.
DAY TO DAY
Chapter 6: Justice
"Tell the king I'm on my way."
They never would have known what he was, if not for those words. The fallen humans moving though the monsters' world anonymous as phantoms, their forms and faces bleached out by the years. Existing only in story, and rumor, and anticipation, the evidence of their passing sealed away in silent coffins, or the canisters beneath the barrier cavern's stones, or the scattered artifacts clutched or cast away by those who had known them. The monsters stood vigil for the intruders, the bearers of the souls that would set them free, but in these late days they were invisible unless they chose to make themselves known. So it went for him.
He was sighted somewhere in Waterfall, speaking those words. The monsters briefly thought of capturing him. But the Royal Guard had grown complacent, and the look on his face and the stoop to his posture and the sight of his shaking, clenching, empty hands made them reconsider, and instead they ran ahead to tell Asgore of the newcomer, who slouched toward the castle at a slow but implacable pace. He pushed the news out before him like a storm front, and left the ground behind him stained with the filth of his passing.
He was older than the others, though it wasn't easy to tell – only a thin halo of peach-colored stubble around his cheeks marked his age. The rest of him was slight, gaunt, and stiff, as though that body was held from within by wires tied too tight; every muscle shuddered with tension, and in particular the fingers of his right hand, which hovered near a cracked and empty holster, twitched and jumped, repeating some unknown motion again and again. His head was bare, the bruise of a too-tight hatbrim ringing his hairline like a coronet. And his clothes and his skin and the surface of that oversized gunbelt were all smothered with an epidermis of grime, dirt and mud and soot and bark and bramble, that fell off him like snow and marked his every step. He walked with a slight limp. He was covered in scratches and sunburn. He never seemed to blink.
His metronomic footfalls echoed in the castle's antechamber. The place where, many years ago, Asgore and Toriel had parted ways. At the end of the hall loomed a great silhouette, horned and still. The footsteps scraped to a halt. And as they stared each other down, an unseen bell tolled; its half-dozen chimes rattled the windows in their sockets and made the Delta Runes they cast below quiver and crawl.
When the last of the sound died away, he spoke.
"Are we close to the barrier?"
His voice was toneless and as tense as the rest of him; it shook like a violin string. In reply, the shadow of Asgore nodded.
"I'd like to see it first. If I can."
Asgore said nothing. His head inclined slightly, his unseen eyes fixed on that empty holster. He remained still for a long time. Then, he turned on his heel and walked off.
"This way," he said.
The boy's bent shadow trailed Asgore's down the castle corridors. Both of them walked slowly, heads bowed, postures somber, funereal. The sounds of birdsong grew closer and clashed with the clatter and scrape of their approach. The smell of sweet lemons filled the air.
The throne room and the garden, alive and untouched as ever. That tall flower in the center of the patch wavered indifferently in the breeze. On the small table off to the side of the chamber was a tea set, the drink long gone cold. The boy raised his hand over his eyes, squinting at the residual sunlight as Asgore continued to walk. Grime sifted down from him and mixed with the garden's earth.
In the far corner was Toriel's old throne. The sheet was now covered by so many layers of accumulated pollen that it resembled a pelt, some hunched and yellowed beast skulking in the dark. The boy glanced at it as he passed.
"She's doing okay."
Asgore stopped, and looked over his shoulder. The boy wouldn't meet his eye. He stood ankle-deep in the flowers, scrawny and crooked as the flowers themselves.
"She told me everything," he said. "After I got her to stop treating me like a kid. She asked me not to kill you, for what it's worth. I told her I wasn't planning on it." His fingertips brushed the holster. "Though it doesn't matter now."
Asgore regarded the throne. It offered no answers.
"Not much further," he said at last, and started off again. The boy followed without another word.
The halls darkened. The birdsong and the sweet smell faded. In its place was a hollow, constant rush of air, like the cavern ahead was trapped in one long exhalation, and underneath it a pulse, a bass beat that shook their own hearts in their chests. The light grew alien and strange. Molten gold tinged with red. Twilight was shining through the barrier.
Asgore came to a halt. The boy stopped at his side and stared forward, his grim expression unchanged.
Here, in the barrier cavern, was nothing but space – the walls and ceiling twisted to impossible proportions by the warped light from the surface, the periphery of the cave dropping off into bottomless shadow. The ground beneath was unadorned, undeveloped, nothing but gray rock seamed with cracks and pocked with craters full of slimy mud. But underneath their feet, the soul canisters slept, their presence betrayed only by a faint shimmering sound easily overwhelmed by the barrier. Asgore's face twisted, for a moment; he could hear them. He sometimes found it difficult to stop.
