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DAY TO DAY
Chapter 2: Bravery
The flower in the garden's center was lively as ever. Its petals shivered as he brewed the tea. Two cups, this time.
The kingdom's celebration had gone on for days after he'd announced that a soul had already been taken. New Home, already comparable in size to the one they'd left behind, had been riotous with joy – now their king's promise wasn't just empty words. That jarred blue light, quivering behind the strange glass, was proof of a better future. The monsters had been so distracted by the goings-on that they hardly noticed that Asgore himself had shut himself up in the castle, a fact for which he was dearly grateful.
Royal Guards 05 and 06, too, were hailed as heroes, but seemed to shun the spotlight. They'd become reserved and quiet – or more quiet, in 06's case – requested a post at the Snowdin/Waterfall border instead of the Ruins entrance, and stood sentinel even as the celebrations became a memory and the gushing praise for their acts slowed to a trickle. They visited the castle, from time to time, if only to report that no further humans had fallen. He always invited them to tea afterwards, but they refused. They seemed reluctant to confide anything in him.
But when 05 once again appeared in his doorway to announce that a human had been captured, Asgore understood why the guard sounded so tired.
It was a nice day; he'd made a note in his journal. But there was no avoiding the way he'd felt at the news – that sudden drop in his gut, the moment of vertigo, as the routine into which he'd immersed himself broke and gave way. But he'd thought ahead this time. That was why he set tea for two, and placed the fresh, empty canister on his throne like a trophy, a conversation piece, in clear view of the little table.
He poured, and added several sugars to his own cup. The ground underfoot trembled as 06 approached.
His actions with the last one had been too hasty, he'd concluded. Unfair. Even if reneging on his promise was unthinkable, the humans who had to be sacrificed at least deserved to know why their deaths were necessary. Already the story of Asriel's death passed from mouth to mouth across New Home, spreading between the monsters like an infection, but rumor and hearsay were nothing compared to a decent, civil conversation. This time, he'd explain himself frankly. Maybe they would understand. And if not – then they were entitled, at least, to defend themselves. If they had met Toriel like last time, on their way out of the Ruins, Asgore had no doubt she would ensure they knew how.
"Your Majesty."
05 stood at the garden's periphery, the sunlight lying on his horns like paint. He was clad head to toe in his mail like usual – Asgore didn't believe he had ever seen the guardsman out of it – but he was still clearly older than the last time he'd made this announcement. A worn edge to his voice, a stoop to the shoulders, a brief gesture as he tried to surreptitiously work out a fresh kink in his neck. Asgore almost envied that last one; ever since Asriel died, he'd woken up with the exact same stiffness and sore spots every single morning. Even his pains were frozen in place now that his son was gone.
"Howdy, 05," he said, and drummed a tuneless little rhythm on the table. "Moment of truth, eh? Send them in. I trust they didn't give you any trouble."
"No, he-" He regarded the second, empty seat at the tea table, and stopped talking. He glanced out into the corridor. He waved a hand. The ground shook.
06's massive frame darkened the doorway and squeezed past his comrade. Asgore leaned forward, smiling hopefully, and then felt the smile drain out of his face.
No one was holding 06's hand this time. Instead, he had one palm cupped close to his chest. A small, limp arm dangled from between his fingers like a broken twig.
05 said, "Put him down."
Metal creaked as 06 bent over and deposited the child's body amidst the flowers. Asgore's chair fell back as he sprang to his feet and ran over, palms held in front of him, his mouth gaping uselessly. 05 continued to speak as Asgore hunched over the human; his words were toneless and low, without a hint of his old, nervous stutter.
"He was attacking people, Your Majesty. The children. In the woods outside Snowdin. Some of them managed to run away, but at least a couple of them, they..." He trailed off. "We confronted him at the Waterfall border. We did what needed to be done."
06's quaking mutter shook the air, but this time 05 cut him short.
"Yeah, maybe, but we made our choice. You're the one who wanted to relocate." Another rumble, hesitant. "Just shut up, man."
