"There you are, good as new, my child," Toriel murmured, gingerly sliding her fingers along my elbow, checking again for any injuries she might have missed.

"I think it was 'good as new' about ten minutes ago," I hounded, yanking my arm from her grasp. "Thanks for the healing, though," I lifted up my elbow to admire Tori's handiwork. The skin had definitely healed at the very least, the black and blue now completely washed over by my natural skin color. Just to be sure, I gave my arm a little flick, sending a satisfying cracking sound echoing off the walls. "Jesus! Understatement of the year..."

Tori grinned and slowly pulled her arm away, an odd, faded green aura still clinging to her fingertips. Although I'd been careful not to lead her on, I actually still hadn't been able to fully wrap my head around the whole "magic is real," thing. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go ape shit and freak out like a toddler at their first magic show. Except this stuff was real, and not just stupid shit like "magically" pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. We were talking full-on elemental magic you'd see in a video game or RPG, or whatever else nerds bury their noses into in their free time.

"You're very welcome, my child," she sang cheerily. Ever since I gave her permission to call me 'my child," so about three minutes ago, she'd been abusing the privilege a metric shit-ton. And I mean a ton, probably around fifteen times already. I honestly couldn't tell if she was intentionally patronizing me, or if she was just dense as a brick. "Now you should be able to perform those acrobatics of yours much more easily."

"You saw that?" I said apathetically, assuming she meant my hand-spring during my fight with the frog.

Tori nodded. "It was quite impressive, actually," she admitted, refusing to stop hovering over me like some kind of giant goat-mosquito hybrid.

I shrugged, gesturing skyward. "I was a free runner back on the surface. It's the best way for me to keep moving without having to put up with anyone." Truer words had never come out of my mouth.

I'd been climbing, jumping, and tumbling over stuff virtually since I could walk. As I got older, I found that the farther away I was from, "home," the better, so I started to us my...talents, to clear my head and explore Ebott in ways I hadn't thought of before. 'Course it turned out that Ebott was the single smallest and most boring city on the planet, which ran me out of locals pretty quickly. Still, I never let that slow me down, and I kept vaulting and flipping over any walls (or cars) in my way, obsessed with perfecting the coolest and quickest route across the entire city, which is what I invested most of my free time into. Maybe I was desperate to breathe some life into the place, or maybe I was just really 'frigging bored. I was *this* close to finishing it when I...well, you know.

Toriel wrapped her fingers under her chin, deep in thought. "Free runner...free runner...oh, yes!" she declared, gleeful out of nowhere. "I believe I've heard of those before. Very interesting..." I figured she would've given the same response if I said equally exciting stuff, like "carpenter" or "accountant!"

With about the same amount of recoil that would come from a blow to the head with a rock, I realized that was probably the first direct answer I'd given Toriel in my time in the Ruins.

So to avoid any more of that absurdity, I stood up, taking a moment to stretch out my back, glad to finally have it patched up as well, and continued down the hallway with Toriel in hot pursuit. Our journey was cut short by yet another puzzle looming in our path. At least this one didn't have any levers in sight, but the spikes were still obnoxiously omnipresent. One step forward, two steps back, in my opinion.

The hallway ended abruptly in a sea of spikes set over a pit filled to the brim with the same sloshy water I'd seen running through the aqueducts not too far back. I could see the path of spikes come to a halt and the hallway open back up on the other side of the room. Problem was, there was absolutely no way to deactivate the spikes, as far as I could tell. No levers, switches...giant eyeballs, nothing. Normally I would've just swam across, but I'd rather risk my life with the spikes than grapple in that shit, so...

"Well, this is the puzzle, but..." Toriel said, melancholic.

"Yeah? Go on?" I goaded. By this point I figured I could say just about anything to her without getting any sort of backlash.

Tori's brow was furrowed as it always was when she was fretting over something, which was about eighty percent of the time. "Hmm...would you mind taking my hand for a moment?" she asked, then without waiting for a response, snatched me by the wrist and started towards the spikes, dragging me along with her.

"Tori, what the hell?!" I yelped, struggling against her now iron-clad grip, but it was no use.

