aiko's otter den

red as the blood you didn't shed - Your name, a long time ago, was Frisk. AU.

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5. V

Chara starts crying.

It’s quiet, you can only tell because the breaths they don’t need hitch and their internal monologue grows fainter and fainter, but you feel tear tracks down your own face. And you put the pieces together again. Or you try because you don’t understand families or anything like that.

“Do you want me to stop?” You don’t think you can at this stage, but if Chara, the only person who has thought of you this whole time, is hurting, you have to think about it.

I want this to be over, they say, and it’s not an answer but it’s the only one you think that they’ll give.

You nod, and walk into the castle. It smells nice, like herbs and flowers, but it feels… sad. Lonely. Hollow. Maybe there was happiness here once but you don’t think it’s here now. Like the cave.

But you cannot stop. You must keep walking. There is nowhere safe to sleep. The inside of the castle is warm and welcoming, gentle to you. But you’re not sure if you can believe it. You want to believe that it is gentle.

As you wander, monsters whisper a story of a kind boy and his sibling. The monster who watched his sibling die.

Chara is silent as you enter a room, soft and lit with yellow, like sunlight. You pick up a locket and put it on. Chara lets out a broken sob. You look in the mirror and see you alone. You thumb the worn dagger in your left hand, left on the bed, then sheathe it.

You swallow the pain in your throat and head down the stairs.

The monster who tried to grant their last request while brimming with power.

The monster who also died that day, dusting a garden of flowers.

“Aren’t you excited? You should be happy! You’ll finally be free.”

And you remember that day where you’d tried to climb up to where Rachel was and failed.

No matter what happens here, you will likely never be free.

But Rachel might. And she dreams of the stars and a blue, real sky. Maybe you can give them to her with this, if nothing else.

You’d like to, if only for your own sake. Because for all you know of her imperfections, you also know you like to see her happy too, and all this death makes you think you should think of that more.

You meet Sans.

He talks about LOVE and EXP and all sorts of things that escape you. But then he says, “You could have done any of that, all of that, but you didn’t. YOU refused to hurt anyone. YOU refused to kill anyone. You were beaten down and beaten down all this way, and heck, you went back and befriended a few of those people who hurt you. You’re incredible, kid. You did all this just to go home or whatever, but you still did it. I’d have thrown in the towel by now.”

Your eyes water. You’re so tired, you want to tell him. You want to tell him that he’s wrong, that you’re not incredible. That you’re just scared and tired and hurting and want to sleep. You want to hug Rachel and tell her that you’re sorry for being such a bother all of the time and you will bear all the loneliness if she needs it. You want to tell her that dying hurts and you don’t want her to anytime soon. You want to see the stars she wants to see. But most of all you want to set her free.

“This battle will be different, kid,” he tells you before you can muster up the courage to be that honest. “This will determine all of our fates, all of our happiness. All of our prayers. Whether they’ll be answered or not, that’s up to you two. But, hey, you’ve been determined this whole time and got this far. As long as you follow what’s in your heart, I think you’ll make the right choice. Now, go on. The King is waiting.”

You lift your head and smile at him, and then you walk past him. Once you’re in the doorway, you stop and wait for Chara. Their ghostly fingers, shaking, grip your palm tightly.

You don’t let go.

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By the time you reach the garden, Chara, who doesn’t need to breathe, is hyperventilating. You squeeze their hand again and smell the flowers instead of stepping forwards. You’ve never seen so much color before. Rachel’s books don’t do it right. This is beautiful. It’s not as important as maybe it needs to be, but… she’s right. The world is beautiful.

A great goat man towers over the flowers, humming to themselves as they work. You don’t clear your throat. You watch him as he works, as Chara falls apart beside you. You hold them up without moving.

Asgore turns and looks at you. His eyes go wide and he looks away. You can’t see his face. You cannot imagine what fills him, but it seems to be more than resignation and pain.

Then he looks up at you and smiles.

Your determination doesn’t waver, but Chara hiccups.

“Hello,” he says softly. “I’d like to offer you a cup of tea, but well, you know how it is.”

Something grips your throat and you pause.

“Actually,” you say after taking a deep breath. “Dreemurr-ssi, I’d… I think I could really use that. I, we… we’re really tired Dreemurr-ssi.”