The boy was gangling and lean, his limbs splayed out like lengths of twisted rope. No visible injuries except for a few minor scorch marks here and there – magic struck at the soul, but left the body mostly unmarred. His hair was dark and cropped close to his head, his skin tanned but waxy in death, the color of petrified wood. Both hands bare, the skin of his right hand strangely mottled, as if it had been drenched in sweat. Thin clothes, worn sneakers, their treads grounded almost flat. Asgore barely heard the guards' conversation as he bent low over the body. He realized something was missing.
"The soul," he said, and both guards fell silent. "Where's the-"
Then he saw. The boy's chest, almost imperceptibly, rising and falling.
When Asgore looked up, both 05 and 06 flinched.
"He's still alive?"
"He. I mean, we." 05 swallowed and stiffened up. "We didn't have one of the jars on us, and we didn't know how long the soul would last if the body...y-you know...so we thought it would be wisest to, to subdue the human and take it back to you, like the last-"
06 spoke again. Harsher than before. 05's head snapped around and up to meet his visored gaze.
"I said shut up!" he hissed. "He doesn't need to know that now, you idiot! Where was all this when we were both-"
"Leave. Both of you."
The guards turned to face him as he rose, one hand in the air. There was a shimmer of red, and his trident materialized; he clasped it in both hands and swung it around, those three points hovering just over the child's heart.
"If this intruder has killed our own, then there is no need to hesitate." His hair hung over his eyes; his face was stony and set. "I must answer in kind. After all, this is my duty."
05 stepped forward. "Your Majesty, I just wanted to say that-"
"Your service," he said, with finality, "is appreciated."
05 stopped, slumped, and gave a half-hearted salute. He shuffled out of the throne room without waiting for his companion. 06 stood over the body for a moment longer, and then shook his head, his helmet grinding like a millstone, before stomping away as well.
Asgore's hands began to shake. He stared down at the body. He seemed unable to blink. The sun sparked off the trident's points like stars in miniature. On the table behind him, the tea had grown cold.
He took one last look at the boy's face, and felt his stomach lurch.
The boy's eyes had been closed before, his lashes lying on his cheeks like streaks of ash, but now they were open, the merest crack, the pupils shining beetle-dark beneath. His breath hoarsened. It sounded like he was trying to speak.
Asgore squeezed his eyes shut and stabbed down.
He found himself outside the city, in front of the cold and lonely memorial.
"Found himself" was the best way to put it – it was as though he'd been hovering outside his own body, time passing through him like wind, and then all at once he'd been jerked out of that moment and into the present, so suddenly that his fangs clicked together in shock. His eyes snapped this way and that, momentarily unsure of where he was, or how he'd arrived here. Then he remembered, and groaned, and held his head in his hands.
After the soul had been contained and the body placed in the basement – he'd have to prepare another coffin later, another macabre errand in a day so suddenly filled with them – he'd left the castle, meaning to see for himself what had happened in Snowdin. At the very least, he thought, he could pay his respects. 05 and 06 were nowhere to be found. Asgore hoped they had just gone home. All of them needed some rest.
Then he had stopped at the memorial outside the city walls, in this high-ceilinged cavern that was bare and gray as a mausoleum. A rough-hewn fountain where water bubbled from an underground spring and pooled at the statue's feet. The statue itself, horned and slumped and faceless, its carved hands on its knees as if waiting for someone to come. Asriel as he would never be. The water coursed through hidden pockets in the statue's base and toyed with the gears of a music box concealed there, a melody that Toriel had often hummed and would later adapt as a lullaby, and its notes plinked throughout the chilly darkness like rain. There must have been a draft carried in by the spring, somehow; this cavern was oddly cold, and the air around the statue in particular so frigid that its base was skirted by a thin rime of ice.
He could no longer remember Asriel's face. His son's image hadn't been lost to him completely, of course – Asgore could still recall his hobbies, his posture, his laughter and tears (that last one especially; Asriel had wept constantly, often unprovoked, and he'd only grown more embarrassed of the habit as he grew older), but it was like his face was always seen through a bright glare, making it featureless as this statue. It was a troubling development. He'd stood in front of the memorial, listening to the song and contemplating why his recollections had failed him, and then he had drifted off. Another bad habit that was only becoming worse.
He shook his head, turned, and clanked away, leaving the statue behind. He was sure the memory would return to him in time.