For one agonizingly terrifying second, I panicked. It looked as if she was moving to hurl me onto the spikes. The thought that Tori's inevitable betrayal had finally come blew through my head, her amenity towards me revealed to be a ploy to kill me as I'd feared all along. Until now I had pushed that thought deep into the back of my mind, desperate to have at least one person I could trust. Or maybe she'd originally wanted to help me, but had finally grown tired of having my ass around.

...Then I realized, if that were the case, we wouldn't still be walking right now. So I took another look around and saw the intrepid Tori was actually guiding me through the barbs, weaving her way in a methodical zig-zaging pattern across the cavern. The spikes retracted as she moved around them, kind of like hermit crabs when they come into contact with anything ever.

I held my breath until we were finally across and Tori's grip loosened enough for me slip free.

"This puzzle seemed a little too dangerous for now," she explained.

I promptly drop-kicked any lingering thoughts of betrayal into next week. Why the hell did I bother tormenting myself with that crap? Not everyone's out to get you, I scolded, even though it seemed like Toriel would be the only one on my side. Power of two, I guess?

"Dangerous, asinine, and a waste of time. The ideal model of a puzzle," I spouted in a fake 'eccentric billionaire' kind of tone, trying not to hint towards my suspicions from seconds before. Even though she was dense, and probably couldn't tell if I mistrusted her if I'd painted it on my shirt in giant red letters, The last thing I needed was to risk her being suspicious of my suspicions towards her suspiciousness.

I pressed on without waiting for a response, blindly rushing into the room. It was absurdly long, and I mean long, about the length of a football field at least, and empty aside from the usual decals of overgrown vines and lurid landscape, save for a single gray dot at the far end of the room. I honestly couldn't tell what it was from this far away.

Out of nowhere, Toriel appeared right behind my shoulder, giggling like a schoolgirl who just found out Courtney had been "doing some favors" for star quarterback Bobby Simmons.

"What's so funny?" I hissed, whipping around to face her.

Tori made an attempt to cover her mouth and muffle the laughter. Key word attempt. "My apologies," she chuckled, clearing her throat. "It's just...I had planned to challenge you to cross the room without me by your side, to test your independence, but you would probably want nothing more than that, wouldn't you?" she finished with a sigh...almost of defeat.

I didn't fully know what to make of that at first. Was she trying to make me feel bad or sympathetic for her? Well it wasn't working.

...Efficiently. "Aw, don't feel bad. I could list at least two things I'd want more than that," I teased, flashing her my winning grin (others may refer to it as a "smirk." Yes, that was actually my best attempt at a smile.)

That seemed to cheer her up a little. It struck me as bizarre how I seemed to be constantly swaying Toriel's emotions in a loop of disappointment-to-happiness, as if I were her eternal center of attention. Or her therapist. Which, now that I'm thinking about it, didn't seem too far off. This was at least the third time in an hour something concerning me had upset her and I had to bring her back to reality. And, hopefully, the last.

"Let us keep moving, then," Tori pressed, a hint of sadness still dribbling out along with each word. A very, very small part of me admired her dedication to tolerating me for as long as possible.

But where did that dedication come from? Why would anyone go to so much trouble to help someone they, first of all, don't know, and second of all, is intentionally rude and obnoxious? Was she just incredibly kind...or...?

I shook my head. I was NOT drifting back to the "Toriel is a mass murderer" theory. Anthropomorphic goat murderers could and shouldbe saved for bad fanfiction.

The hallway took a full minute just to walk through due to its agonizing size. I wouldn't have been able to tell we were getting anywhere if not for the gray speck of a pillar drawing closer and closer. A breath of relief escaped my lips as we neared the end of the room.

"Jeez, how much farther 'till we get out of this-" I bit my tongue before I added "shitheap."

When no response came my way, I glanced around and found Toriel's staring at the column, now close enough to determine what it was.

"I was going to be hiding behind this pillar when you reached the other end of the room," Tori explained when she caught my gaze.

"Why bother 'testing my independence' in the first place?" I demanded, adding air quotes to dramatically increase my bitchiness ten fold. "You seem to enjoy sticking to me and monitoring my every move a hell of a lot."

