It had been a few days since Chara had arrived at New Home with the others, and they could honestly say that it was the best bout of downtime they'd ever had.
It was late, past their bedtime, but Chara wasn't tired yet. Toriel was pretty strict about curfew though, so Chara couldn't go out to burn off energy. They settled for reading a book in bed.
It was one they had borrowed from their new brother, Asriel, and it had a bunch of monster myths and fairy tales in it. Chara had done plenty of reading on the surface, since it was a good solo activity, and was picking up the differences and similarities to human myths as they read.
They were finding a lot of stories about making friends in the monster book. Even when characters ended up in a FIGHT they somehow managed to pull off being friends by the end of the story. Chara would have scoffed at the idea if they'd read it on the surface, but they could picture it happening with the monsters. There were some stories that had the main character beat their adversary through cleverness or puzzles, and those weren't too different from surface stories.
Still, they had yet to come across any 'hero beats the scary creature through violence and willpower' stories in the monster myths. They wondered what Asriel would think of some of the Greek myths they'd read.
There was a knock at the door, and Chara looked up from their book to see Toriel peaking into the room.
"Ah, you are still awake my child. You should get some rest after I leave, but I had a question for you first."
"Sure Goat Mom, shoot." Chara said, closing the book. Toriel smiled, as she always did when Chara called her that.
"As you know, we have scheduled the official announcement of you and Mary's adoption at the end of the week. Since it will be your first royal function I am making outfits for the two of you. Now, would you like me to make you a suit or a dress?"
"A dress?" Chara asked incredulously, bolting upright. "Why would I want to wear some stupid dress in front of a bunch of people? It'll make me look like some dumb girly girl!"
"I beg your pardon?" Toriel stepped completely into the room, confusion written all over her face. Chara huffed.
"Nobody listens to you when you where a dress." Chara said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world, and to them it was. The only people they knew on the surface who wore dresses were little girls and airhead women, and nobody took them seriously. Down here, people listened to Chara, and they didn't have to whine or threaten people to make it happen. They didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize that, like showing up to the announcement in some frilly dress.
Toriel hummed thoughtfully and sat down on the bed.
"Chara, do you consider me to be 'some dumb girly girl'?"
"No way!" Chara looked aghast. They hadn't known Toriel very long, but it was easy to see how smart and strong she was. She helped rule the whole Underground after all. Plus, when the royal couple had been showing Chara and Mary around and making introductions, Chara had seen something hard in the Queen of Monsters. When a monster looked like they were about to say something about the presence of humans in the castle, Toriel had given them a look. Chara had never seen anyone back down so fast.
"You are an observant child, Chara. You've seen how other monters defer to me as their leader, yes?"
Chara nodded.
"And yet I wear a dress everyday. So does Mary, as a matter of fact. Have you noticed anyone ignoring Mary, or insulting her for her choice in clothing?"
Aside from Chara themself...no. Chara shook their head.
"That is because they respect us, my child. Just like they respect you. Some monsters you've met are not entirely comfortable with your presence here yet, as I'm sure you've noticed. But despite that they respect you as a person, and that will not change based on what you wear."
Toriel pushed herself off the bed and walked over to the door. Before exiting she turned back to Chara.
"You can wear whatever you wish to the announcement, but please give it some thought before making your final decision."
Chara nodded once more, and the door clicked softly as Toriel exited. They thought over what Toriel had said, and had an idea. Mary, ridiculously perfect girly girl Mary, had dresses that were about the right size. If they wanted to know how wearing a dress felt...
They rejected the thought at first, but after some consideration they realized it would be the quickest way to accomplish their goal.
Chara went over to their door and cautiously looked out into the hallway. There was no sign of Goat Mom or Goat Dad. Seeing that the coast was clear, Chara quickly exited their room, softly shut the door, and tiptoed down the hall. They stopped outside of Mary's room.
"Mary!" Chara spoke as loud at they dared, and tapped at the door. After a few repeats of this the door opened to reveal a sleepy looking Mary in a light pink night gown.
"Chara? What are you doing up so late?"
"I'll tell you, but let me in first so I don't get in trouble for being out."
Mary nodded and stepped back so Chara could enter.
"Is something wrong?" The blonde girl asked through a yawn.
"Not really, but...did Toriel come and ask you what you wanted to wear to the announcement?"
"Yep."
"I'm guessing you said a dress, right?"
"Of course. What about you?"
"That's why I'm here. She asked me too...but I'm not sure what I want to do. It's been a really long time since I wore a dress and I don't know if I'd like it. So I want to try yours on to see how it feels."
It took a minute for the words to work themselves through Mary's tired brain, but once they did her eyes became incredibly bright and she started grinning ear to ear.
"You wanna play dress up!?" Mary asked in delight. Chara's instinct was to deny it, but then they realized that's basically what this would be.
"I guess so." Chara replied, as though they themself couldn't believe it.
Mary squealed, quietly of course, and ran over to her closet.
"This is going to be so much fun! Toriel was super nice and made my dresses in some different styles, so you can try each of them on."
First was a violet one, which would probably look the closest to what they would wear for the actual event, since purple seemed to be symbolic of the royal family. Chara had to admit that they liked how the violet looked on them, though the sleeves on this one were too long and made their arms itch. Keeping that in mind, Mary next gave them a dark blue dress that had short sleeves and a floor length skirt. The top on this one was definitely more comfortable, but Chara kept stepping on the hem of the dress. Mary insisted that Chara's own dress would be hemmed up, since Mary was a little bit taller than them, but Chara was put off long skirts at that point. There was a white and red dress in there too, but Mary skipped over that one in favor of another.
