Interlude 2: The discussion

"There ! This thing is finally in place!" sighed Asgore after he and Toriel, with difficulty and much effort, managed to turn the couch into a bed for the big monster to sleep on.

This had proven to be devious and particularly difficult to cooperate with. The two Boss Monsters had to join forces to unblock the mechanism, at the cost of leaving them without energy. Luckily, the noise didn't seem to wake the children upstairs, despite all the noise.

Toriel was no better than her former husband, rubbing her lower back with visible discomfort that twisted her face, and grumbled, "I realize that the old lady I am today no longer has the body of my young years."

Her words brought the goat king out of his own exhaustion, for looked with astonishment at his former companion: for him, she had not changed that much in all these years. Toriel remained as graceful and beautiful as ever, in his eyes. For fifty years, neither of them had really changed their appearance, both monsters remaining exactly as they were until recently. But two years had changed nothing about them physically speaking.

…Perhaps with the exception of his own potbelly, rounder and plumper than ever under his shirt and which his cape, placed on the coat rack, no longer hid. The reason was obvious: Toriel's pies, which Frisk and Asriel secretly brought back every weekend that they came during afternoon tea, had certainly not helped matters.

This thought came to me...

"Can I offer you some tea, Toriel, before you go?" Asgore suggested, trying to establish a little more dialogue between them.

He thought that, too exhausted, Toriel was going to decline his offer and go to bed. The monster would have completely understood, being ready to collapse himself. But his ex-wife nodded slowly, designating towards the table in the kitchen.

"A little tea wouldn't be amiss, thank you. Besides, we still have to discuss what you wanted to share with me earlier."

"Oh...y-yes. That's it," Asgore stammered, having more or less forgotten and ashamed of having almost done it.

Toriel looked at him strangely, but the big goat left towards the next room. While the hostess looked for cups before placing them one in front of the other, Asgore took care of putting the water in a kettle which he filled generously. With one hand he reached into his pocket and took out a small airtight box; when the monster opened it, revealing small dried golden leaves, which gave off a pleasant sweet scent.

"Do you have an infuser, by any chance?" Asgore asked Toriel, who pointed to a drawer where he found the object he was looking for among other utensils.

Carefully, the monster measured out the right amount needed, and installed the device which began to heat the liquid. As the two adults listened to the background sound of boiling water, both enjoying this peaceful calm and rare understanding, Asgore couldn't help but feel like he had returned to an earlier time. When he and Toriel were husband and wife, happy parents of adorable children – both symbolizing hope for a bright future – and together they formed a beautiful, united and warm family.

Everything was perfect then... before this disaster arrived and destroyed what Asgore had loved with all his Soul. Then, what little he still had, the monster's own selfish actions had forever deprived him of it.

His face became somewhat melancholy and sad, for the old king knew that it would not come back. I miss those times before so much... he thought, before brushing away a small stray tear from his muzzle with one claw. Damn, the smell of tea made me get emotional. He must be ready.

The monster hurried to retrieve the finally ready kettle, without worrying about the surface which burned its paws. With a smile that he wanted to be as natural as possible, he served him and his beloved the infused drink that had become golden. It was his specialty, which the good king consumed very regularly and generously served others. With his warm cup in hand, Asgore watched as Toriel retrieved her own cup, blowing into it before taking a polite sip.

The appreciation in her crimson gaze filled him with joy, and he couldn't help but say : "If you want, I can leave the rest of the leaves for you and the children."

"That's very nice, I appreciate it," Toriel replied simply. She remained silent for a moment, during which Asgore slowly drank his tea, before adding: "There's some cinnamon-butterscotch pie left in the cupboard. Before you leave tomorrow, you can take some."

"Golly, with great pleasure!" the goat enthused, his green eyes brightening with joy, and in front of his naive enthusiasm, Toriel feel amused by this aspect of Gorey - no, of Fluffybuns - that she had known and loved.

Without hurrying, the former royal couple began to chat about everything and nothing, continuing to quietly enjoy their tea. When there were no more, Asgore served them again and the discussion started again – a second time, third time, fourth time... The topics were quite vast and varied: the organization of the next Nose Nuzzling competition , export agreements in magical technology, children's school supplies...

It became clear that neither of them were in a hurry to address the real issue, just kept dragging out the moment. Unconsciously or not, they tried to keep this dreaded moment as far away as possible. But this temporary peace very quickly came to an end; When Asgore retrieved the kettle to refill their empty cups, he was very surprised when a single drop fell to the bottom.

"Oh... No more, huh," Asgore stated simply, not knowing what else to say.

"Indeed..."

That seemed to serve as a signal: Toriel gently moved her cup aside, resting her chin on her crossed hands. She stared at the big bearded monster who no longer seemed as comfortable as before.

"Asgore, tell me what happened at the embassy. Please don't forget anything."

The goat king knew he would have to tell him everything. And nothing about that was good to know. He sighed heavily, brushing his shaggy hair: this wasn't going to be pleasant for either of them.

