I shivered violently, wrapping my six arms around myself to try and conserve my body temperature. It did little to help warm me; spider monsters may not be cold-blooded, but they're not warm-blooded either. I was making my way through a rather awful blizzard in a small forest, scouring for any sort of materials I could use for my sewing so I could sell handmade pillows and blankets woven together with my own thread. I was a lucky spider; my parents both inherited the web snapper disease, a virus that tampered with the thread they would produce and made it very thin and fragile. However, I wasn't born with the disease. I suppose I have my grandfather to thank for that, for he was lucky to be born without it either.

At this point I lived in a secluded little area in the Ruins. That's where some of my spider family lives. The rest of their relatives live in Hotland, and they've been working to raise Gold by producing and selling baked goods to passersby monsters so they could earn enough money to hire a limo to carry them to Hotland and reunite with their family. Since these spiders were generous enough to help and raise me, I figured the least I could do was help them out.

The frigid snow was far too cold for me to stand, though. Now, normally I wouldn't have a problem walking through the frosty forest that lay on the other side of the large doors to the Ruins, but when there's a snowstorm involved... I'm not even going to question how weather occurs Underground. Point is, I was freezing, and I felt myself going numb. I felt tired and sick. I felt cold. I felt sleepy...

I knew right then and there that ignoring the spiders' warnings to never wander aimlessly in a blizzard was a bad idea. I didn't even know where to go to get back home at this point. I was lost in a merciless flurry of blinding white frigidness. Hoping to find some kind of shelter from the wind and snow, I pushed on. Or rather, I tried to.

I tripped over my legs, which at this point I could barely even feel, and collapsed into the snow. I didn't even know I could get colder, but lo and behold I was trembling and gasping and weeping in the snow, lost and alone and cold. I could've sworn that would be the end of me.

Before I knew it, I blacked out. I couldn't feel anything anymore, which was nothing short of bliss for me. It seemed I was only asleep for a few minutes though, as when I woke up I still felt incredibly tired. Only when I woke up, I noticed I wasn't laying in the freezing snow. Instead, I was in some sort of abandoned shack. Granted the place was still very cold, but it was much better than being stuck out in the wind.

There were several candles lit for lighting, and the small dancing flames provided a tiny bit of warmth. The shack I had woken up in was fairly large. It had two stories, two rooms on the top floor and one on the bottom, with a rickety staircase connecting the two. The room I was laying in was fairly large, like the size of a living room if it were a small house. I found I was laying in a bed composed of cardboard boxes and old rags stitched together with old threads, presumably very fine strips of bark, as I could smell wood as well as mold and dust on the makeshift blanket. The pillows were nothing but stitched rags stuffed with crumbly leaves, and the twigs poked out of the casing and tangled in my hair.

Whoever had rescued me was obviously extremely poor if they were living in these conditions. Which, of course, automatically meant that my "lord and savior" would ask for a big reward from me. Whoop-dee-doo...

A soft voice from upstairs caught my attention. The voice sounded like it belonged to a young boy. Before I could question who the boy was talking to the door to the right room on the second floor opened. Reacting quickly, I laid back down in the bed, wincing as the twigs in the pillow poked the back of my head, and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. I listened as little footsteps grew closer and closer to me before they stopped, and I sensed the boy right next to me.

"I know you're awake," he spoke suddenly. "You don't need to pretend."

There was no point trying to fake my slumber at that point. I opened my eyes and looked at the boy, and it was all I could do to stifle a gasp of shock. This young boy was a skeleton. I thought skeletal monsters had gone extinct! After all they were the most targeted monster species in the Monster-Human War for resembling humans so closely. Then again, monster children didn't exactly battle in the war regardless of species.

"Are you alright, miss?" the little skeleton asked. "You were, well, out cold for a pretty long time."

I narrowed my eyes a bit. Was this kid trying to make fun of me? Or was he just trying to lighten the mood by providing comic relief to the gravity of the situation? Either way, that pun was absolutely terrible.

"Where am I? How long have I been here?" I asked slowly, glaring at the monster before me suspiciously.