And at the far end of the cavern, the barrier itself. A mass of bloated, opaque light that covered the cave mouth like a sheet, throbbing like a living thing; the twilight rippled with its every beat, and made their shadows waver behind them, as if viewed through water. The boy's shadow grew longer as he stepped forward.
"Here we are," he said. "About time."
Those limping footsteps started again. Asgore remained where he was, blocking the exit.
"I wanted to see this in the first place." He held out his hands. "Just had to take the long way 'round."
His silhouette warped in time with that ceaseless beat. His shadow grew and grew until it buried Asgore behind him. And at last, his grasping hands met resistance on the wall of light; the barrier allowed him the slightest pressure, distending like a sponge around his palms, and then stopped fast. He was sealed in. He stopped, and sighed, and rested his head against the unyielding glow.
"To be honest, I'm disappointed. But that's all right. I already got my answers."
He turned around, a smear of charcoal against that twilit wall.
"Let's get this over with."
Asgore watched him. He made no further moves. His hands dangled limp at his sides, the fingers of his right still restless, bending and clenched, caught in that same motion.
Asgore said, "Why?"
The word traveled easily through the space between them. The echo here was tremendous. The boy's ashen outline tilted its head like a dog.
"Why come all this way? Just for this?"
"It doesn't matter," he said.
"I would like to know. If I may."
He shook his head. A small movement, but his magnified shadow cast it over the whole cave, a panning mass of dark like a lighthouse beam in negative.
"I just wanted to know what you did. That's all."
"I don't understand."
"Then look closer," he intoned. "It's easy to see, once you see it. All our mistakes. Everyone we've ever hurt. And everything we've ever done. They cling. They remember us. And they run ahead and see us again." His words were rushed but somehow rehearsed, as if he'd repeated them in his own head many times. "Are you looking? Every piece of bad luck is just a mistake we've made with a different face. We bring everything down on ourselves. It's all deserved. Even this."
He struck the barrier with the back of his hand. The curtain of light wavered jellylike from the impact; a stray sunbeam crossed his face, and it was still as a mask, his eyes bulging and wide.
"I heard the stories. That's what you are now, outside. Just stories. But you're not stories, are you? You're down here. Disappearing a little more every day. We killed you and then locked you up and forgot about you. I wanted to know why you deserved it."
"We didn't," Asgore said quietly.
The boy laughed, then, and the sound made Asgore shiver – it was too high-pitched, jagged as a broken windowpane. There was something unhinged in it. His body bent in the barrier's glow. It hunched down, limbs cocked, looking almost feral, poised to spring.
"I think you're right," he said. "There's good people down here. Better than anything outside. I couldn't imagine them hurting anyone on purpose, even though I tried. And then. When I." He started to shake all over. "When I p-pointed my gun at one of them, and pulled the trigger, they…th-they…"
The laughter rose up again like quickmud, swallowing his words. He huddled further into himself, covering his face with his arms, and that jagged, helpless giggle made his shadow convulse and spasm across the cavern's stony panopticon. Asgore stepped back at the sight of it. Whatever he was laughing at, it was so funny that he couldn't stop. When he looked up again, tears rolled down his face.
"It wasn't even loaded," he said. "I just wanted to see what would happen. The war. It must've been horrible. You all die so easily."
"It was horrible, yes," he said slowly. "But humanity was afraid of what we might become."
"I don't care what we were afraid of. There's no excuse. I wanted there to be an excuse. But there's none."
He straightened up again by inches, wiping at his face.
"And that's the answer," he continued. "The barrier wasn't your punishment. It was our mistake. We're the ones who need to be punished. You see? We killed all of you. We killed your children. And all of that's waiting for us, isn't it? Seven human souls, and then we'll all see you again. We were afraid of what you'd become. And you're going to become exactly what we were afraid of." His teeth gleamed like pale pebbles as he grinned. "So come on. I'll give you what you want. Because you're going to give all of us what we deserve."
"I don't want this."
Asgore's reply was hasty and hushed, but spread throughout the cavern like ink in water. His eyes widened, as if shocked by his own words. The boy's grin disappeared.
"I don't want this," he said again. Slower, deliberate. A thought that had been festering in him for years, finally released into the world. "I don't. I never wanted to do this."
