call home. And while I'm not opposed to this place being my home, I don't like the impression of being trapped in the ruins for the rest of my life. How will I know if I can change the opinion of others if I'm not allowed to try? Even just making a single friend could have all the impact needed to keep others from harming us."

"I can see your point…" Toriel joined me at the table and continued to think while I went back to working on my map, still listening as she spoke once more. "However… I cannot be that monster. It would have to be another that is already on the other side of the door to the outside world."

I glanced back up at her. "Because Asgore is looking for you, right?"

I could feel the heaviness in her soul as she replied to me. "…yes."

"Okay."

Toriel's head snapped up at my comment. "Okay?! That's all you have to say about me not going with you?"

"I can tell just how much the king bothers you. You want nothing to do with him. I can respect that." I finished up a small section at the top of my map for Snowdin, hovering over the table as I worked before sitting back down to face the woman properly. "I would never ask you to leave, Toriel. If you don't want to go, who am I to force you? Obviously, you have some serious issues with him, with the way your soul is aching. I can only assume he was a close friend or family, maybe both? Both those kinds of ties can have the most impact on us, both good and bad."

Toriel hesitated for a moment before she questioned me again. "How do you know that?"

"I can feel souls." I set down my tools, yet I fiddled with them in my uneasiness with being open with her after all the struggle we'd been through in the last couple weeks. "I can tell what they want or how they are feeling to a certain degree. It's how I've managed to avoid those up the surface that were after me and my sister for… not so good reasons."

Toriel's eyes widened. "Not good reasons?"

I nodded to her. "I told you a while back that there was no one looking for us up on top. At least, not for good reasons. I meant that. The police were after my sister and I for… reasons that I'd rather not share. The only thing that I can confirm with you, that I'm fairly certain you already know, is that my sister and I were struggling and probably looked like homeless people when we first arrived here… that's not a very far stretch from the truth."

"So… you have no intention of going to the surface?" I could feel the edges of Toriel's soul getting lighter and happier as I mentioned that.

I snorted. "Haven't I mentioned that too many times to count now? I just want a life for us here. We have no reason to go back, only trying to make things work down here. I'd love to learn more about the people who are down here, as well as any way I could assist them perhaps. I want to find a good place to raise Frisk. She's been doing okay… but I know I could do more. Such as schooling, skills, magic… Right now, we've had such a chaotic schedule up until we fell where I never got to see her that I would be forced to send to her to library to read all the time to learn."

"…I see…" Toriel seemed so relieved that she actually slouched in her chair and covered her watering eyes with her fingers. "I was so worried you'd fight Asgore and return to the surface… that hasn't ended well for any other child that's fallen down here."

I shook my head at her. "The only thing I plan on doing is trying to convince him not to kill us… and that may sound stupid… ludicrous even." My eyes focused then on the map before me, not looking at her in the eyes anymore. "But I won't know until I try."

"No… your right… you've been right about many things." Toriel sighed and leaned against the table. "I'm still scared for you, my child, but… you're right. I can't hold you here, only ask that you do not go…"

"And I can't do that either." I felt my eyes lift back up to meet her own to show her how much I wanted and needed that. "Both Frisk and I both need to try. We won't know until we do."

"Well… if that's what you've decided on, I understand…"

I reached forward to place my hand on her own. "However… if there's ever a time that we ever need to hide out for a while or come visit, could we?"

I didn't think I'd see the woman move so fast to hug me in the entire time I'd know her. She held me so close that it almost physically hurt, if I didn't know the intention of the female monster prior. Her tears fell onto my shoulder and soaked into the clothes she'd given us.

"Oh thank you… I was so afraid…"

"That we'd leave and never come back?" I shook my head at her. "I doubt Frisk or I would be okay with that. I'd love to call you ever night we were gone if we could, but we don't have any working phones…"

"I have some!" Toriel burst from her chair, standing up with wide eyes and a… excited expression. "I have a couple of phones left over that work I could give both you and your sister. Let me go get them and we'll make sure they will connect to mine."

I raised an eye brow at her. "You have a cell phone? For someone who's hiding, isn't that a little out of place?"

