aiko's otter den

yellow as a real star - You are not a hero, yet here you are with a happy ending. Or, Rachel, and the aftermath with the monsters.

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3. III

The monsters find Kris strange.

Not untrustworthy, except for maybe Sans, who Rachel struggles to read on the best day. Sans doesn’t really like people unless they like his brother. But his red eyes are unnerving in a way Bam’s softness, and their guilt lets them ignore. Kris is just present, deadpan and unflinching. Papyrus, of course, sees the best in everyone and immediately offers Kris something to eat, his spaghetti covered in cheese. Kris shakes their head at once, their usual smirk replaced with a sheepish smile and a shake of their head.

“Lactose intolerant,” they say. “But thanks.”

That softens Toriel in an instant — she’s always liked a project, Rachel thinks, and resolving an allergy or an intolerance would keep her busy. Better than ruminating on her failures.

Papyrus doesn’t lose heart at all and offers him an imitation steak made of tofu and Kris accepts with a wry little smirk.

Rachel lets them be and goes to stand by Asriel and Sans. Asriel just looks at Kris with discomfort, but also like he can’t look away either.

“What is it?”

“You don’t bring not-girls home.” Sans sounds perfectly comfortable saying that. “Gundam Wing hit you hard?”

Rachel rolls her eyes and tries not to blush. She didn’t need to justify her crushes to Sans, of all people. “They offered to help and they’re uh… very red.”

“Very red,” Asriel agrees, voice uncomfortable. “In his eyes. Frisk’s eyes weren’t like that until later.”

Until he’d saved the underground.

“What, do you think he’s stronger than Bam?” This, she doubts. Bam died thousands of times (she knows, she remembers, she cannot forget because she feels it in her skin at every spare moment.) and still had the strength to choose to be kind, patient, honorable, determined to save everyone. To selfishly change everything.

Asriel shrugs. “He’s different from Frisk. I don’t know if it’s stronger. It’s just different.”

“So you’re looking for the star lady?” Kris’ isn’t loud, but they don’t stay quiet or flinch at the looming power all around them. They have to know who they’re with. Toriel and Asgore are the former rulers of the Underground. There’d been an entire news special about it, where Rachel had had to lie the best she’d ever had on how the mountain opened up. She hadn’t known that she could lie as thoroughly as she had. “I know where she is. She bakes oat milk brownies and talks about the weirdest shit.”

“You’ve spoken to her?” Asgore’s voice is soft, perhaps to counter the way Toriel’s paws have gone tense in their gentle examination of Kris’ body. In their baggy clothes and bruised face, Kris was begging to be spoiled. Rachel knows better than to stop them. She gets moving again, green light gently bouncing over Kris’ body.

They don’t seem to mind, or maybe they’re too nervous to do so. “Yeah. She’s at the edge of town. She’s got a garden and comes by once a week. Sometimes I go back with her instead of— instead.” They shrug one shoulder. “She goes wandering a lot, looking for other mountains like yours. She says they’re entryways to hell that she can fall into.”

“Does she think there are other monsters in there?” Asgore muses. “The seals should be gone then. They weren’t as strong as the ones on us.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow. Sans waves a boney hand. “The magicians who sealed Mt. Ebott were the best of the best. Because of our majesties. But, well, there’s no way all of monster kind had one mountain. They had lesser magicians to take care of them.”

The monsters shiver.

Kris notices. “She’s looking for them to open up. She thinks… I dunno, something about how there were other doors there she wanted to open.”

“Well, of course she’s looking at breaking seals,” Toriel mutters with ill grace. “As a child, she helped make the seal to begin with.”

Kris makes a face. “She’s that old?” Rachel knows that feeling. She remembers meeting Arlene, finding her ageless and beautiful in a way her street rat parents could never have been. They’d been withered while she thrived.

“She’s Frisk’s mother,” Asgore replies, sober.

Kris looks at them all. Then they sigh, missing up their matted hair. “Can you like, start at the beginning?”

Rachel tries not to laugh. She knows the feeling.

…

“I don’t like them.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Ree, you don’t like anyone.”

Asriel huffs. He doesn’t like her calling him Ree, so she attempts to do it every chance she gets. “I do too.”

