Papyrus Encounter

"Human! Let me tell you about some complex feelings." Papyrus blocked their exit from town and started monologuing, "Feelings like… The joy of finding another pasta lover, the admiration of another's puzzle solving skills, the desire to have a cool, smart person think you are cool. These feelings… must be what you are feeling right now!"

What? They spent all this time complying because they just wanted him to leave them alone. Why is he taking this in the complete opposite direction of what they had intended?

"I can hardly imagine what it must be like to feel that way. After all, I am very great." Papyrus continued. HE started making poses while he spoke. "I don't ever wonder what having lots of friends is like. I pity you, lonely human."

Ah, so he was projecting. They knew that the townspeople generally didn't like him that much because he was too loud and such, so he must be pretending that they had the same problems that he did. He wasn't exactly wrong though, they didn't have any friends before they fell Underground. They also did sometimes wonder what having a lot of friends would be like. They didn't know if he meant it, but the words stung a little.

"Worry not lonely human! For I, the great Papyrus, shall be your… No. No! This is all wrong!" Papyrus stomped his foot. Way to dash the hopes that they didn't have. Even the monster without and friends refused to be friends with them. "I can't be your friend! I must capture you! Then I can fulfill my lifelong dream! Powerful! Prestigious! Popular! That's Papyrus! The newest member of the Royal Guard!"

The world lost colour and Papyrus initiated a battle. Unlike before, they couldn't run away and Papyrus was genuinely going to try to hurt them. They couldn't pet him like the dogs, and he wasn't just a random monster walking around in the woods. They couldn't avoid him, they couldn't stop him. Even though they complied and did everything that he and Sans wanted, he was still going to capture them. Then, whatever happens to captured humans would happen to them too.

There was nothing they could do. The best they could hope for was outlasting him. The only chance they had would be to tire him out and try to get away.

Papyrus started throwing blue bones at them. That would be to their advantage. He'd expend energy creating blue bullets, and they could save energy by standing still. If he just kept throwing blue attacks, they'd be able to run when he tired himself out.

Or so they thought.

"You're blue now! That's my attack!" Papyrus called.

Their soul suddenly became heavy and dropped to the ground. If they yanked it like a fishing line, they could make it "jump" off the ground. Doing that took more effort than moving their soul around through the air. Maybe they wouldn't be able to tire him out. Or if they did, would they even have the energy left to run away?

He'd probably catch them as they tried to run past. All they could do was try to dodge the bones that he was throwing at them.

They jumped over his bones like they were playing jump rope. Some of the bone walls had holes in them, which they tried to jump through. Often, they would graze the bullets and a pain would shoot through their chest. The pain made it harder to concentrate on moving, so they got hit again. And again. And again.

The pain was so intense that they nearly passed out. As one more bone was about to hit them, it promptly disappeared and they collapsed. They noticed colour come back to the word as someone picked them up and they passed out.

They awoke in a dog bed with a bowl of kibble beside them. They supposed that if they were a prisoner now, that being treated like an animal was probably par for the course. Papyrus had left them a note, asking them to please stay inside the toolshed while he went to get the captain of the Royal Guard.

This could be their opportunity to escape. Right now, Papyrus should be gone, and the shed was not well protected from the inside. The door lock was on the inside, and the "cell bars" were the same as that fence on the bridge. The gaps were wide and the crossbeams were high. Escaping was simple. They just needed to sneak out of Snowdin before Papyrus came back.

They took a peek out the shed windows and listened at the door. They saw a few townspeople walk by, but saw and heard no indication that Papyrus was around.

Quickly, they unlocked the shed, snuck out, and ran for the edge of town. As they sprinted away, they accidentally ran into Papyrus while he was walking the same way.

"Human! Have you gotten lost? You are not supposed to be here. You should be in the capture shed, waiting for the captain of the Royal Guard to take you to the king!" Papyrus told them. He paused for a moment, giving them a chance to respond. They had nothing to say. "Or perhaps you wanted to do battle with me once again? Human, I am flattered! It is only natural that you would want to do battle with someone as great as I!"

Papyrus initiated another fight. "Give it your all, human! I believe in you!"

There was no way to avoid his blue bone attacks without hurting themselves, so their soul was turned blue again. They were still tired from the last fight and had a hard time dodging again. The fight was decided quickly and Papyrus brought their unconscious body back to the toolshed.

When they woke up, they found another note from Papyrus. Their body hurt, so they decided to eat a cinnabunny to get some pain relief. Thankfully, they didn't need to finish the whole thing to fix themselves up. They decided to read the note.

Papyrus was telling them to ask before escaping and that he was worried about them. Those two things seemed like contradictory statements. Why would he worry about them if he intended to capture them? And if he intended to capture them, then why was he asking them to get permission to escape? He should be telling them that they had to stay put, no exceptions.

The strangest part of the note was the last part. He was offering them a place to stay and telling them that they didn't have to fight. That didn't make sense at all! Why would he offer them a place to stay if he didn't like them and wanted to capture them and turn them over to the king? Because apparently that's what happens to humans. They get captured, they get delivered to the king, and the king will kill them or steal their soul or do whatever to them.

They couldn't believe he had the audacity to blatantly lie to them. The offer to stay was certainly a trap. If they agreed to stay, then they wouldn't run away and he'd be able to deliver them to the king and join the Royal Guard like he wanted.

They scoffed and ripped the note in half. If he was going to bully them, he could at least try not to be so obvious about it. Then again, it didn't really matter if he was obvious or subtle. They were human, so they were always going to be in the wrong. Nothing they did mattered.

It just made them angry to think that their existence was to be the butt of someone's joke. They were bullied above ground, and they were hunted for sport down here. In the end, they'd just be killed or something. Why did it have to be them and not someone who deserved it?