"That's exactly the point, my child!" she exclaimed, nervously tugging on her ear.

Huh. Hadn't heard her yell before. That was...weirdly gratifying. "Meaning...?" I asked, genuinely curious for once.

Tori's eyes were darting around the room, focusing on anything but me. Clearly, I wasn't going to like this. "I must attend to some buisness, and you must wait here alone for awhile," she blurted. Then, before I could get another word in, added, "Please remain here, it's dangerous to explore by yourself-"

"-Wait a minute, wait a minute," I cut in, folding my arms in front of my chest. "You still think I can't take care of myself?"

Toriel, sighing, finally decided to look me in the eye again. Big mistake. I knew fully well I was glaring daggers at her. "I knew you wouldn't enjoy the suggestion..."

"Fine."

The sight of Toriel trying to hide her brain scrambling at my backpedaling was enough of a reward for agreeing with her. "W-what?"

I gave her my best attempt for a real smile, a mask for the gears turning in my head. "I get it. You don't want me going off alone like an idiot and hurting myself." I said coolly. "Totally fine by me. I'll wait here until you get back."

Her eyes widened. "O-oh...my apologies, I suppose I expected a little more resistance, my child."

And that's what makes this so easy. "Who, me? Of course not," I beamed.

Tori's brow raised, and the furs around her forehead crinkled closer to one another. Although clearly still suspicious of me, she turned and fished around in her pocket for a moment, eventually pulling out...something. Her hand was too big to see what she actually holding. "Here, I will you a cell phone," she sang, dropping it into my awaiting hand with a thud.

Immediately, I recoiled. She might as well have handed me a king cobra. "What the heck is this?" I spat reflexively.

"Um...it's a cell phone."

"No." I held it up closer to her face, challenging her. "This is not a cellphone. This is a brick with an antenna." I wasn't exaggerating...much. The hunk of plastic seemed older than the Ruins themselves, one of those giant, impractical, piece-of-shit cellphones from the seventies and eighties that couldn't even fit in your pocket. I'd never owned a cellphone back on the surface, solely because I had no incentive to ever go out and buy one for myself, so the idea was sort of entirely lost on me. But even I knew this thing was outdated by a good thirty-forty years.

I sighed, begrudgingly shoving it in my back pocket. "Whatever, it'll do, I guess."

Toriel nodded, probably thankful for any cooperation she could get out of me. "If you have a need for anything, just call." With that, she stood up to leave, filing out of the room quickly, casting one last sentimental glance at me over her shoulder. "Be good, alright...?" she begged, before speeding off to who knows where. Even if it was only a temporary split-up, I could tell it was hard for her to leave me all by myself just by the shakiness in her steps. Hell, she acted like it was the last time we were ever going to see each other.

And she might just be right. "...Goodbye," I whispered coldly, too quiet for her to overhear.

I counted two minutes out in my head and followed in the exact same direction. "Sucker," I congratulated myself. Toriel had taught me well over enough to get through the rest of this place, and if the frog was a good enough example, the rest of the monsters lurking around her probably sucked too. She'd been an ample enough guide, and somewhere deep inside of me, there was a half-decent person admiring her kindness, but I knew fully well it was time for me to move on. She'd been dropping hints about me staying with her in the Ruins, and that seriously interfered with my agenda. I already had sooo much on my plate, namely anything else.

...But if I was so sure I wasn't going to see her again, why couldn't I bring myself to leave the phone behind?

As if on cue, it rang the second after I'd taken my first steps of freedom.

I froze in my tracks. This was the part where I chucked it at the wall and laughed maniacally as it exploded into millions of tiny shards of cheap plastic.

"Hello?" I asked, although it came out more like a sigh. What I wanted to say was, "Why the hell are you calling!? It's been two minutes!"

"Hello, this is Toriel."

"What's up?" Damn, who knew sounding casual could be so hard?

"You have not left the room yet, have you?" she asked, although it came out so garbled I could barely tell what she was saying. This thing's speaker sounded less coherent than a toddler trying to talk while gargling water and balancing on a tightrope above a pit filled with giant bloodthirsty frogs whom have a bone to pick with humanity.