His pace was steady and unbroken as he marched through the sweltering orange expanse of Hotland (still mostly unsettled and undeveloped, too harsh for all but the hardiest monsters, the magma's glow reflecting off bare arches of stone that snaked through the shimmering air in their private, chaotic architecture), and then across the mud of Waterfall. He thought about paying Gerson a visit, then dismissed the idea; they'd grown somewhat distant since Asgore had made his decree. His feet splashed across the narrow stone path in that colossal central cavern where the rain fell, and his castle gleamed in the distance, ringed by the monsters' new and half-formed city. The rising structures huddled around the central mass like supplicants.
He remembered the day they left Home.
When the war had ended and humanity had sealed them beneath Mt. Ebott, Asgore, Toriel, and all, they'd fled as far as the underground would allow. The battle had left them demoralized, decimated, convinced that their enemies would soon decide to just follow them in and finish the job. They'd treaded across burning heat and sucking mud and freezing snow just to have more obstacles between themselves and any pursuers, and then constructed the great wall and impassable stone door behind what would soon become their city, a barrier of their own to keep others out, not in. It had not been a hopeful time. But – and even now, Asgore had to smile at the thought of it – they'd overcome, and thrived, to the point where their new environs had started to feel a bit cramped. Talking everyone into leaving their confinement and spreading further through the underground hadn't been easy, but despite their fear, everyone had agreed to the idea.
Still, the journey had been a hesitant one. It was much easier when they were fleeing towards what they believed was safety, but now, with every step, they'd all felt the barrier and that menacing world beyond loom closer. That pulsing wall was the omen of an uncertain future. Some had elected to simply remain behind in Snowdin, but the rest – caught between their desire for more freedom and their unease at what that freedom might cost – had slowed, and stopped, and needed encouragement.
Toriel was the one who'd shown them the light. As usual. He remembered how they had all huddled right here in Waterfall among the grottos and puddles and pools of black and hungry mud, as their queen stepped up and began to speak. It's all right to be afraid, she told them. But your king and I will guide the way. If you cannot be brave, then please, let us be brave in your stead.
The false stars' faint glow died as he left the cavern and continued to Snowdin. 05 and 06's border post stood empty. A blast of icy air greeted him as he stepped out into the snow and hard white light.
The border between Snowdin and Waterfall consisted of a wide trail beside a sluggish, freezing river. Asgore saw no one in the village beyond. And the snow on the trail itself was scarred, chewed, hurled in every direction by scraping, scrabbling limbs – clear evidence of a struggle. This must have been where 05 and 06 confronted the human.
He gave that zone of blasted snow a wide berth as he continued into the town, and another set of footprints caught his eye – they bore the same faint treads as the shoes the human wore. As he walked, he saw the spacing between the prints grow smaller and smaller, and then stop completely, so that both feet were planted side-by-side; Asgore turned around and peered down the path, playing out the scene in his mind. Here the boy had stood, and seen the Royal Guard standing in his way. He had walked toward them. And then, he'd started to run.
The quiet was unnatural. Either the residents had gone out in search of their dead, or simply shut themselves up in their homes out of fear – the latter was something many of them had learned from the war, a tactic that was almost instinctual and tragically useless. A riot of footprints was in the town square, all shapes and sizes, but only the human's continued out of it. They were shambling, uncertain. They led into the library. The ones leading back out, and towards Waterfall, were more hurried, almost panicked, the prints marred by his heels skidding across the snow.
Asgore regarded the empty scene, tugging worriedly at his beard. The wind plucked at his ears and mantle, as if coaxing him to get a move on.
"Hello?" he called. "Is anyone here?"
His voice boomed down the street, and its echo made the return trip. No answer. He sighed, scratched his horns, and looked at the library door. It was slightly ajar.
The sign overhead proclaimed that this place was, in fact, the Librarby. Asgore stared at it for some time.
"Really ought to get that fixed," he muttered, and stepped inside.
The place was cozy, but depressingly spare – for all their virtues, monsters usually lacked the attention spans for serious reading. The single row of bookshelves against the back wall was populated mostly by salvaged books from the humans' trash, their covers wrinkled and watermarked, or by the monsters' own half-hearted attempts at writing; these latter works usually consisted of just one or two handwritten pages hastily bound between blank covers, sometimes with amusing doodles in the margins. Over the front door, a scratched and splintery clock ticked in a lurching, uneven tempo.