Without hiding anything from him, Asgore detailed his conversation with Senator Jordan. What he said seemed to offend Toriel, who grew a little more angry as the king repeated each of the words said during their brief encounter; the worst coming when he mentioned the man's thoughts about Frisk. Toriel had seemed ready to reduce the individual to ashes at that moment, if Asgore was anything to go by her eyes burning with anger and her upturned muzzle revealing her fangs.

"How can anyone say such vile things about a poor, innocent young. And then, he dares to consider us evil beings!" she hissed, as her disgust of the man reached its peak. "If he tries to touch a hair of my child... it will be the last thing he does."

In response to this promise, the tips of her short filed claws crackled with a faint spark of magical fire. Asgore understood Toriel's reaction, having been close to losing his own temper with the senator himself. Moreover...

"There's something else..." he admitted, knowing that it was still a dangerous hypothesis but refusing to hide such an important thing from Toriel, who listened attentively, "I'm not sure myself, but Undyne suspects that Senator Jordan...could possibly be involved in what happened to Frisk."

"What did you say now ?!" Toriel raged, so angry that she stood up abruptly, at the risk of tipping her chair, and glared at Asgore, who became frightened.

Golly, she can really be scary!

Although the goat knew he was not the true source of her fury, this time Toriel truly seemed ready to start a fire. His side tingled unpleasantly at the memory of her fireball hitting him, and he preferred not to be...collateral damage.

"Calm down, Toriel, it's not a certainty and we have no proof!" he reminded her, trying to soothe her as best he could, before adding when she seemed to recover. "But it is an avenue that we must seriously consider, to understand the causes of the problem which impacts Frisk. I will personally take charge of examining the room, bringing with me the Canine guard – and Undyne, who will certainly want to join us. If Senator Jordan came into the room and did anything there, we will know."

"I see..." Toriel groaned, sitting back down as she tried to regain her composure after these upsetting revelations. Now that her mind had become lucid again, she couldn't help but notice that something was wrong: "But that doesn't make sense: nowadays, apart from monsters, no humans use magic like that anymore. the mages did it. And these have been missing for centuries. If this horrible senator is indeed involved, how could he have succeeded alone?"

"That's what I wonder, too," Asgore replied, as ignorant as Toriel was.

One thing was certain, however: no one thought that a monster would have done such a thing; the entire population of the Underground knew and loved Frisk, as much as if the ambassador were one of their own. For them, it was unthinkable that magic came from monsters, and that was why they had not mentioned the possibility.

Especially since...

"This magic was nothing like anything I know…" the Boss Monster remembered, thinking intently about the feeling that had passed through him, as he worked to open the door. "It was strange and powerful. It took almost all of my own magical strength to successfully undo this spell."

Not appreciating this dark threat which seemed to have targeted the young human child, the mother goat looked harshly at her ex-husband. "Listen : until we get to the true of this story and until Frisk is completely healed, I don't want him to return to the embassy or attend any more meetings." Suddenly, she felt tired, knowing that Frisk might not take it well. He really took his role to heart, and this decision could hurt him. "I'll talk to him about it..."

"We will do it together; I will make sure that the team at the embassy takes over in place of Frisk, while things get better," Asgore supported her, while Toriel thanked him for it.

She seemed exhausted; however, the stream of bad news Asgore had didn't stop there, and Toriel had to hear it all to understand the seriousness of the situation. He attracted his attention, and told him the rest of his exchange with the senator. About the "monster" - Asriel - having appeared in the human village decades ago.

"I don't know if he knows anything about Asriel... but now, through my fault, this man suspects that I know something about him," Asgore confessed shamefully, looking at his wife. becoming devastated by this announcement, and moaned: "I'm so sorry, Toriel: I failed to remain steadfast."

"It's getting worse and worse…" she muttered, holding her head in her trembling hands as she shook her head furiously. "That, and Frisk's Soul becoming unstable; nothing is going well anymore. Everything that happens... to them, especially. They go through so much, and they're just children, for love of the Angel !"

Toriel seemed to be on the brink; not knowing what to do but not being able to bear to see her torture herself, Asgore desperately wanted to comfort her. His hand sought to grip her shoulder, but he stopped himself from going all the way, for fear that his gesture would seem invasive. He himself was in despair at this turn of events; However, it was not too late to take matters into your own hands.

"We will protect them, Toriel," Asgore assures her, hoping to convince her as much as he himself. "Everyone will make sure nothing happens to them. In the meantime, we must remain strong and united."

"You're right…" admitted the former guardian of the Ruins, before checking the time on the dial. Almost past midnight... we talked a lot. It must be the first time in a long time, even if it wasn't the happiest subject. "We should go to bed, Asgore. Tomorrow will be a long day..."

She cleared her cup as well as Asgore's, putting them directly in the sink because she didn't have the strength to do these little dishes. Too much emotion in one evening had made him weak. Such a waste, knowing that it could have been a time of joy and celebration without all the chaos.

As Toriel was about to say goodnight, she noticed that Asgore had remained seated in the chair and had not moved. His inertia surprised her ; first, she believed that there was something else bad that she should know about.