Wait...what was I talking about again? "Nope," I lied.

"Good, there are a few puzzles ahead I have yet to explain, and it would be dangerous to solve them yourself."

I nodded, even though she had no way of seeing it. I told myself this was the reason for me holding onto the phone; milking a little more of Toriel's vast information regarding the Ruins.

Er...no goat pun intended. "Thanks for the heads up, Tori."

"Excuse me?"

I instinctively gritted my teeth. "Uh…nothing?"

Nothing but silence on the other end. Then, "Okay, remember, be good." The infuriatingly loud click signaled that she hung up.

I jammed the phone back into my pocket, practically foaming at the mouth. Who did she think she was, my mother?

"Be good? Like hell I will…" I muttered to my new best friend, the almighty stick. I took a minute to admire it's peeling bark and utter wimpiness. "Looks like it's just you and me now, pal." And so, our intrepid heroes consisting of a whiny teenager with a shitty attitude and a stick of undisclosed origins marched onward into the unknown.

What could possibly go wrong?

The path split right away, with the choice of either right or left. I veered left without much thought, finding a room with nothing but a stainless glass bowl sitting on a pedestal.

My stomach made a growling sound as if the world was coming to an end. It was filled up to the very brim with...candy! A note was taped to the bowl, reading "take one."

Obviously, I could tell it was a trap from a mile away. Might've worked, too, if I had the IQ of a squirrel-

-I dug around in the bowl and fished out a piece from the bottom. That's where the best ones always hid, at least in my experience. Admittedly, I had a gigantic sweet tooth, and the only time of year I ever actually got any was around the same time any other kid had any, which was almost always around Halloween.

My fingers fumbled with the wrapper, labeled simply as "Monster Candy." Even in a life-or-death situation, I was a sucker for this shit. 'Sides, it was probably left out by Toriel herself. It certainly seemed like something someone as insufferably nice as her would do.

I popped the candy in my mouth and was halfway to reaching for another when the taste kicked in. My taste buds were assaulted with so many different flavors at once I almost...scratch that, definitely gagged. It felt like someone was physically trying to beat the flavor into my tongue.

The flavor itself tasted like it was trying way too hard to be a mixture of every single flavor ever shoved into a candy, from chocolate to tang to sweet to sour to caramel to fudge to...

...Well I could taste a distinct lack of any licorice flavoring, but other than that...

Somehow, the candy hung around long enough to be swallowed instead of spat at the ground in disgust as I originally intended.I stood there for a fair amount of time smacking my lips & clicking my tongue and trying to figure out if what I'd eaten would eventually kill me or not. It left one hell of an aftertaste, for sure, so strong I was positive it would stick with me for life. I grabbed a couple more pieces and stuffed them next to the cell phone just in case I needed to poison someone.

Following in my good fortune, the path didn't lead anywhere else, forcing me to double back after only half a minute of exploring. What a great friggin' start. Maybe next time I can explore two whole rooms before I hit a dead end.

The very millisecond I reentered the other room, another horrifying monster jumped out at me, eager to rear it's ugly mug my way. Maybe, "jumped out," is a bit of a stretch, it more so meekly hovered over to me from behind a corner. Actually, while I'm at it, "horrifying" was a stretch and a half, it was closer to horri-fied. The creature quivered every time I batted an eye, and looked like staying and fighting was the last thing on its mind. 'Couldn't really blame him, since everything about him screamed, or whispered, wimpy, from his pathetically skinny legs dangling from his tiny body, wings on par with a bee's size-wize, complete with antennas sagging so low he had to push them out of his eyes every two seconds.

I felt...kind of sorry for it, actually. All the poor guy wanted to do was be semi-threatening, but he just...sucked. "Uh, are you ok-"

"-EEEEEEP!" It screeched, then it zipped away deeper into the ruins.

I blinked. That's one way to clear a room, I guess.

