About an hour or so later, the spell left Lancer's bones, and his eyes opened. He felt an uncanny lightness in his cheek, a sort of absence of pain he'd never experienced before. Putting his hand back up to it, none of the red, none of the foundation or creamer, rubbed off of him. He kept on rubbing it in awe as he realized the skin was smooth.
He looked up at Ralsei, who looked back down for a few seconds and managed to whisper "Spell" again. His eyes gazed back up, pierced the castle again. The castle hung, a bulldog crouching with its mouth wide open, ready to guzzle down and demolish anyone who dared step in. Some of the guards were still standing outside, and Lancer crouched, turned his head away from the guards, curled up into a ball no matter how much it hurt his stomach or his legs. Ralsei muttered something, muttered something beyond a language, muttered something that Lancer could only feel, and that feeling tugged him into a cavern deep, a cavern wide inside himself. The world became a blur, and when Lancer whipped his head back around to the guards, their faces were distorted, as if a demonic water bead had spat all over them.
Lancer shuddered. This was the horror that came with invisibility.
The castle swallowed them all, the mouth of its spiked gate gleaming, sniffing them out, settling with a clang on the floor. Lancer could feel even Ralsei, who had emerged that night with black streaks on his face, swords in his hands, ready. Ready to vanquish anything, anyone.
And Susie. Wy Susie? She'd done nothing to disturb this. Her dedication was a tower, inescapable, unquenchable. It was something that he sure didn't have. Something that the King had beat out of his soul long ago. Lancer didn't know that souls could bear their own wounds until then. But the more he talked to Susie, the more he talked to Sans, the more that he saw their own wounds. He never saw a trace of their souls, though- just their speech, just by what they did. He could start to discern with an accuracy only Sans could triumph over, what their wounds were. Although he wasn't quite sure what balm to soak them with.
Maybe the treatment wasn't to soak them with any balm at all. Just to leave them there. Leave them there… all alone… yes, they needed space away from Lancer. Space away from his wounds, as annoying as they were.
Lancer gulped, and his insides began to quake, his mind shuddering harder than Ralsei had. "Ralsei...it's time."
Stupid. Stupid. Now, Ralsei would be able to find out. This world here was dark, yes, and fleeting, yes. But Lancer had spent one night in the dungeons, one terrifying night when his father thought that Lancer was acting just a little too rambunctious…
And now he was going to set his friends in there, too?
Lancer caught his fumble. "Time to let go. I think we're safe now."
Ralsei looked around, nodded, still wordless, still sagacious. Lancer jumped out towards one of the trees.
A poster jumped out of the tree, the King blaring, his smile crushing Lancer's. A thousand nights pounced on Lancer's head, one night in bed, another night in the dungeons, another night where the King had found his belt after almost, just almost, losing it. If the King had found out he hadn't imprisoned them, those nights would multiply. They would multiply...and Lancer wasn't sure if his mind would be intact to think of those nights.
And Lancer knew, in that instant, that there was no way in the world, in Heaven, or Hell, that he could say no to his father.