His shaking hands emerged from his mantle and clutched at his face. He inhaled, then exhaled. When he lowered them again, his expression and voice were calm.
"I was furious when my children died, it's true," he said. "In that moment, I would have gladly seen all of humanity destroyed. I promised it to my kingdom, in that moment. But then the moment passed, and the promise remained." He shook his head. "There was a time…there were many, many times…when I could have taken it back, but I never did. So this is all because of me. Every day. Every death. It all comes from that one choice."
The barrier's beat went on, relentless. The boy's outline hung askew like a strung puppet. He seemed at a loss.
"There is no goodness in any of this," said Asgore. "No righteousness. There is only my cowardice. Neither my people nor yours deserve to suffer because of it. And if what you've said is true – if there is some reckoning due for our mistakes – then it should be mine alone."
The boy asked, "Then why don't you stop?"
That monotone, slightly mad certainty was gone from his voice. He sounded genuinely confused, almost hurt. But Asgore couldn't answer. His useless voice had fled again, as if ashamed at this outrush of truth. Seconds passed, each marked by the barrier's pulse. And when the boy spoke again, his confusion had darkened to contempt:
"It doesn't matter."
He stepped forward, enough for Asgore to see his scowl.
"Weren't you listening?" he said. "I killed someone. One of your own people. They weren't even trying to hurt me, you know. I shot them in the back. Even if I didn't mean to, I did." His mouth twitched. "And I can't take it back. Can't take it back. Even if I could take it back, I couldn't take it back. Do you understand? Even if I made it so it never happened, I'd still feel it…crawling on me." He clutched his arms, scraped his nails across his skin so hard they left trails of welt. "You can't just let me go."
Asgore remained silent.
"They're all waiting for you out there." He was getting louder. "I told everyone I was coming! You think they'll just let me walk away?" He tried to grin again. "Maybe I should kill a few more of them. Then you might-"
"That's enough."
Asgore held out a hand, palm-up, his face solemn and still. He flicked up one finger, and from unseen seams in the stones around him, the canisters emerged. The souls within pulsed gently, in sync to the barrier's own, and bathed Asgore in in their prismatic shine. They stood assembled before the boy like a jury. The two empty jars gleamed hungrily.
"There is no need to goad me into this," he said. "The path before me is clear. Even though I know it will end in nothing but ruin."
He sighed and looked up at the cavern's ceiling, the overhanging dark.
"There's no way out," he whispered. "Not that I can see. But I want to believe that there is someone out there. Someone who will never give up trying to do the right thing, no matter what. Someone better than myself." He trembled in his armor. "I hope…I truly wish…that they will cross my path one day, and strike me down, before this awful future comes to pass. But, until that day comes…"
He bowed his head. And with a great rush of wind, his mantle flew open, his arm held out to the side; the air snapped red, and then he was gripping his trident, its wicked points flashing in the souls' luminescence. The boy flinched away.
Asgore advanced on him.
His pace was agonizingly slow, as if he moved through deep water – or as if he was being dragged forward, attracted to the barrier like an iron filing to a magnet. His armor clattered in counterpoint to that all-consuming heartbeat. He would not meet the boy's eye. If he had, he would have seen that desperate grin gone, his lip quivering, his eyes bright with tears. But still, he tried to hold his ground as the king drew near.
"Hey," he said. "Do…do you know the stories they tell about this place? Sure you do. Everyone knows the legend. Travelers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear." He swallowed hard. "So when I c-came here, I knew exactly what would happen to me. I'm n-not afraid. You hear me? I'm not afraid of you!"
Asgore gripped the trident in both hands and the boy whimpered and shrank back. His tears started to flow, cutting trails through the layers of grime on his face, and as the dirt washed away his years seemed to fall with it; he seemed younger with Asgore's every step. His fingers desperately scrabbled for purchase on the barrier behind him.
"But…b-but you. I feel sorry for you. Because if what you're doing really is wrong, and you kept doing it anyway, then your punishment…it'll be horrible. Worse than you can even imagine." He took another step back, and found he could go no further. His shoulder blades dug into the barrier; his palms plastered against it flat. "And you won't be able to run away from it. It'll find you wherever you go!"
Asgore hesitated, then, mere paces away. And the boy seemed to take it as a victory. He straightened up, face twisted into a desperate, shaky smile, and spread his arms wide, looking like a desiccated scarecrow against the twilight. The barrier's relentless thump was in sync with his beating heart, with Asgore's, with the souls', all of them pulled into the future one pulse at a time. As that warped light passed through his splayed and twitching fingers, their shadows became impossibly long, entwining around the whole of the chamber, as though they meant to seize souls, king, child, cavern, and all.