I made my way around to the other path and followed it. This one at least seemed to go somewhere, and-

"-Whoa, shit!" I lost my footing as the floor collapsed beneath me. I scrambled for a handhold, latching on to the remainder of the stable floor as rubble and dust tumbled around me. When the sounds of stone bashing against stone finally died out, I pulled myself up, avoiding the jagged fingers reaching out from the edge.

I sat up in an attempt to catch my breath. Wasn't working. I brought my fingers close to my face to examine them. Nearly every individual finger was bleeding.

"Can I catch a damn break for once?" I complained, suddenly wishing for more of Toriel's healing.

When I finally felt like getting over myself, which took awhile, believe me, I distanced myself from the pit, took a running start, and leapt over it, no problem. Fortunately, my feet met stable ground. The monsters had certainly stepped up their game since lever pulling puzzles.

I was halfway out the room when I realized I had dropped the Almighty stick. Of course, when I went back to check for it, I found the hole I'd made was only about five feet deep, with those crimson leaves from earlier pooling where the Almighty stick lay, cushioning the fall.

So, needless to say, by the time I'd hopped in, grabbed the stick, and climbed back out, I felt ready to pummel the next ANYTHING I saw so far into the ground you'd need a god damn jackhammer, shovel drill, and whatever the hell else you used at a mining plant to dig their ass out.

And who else would have the honor of talking to me than ole' goat mom herself?

It took every single thread of willpower I had left to refrain from smashing the phone. "WHAT?" I screamed into the receiver so loudly I figured I'd shattered her eardrum.

"...Oh dear, you've left the room, haven't you?"

"Does it really matter to you? Go ahead, what were you gonna say?" I dared. It was really hard to hold a phone steady when your hands are seething in rage.

"Of course your safety matters to me, my child," she swore, honest concern present in her voice. Then, muffled, came, "Ugh, it was irresponsible of me to leave them by their self..."

I didn't have it in me to care. "WHAT DID YOU WANT?" I demanded. My screaming had grown just a few decibels louder than a nuclear explosion.

Toriel went dead for a moment, then responded in an almost desperate tone, "Do you prefer cinnamon or butterscotch?"

For one blissful split second, I felt absolutely nothing. Then the seething rage returned, burning through every fiber of my body like wildfire. My lips pursed as I brought the phone closer to my mouth.

"Hey, Toriel?" I began in a calm, even tone.

"...Yes?" she asked, wary.

"I literally have never given less of a shit about anything in my entire life," I whispered through gritted teeth. And then I hung up.

A few moments later, she called back. I don't know exactly what I'd expected, but it sure as hell wasn't; "Just for that, I think I might just leave both of them off the surprise I had planned for you. Would you prefer that instead?"

I already had a comeback prepared, but it shot off into Jupiter after she said that. She'd been so neglectful to acknowledge my dickishness for the longest time I had assumed she either didn't get it or just didn't care. And yet, here she was, finally firing back at my batallion of insults and jabs. Even if they were only pellets, they stung harder than I would ever care to admit.

It was made even worse by the fact that she wasn't yelling. Why couldn't she be yelling? At least then I would've gotten riled up in a shouting match.

I'd never expected the next four words to ever slither out of my hellhole of a mouth. "I-I'm sorry, Toriel..."

"Why should I be?" my subconscious argued. She'd only saved me from a demonic flower, healed me to full health, complimented me at every possible opportunity, taught me of the dangers I'd be threatened with...promised me a surprise? Even as I was so sure I wouldn't see her again?

No, wouldn't let my ego get in the way of my better judgement. Just this once.

"Thank you, my child," Tori said calmly. "I'd appreciate just a little more respect from now on, and I shall show you no less, alright?"

I smiled to myself. "It's a deal. By the way, cinnamon and butterscotch are both great."

"Wonderful! Oh, and seeing as you're traveling on your own, it's important for you to know that if any harm comes your way, eat something. It should restore your well-being somewhat."

Okay...weird advice, but okay. "Thanks, Toriel. Looking forward to when we meet up again."

I could feel her mood light up from across the universe. "As am I, my child. Please stay safe." ...Click!

I hopped to my feet, suddenly not so aware of the pain in my fingers, and moved on again with a new spring in my step and a new determination to survive plastered in my head.