No one here, either. But along the length of the shelves was a solid trail of criss-crossing footprints, still damp from snowmelt; even in here, the boy apparently hadn't been able to stand still.
The books themselves were mostly in order, but one had been roughly shoved on top of the others hard enough to crease its cover. Asgore walked over to it, plucked it off the shelf, and read:
Because they are made of magic, monsters' bodies are attuned to their soul. If a monster doesn't want to fight, its defenses will weaken. And the crueler the intentions of our enemies, the more their attacks will hurt us. Therefore, if a being with a powerful soul struck with the desire to kill…um, let's end the chapter here...
"Understandable," he sighed. He'd experienced enough of that phenomenon himself. He gently slid the book in with its fellows, and then stopped. There was another one, its cover light blue, uncomfortably reminiscent of the last child's clothes. It had been flung into the far corner of the library, surrounded by scraps of paper that blended in with the carpet's nap. He picked it up, flipped it open.
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 know the joy of expressing themselves through magic. They'll never get a bullet-pattern birthday card…
He smiled at that. Asriel had made him one of those, once, but had overdone it on the magic a tad. That, combined with his fondness for light shows, meant that Asgore had spent most of his birthday walking into walls after being blinded by a rainbow.
Then he noticed something. The bottom of the book was theatrically marked "PAGE ONE." He flipped it over; it was the only page there. But along the rough-bound spine, there was a sliver of paper, its edge roughly torn. He glanced at the shreds scattered on the carpet.
Thanks to the size of his hands, it took him time and care and considerable frustration just to get all the pieces off the floor without tearing them further. But eventually he had them all laid on the library's sole reading table, and pushed them together like a jigsaw until the sloppy, careless print became legible.
And since magic acts directly on the soul, doesn't that mean we could probably attack humans by accident? A monster who didn't know better might hurt a human just by saying hello. Oh well, not like it matters down here anyway. Page Two, the end.
"Oh…Your Majesty."
Asgore looked up, and swept the torn paper into his cupped hand. There was a silhouette hunched in the doorway, fresh snowflakes limning it like fireflies.
"I wasn't expecting to find you here, of all things." It shuffled into the light. "What a relief, to be pleasantly surprised for a change."
Most of Snowdin Town's founding residents had been monsters whose bodies were well-suited to the region's bitter climate, but some of them had been simply too old or too weak to travel to the opposite end of the Underground. The librarian has been one of the latter, judging by her querulous voice, but still, it was hard to tell – she was cloaked in so many layers of shawls and scarves that she resembled a motley cone, without limbs or features. In the approximate area where her head would have been, there was only a hollow space, veiled with darkness, a single pale red eye shining deep in the murk. Asgore stepped out of the way as she shuffled toward the shelves.
"I apologize if I startled you," he said. "I…I came to pay my respects…"
"Ah, then you've heard." That red eye glowed brighter as she examined the books. "But I'm afraid most of them have gone out to the woods. To gather the dust, you see."
"So it's true that-"
"It seems so. A few of the injured children came into town with the news. Trying times. Terribly trying times. I'd have been little use out there, so I'm just tidying up. Though I doubt any of those poor people will care much about the state of these shelves." A sigh. "I suppose I'm just a silly old lady who worries too much."
Asgore visibly winced at that, but she didn't seem to notice. A limb extended from that mass of shawls – milky-white and smooth, with just two fingers. That pale pincer expertly straightened several askew books, and then retreated into the monster's layers.
"If you're here, then I assume the human has been slain."
"Yes." He felt the need to add something more. "I made it quick."
"Sometimes that's the only mercy you can offer." She turned, her one eye dim. "I just don't understand it. He seemed like such a kind boy."
"You spoke to him?"
"I." The shawls shuddered. "I'm sure you have better things to do than listen to my rambling."
Asgore stood still for a moment. Then, with great deliberation, he pulled out a seat at the table, gathered his mantle under him, and sat down, hands on his knees like a student waiting to be asked a question. The chair whimpered under his weight.
"I would like to hear it," he said. "If I may."
Her eye strobed for a second, flickering like old neon. Then, she nodded, and began to speak.
