Author's notes: Alright. So. It's been... more than a few months. I've been dealing with depression-type things, and I've always had procrastination problems; thus, the months-long delay. But I've been getting back on track of late, and hope to be writing more regularly.

This time around, they sped through the puzzles with ease. Sans even convinced Papyrus to keep the petting of dogs to a minimum, to save time. They only slowed down when they reached the puzzle Chara had caught them in last time. It was a tricky array of Xs, Os, and buttons, all which had to be carefully navigated or they would have to reset the puzzle.

Papyrus had already made some headway on the puzzle last time, so they had a head start. Still, by the time they completed it, the clanking of Chara's armor was sounding too close for comfort.

"you know, bro," Sans said, studying the puzzle to fix it in his memory, "i bet we could do it faster."

Papyrus grinned. Sans reached inside himself again, focused on that burning feeling. When he opened his eyes, they stood once more in the room with the frozen block of cheese, ready to run the gauntlet once more. This time, Chara was nowhere to be seen or heard as they expertly solved each puzzle.

The next room, to his surprise, held no puzzles whatsoever. Just one of the dogs from earlier, staring blankly into the snow and waiting for it to turn into art.

"wonder why there aren't any puzzles here?" Sans mused.

"PROBABLY BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE THIS DOG LIVES!" Papyrus pointed to a large doghouse just a little ways away.

"guess so. wouldn't put it past chara to put puzzles in someone's living space though."

The dog paid them no attention, but Sans was briefly worried about the other monster in the room. It appeared to be some kind of cow monster, wearing colorful clothing. Luckily, not only did it not seem to be intent on reporting to the Royal Guard, but it didn't even seem to know or care that they were human.

All she said was, "That dog considers itself an artist, but doesn't ever know what to create." She laughed. "It probably doesn't help that its brain is the size of a piece of kibble."

Sans looked over to the dog, which was staring intently into its cylinder of snow. Knowing that dog would never give up trying to make the perfect snowdog... it filled him with determination.

He was only a little surprised when his next revert brought them to the room with the snowdog. He was beginning to think that he was getting the hang of these time travel powers. This should have brought him excitement, or courage, or even relief - and yet -

Just after Papyrus had completed the puzzle in the next room, Sans had glanced back, for no reason he could name, and as a result he saw a glimpse of warm green and bright yellow, disappearing into the snowy ground. Flowey.

Papyrus had not seen, and Sans hurried after him, dread coiling in his mouth. The memory of Flowey's nightmarish rictus of a grin lingered in the back of his mind.

Several puzzles and one small dog in large armor later, Sans and Papyrus found themselves staring down a long, narrow stone path stretching across a chasm. It appeared to be the only way across, and Sans wasn't all that nervous considering his recent discovery of the impermanence of death, but Papyrus seemed apprehensive.

"Humans," said a voice from behind them - a familiar voice.

Papyrus jumped, startled, but Sans spun around, already grinning. "hey frisk," he said. "why couldn't the skeleton lie?"

"I don't know," Frisk whispered. "Why?"

"because he couldn't tell a fibula!"

Frisk snickered, but when they spoke they sounded uneasy. "I'm glad I got here in time," they whispered. "There's a booby trap in the middle of the path. You have to disarm it before you cross." They bent down and brushed some snow away from the base of a nearby tree, revealing a small brown switch, which they flipped.

Papyrus, meanwhile, was peering out at the stone bridge. "I DON'T SEE ANY TRAP," he said.

"It's hidden in the bridge," said Frisk.

He frowned. "THAT SEEMS... DISHONEST. I LIKED THE PUZZLES A LOT MORE."

They shrugged. "Anyways, Snowdin is up ahead," they said, quiet as ever. "Get through there and you're out of Chara's reach. But..." they hesitated. "I haven't seen my sibling in a while. I'm worried they may have gone back to town, for whatever reason."

"we'll try to avoid them?" Sans tried.

"That's good, but... it may not be good enough." They sighed. "If things go wrong and you do have to fight them, watch out for their red magic. It can be used to... break the normal rules of a FIGHT. Allows them to attack out of turn. So always be on your toes."

"WE WILL HEED YOUR WORDS," Papyrus declared.

Sans nodded solemnly, fighting to keep a straight face. He wanted to laugh - they'd already faced Chara twice, and Frisk was just now warning them... but of course Frisk had no idea, since this time around Chara hadn't laid eyes on them. Eyesockets?

Skeletons were confusing.

Snowdin was surprisingly small, and thankfully oblivious. Sans had drawn up his hood in an attempt at subtlety before remembering that he was travelling with his brother. Luckily, not a single townsperson seemed to recognize them as human, instead assuming they were tourists. The sight of such a friendly town filled Sans with determination.

Papyrus had wanted to stay at the inn, citing Sans' nap earlier that day. "nah," Sans had said, "i can sleep anywhere. but i'll sleep a lot better knowing we're safe from chara." Papyrus had, reluctantly, agreed, and so they had moved on - though not before buying several bisicles and cinnamon buns.

Strangest had been a conversation with a small yellow monster wearing a striped shirt.

"Yo!" the monster called out to Sans. "Are you a kid?"