You don’t tell him it’s not you and he you are referring to because the relief on his face is enough.

“Give me a moment,” he says.

You nod and he rushes off on padded feet.

You sit on the ground and Chara finally wanders away, inspecting, exploring, sniffling. Your eyes follow them until they’re too heavy to follow anymore.

By the time Asgore has returned, you are sleeping peacefully in the flowers, but dreaming of spears gouging into your skin. Dreaming of falling into endless water.

You don’t dream of Rachel and when she’ll return anymore. You don’t think you deserve to think of her much anyway.

You awaken later to the smell of bread and sensation of Chara beside you. They’re not shaking but they are watching you. They float up and you sit up.

“You must have been tired.”

You blink at Asgore, who offers you bread with honey. You take it and eat it slowly.

Tears fill your eyes. You watch his face fall. You want to reassure him, you want to tell him that it tastes good, but you just continue to cry and cry and cry. It feels like your body is draining of tears, replacing them with a steady center of red.

The man hesitates, reaches out, then pets the top of your head. His paw swallows you down to your shoulders and you giggle wetly. It feels so strange, so unfamiliar. You must have been held gently once. You must have been cared for. Did Rachel care for you?

“I will give you a moment,” he promises gently and rises to go.

You sob and sniffle and crack apart. But you don’t break. You refuse to break.

Chara squeezes around your fingers, also cracking, also shaking.

You take comfort in that.

“I…” you say, as Asgore departs. “I want for Rachel to see her stars.”

Chara nods.

“And…” you hiccup. “When she can I… when she does I… I’ll be alone again, with you this time. And I…” You sob a little more and it hurts to breathe. “I’ll be okay with that. I will make myself okay with that. I’ll go out into that world with her and I’ll go… somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere where I… where a murderer like me can’t… where I can’t…”

You can’t finish the sentence, you just curl up on yourself because this man was kind and trusting to you. You have the dagger. You could have stabbed him, you could have hurt him and you are causing him pain and he is being kind to you. He is the first monster to be kind to despite what you represent and not because of what you represent. You are the freedom of all monsters, you realize, maybe all of the people in the world. Maybe everything and everyone ever.

And you won’t give up your stupid life. Because you want to see Rachel again. Because you are so, so scared of the loneliness more than the dying.

There’s something wrong with you. Surely she’d know anyway. Surely she’d guess.

Chara sits with you. They don’t talk. They let you wind down and hiccup and get it out of your system, the droplets falling through the crack in you.

Do you still want to do this, they ask, once you find the bathroom and wash your face with water. Their voice is quiet and sad and knowing your answer.

You take a deep breath and clench your fists. You nod.

You know it’s wrong. You know it’s selfish. You know it’s bad.

But you are filled with determination nevertheless. If there’s a way you can find to stop it, to stop Asgore and you from doing this, you’ll take it but you won’t know until you get there.

You nod.

Let’s go together then.

You nod into the mirror again and you go to Asgore.

He’s muttering something when you approach this time. You can’t make it out, but Chara flinches and holds your hand tighter. There are six souls in the jars by his feet. Most of them are placid, hovering up and down with practiced bobs. The yellow one is not, twisting and jerking and shaking at its container. You wonder for a moment, as a strange light fills the room around you in an endless expanse.

When he turns to look at you, his eyes are dry and calm and pitying.

The possible end to your journey fills you with determination.

“Human,” he says softly, smiling sadly. “It was nice to meet you. Goodbye.”

He summons a trident and as he smashes it down, the world quakes. You cannot run, you cannot give him mercy. Because you, truly, are getting none.

You don’t want to fight him, but, considering he kills you in seconds, you end up having to anyway.

You tell him this the second time you fight, when it’s less surprising. His hands tremble and fire bursts, but he attacks you anyway.

You keep telling him every time you die. Every time, it hurts. Fire chars your skin and bones. The trident skewers through your skin. Every time.

You keep saying it. It hurts, but you keep saying it. He’s crying too much for you to think of hurting him.

You come to meet him again.

“I don’t want to fight you,” you say. Sometimes you dodge, but mostly you die.