She hadn't even known he was a human at first; she admitted that freely. She'd been out taking a walk when she'd seen him arrive, huddled against the cold, looking lost – she thought he was from Capital, they were getting more visitors and residents all the time out here, apparently some monsters still preferred the quieter life. When she'd struck up a conversation he had been polite, if shy, and clearly uncomfortable at having to hold still, his soles fidgeting and scuffing around the snow; he'd worn a faded pink glove over one hand, and rubbed at it constantly, as if trying to get it clean. But when she asked where his parents were, he'd become evasive, nervous, constantly glancing over his shoulder at the road leading back to the Ruins.
"He was shaking like a leaf," she said. "Even then I had no idea. Stupid me. Stupid old woman."
She'd kindly told him that he could get out of the wind at the library if he wanted to rest for a bit – he would have the run of the place, it was usually empty and even she couldn't bear to stay cooped up there for long – and then tottered off to the small riverbank at the north end of town. The sound of the water there was very soothing, she explained, and in fact she had a relative who was quite enamored with it. She'd returned just in time to see him fling the door open and bolt down the road, moving so fast that his heels tore up the snow in clumps. But she hadn't been the only one to leave her post. 05 and 06 had been on the far end of the path.
The clock's crippled tick filled the silence.
"They just…stood there," she said. "The three of them. Staring each other down. They didn't seem certain of what to do. And then the children arrived home. The survivors. They were beside themselves, of course. The whole town came running. It was an awful commotion. Even before one of them pointed out the human."
And there he'd stood – with the defenseless, aggrieved townsfolk on one end, and the black-clad hulks of the Royal Guard on the other. He'd chosen to move forward. And afterwards, all that remained of him was his glove and a threadbare bandana, both of them lost and half-buried in the snow.
"I didn't see anything when I arrived," said Asgore.
"I believe one of the children came and took them. I could retrieve them, if you like-"
"No. No, that's fine. But thank you for offering."
She said no more. The only sound outside came from the wind. Asgore turned to look at the clock; that tick was giving him a splitting headache.
"You did choose those guards well, Your Majesty," she added, hesitantly. "They scarcely felt his blows. Everyone here admires them, you know."
"I'm sure they appreciate it." He rose from his seat, turned to the door. "I suppose I should wait for the others, then. They might need-"
"Perhaps you'd best return home, Your Majesty. You look exhausted."
"We all do, I'm sure." He pinched his muzzle; he felt lightheaded. "Still, if you're certain that you don't need me…"
"I'll be sure to let the others know you came to visit. That should bring them comfort enough."
He nodded, and turned to the door.
"Your Majesty?"
He looked over his shoulder. "Hmm?"
She stood with her back to the shelved, her formless body rippling beneath the shawls. She seemed to recede into those strata of clothing.
"I don't…I mean, I wanted you to know that we all admire what you're doing, as well." That shaky voice grew fainter still. "Two souls already, isn't that right? I have no illusions about my chances, I'm certain that I'll fall down long before you succeed, but at least the children…or even their own children…they'll be able to see the sun again someday. And that's enough, for me." She raised her head just enough for him to see the barest sliver of that gleaming eye. "It is worth it. Isn't it?"
The torn paper crinkled in his clenched fist. Whoever had read that page had been deeply disturbed by what they'd learned. Enough to lose their will to fight.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course it is."
He turned back to the exit, placed his hand against the door.
"He was crying."
Asgore froze. The words were hushed and abrupt, as if they'd been torn from her.
"I'm old, but I'm not deaf. He wouldn't stop fighting, even though he wept all the while." Her voice now so low that it was little more than an implication in the snowy night. And again she said: "I just don't understand it."
He pushed open the door and left without another word.
The snowfall had turned heavier, enough to obscure the far edges of Snowdin Town from view; the lamplights and the bulbs of the Christmas tree glowed like wisps in the distance. He turned away from them and trod back to the river, where the boy had been struck down by 05 and 06. He stood on the bank, watched the way the flakes settled on the ice-blue surface of the water, and sank, and dissolved. He tried to avoid his reflection's gaze.
He held out his hand and let the scraps of paper fall. They joined the snowflakes and, as Asgore retreated the way he came, faded away to nothing.