Toriel idly hummed as she filled a glass cup with water from the sink. When it was full, she set it on the counter and grabbed a second cup from nearby and placed it under the water.

"Are you going to bed soon?" A deep voice asked from behind her as a pair of arms snaked their way around her waist. She smiled as she leaned back into a warm chest.

"Yes, I just need to tend to the children first before I do." Turning off the faucet, Toriel placed the filled cup beside the other one and turned to face her beloved husband. He was wearing the large bath robe with lovely multicolored flower patterns on it that she had gotten for him in the marketplace that was emerging in the area with the natural waterfalls (that her husband had so conspicuously named 'Waterfall'), and he looked so handsome wearing it.

"Would you like me to do it tonight?" Asgore asked as he gently grabbed her hands and squeezed gently. "I could read them a story if you with to turn in early."

"You could do that, but I'm not the one who has to wake up early and check on the progress on the CORE tomorrow," Toriel raised an eyebrow teasingly as his eyes widened in surprise.

"A-Ah, right. Of course." Asgore smiled sheepishly and ducked his head slightly. "Thank you for reminding me, my love," he leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead.

"Of course, dear. I had a feeling you had forgoatten it." Toriel grinned.

Asgore chuckled softly at her joke as he pulled her in for a hug. "Sleep well, dear." Her husband's voice rumbled in his chest as he spoke, and Toriel sighed happily against him.

"You as well." They pulled apart as Asgore hesitantly stepped away. Exchanging one last set of goodbyes, her husband finally disappeared around the corner and went to his room.

Toriel smiled and meandered around the kitchen, waiting a moment to make sure that Asgore had some time to say his own goodnight to their children. When she hear his bedroom door close, Toriel grabbed the two cups filled with water and made her way to the first door in the hall.

Both of her children were curled up under their covers, though only the right-most lamp was switched on inside. Toriel placed both cups of water on either side of their bookshelf in the middle of their room (though not too close to the edge so it couldn't be knocked off if they accidentally hit it), and walked over to her human child.

On the far left of the room, Chara laid curled up in a tight ball with their back to the rest of the room as they normally did when they slept. They always seemed so tense at night, and she worried they weren't sleeping very well. Frowning slightly at their rigid shoulders and back, Toriel adjusted their covers and gingerly petted their head, infusing some green healing magic into her hand as she went. They slowly relaxed into the mattress as she continued until, with a soft sigh, they stretched out and relaxed fully. With a soft smile, Toriel gently kissed them on the head.

Backing away slowly as to not bother their now-relaxed slumber, Toriel carefully padded over to the other bed in the room. Asriel laid on his back, frowning up at his blank ceiling with his hands folded over his stomach and a small crease in between his eyebrows.

"Hello, my darling," Toriel whispered softly as she sat on the side of her son's bed. "It's bed time now. What are you thinking about that has you so distracted?"

"I was just wondering... what was life on the surface like before we were sealed down here?" Asriel asked quietly.

"You... want to know about what our life on the surface was like?" Startled at his topic, Toriel blinked rapidly. "Why are you thinking about that?"

"Well, Chara was telling me about the surface," Asriel sat up in his bed and hesitantly glanced over at his adopted sibling. "They were talking about stuff like the flower field near their village, an' then they were telling me about another HUMAN village that was really far away, but they'd still come to trade for stuff. They had to travel for a really long time to get there too, an' it'd take months for them to get back!" His voice had become louder and louder until he finished his tirade with an excited shout.

Toriel quickly shushed him and glanced back over towards Chara, who was thankfully still relaxed under the covers and sleeping. She turned back to her son and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, mom." He whispered extra-quietly with an apologetic smile.

"I accept your apology, but please try to remember your volume next time?" Toriel smiled as her son nodded, but then she became much more grim and serious. "And you should be careful about who you ask that question to. Some MONSTERS would react very poorly to the reminder of what they lost, so I would ask that you do not go around asking others about it."

Asriel curled in on himself as she spoke, and, when she finished, he was looking extremely chastised and withdrawn.

"'M' sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up..." he whispered sadly, fiddling with a loose thread on his blanket while he tried to avoid looking her in the eye.

Toriel's stern countenance melted away at the sight of her son looking so dejected. He was just a child - he couldn't possibly understand the emotional minefield that he just tread upon. But he would be ripping open old wounds if he went around carelessly asking THAT question.

Especially since it wasn't an old wound, not anymore. Toriel glanced towards the other bed. A HUMAN appearing in the Underground was a miracle - but not every MONSTER agreed that the HUMAN should live among them. There were some who were afraid that there was little chance that another HUMAN would ever fall down here again - and, for an especially heinous few, revenge was but a single soul away.

"Oh, my dear child. It is only natural to be curious," Toriel began softly, reaching out to take his small hands in her own. "But some MONSTERS are still... sensitive about it, and would rather not remember what we — what they — have lost. We had lived all our lives on the surface, but then we needed to learn to live underground."

"But what about-!" Asriel clapped his hand over his mouth and blushed, glancing back over to their sibling worriedly.

"What is it?" She urged quietly.

"But what about when we do get out, mom?" He whispered, eyes shining as he leaned forward as if to share a grand secret. "We're trapped now, but one day when we get out, then we're gonna have to learn how to live on the surface again, right? So don't we kinda need to know?"

