They finished up dinner and tidied up the kitchen.
"Think I'll head to bed and get some sleep," Aldyr said.
"you have books," Sans said. "may I?"
"Please. Read anything you like." Aldyr said. He got ready to sleep, and curled up in his own bed. His breathing slowly got regular.
Sans perused Aldyr's bookshelf. He was looking for some kind of distraction from his troubled thoughts, and anyway he tended to have insomnia most nights.
There were books on astrophysics, science fiction...right up his alley, actually.
One book was titled,
How to Travel the Multiverse and Enjoy It
He read an excerpt...
Many different teleportation abilities work inside their given world of origin, but do not allow one to cross the interworld boundaries. A special tunneling technique allows crossing this boundary, but few Eldorants are capable of learning it, and it usually requires many years of training to acquire a moderate level of skill. In order to target one's landing zone, in particular, one must be strongly connected to not only one's own world, but have an affinity for other worlds as well. Visualization training is a must, as well as a strong sense of imagination.
"hmm...Eldorants? is that what they call themselves?" At one time he could have spent all day reading this, but lately his emotions had been taking up too much mental energy. That was one reason why he spent so much time sleeping. That and the insomnia.
He could only read it for a bit longer before his attention span quit, and he yawned, looking for something less technical to read.
One book was handwritten and handdrawn with beautiful pictures. Sans picked up that one, and took it to read in bed, wondering if Aldyr wrote it.
It looked to be a book of short stories and poems.
Sans read one of them...
THE FOX AND THE SPARROW
Once there was a fox that was friends with a sparrow. His fox friends laughed, saying the sparrow was such a tiny, plain-looking thing and unsuited to be friends with a powerful and clever fox. He was embarrassed and defended himself, saying he only kept the sparrow around because the sparrow was so small it wasn't worth eating.
The sparrow sang the fox to sleep every night, and the fox protected the sparrow anytime there was danger. Over time, the fox and the sparrow grew to be great friends, and the fox no longer cared what the sparrow looked like or what the other foxes thought. Every day, the fox and the sparrow played games together, chasing each other through the forest.
Their friendship lasted for both their lifetimes, and even beyond that, since when they died and became spirits, they laughed and played among the stars. They say you can still see them on the most beautiful of nights, flitting from star to star and chasing each other like twin sparks in the sky.
"heh...cute story," he thought. To be friends with someone very different...there was a timeline where Frisk was the best of all at that. She made friends with everyone, even with the monsters she feared at first, like the spiders, and Asriel.
She really seemed happy at the end of that timeline, looking forward to the future along with everyone else after they escaped to the surface. She was gentle and sweet, always brightening the day and making it more fun for whoever she was with.
Monsters showed more of their personalities and playfulness with her because it was fun for them to see her reactions. Sometimes Sans knew she'd been through an area just because of the way all the monsters were smiling.
Papyrus loved having her around, and she always complimented his cooking as if she enjoyed it just because he made it, no matter how it tasted. His pleased and enthusiastic reaction to the compliments always made her grin, and she'd eat more just to have an excuse to compliment him again. The way she made his brother feel special and important warmed Sans inside more than anything else she ever did.
And she made his friends happy too. Their long imprisonment underground had made them desperate, pushing them to do things they wouldn't have done otherwise. Asgore and Alphys in particular had suffered badly from the burden of their decisions. But Frisk helped them all, her influence making them kinder and gentler than they were before, and giving them hope for a future on the surface.
Sans wondered how much of what happened later in the bad timelines was her choice. When she spared Sans in one of the fights, her eyes reminded him of the Frisk he once knew, the grey and red fog choking them briefly lifted. For an instant, her eyes were deep pools of sadness, until the fog overwhelmed her again.
It was the first hint that maybe the real Frisk didn't agree to the violence, or that she regretted it.
Ever since then, he'd tried to understand what had gone wrong inside her. By provoking her into talking, over the course of many resets, he'd learned Chara was possessing her.
It had been much more difficult to get any clues about the third entity, the Anomaly, but eventually he confirmed that they really did exist, whatever they were, and that Chara deeply resented their presence. Chara always gradually overwhelmed the Anomaly's control by the end of a run.
He learned to tell by the hue of Frisk's eyes which one was dominating more. The Anomaly was more grey, while Chara was more red. His anger at both of them grew with every reset.
Between the two of them, Frisk's original good nature seemed to be choked out.
Was there anything left of his friend in Frisk's body, or was she just an empty shell by now? Was there a way he could find out?
In any case, the knots inside of his soul had loosened just a little bit. After reading and thinking for awhile longer, Sans lowered his blue magic that was giving him light, and drifted off to sleep.