Or maybe they did deserve it? Humans didn't want them either, unless they stopped being themselves. So maybe there was something about them that meant that they did deserve it. They didn't belong above ground, and they don't belong in the Underground. Why shouldn't they be hunted? Why shouldn't they be captured?

Even if it ultimately didn't matter, they at least had to try to survive. If they survived and found a way out, then maybe they could go back to their parents. Maybe their parents would be happy to see them again and actually want them around.

If it meant that their parents would want them back, whether they were a girl or not, they'd take the chance and try to escape again.

They left the shed and once again ran into Papyrus on the way out of town. This time, instead of fighting and shouting at them about how great he was, he invited them to sit in the snow with him.

They complied automatically, though it would have been smarter to run while he was on the ground. They would have gotten a head start on him.

For once, Papyrus spoke quietly, "Human, I see you have escaped again. I suppose it was too much to ask you to stay. I would like to think that we're friends, but I'm not sure if you see it that way. The way I see you." He admitted, "You don't have to answer me. I would like to be friends, but your sense of adventure precludes it."

They sat in silence for a moment. Papyrus continued to speak thoughtfully, "I thought that if I captured you and invited you to stay, then you could have a good life here. It gets lonely sometimes, because Sans spends so much of his time at Grillby's or with the other guards and sentries. I spend most of my time at my station, recalibrating my puzzles, or by myself at home. I see Undyne for Royal Guard training, but I don't know if that's quite enough sometimes."

Papyrus started bouncing his legs on the ground. He seemed restless, but maybe moving around was a comfort for him.

"I imagine you want to leave the Underground and go back to where humans live. I understand. Living down here can be great, but it's hard. We monsters are lucky that we can survive on magic alone. Not having the sun, or physical food, or weather, or space, we can get by without all that. Humans though, you're all determined to see more, do more, be more. You need the surface world to survive and grow. Monsters live a long time, and that makes us comfortable without change. I think humans are the opposite though." Papyrus rambled. He stopped bouncing his legs and started fidgeting with his hands. He wasn't looking at them or at his hands. Instead, he was staring into the distance, not really looking at anything.

He was silent for a while longer before speaking again, "If you want to leave, I'll do what I can to help you. You'll need to make your way to the king. Everybody loves that guy, he's a big fluffy pushover. I'm certain if you just ask him to go home, he will let you leave without a fuss. He'll probably guide you to the barrier himself."

They didn't understand what Papyrus was trying to do. Was he trying to have them get themselves captured? Was he too lazy to bring them to the king himself? What kind of trap was this? And what was this barrier? Was there really some kind of barrier that didn't let monsters go up to the surface? And if there was, why would a human be able to pass it when monsters couldn't?

This was definitely some kind of trap, but they had to continue forward regardless.

"I'll do my best to distract Undyne, the captain of the Royal Guard as you cross her territory. Waterfall is a nice place, and there are many places for one as small as you to hide. It's a good thing that children enjoy hide and seek! I'm sure you'll have a good time evading her capture!" Papyrus told them. They looked at him curiously. How did he know that they were a kid when he didn't even know what a human was supposed to look like? Was it because they were short? There were other short monsters too, that were probably adults. Like all the monsters in the Ruins.

"Your shirt is what give you away. All children wear striped shirts. It's because we don't get a lot of clothing from above. Any new material we get is made to fit adults who are no longer growing. Children who grow so fast, we tend to make them hand me downs. We add stripes of material as they grow so that they always have something that fits them." Papyrus explained. It made a lot of sense. Though, the fact that their shirt was striped was a coincidence. They just liked wearing stripes, and it was what they had picked when they left home.

Papyrus stood up slowly and offered them a hand up. They didn't take it. He didn't seem offended, just resigned. "I should probably let you go now. If you are not going to stay in Snowdin, then you probably want to get a head start into Waterfall before it gets too late. There are some good caves to camp in, but you'll need to travel a good distance before you come across them. Good luck on your adventure, human!"

With those final remarks, Papyrus turned and walked away.

Was it that easy? Was he just letting them go? Compliance technically worked, but this had to be a trap.

It was definitely a trap to go back and stay. As much as they wanted a home or a place to belong to, staying with someone who had already proclaimed that he wanted the fame that came with delivering them to the king was a bad move. Additionally, they didn't like the way that Sans was passive aggressively forcing them to do things. His whole "I'm not gonna do anything, but I really strongly suggest that you do this thing I want you to do" was not a healthy environment for living in. It would be like living with their mom again, except he was a stranger.

The worst their mom would do was ground them, or technically send them away to be "fixed" but she still loved them. She still had to take care of them, even if she was doing it the wrong way. Sans and Papyrus had no such obligation. Staying with them would end in their capture or an impossible debt. They couldn't afford that.

Instead, they had to keep going. They had to travel through the captain's territory, which was also a trap. Papyrus wasn't a real guard, but he still captured them easily. There was no way that they could escape the captain if they couldn't even escape Papyrus.

But they had no choice. They had to keep going. The only way out that they knew of was through the king. And the king was past the captain. The only way to get back home was to get past the captain.

If they went back to Snowdin, they'd definitely be trapped. If they moved on, they would most likely be trapped. In the end, they had to go where their odds of surviving and escaping were higher. Papyrus and Sans probably wouldn't kill them, but they'd be stuck forever. The captain might kill them by accident if she was stronger than Papyrus, but it was also the only chance they had to escape the Underground. Maybe. If the barrier didn't stop them too.

Finding their resolve, they began to walk away from the town. With any luck, Papyrus hadn't already contacted the captain to inform her of their imminent arrival. If they were lucky, they might never see her at all.

It was too bad that luck was never something that they could rely on.