A wide-eyed Toriel blinked at her son in shock. She had... never thought of it that way. Chara's miraculous presence had brought renewed hope to the Underground — the barrier built through the strength of HUMAN souls, that was supposed to keep MONSTERS in, and, to prevent them from ever escaping, keep HUMANS out.

The Royal Scientist that this was because the sun-spot in HOME was a weak point in an otherwise impermeable barrier. Personally, Toriel wasn't convinced - if it was a weak point, then the flying MONSTERS should have been able to escape.

Many had started to loose hope for ever going to the surface. Even the head of the Royal Guard - the 'Hammer of Justice' Gerson - believed that they should move on and not worry about getting to the surface.

Could it be that, on some level, even she had subconsciously denied that they would ever see the surface again?

"I never thought to write down something like that before ..." Toriel nodded slowly, speaking more to herself. "We could make a book which details MONSTER culture from the surface. It might be difficult getting some MONSTERS to talk about it, but with the right author, I think its certainly feasible..."

"... so it is a good idea?" Asriel whispered softly, drawing her back to the present.

"Oh, my darling boy," she leaned forward and picked her son out of his bed, gently setting him on her lap and then engulfing him in a hug. "Sometimes adults like me can overlook something like that. We can get so caught up in our past, or even our present, and not even think about something that seems to be so far off in the future."

They sat like that for a few minutes, just basking in the comfort of each others presence until Toriel rested her head on top of her son's.

"Oh!" She suddenly exclaimed, suddenly sitting up and jostling Asriel.

"What? What is it?" Concerned, he shifted so that he could look up at his mother, who was rubbing her jaw as if it were sore. Instead of answering, Toriel ran her fingers over the top of her son's head - who felt as if he were being noogied. "Wha- ow! Mom!"

"Ah-ha!" She triumphantly exclaimed. "Your horns have started growing in!"

Asriel froze in place from trying to wiggle out of his mother's lap and his hands flew up to his head. Toriel quickly stopped him from roughly slapping himself silly (Asriel fantasized about them often enough that she didn't know why he thought that they would be so far back on his little skull!), and gently guided his hands to the small and pointy mounds on either side of his temple.

"I have horns..." Asriel whispered reverently. The development of horns was a big step in a young BOSS MONSTER's life, because it signified that his core was getting strong enough that they could start learning the types of magic that made them unique.

(It also meant the first milestone of many that indicated that she and Asgore would truly start aging, but this was her son's moment - she wouldn't spoil it for him)

"Mmm, and if you keep rubbing them like that, you're going to wear them away." Toriel teased him. He paled and slapped his arms down into his lap, making her chuckle softly.

"Alrighty, then. I believe it is time for someone to goat to sleep," she said as she lifted him back into his bed.

"Ugh, mooooom," Asriel wrinkled his nose cutely, making her laugh again as she helped him adjust his covers.

"Goodnight dear," she leaned forward to give him a kiss on the forehead, but, as she was standing up, she paused. "Oh... um, there is one more thing," she kneeled down next to Asriel's bed and ran a hand over the fur on his head. "I... I need to ask that you don't bring life up on the surface around your father."

"Why not?"

Ah, how to explain it in a way that he would understand...

"Your father still feels very... very sad about everything that happened during the war. He used to have some very close friends who... who were lost, and they used to mean a lot to him. They... ah, they were not... did not..." Toriel was struggling for the words for a child-friendly version of something that was decidedly NOT appropriate for any child to hear before bedtime.

(She had one child who suffered from nightmares, and she did not need another one thankyouverymuch)

A spark of understanding flashed across his young face. "Is it like what you said? About the people who would get sad if we brought up the surface?"

"Y-yes! Exactly!" She latched onto the semi-accurate explanation, trying to keep the relief out of her voice as she said it. "Your father needs to focus on other things, especially right now with the CORE, so we don't need to remind him of something that would make him so... well, so sad. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I get it, mom. But, um... when we get to the surface, and we do have to talk about it... you don't think that he's gonna be mad about it, do you?"

"Oh, honey, of course not," Toriel said as she grabbed her son's hands and squeezed. "In fact, when the time comes and we're finally on the surface, I'm sure that he will understand -

and it will save us all a bunch of time from explaining everything to our people as well! So don't think of it as a secret, just think of it as a... as a surprise that we can help him when the time is right, to make things easier on our people during the transition."

"Ok... that sounds goooo-*yawn*," Asriel tiredly yawned as he snuggled under his covers.

Smiling softly, Toriel stood up and kissed his forehead, embuing a small amount of magic in it that it made Asriel's half-lidded eyes flutter shut. "Goodnight, my dear," she whispered as she stroked his head gently.

-0-0-0-

OMAKE

[Inspired by the ads I've seen for Aggretsuko, though I have never actually watched anything from the series.]

"Oh my darling, are you still awake?" Toriel asked gently, sitting on the side of her son's bed.

"Yeah," Asriel replied miserably. "I just can't seem to get to sleep, no matter what I try."

"Poor dear...," Toriel ran her fingers through the fur on his head. "Would you like me to sing for you?"

"... yeah. Yes, please."

Toriel cleared her throat.

Laying on their bed with their pillow wrapped firmly around their head as they tried to block out the demonic noises emerging from their mother figure, Chara felt their eye twitching.

And you wonder why humans came after monsters, they thought as Asriel yawned and relaxed into a deep sleep heedless of the eerie and unnatural noises coming from their mother.