Autumn had overran the festival. Her warm colors stooped and covered every inch. And so did her crackling trails that fashioned a mottled carpet for her guests. Just as well, since she was the one being celebrated. The grove was a way off from any sort of roads, giving the carnival a sense of aloofness. The gentle crunches and short chirps were unsettled only by the occasional screaming child or falling stall. Wooden booths stood from the dappled screen of leaves, and pastel colored monsters were wandering through both. Any other city would be preparing for Halloween by now, but not them.
‟I-Is Susie…alright?"
‟She's had worse."
Their shaggy friend was bobbing for apples. Actually, she was absorbing them straight from the cask like a vacuum. Monsters gasped at how far her jaws unhinged. Even whispering about what kind of bizarre digestive system she must've had. Kris had seen Susie pull wackier stunts, so he wasn't stressing.
‟Another." - Susie lifted her head out the wet, empty barrel.
‟The point of the game is to catch the apples with your mouth. Not to eat them."
The rabbit looked down at Susie, who was wiping apple wads off her grin.
‟…So, what do I win?."
‟Ye want a prize after that?"
‟Don't it say 'catch 3 apples, win a prize'?"
The two intently locked eyes. The wind slowly picked up, the stand's curtains flitted along. The festival was quieted. The bun on the other side of the stall stood tall with her arms crossed. Then, her posture broke, and she murmured scratching behind her ears.
‟…What d'ya damn want?"
‟Shirt."
An oversized nylon shirt flapped on her face.
‟Score."
Susie twirled back on the ball of her foot, and held up her prize like spoils of war.
‟That was amazing, Susie! Y-you're really good at these kinds of games, huh?"
‟You could say that."
‟Did you practice or something?" - Susie wasn't an acrobat or a successful con-man. So the fact that she'd already won two shirts and a pen aroused some suspicion in him.
‟Psh, uh, maybe?" - The way Susie's eyes contorted under her canopy of hair when she was caught out was endlessly amusing.
He decided to ask more directly, ‟More importantly, are you okay? That was like, 5 pounds of apples."
‟You don't mind when I eat chalk."
‟You've only eaten like, one stick."
‟You think the boxes in the classroom empty themselves?
Five pounds isn't that much when you get to my level. And, compared to chalk or moss, apples are actually edible. Probably my favorite fruit, honestly."
Noelle turned around, shocked, ‟W-Wait what!? But you said you didn't like apples!"
‟I, I did?" - - After 0.8 seconds of searching through her memories, the lilac wyvern gave up,‟…When?"
‟Last year, in the middle of class, when you seemed hungry, Alphys asked if you'd like an apple… and you said, you…you didn't…"
With each word Noelle cramped up smaller, and her words vanished into self-conscious silence.
‟Welp. Changed my mind."
‟Oh! G-Great!"
‟(…Hey Kris?)"
‟(What?)"
‟(Where do you buy your shampoo?)"
‟(…Mom buys it.)" - He'll never tell.
X_X_X_X_X_X
‟You nerds know what're we even celebrating?"
‟We celebrate Hometown's founding! Well, uh, and a couple of some other—"
‟Yeah, cool." - The giant dragon was sipping a mystery purple soda and a Sprite from her cup holder hat.
‟But, uh, I think it doesn't matter that much!" - Noelle changed from Kris's side to Susie's. Again.
‟That it don't. We could use a couple more festivals anyway."
‟More days off school?"
‟Yuuup."
‟I don't think my wallet'd keep up." - Kris said, appearing in the gap between Noelle and Susie.
‟You think you're on a tight budget?" - Susie's tightly kept horde of coins was all she ever seemed to have on her.
‟We-We don't have to play every single game, you know?" - Noelle said, moving from Kris's side to Susie's. Again.
‟Nah, there's no point if you don't play ev-is that freakin' sans?!"
The excited claw was pointed at, well, Sans. Standing in a light blue stall that seemed far too cheap to be made from wood and far too sturdy to be metal. Over him, was the word, ‟dartz". Written in white chalk. Wearing exactly the same clothes he wore a week before. And, probably, since he was born.
‟heya, what's up?"
‟Uh, we're here to play darts?"
‟yeah. makes sense, with the sign and all."
Sans stood rooted with his arms firmly locked in. Behind him, balloons were glued to a wall in positions almost engineered to be an infuriatingly tiny bit off allignment. Half the prizes seemed to be boxes with hieroglyph-like pictures on them. The ones who were in English were, well: ‟Experiment with and learn about radioactive decay today", ‟Hot cat maker for kids 5000α++!", ‟Pointy metal darts, and other great outdoor toys…". Almost in contrast, on the top shelf there was a suspiciously normal set of plushies, the carnival usual of bear, rabbit, everyman, Jockington, and Berdly with nipples. Before Kris could finish looking around Susie slammed 5 dollars worth of change on the infinitely sturdy table.
‟you get three darts. hit two balloons and you win a prize."
‟And if I hit all three?"
‟…you win a prize."
‟Heh, let me show you how it's done."
Susie took off her silly glasses, and threw three layers of nylon onto Kris. She cleared the hair off her face and took 3 steps back with the darts in hand. She lined up the shot, and— missed.
Thrice.
‟This game SUCKS!"
‟Y-you can't win them all, Susie! You still did good!"
‟Tsch, It was rigged anyway. Let's go, guys."
‟…I'll play."
The juvenile delinquent has always had adoration to throwing sharp things, he even dreamed to be a knife thrower, until he found out knife throwers are supposed to miss. He had to test his chops. Or, knowing sans, luck. Maybe if He won he could get a Jockington figurine or something, it didn't matter. He laid a fiver down like a drink, and picked up the darts.