However, contrary to the former queen's initial fears, what Asgore wanted to know was nothing wrong, but still embarrassing - and somehow intimidating - for him to ask: "How... How is the agreement from human social services for the adoption of Frisk?'

If Toriel was taken aback by what the Goat King had said, she was much more relieved that it wasn't serious, although she wondered about it.

"As you know, it wasn't very simple, but less difficult than we feared. Because of... or rather thanks to Frisk's particular situation, I am currently his guardian, and I was able to obtain temporary custody of him shortly after we were able to move to the Surface. Yourself were considered to be his second guardian, helped that he was your ambassador. Things have been like this for two years...until recently."

Asgore's eyes lit up with enlightenment, and his ex-wife's smile was indication enough. "That means you..."

"Yes. Soon, I should receive the necessary documents to legally adopt Frisk," Toriel said, suddenly happier despite her old worries. "Mayor Edward Stevens helped me a lot in convincing them. I still have to complete the paperwork, but before long, Frisk will be recognized as a full member of this family, by both monsters and humans."

This was a problem that the Dreemurr family, as well as Frisk, encountered after arriving on the Surface; aside from monsters, the young human child had no one else to care for him. Things had not been easy to get the legal services - some sent by politicians eager to obstruct the negotiations - to agree to leave the child with the monsters as long as they needed their ambassador. Toriel and Asgore had acted as guarantors to take care of him: the fact that the King of the Underground had personally met the most recalcitrant to make his plea heard had helped a lot. Since then, Frisk had been able to stay with them.

But the reality was this: the child would not remain ambassador forever, and his situation was too precarious. Therefore, his official adoption seemed an important necessity.

In the best alternative, within a few weeks, everyone will consider the young human as a "Dreemurr". That alone was enough to bring a little warmth to Toriel's tormented Soul, knowing that this little child she considered hers would truly become, and that Asriel and Frisk would stay together.

"That's...wonderful news, Toriel," Asgore smiled, genuinely happy to hear that everything was going well, before getting up. "Frisk will have a great mother – well, you already are, of course! With you, he will be in good hands." His big fluffy hands drummed on the table, not knowing what else to say, and he decided to take his leave immediately: "W-Well, I wish you a good night."

The goat left the room, a little too hastily as his long horns hit the frame, causing him to squeal a plaintive "ouch" followed by a tearful apology.

Toriel tried to cover her amused smile, having always been sensitive to her former husband's almost pathological clumsiness. You really haven't changed after all these years, Gorey, she thought, before leaving for her own room upstairs.

But before going to sleep, she wanted to assure herself that everything would be fine with her children – well asleep, if she trusted the snoring that belonged to them. In front of their bedroom door, the goat Boss Monster made sure to push the wood as gently as possible, in order to get a glimpse of the interior. First, Asriel's bed - her eyes blinked when she noticed it was empty.

However, upon seeing Frisk's, a laugh threatened to leave her throat at the adorable scene she was witnessing.

"How cute they both are," she whispered, fondly, before grabbing her phone and positioning it to take a photo. She crept into the room to get a better view.

Frisk and Asriel slept together in more than improbable postures; the first, lying sideways on the young monster's stomach with an appreciative smile, and the second, asleep on his back with his mouth half open, one of his feet off the bed and whose three clawed toes were twitching. Gently, she pulled the blanket back over them, barely disturbing them as Frisk grumbled inaudibly, then Asriel sniffled lightly, emitting a strange low bleat, before starting to snore louder.

It was the most perfect and innocent image Toriel had ever witnessed; that of two children far from this world, its dangers and its plots.

Sleep without fear, dear children. We will make sure that nothing bad ever comes to you again, she promised them, although this oath was more to convince herself of it.

Toriel left, feeling a curious mixture of calm and fear. When she reached the stairs, she couldn't help but look down; the light was still on, allowing him to see Asgore who was collecting his cape, before settling down on the couch which creaked under the weight but held firm. She herself didn't really know why she had agreed that Asgore could stay here.

She had to admit that talking with her ex-husband had done her good, more than she wanted to admit. This did not mean that her feelings for him had changed: there remained within Toriel a deep hatred for him and a disgust for his past actions.

Sometimes the former queen wanted so much to see him disappear from her life forever. But another emotion - regret - gripped her Soul, telling to Toriel that Asgore did not deserve her eternal contempt for a mistake the monarch had made out of desperation.

Wasn't he trying to make things right? Could this fix all his faults?

Certainly not, thought Toriel, who dressed in her nightgown and covered her head with a cap to prevent her horns from ripping through the pillows, before lying down in her huge bed.

However, when her eyes closed to sleep, she remembered a memory of the Assembly, broadcast by the Mettaton channel; Frisk rushing to Asgore, hugging him like a child would his father, and the smile on the monster. The hidden desire that had shone in Asgore's eyes, when he had congratulated her on the progress of Frisk's adoption.

Toriel sighed: she didn't know what to think about it anymore. For fifty years, the former queen had never ceased to feel anything other than bitter resentment towards Asgore.

But now... Toriel was no longer sure that she only felt that way towards him. Neither lover, nor even friend. But maybe an ally?