Asgore looked up. They locked eyes.
"The worst isn't over," said the boy. "The worst is waiting for you. You'll get everything that you deserve."
It was a nice day.
He made a note in his journal.
The Underground had been more lively than ever in recent years, to the point where even Asgore couldn't help but feel his spirits lift. The overcrowding issue was worse than ever, true, but that in itself could be seen as a positive thing – once again, monsterkind was thriving, even down here in the dark. And as they grew, their little world continued to develop. Hotland especially had, at last, been tamed; the great enigmatic engine of the Core crouched in its center, its metal tentacles smoothing out the land and drawing power from the endless heat, more than enough to solve the monsters' energy issues at a stroke. Asgore wasn't entirely certain when that massive structure had first been built, but he'd grown to accept occasional lapses in his memory. He'd signed a few simple measures to keep its reactor cool, and left it to run on its own accord.
The Royal Guard, too, was now more or less running itself, thanks to its latest captain, a girl from Waterfall with a wide smile and an almost hazardous over-abundance of enthusiasm who'd apparently adopted both him and Gerson out of sheer force of personality. They'd grown quite close over the years – there had been a few spirited assassination attempts on her part, true, but Asgore had taken them in stride, considering his experiences with certain other children prior. Once she'd dropped that habit, all he really had to worry about was the possibility of her using his kitchen; her culinary endeavors had already set her own house on fire three times.
He left his bedroom and gathered up his gardening tools, humming tunelessly to himself. Outside his door, the Capital gleamed like a jewel in the distance. Even the somber gray cave that had once housed the memorial fountain had burst into life and color, owing to the influence of that Mettaton fellow. Asgore didn't entirely understand his appeal, but the younger monsters seemed head over heels for him. He'd definitely brought some much-needed energy into everyone's lives, at least.
He continued to be social with his people. He paid Snowdin a special visit every Christmas. He even had his Royal Scientist running some tests to find an alternative way to break the barrier – they hadn't borne fruit just yet, apparently, and her reports had become somewhat infrequent and vague, but he was happy to leave her to her devices, certain that he'd just get in her way if he tried to delegate too closely. And if he sometimes heard the thrumming of the souls in his sleep, or remembered the last child's twisted grin and grim prediction, that was fine, too. He kept to his routine. He just had to visit his people, and write in his journal, and visit the snail farm, and tend to his garden, and bake his pies and fix his tools and dust his room and go to bed and rise again and shut his door and plug his ears and not think, not think, not think.
With watering can in hand, he walked through the antechamber, where the marbled and color-dappled floor was swept spotlessly clean. It was silent as a cathedral. Except not quite. He stopped, and cocked his head, expression puzzled. There was a sound scratching on the very edge of his hearing. It sounded like someone crying.
Familiar cries. Not very forceful. The long, low sobs of someone who could go on crying for a very long time, even if they didn't want to. His eyes went wide as he realized where he'd heard them before, and he groaned, and covered his face with his free hand.
"Imagining things now," he said, and the walls muttered it back at him. He waited for the sound to cease. But it didn't.
He took cautious steps. The air syrupy, like in a dream. Out the chamber and into the corridor beyond. He paused and shook as a blast of freezing air rushed past him from some unseen draft, cold enough to make his teeth chatter, rushing towards the garden. He glanced behind him and saw nothing there – only the blank stone and lean shadows, seeming somehow darker. They grew, and leapt. He turned and went on, and under those cries he could hear the barrier throbbing. Even this far away, it felt like his head might split open with every beat. The crying grew louder. He couldn't seem to breathe.
He stepped into the garden and didn't know what he saw. It wasn't what he expected. Just the sunlight and the throne and the wavering flowers, same as ever. But something was strange about the one in the center – the first flower that had ever grown, the one that had gone off to the Core laboratory and come back unchanged. It was bent towards the throne, facing away from him. It didn't move with the breeze. It heaved with every fresh sob.
Asgore quietly set down the watering can and stepped forward. The flower was so busy crying it didn't even seem to notice the rattle of his armor. He hunched down beside it, bent in close.
"Curious," he said. "I've never seen a plant…cry before."
It stopped weeping and gasped, its stem stiffened in shock. The sun lay warm on Asgore's back. The smell of sweet lemons filled the air.
The flower turned around.
He remembered Asriel's face.