“Bam and Chara don’t count.” He glowers at her, and puberty has not made him scary. It’s made him bigger. “You were scarier as a flower.”

He bristles, all his fur fluffing up. “I was stronger as a flower.”

“And more miserable.” Rachel shrugs. “So? Why do you not like this human?”

Asriel crosses his arms. His horns are getting longer, and she has to look up to meet his eyes. “They’re not like Frisk.” Rachel doesn’t interrupt as he continues. “They’re not. They’re determined, but it’s not the determination that saved the Underground. It’s a lot heavier and more brittle.”

Rachel thinks it over. She doesn’t really understand the DT science, let alone the magic but she can understand the feelings behind it at least. “You don’t think they’re strong enough to endure it. Or to move past it.”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “Determination is to decide to make things the way you want to. I don’t think he could survive what comes after. I didn’t.”

He talks about it casually now because everyone is around and if they hear his voice falter, they’ll notice his words.

“He could surprise you,” Rachel offers because she doesn’t understand and doesn’t particularly want to either. Her determination sure isn’t strong enough to do what Asriel thinks it should.

Asriel humphs. “You wouldn’t understand. Frisk did.”

Rachel exhales in frustration. “Probably a good thing he’s not here to understand.”

The glib words were too casual and harsh and Asriel — lunged.

Unfortunately, he is no longer a flower with sharp vines and no conscience. And she is no longer an abused little girl with a broken six shooter.

Simply put, she hits him and he goes down. He whines and they all turn, but not before the big goat teen tackles her tiny body. She’s learned from sparring with Bam and Asriel and jams her knee into his chin. He lets her go, and she rolls back onto her feet.

“Don’t ever say that!” He yells. “It’s bad he’s gone! It’s awful.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” she says, wiping blood where his enormous claws had scratched her face. “Maybe it’s good. Maybe he’s free from us.”

Asriel leaps for her, again but Sans gets in the way. Or, rather, he exists in the way like he is always there. “Easy there, prince fluffy buns.”

Asriel only backs away physically. He’s gotten bigger and more imposing, but Sans is Sans. That’s enough to make him pause. Anger still builds up in his amber eyes and angry spiked fur. “She’s glad he’s gone,” he shouts as Toriel comes to scold or stop them. “She’s the only one who can be special if he’s gone.”

“That’d be true even if he was here,” Rachel counters. “And you don’t want to hear this because if you have to look at him, you have a reminder of just how bad you can get and that someone will forgive you. That’s all you wanted Bam for.”

She heaves herself up and leaves before worse spills from her mouth like poison.

Rachel is not a good person, she knows that.

But Bam wasn’t either. He had never wanted to be.

She sits on the swing in the backyard. Rachel takes a few long deep breaths, staring up at the sunset. Before, she’d been obsessed with the stars, because the night had terrified her beyond measure. But there were other colors of the sky, and sometimes, seeing them made it better.

“That happens a lot?”

Kris looks down at her, hands in their pockets. She can hear the monsters arguing inside.

“Fighting Asriel?” Rachel shrugs her shoulders. “All the time. He’s the annoying little brother, and Bam was the simpler one.” The one locked up in a cave knowing nothing, malleable, perfect.

“That the one she calls Violet?”

They sound relaxed. They talked to Arlene and still had their head on straight-ish. Maybe they were fine.

“She didn’t call him anything with me, I don’t think.” Rachel shrugs. “I named him Bam. She didn’t care.”

“She doesn’t care about much,” Kris says, not unkindly. “She talks about some guy named V a lot, though.”

Rachel remembers that. Some of her favorite stories from Arlene were constellations and of the husband, who was soft and steady against everyone falling apart. Bam probably reminds her of him. “They were married.”

“Sucks.”

Rachel shrugs. “That’s the tower supposedly.”

“You wanna meet her?”

Rachel looks at the house. “They’ll want to.”

“So?” They gesture to the wide open path. “She probably won’t want to meet them.”

She won’t want to meet me again. The words stick in her throat like mucus. She doesn’t really want to see Arlene either. But… but… they deserved better.

“You know what?” Rachel says, getting to her feet. “You busy now? Let’s go.”

Kris grins, crooked and dull. “Sure. Follow me.”

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