Sans nodded.

"Oh, cool! I thought you might be, but you're not wearing a striped shirt, so I couldn't tell." The monster kid frowned, briefly. "Some monsters are weird about that though. One of those two skeleton siblings, they wear a striped shirt, but I'm pretty sure they're a grown-up! And now you're not wearing stripes, but you say you're a kid!"

"my brother and i, we're tourists," said Sans. "kids don't always wear striped shirts where we're from."

"Whoa, cool! Are you from the capital?"

"...yes."

"That's so cool! Have fun in Snowdin!"

"sure thing," said Sans.

Sans' interest was drawn in particular to the "librarby." He peeked inside first, to check that Chara wasn't lurking there, before strolling in and up to the front desk. "so," he said, grinning, "if this is the librarby, does that make you the librarbrian?"

The librarian groaned. Papyrus scolded Sans. Par for the course.

Sans ventured further into the library. Behind him, Papyrus approached three monsters sitting at a table. The table was covered with papers which on closer inspection were crosswords, word searches, and comics.

"That look in your eye," one of the monsters said to Papyrus. "You're someone who has trouble doing crosswords, aren't you?"

Sans tuned out the conversation in favor of browsing the shelves, selecting volumes that looked interesting and flipping through them to see if they held anything useful, or cool. One book rewarded him with,

"While monsters are mostly made of magic, human beings are mostly made of water. Humans, with their physical forms, are far stronger than us. But they will never experience the joy of expressing themselves through magic. They'll never get a bullet-pattern birthday card."

Sans frowned. That was... disappointing, if informative.

He went back to flipping through books. Another volume read, "Love, hope, compassion... This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist."

Slowly, Sans closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf. He felt cold. "hey, bro," he said. "we should probably go, yeah?"

Papyrus looked up from his conversation with the monster ladies about puzzles. "CERTAINLY, BROTHER!" He turned back to the monsters. "IT WAS VERY NICE SPEAKING WITH YOU!"

As they left, Sans couldn't help but think that whoever wrote that book ought to meet Chara.

Near the edge of town they came across a house with two mailboxes standing next to it. One was labelled "Frisk," the other "Chara." The brothers traded looks.

"if chara's in snowdin, they're in there," Sans whispered. "so let's just... walk past. calmly. without looking in any windows, or making any noise."

Papyrus opened his mouth to agree, thought better of it, and nodded sheepishly.

"cool," whispered Sans. "we just gotta be casual."

They casually strolled past Chara's house, past the shed, and into the forest ahead. Sans kept expecting to hear heavy footsteps behind them, snow crunching underneath armor. He expected the clanking sound of Chara in pursuit. He resisted the temptation to look back. That wouldn't be very casual.

The snowfall ahead of them was thickening considerably, to the point where he could more or less only see Papyrus beside him. They soldiered on. Papyrus wrapped his bright red scarf tight around his neck. Sans shoved his hands in his sleeves, grateful for his trusty blue jacket.

His legs were freezing, but he took a step, and then another step. He felt more cold than he'd ever been in his life, but Papyrus was with him. It would be all right. He took a step, and stopped.

A dark figure stood before them, blocking the path. Through the heavy snowfall Sans could barely see their silhouette, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Papyrus had stopped beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, holding him close.

The figure stepped forward, snow crunching beneath their feet. They stepped closer still, close enough to confirm their identity. Chara.

"GREETINGS!" Papyrus shouted. "MY BROTHER AND I, WE ARE... TOURISTS! VERY DEFINITELY TOURISTS. WE LOVE TO TRAVEL. WE JUST FINISHED VISITING SNOWDIN. IT IS A LOVELY TOWN! DO YOU LIVE HERE? WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

Silence.

"IT WAS WONDERFUL TO VISIT SNOWDIN, BUT WE DO HAVE TO MOVE ON! WE ARE HEADED TOWARDS THE CAPITAL. YES, THAT IS OUR FINAL DESTINATION. HOME!"

nailed it, thought Sans.

"Ha. Ha," said Chara. "Nice try. But you're not tourists. You're humans." They paused. "I wasn't expecting two of you. It must be my lucky day."

"TECHNICALLY," said Papyrus, "WE ARE TRAVELERS, AND WE ARE TOURING THE UNDERGROUND, AND SNOWDIN IS LOVELY, AND WE ARE TRYING TO GET HOME. I DID NOT LIE."

"I am curious," they said, "how you got past the trap on the stone bridge."

"ABOUT THAT." He hesitated. "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT HIDDEN TRAPS ARE INCREDIBLY RUDE? TRAPS OUGHT TO BE OUT IN THE OPEN, LIKE PUZZLES!"

"Don't answer, then. That's fine. It won't matter once I've taken your souls." A bone materialized in their hand. "Since you asked... I am Chara."

Author's notes:

If you call Papyrus while on the "rope bridge," he'll say, "THIS BRIDGE IS DANGEROUS, BUT IT'S VERY STABLE. IN FACT, IT'S JUST A ROCK FORMATION I PAINTED OVER. I THINK IT LOOKS MORE DRAMATIC THAT WAY."

"I ADDED THE ROPE, TOO."