Susie craned her head back, ‟Ooh, Kris'll play?! Let's see if he even pops one."
He felt the weight of the darts. Susie had her arms crossed in anticipation. Noelle was looking the slightest bit worried, like there was a possibility Kris might shoot her eyes out.
He'd never.
—Thunk
Maybe the teen really was suited to be a knife thrower, because that dart was close enough to make him wince for the poor balloon. It was impossible to tell whether Sans had fallen asleep or didn't want a metal tip in the back of his eye sockets. Susie had a slowly encroaching smile on her face, and Noelle looked as if she was ready to cheer Kris up when he inevitably scored the same as their friend.
His body extended with ferocity, hurling the dart straight into the first balloon, He knew He was off by a few centimeters when He felt His arm throw it. He also didn't realize he threw it.
—Pop
Susie's grin turned into a surprised frown. Noelle was stock-still, and she was fully concentrated on him. Sans raised one of his eyebrows without opening his eyes.
He aimed lower than the first shot, he tried to hit the balloon dead-center, he didn't want to rely on the Soul again.
—Pop
Hopefully the Soul threw that second dart.
‟Tsch, you got lucky. twerp." - Susie was happy at least someone got a prize.
‟Wow, Kris! Congrats!"
‟so, want anything? the dart set, maybe?"
‟Hmm…"
‟A teddy bear, that one."
That was probably the first and maybe the last time Kris would ever see Sans move his body. He took the toy from the skeleton's surprisingly thick mittens. It was small enough to bundle in the palm of his hand, and it looked into his eyes with the same, half-cute and half-dead thousand yard stare all plush animals share.
‟Uhh… Noelle, you take it."
‟M-me!?" - Her face turned polite, hands reflexively over her face, ‟I-I don't ne—"
‟You seemed to like plushies a lot…" - Kris's face had skipped orange, and had jumped from yellow straight to red.
For a moment, he remembered young Noelle gladly dragging stuffed animals taller than her through the leaves.
‟Kris, the ones in my room were gifts from dad, I don't—"
‟Well, this is a gift from me!" - He forced it up to her.
‟I don't like-…"
Noelle's guard fractured into mercy when she looked into the bear's eyes. She kindly picked it up and wrapped it around her hands.
‟A-Alright, I'll take it… Thanks Kris." - Seeing Noelle this demure was enough to make Kris forget for a second where he was. Or what. Or anything.
‟By the way, his name's Mr. Bearington."
‟That's about what I'd have called him." - She was a bit embarrassed not only that they both thought it okay to name plushies, but also that their senses were very similar.
‟…Hey, twerp?"
His moment was interrupted by Susie, looking destitutely into the distance, over sans' head and through the toys on the racks… Somewhere far, far away.
‟What?"
‟…Why didn't you get the Hot cat maker for kids 5000α++ TURBO EDITION?"
‟Pfft!" - Thatwas her problem? And did she have to be so serious when she said it?
‟What? W-WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?!"
‟Nothing! Nothing!" - He had no idea what it was to begin with, ‟I didn't see it."
‟…Fine then."
Very faintly, so delicate that it couldn't even be called a breeze, he felt something like a pull on his sweater. He almost recognized it, but didn't. But still, for some reason, he turned around. And it was just Noelle looking at both of them, about as flush as she's been up to now, holding the bear tightly.
‟Y-you two ready to go?"
X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X
Noelle's frail smile was the only thing distracting from the airless embarrassment. Kris had to drag her hoof and nail through the queue, and she only agreed because Susie said the Ferris wheel was 'kinda lame anyways' So they entered together, sitting opposite each other. But the right thing to say was far outside the cabin, along the distant clouds. So He hid his face in the window's direction, and said the wrong thing.
‟It's a good view."
The copper sunlight was ducking through narrow branches and bouncing off the thin trunks, escaping as a smattering of rays that perfectly found the angle to go straight into his eyes. Noelle actually opened her mouth, without the polite tone.
‟…You know, I used to think this wheel was gigantic."
‟You did?"
‟Well, we were so small." - She had a wistful smile, ‟…of course it seemed huge back then."
Eventually, the drape of trees lowered until the cabin peeked over them, and before they got a good look the rusted sun snook up from far, far away. In the dusty sky, there was someone staring straight through him. It caught him by surprise when he registered it was His reflection locking eyes with him. It looked like him, and it wore the same confused, reddened expression. But in there was something else. There was a foreign part somewhere under the surface. And at that time, His reflection raised an eyebrow at him. Shouldn't you be doing something else?
He turned his head to break the awkwardness, but he didn't manage.
She was looking straight into the sky with a forlorn expression. Her eyes focused on what he didn't know. Kris knew that face, he'd seen glimpses when Noelle thought no one was there to notice. No fake enthusiasm, no forced politeness, it was just an undecorated girl. Worlds apart from the clingy, wet-faced fawn he knew.
He was scared of that, like she could have become someone else when he wasn't looking. Like he was appreciating a portrait of a stranger. But that wasn't possible, Noelle would always be Noelle. He should believe that.
‟We've grown, you know…"
‟…Well, you haven't changed that much."
‟What?! What's that supposed to mean?" - She came back to herself, everything was normal.
‟…That was a compliment?"
‟It sure didn't sound like one!"
‟Uh, it's fine to keep being who you—"
‟Gosh, Kris, you'd say that! You're sodifferent from when we were kids!"
‟I am?"
‟Of course! You didn't notice!?"
Then the intermission ended, and the booth sank back into the foliage of the festival. He wished he could kiss her, tell her that He'd help with whatever she was worried with… of course, he didn't say any of it.