Toriel snorted in frustration at me. "Just because I don't use it much doesn't mean I can't keep it."

I shrugged at her. "I'm only thinking it could be tracked, that's all. I figured others might be able to do that."

Toriel hushed for a moment before she shook her head. "It's not the same one as I had before I left Asgore, it's different."

I decided not to press the issue anymore. Toriel left at that moment to go back and search for the phones she was speaking of. I watched her walk back to her room and shift through a few items before I saw her come back with two small devices in her hands. They were simple flip phones, but they would do the trick. One was a beautiful ruby red color while another was a pastel pink color.

Toriel opened them both up and sought to see if they both worked. She hit the power button on the side and both seemed to come to light quickly. Toriel typed a few things into them, most likely her number before testing it. I faintly heard the sound of ringing from another room that must likely from her own. Toriel smiled at that and tested the second one. When it seemed that both worked, Toriel showed both to me with their colors glittering under the lights.

She looked between them and myself. "Which one would you like?"

"Red please, Frisk likes pink more than I do." I was handed over the small ruby red device and I opened it up. Looking at it, I was able to use the small buttons up in the top left and right corners below the screen to filter between the phone numbers it knew. I had two, Toriel's and my sister's.

"This way you will be able to call me whenever you'd like. Or leave messages if for any reason I'm not near my phone. It's been a long time since I carried one, so I will need to force myself back into the habit." Toriel began to use Frisk's phone to label each of us in its memory. I followed her suit before taking the other phone to hold.

I knew my sister would be pleased to be able to use this feature.

"Thank you Toriel, this will really help us." I placed the phone in the breast pocket of the dress I was wearing that morning. I had already been dressed since shortly after talking to Sans prior.

"Angel? Toriel?" We both turned our heads to face my sister who had just woken from her slumber. "Is… is everyone done fighting now?"

"Yeah, we're done fighting. In fact, I think things are better than ever." I gave Toriel a smile that seemed to make the older woman beam at us. "And we have a surprise for you."

"Really?!" Frisk hopped up over to me where she excitedly looked in at both Toriel and myself to see what it was that we had for her. After a few moments passed, I pulled out the pastel device for her. Frisk instantly squealed and snatched the device from my hands, looking it over carefully. She hasn't seen, let alone hold a phone since she was a little girl. "Is this ours?"

"Nope, it's yours." I rubbed the top of her head while an excited squeal escaped her once more. "Make sure to take good care of it. I have one as well as Toriel if we ever run into a chance to need to use them. We all have each other's numbers already programed in."

"This is so cool!" Frisk cheered as she held it in her hands. I watched as she laughed gleefully at the device. Toriel and I watched her dance around the room before she hurried off away from us to test the new device, calling Toriel and I when she was outside of the house.

I was happy to see the tension gone between us all, but I was worried for the time when it would come for us to leave. Would Toriel be okay? Or would she succumb to those powerful motherly feelings?

Witch's Note:

Hey everyone! Oh my goodness! Things have settled in the house of Toriel, but what about the girls leaving the ruins and starting a life in the underground?! They don't want to go back to the surface? What kind of a story are we in for?!

Also! I'd love to give a few special shout outs to those that have reviewed so far! You guys have no idea how much Mystic Girl and I love it when you let us know how you love the story!

RoseCentury: Thank you so much for being my first ever review for this story! You're fully capitalized kind words MEAN SO MUCH TO ME! (Snicker) Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Mystic Girl is laughing next to me as I write this. We really do appreciate it. Please continue to let us know how we're doing!

Ceoko: It's so great to hear that your attached to the story! Trust me, I've been over the deep end for this story since I started coming up with the idea! It took Mystic Girl a good few chapters before she saw the greatness of this story. It was about… chapter 10? (Chapter 9 she says in the background just to disagree with me.) But regardless! If you're pleased with what we've given you thus far, then you're in for a hell of a ride as we get to the later chapters!

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Thank you all so much and still please send us in reviews! We love to hear your thoughts! Can't wait to see you guys next week! Happy holidays to you all!

Halloween Witch