"Come on, Asriel, I know you can do it!" Asgore cheered his son on as your brother attempted to cast a fire spell. "Just focus on the very core of your soul." Apparently, fire magic was like a staple of your adopted family. Part of Asriel's day was trying to learn it for himself. However, he wasn't having much luck if this lesson was anything to go by.

Asriel stood with his arms out, concentrating hard. He had his hands (paws?) out and his face was contorted into a grimace. It had been like this for the past five minutes. You hadn't seen a single spark.

Sitting on the sidelines, you were starting to get bored. This didn't seem to be going anywhere. And humans couldn't even use magic unless their souls were incredibly strong, so practicing yourself was out of the question. So you had resigned yourself to sitting on the stairs that led up to the house, head in your hands.

After another painfully slow minute, Asgore let his hands hang at his side. "That's enough for now, Asriel. Take a break, and we'll come back to it later." He had a smile on his face that you didn't get. Since when did failure get you a warm smile and forgiveness? However, you turned your attention to Asriel, who was now sitting on the ground, facing away from you. From the way he was breathing, you could tell he was crying. What a crybaby.

You stood up and stretched out your back. You had been sitting there for so long, it felt like you had become a statue. However, you still walked up to Asriel and placed a hand on his shoulder. Now you could tell he was crying. The fur around his eyes was matted down with his tears.

"Why can't I do it?" he sobbed. At that moment, Asriel put his much larger arm around his son. You hadn't noticed him walk up to you. How could someone so large be so stealthy?

"It's just going to take a little longer, Asriel," the large monster replied. His voice was so full of warmth. A small bit of anger and annoyance flared up in your chest. How come people never spoke to you like that? How was it fair Asriel got to grow up in such a great home?

You shook those thoughts from your head instantly. Everything was fine now. Asgore and Toriel were your new parents. You'd get to grow up in the same home. Everything was behind you now.

"How about we go back inside for now?" Asgore suggested. You hadn't noticed they were still talking. "I think I smell lunch already." Asriel sniffled and nodded before standing up. You stood up as well.

"You'll get it eventually," you finally said. You had been trying to find the right words, but nothing sounded quite right. But even something like that brought a small smile to Asriel's face.

"Thanks, Chara."

After lunch, you and Asriel returned to your room. Asriel had cheered up a lot since his failure at magic, so you had decided to not worry about that anymore. Instead, you decided to find something to occupy your time with. Trying to break that toy had become kind of boring to you by then. It probably wasn't going to break without some sort of magic.

"Hey, Chara, do you want to color?" You looked over at Asriel. He was holding a few sheets of paper, as well as a box of crayons. It looked really new and pristine. You wondered where he had gotten those. "I've been saving these crayons for a special occassion, since it's hard to get really good ones down here. But, we're siblings now, so I can't just not let you use them." Damn, this kid was nice. Too nice for his own good. If you had crayons as nice as those to yourself, you wouldn't have let anyone even see them. But who could say no to him?

You nodded and Asriel grinned as he placed the materials on the floor between you. He laid down and got to work immediately with a dark blue crayon. You, however, had no idea what to draw. You sat down in front of your sheet of paper thinking. What did you even like, much less had the artistic ability to draw without it looking terrible? Even your brother's drawing was starting to look better than what you could do, and it had only been a few minutes!

You thought and thought, but nothing was coming to you. And then, you thought back to Asgore's garden. There was something you liked more than anything. The patch of golden flowers in your village. You had found them over a year ago, looking sickly and weak. But you did your best to care for them and the patch grew and grew. It was the best part of your day, going to your small garden to care for those flowers. You hoped they hadn't been destroyed after the last day you were on the surface.

You set to work, taking a rather pretty green crayon to the paper. Asriel was right, these were great ones. Way better than you ever got to use. When the stem and the grass around it was down, you began to look for the perfect shade of yellow. Eventually, you found what was probably the brightest shade you had ever seen. Perfect. You drew six petals, just like you remembered the flowers. It was probably the simplest and best thing you'd ever drawn. Despite how lackluster it was, you felt proud.

"Hey, that's a really pretty flower," Asriel said. You looked at his drawing. It looked like a cave, but at the same time, the night sky. It was filled with countless dots of white, that you thought looked like stars. You figured it was that cave in waterfall Asriel had told you about. You had to admit, the way he drew it, it must have looked like the night sky. You had to go see it someday. "You're a good artist."

You shook your head. "No, yours is way better. I just drew a flower I liked."

"Don't be so hard on yourself! It's a great drawing." Asriel moved a little closer to get a better look. "Hey, maybe Mom will hang these on the fridge. I wonder if we can get flowers like these for the garden…."

"Probably not."

"Huh? Why?"

"They're from the Surface. And apparently pretty rare even up there."

Asriel's face fell. "Oh…." However, he quickly recovered. You recognized that look of curiosity in his eyes. "Then, why not tell me about how you found them?"

"They're just flowers I found in my village and took care of. It's nothing." It really was nothing, but talking about those flowers still brought a small smile to your face. It was weird.

"I hope they're still okay then," Asriel said. His brow was kind of furrowed. It was that face he made when he was thinking. It made him look kind of funny."Since you're not there, what if no one's taking care of them?"

Your face fell, along with your good mood. He was more right than he knew. No one was taking care of those flowers now. In fact, they were probably long gone, the earth they grew on probably uprooted by the other kids. The thought brought an intense flash of anger to your chest. You had avoided thinking about it so far, but it was more than likely. The only things you even gave a crap about were probably destroyed.

Asriel apparently noticed your new mood, because he quickly tried to change the subject. "I-if you don't want to talk about it, it's fine! Really!" You weren't listening. You had to go cool off.

Without another word, you stormed out of the room. You shut the door behind you with all of the strength you could muster. The slam made you flinch, but you kept walking. Luckily, you didn't see Asgore or Toriel as you stormed outside and sat on the front steps again.

Why were you so mad? It wasn't like you could see the flowers again anyway. You shouldn't have cared at all, much less have gotten mad at Asriel for bringing it up. But you couldn't help but be pissed off about it. Even if the flowers weren't gone yet, you still had a bone to pick with the other kids. If you could have, you would have stormed right up to the surface and given them all a quick kick in the teeth.

You were still fuming when you felt a large hand on your shoulder. It didn't take a genius to figure out it was Toriel's. You hadn't even heard her come up to you. She was pretty stealthy too. Asriel had to get it from somewhere, you supposed.

"Are you okay, Chara?" She asked. Her voice was full of the sort of love and care you had never gotten to hear. You drew your knees closer to your chest. "I guess not…. Would you at least tell me what's wrong then? Maybe we can work it out together."

You shook your head. There was no way to make this better. But suddenly, you felt your whole body encompassed in a loving hug. Toriel's soft fur made it feel like you were hugging a cloud. You couldn't help but relax a little in her warm embrace.

Eventually, Toriel pulled away. It almost made you feel emptier. You wanted nothing more than to be hugging her again. "Well, if you ever wish to talk about it, your mother is always here for you."

For the next few minutes, you sat in silence, just enjoying the care and love. Maybe you'd be able to talk about this. One day.