"Oh! I bet you'll like this one, it's my favorite out of my new dresses."
Chara put it on. It was light green, similar to the stripes on Asriel's favorite shirt, and had a simple top with a skirt that just went past their knees.
"It is pretty comfortable." Chara admitted. "What makes this one your favorite?"
"Spin."
"Huh?"
"Spin!" Mary insisted.
"Okay..." Chara did a quick 360, and noticed that the dress's skirt flared out a bit. Intrigued, they spun around a bit faster this time, and the skirt rose higher. The next thing Chara knew they were twirling around the room and laughing as the skirt flared so high it was nearly horizontal.
"That's so cool!" Chara declared after they stopped spinning.
"I know!" Mary replied. "So are you gonna ask Toriel for one like it?"
"Maybe. I'll think about it and tell her in the morning."
Chara put their regular clothes back on and gave the dress back to Mary.
"Did Toriel mention anything about shoes?" she asked as she hung the dress back up. "I'm not sure if the ones I have are good enough for a 'royal function'."
"I don't care if the ones I have are good enough, if they try to get me to wear some ridiculous fancy shoes then I'm wearing my old ones. I may go for a dress but high heels are just stupid!"
"Yeah! Why would you make shoes you can't run in?"
"Exactly!"
"Though, if all we had to do was stand up on a stage or something they might not be so bad. I could kick them off afterward and run around barefoot!" Mary said, with obvious delight. The Chara was struck with an idea.
"Oh! What about high heels with knives as the heel? If I learned to walk in those kind of heels I could stab things with my feet!"
It was only after Chara finished speaking that they fully realized what they had just said. The people in her village had always given them strange looks when they said those kinds of things, and they expected that Mary would be no different. Which was kind of a shame because this had become pretty fun.
However, instead of being distressed or scandalized, Mary looked thoughtful.
"That could be pretty cool, but wouldn't it be super hard to walk in? You'd have to balance on the tip of the knife the whole time."
"Hmmm, I didn't think about that...Oh! What if they had a thick heel with a knife hidden inside it? Then you could just have the knife pop out whenever you wanted it to."
"Yeah, that might work! I don't think Toriel would like that though..." Mary looked a little worried.
"No, probably not." Chara said with a sigh. "But I can dream."
"If you wanna dream then you better get to bed, silly!" Mary said in a sickeningly sweet tone. Mary didn't use the tone often, which was good because Chara hated it. It always sounded like she was...trying too hard or something. Still, Chara was pretty tired by now.
"Right, all tell you all about my knife stomping dream over breakfast tomorrow."
"Okay!"
Sometimes Mary had a hard time picking up on sarcasm.
Chara didn't bring up the knife heels over breakfast the next morning. Instead they asked Toriel if she would make them a dress similar to Mary's light green one, with some leggings to match. The Queen of monsters happily agreed to do so.
The day of the announcement came, and Mary and Chara stood on a raised stage in their new dresses. Asriel stood beside them in a well made suit, doing his best to look confident so his siblings didn't get nervous. Mary had asked Toriel to do her hair up in a bun, so she looked more royal and grown up. Chara didn't care and just made sure their hair was brushed.
Asgore spoke from behind a podium, with Toriel at his side. He explained how the two humans had come to be in the Underground (Mary fidgeted during that bit), how they had been adopted by the royal family and would be treated as the new Princess and Princen of the Underground. Asgore declared that this new bond marked a momentous occasion in the future of humans and monsters. The monsters cheered at the end of Asgore's speech.
The two new royal children gazed out over the see of monster faces. There were so many different kinds and sizes of monsters, so many monsters in general, that it was a bit overwhelming.
Outwardly, Mary basked in the attention. She smiled at everyone and stood taller whenever the monsters cheered and clapped, she even got the chance to curtsy to a few of them after the main speech was over. But doubts whispered in the back of her mind. They all thought she was a human, that she had a definable category, but Mary knew that she did not. She was a creature not of this world, one that probably was never meant to exist in the first place. Would they still look at her with such hope if they knew what she really was?
Chara smiled at the crowd too, even as a ball of anxiety settled in their stomach. No one had ever expected much from them before, except to maybe screw up or be quiet. Or to screw up being quiet. Now Asgore said she and Mary were the future of humans and monsters. What did that mean? What could Chara possibly do to live up to such an ideal?
Both of them were saved during the party after the speech. Asriel took advantage of a lull in conversation to grab both of his siblings by the hand and drag them toward an exit.
"Come on, lets get out of here before they start talking about the boring stuff. I'll race you to the garden!"
The pair put the voices of doubt and anxiety on hold, and focused on beating their brother.
A.N.
This chapter was inspired by the comics of tumblr user 'flavor text chara'. If you type 'flavor text chara tumblr' into google their tumblr should be the first result. The first section came from one specific comic they did:
post/136838341945/afab-chara-who-learned-to-hate-femininity-is
I've also taken some inspiration from their representation of Chara's motivations, which has come up in several different posts. I highly recommend this comic to all of my readers. The art style is adorable and they represent the characters wonderfully.