"You're in Snowdin Town," the boy replied. "I found you in the forest two days ago and brought you back here."

Two days? I was unconscious for two days? And this boy had the skills and patience to house me until I woke back up? "And who exactly are you?"

"Name's Sans," the boy grinned - well, his grin widened since being a skeleton he had a grin plastered to his face by default. "Sans the skeleton. What's yours?"

"Where are your parents?" I pressed on, ignoring his question. I wasn't comfortable giving my name out to anyone I didn't trust.

Sans' grin faltered a bit and the white eye lights in his sockets shifted downward. "Don't got any. It's just me and my baby brother Papyrus."

So this little skeleton - who, by the way, looked like he was only eight years old - was living in a freezing abandoned house in a snowy town taking care of himself and a younger brother without parents? There's no doubt a reward will be an order.

"I'm not gonna give you any Gold, you know," I grunted, crossing my arms and turning away quite rudely.

To my surprise, Sans let out a little chuckle. "That's alright, I wasn't gonna ask for anythin' anyway."

"Really?" I looked back at the little skeleton in utter disbelief. I narrowed my eyes at him, recognizing this trick all too well. "Oh, I see. You're gonna pull the ol' I'm-gonna-say-I-don't-need-any-Gold-and-guilt-trip-you-into-giving-me-Gold-anyway card on me. Well, it's not gonna work!"

"No, seriously, it's cool," Sans insisted uncomfortably, raising up his hands in defense. "You don't need to give us anything if you don't want to."

"Well, good, because I don't have any Gold on me anyway," I retorted sarcastically with a roll of my eyes.

Sans fell silent for a few moments, as if he were deep in thought. He suddenly brightened up, and with a quick, "Wait here." he trotted up to the room he just came out of, which I guessed was his bedroom.

Ugh, what exactly is this silly little skeleton going to get? His brother to show me how desperate he is for Gold? Well... true, I did feel a bit sympathetic for him. After all, I know what it was like to be left behind. At least I had a whole colony of spiders to raise me; Sans doesn't have anyone to raise him, and he's also raising his baby brother on top of that. But what I said was true, I didn't have any money to spare. Perhaps if I did, then maybe...

No! This is exactly what I was talking about! He's trying to pull the guilt-trip card on me, just like everyone else does to any spider! Well, it's not going to-

I yelped, ripped out of my thoughts, at the sound of a dusty rag tied up with a thin strip of bark being placed on the makeshift bed. It wasn't the bag itself that made the noise, though, but whatever was inside it. I looked up at Sans curiously, who only grinned invitingly and gestured with his hand to the bag for me to take. So I did just that, slipping off the bark ribbon and opening the rag. What I saw took my breath away.

Inside the rag was Gold. There had to be at least 1000G here. And here I thought these kids were dirt poor. So... why did they look it? I noticed that Sans was wearing a very dusty and torn up brown hoodie with rags patched over holes that once existed, and he didn't exactly smell very pleasant either. He also looked very thin - well, of course he looked thin, he was a skeleton - but his bones were also dull and his eye lights were dimmed, which showed he wasn't well fed.

"How do you have all this Gold, but you're still living like... this?" I asked in disbelief.

Sans sighed and looked down. "Well... Truth is I'm constantly scouring any place I can for pieces of Gold monsters would accidentally drop. I'd never rob anyone, though!" he quickly stammered, looking genuinely horrified at such an idea. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I've been savin' up on Gold for a few months now so I could buy a real bed, lamp, and perhaps even a few books for my brother. I don't like how he has to sleep on those cardboard boxes, and he doesn't know how to read yet.

"Oh, and I'd buy food for him, too. I've been goin' through the garbage in the back of that restaurant on the other side of town, Grillby's, looking for unfinished food monsters would throw out. It's not healthy for Papyrus to be eating just scraps, so I make sure to give him most of what I find. He's a growing baby bones after all. But..." He looked up at me and smiled sincerely. "At least I wasn't unconscious in the snow where I could've died, no offense. You need to get back up on your feet, so this should help. I'd give you more if I had more; that's all the Gold I got."

Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to fall for any sappy stories, but the tears just would not stop falling down my face at this point! These poor, poor kids! This little boy was practically living the life of a wild animal scouring for scraps of food and loose change only to support his brother and not himself. And he gives me money that he could be using for his brother! I can tell this skeleton loves his brother very, very much, and it must be tearing him apart on the inside to give up all the Gold he's been saving up for months to buy his brother proper bedding, lighting, and educational resources.

"...No," I decided. Sans looked up at me questioningly as I shook my head, folding the rag back up over the Gold and handing it back to him. "You need this more than I do."

"What?" Sans exclaimed in bewilderment. He shook his head and gently pushed the rag until it bumped into my chest. "Nu-uh, you need it. I can always find more Gold."

"Not a chance, Sans, you need to eat." I pushed the Gold back.

"I got plenty of scraps behind Grillby's, you don't." Sans pushed the Gold back.

"I already have a supporting family, you don't."

"I got tricks up my sleeve to get what we need."

"You have a brother you should be teaching to read!"

Sans froze, his sockets wide in realization. I lightly winced, thinking I accidentally hit a sensitive nerve - metaphorically speaking of course. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't... mean to say that as harshly as I did. Look, I'll be fine. I'm a teenager and I know my way back home. You have a baby brother who needs to learn how to read. I'd say that's more important."

The child's smile completely fell, something I didn't know was possible for a skeleton, and he looked down. I noticed tears swelling up in his sockets, and he sniffled as he wiped them away with the back of his sleeve. "But... I-I wanna help..."

Oh, the last thing I wanted to do was make him cry! But I don't want to accept the Gold, his brother needed it more than I did. Perhaps... "What if... What if I just took some of it? Not all of it, but enough to buy your brother books with the Gold left over?"

Sans sniffed again as he looked up at me, his cheekbones tinged electric blue from his weeping. "R-Really?"

"Sure. I can take... 250G. Is that okay?" I smiled softly as the child nodded, and I proceeded to collect a few pieces to add up to said amount I promised to take. I wrapped the remaining Gold back up and handed the pouch back to Sans. "Thank you, Sans. You've proven to me that not all monsters are horrible cheep stingy freeloaders."

"Well, they shouldn't be anyway," Sans retorted with a confused frown. "We monsters gotta stick together if we're gonna break the barrier anyway, right?"

I giggled and smiled, nodding in agreement. This little guy was just getting sweeter and sweeter by the second. With a firm nod to myself, I made up my decision; I hadn't known this skeleton for an hour and already he had earned my trust. "It's Weaver, by the way, my name."

Sans looked up at me in surprise before grinning one of the widest grins I've ever seen on a child's face. "Wow, what a fitting name for a spider."

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. This kid was so cute! "You got that right! ...Hey, I have an idea. My family and I are slowly making our own money back in the Ruins, but maybe if we work together we all can make enough money to renovate your house here."

"Really? N-No, I can't ask that of ya." The glistening of hope and wonder disappeared from Sans' eye lights almost as quickly as it appeared.

"Come on, now," I teased with a playful smirk, deciding to give the child's ribs a few pokes. I grinned as he began to giggle and squirm. "I swallowed a bit of my pride. It's time for you to do the same."

"Alright, alright!" Sans squeaked, gently swatting my hands away. Once he calmed down, he smiled sincerely. "Thanks a lot, Weaver. This means a lot to me, and it'll mean a lot to Paps, too."

"Well, it means a lot to me that you helped me the way you did," I giggled cheerfully. "Give me about... two months and I'm sure I'll have enough money for house renovations."

"Okay! I can't wait to tell Papyrus!" Sans grinned widely as he leaned in to wrap his short arms around my waist. I let out a gasp of surprise and looked down at him in shock. Needless to say I wasn't used to receiving hugs, mainly because I wasn't really a touchy-feely monster and the spiders' legs were far too short and stubby to give me actual hugs. I found myself smiling despite this, almost as if the little tyke's happiness was radiating off of him and seeping into my SOUL. I scooped him up in my arms, finding he was surprisingly heavy for a literal sack of bones, and hugged him back.