It stops hurting after a while, or you stop noticing just how much it hurts. The look on his face doesn’t. He seems to only grow more and more ashen the more you lift your head and face him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you tell him. You don’t let go of Chara’s hand. You don’t let go of the knife, but you never raise it. You continue to try to meet his eyes. Asgore doesn’t let you. He simply swings the trident.

He… misses you.

You exhale. Relief in your gut

Chara nods a bit, sadly, brokenly. All right, Bam, they say. It’s okay. Let me try.

You had almost forgotten your name, in all of this, the name Rachel had given you, let alone the one you keep to yourself.

You nod to yourself almost, and open your other hand. Chara almost sinks into you, not like a second skin this time, but like a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You close your eyes. Your body thrums. You open your eyes.

Asgore’s breath hitches when he raises his weapon to you again.

“Dad,” you say, in a voice that is yours with a feeling that isn’t. “You can stop, dad. It’s okay. You don’t have to do this.”

His breath hitches again. Something flashes in his eyes and he swings.

It kills you but it’s weaker. It takes too many swings.

You manage a smile.

We can do this.

Yes, you think, we can.

We will have to hurt him. We will have to stop him. But that’s okay, because you don’t want to kill him. Because, you think, he’s no different from the others, in the end. He doesn’t want to hurt you, not really. Not on purpose with pain, but he’s oh so willing to. He’s willing to end you for this. So, you will stop him.

The worn dagger warms in your hand, shifting under something greater than the two of you, something stronger and sharper. It slides into a more comfortable grip in your palm, turning into what Chara whispers about in surprise as a real knife.

We have to be careful, Bam.

You nod together, and you go in again.

You start to dodge in earnest now. There’s a lot of fire, so jumping up helps, You grab the trident when he swings it and you throw yourself over it and swipe. He jumps and the fire recedes.

You are calm.

Chara is singing in your veins. “Dad,” they say with your mouth. “Dad. Does this child deserve to pay for what I did to you?”

You die and get up again. Your head is clear.

“Dad,” they say after a few more attacks. ‘Why are you punishing yourself like this? Weren’t we enough suffering for you?’ They swallow with your mouth and you wonder what the two of you look like to him, with messy curls of hair and red and gold eyes (you think) and blood and bruises everywhere caused by him and the people he loves more than himself. You wonder if you look as human to him as he looks to you. “Aren’t our deaths enough? Why are you doing this to yourself? You and Mom… why do you hate yourselves so much?”

The man makes a terrible croaking noise. “Ch-Chara we… we failed you.”

“We failed you!” you both shouted. “We failed you! We could have saved you! We could have saved all of you with my life! And I would give it to you again and again and again! Because you were kind to me!”

Your slice down is at his leg and he grunts but you spin from his fire. You feel everything. You feel nothing.

“You loved me!”

Another stab, swiping up to the wrist in the second step. Fire hits your eyes and you can’t see, but you stuff food in your mouth and can see again.

“You wanted me to exist! Even if it was just as a puppet god! Even if it was just as a vessel for your prince, you treasured me!”

He stumbles and you duck under, your hair dancing in the fire and singing at the ends. You sing a few sounds to ease your throat and his breath stutters. You cannot push him, you are small, and he is mighty, but you can nick his fingers and you do.

Eventually you slip and fall — in the blood you’ve shed of yours actually. He doesn’t bleed. And you struggle. The day is still hard on you. But you push up as Chara shouts from your throat.

“You were more than I ever could have wished for… but they aren’t. This child is small and young and broken and hurting! How can you be all right with making it worse? How can you take their choices from them? It was my choice, more mine than Asriel’s, and I made it! Let them choose!”

And you push a bit more from your bones and you push your soul out as far as it can go from you and it smacks Asgore to the ground. You both wheeze and pant as the king takes a knee. Chara is weeping, you are crying blood, but you stand. You have to stand.

Asgore stays there for a long while, almost a statue. Then he says, “I remember the day my son died. Hours after Chara. Hours after crying fate and cursing it, he took that child’s Soul and went up. He slipped past us, they often did. The entire underground was devoid of hope. Our future had once again been stolen by the humans. I… I had never felt anger like I had then. I had declared war, I had decided to kill any human who approached, and then, when godlike power was in my hands, I would return to humanity and destroy them, much like those strange wanderers had tried to do to us. My wife was disgusted with me for it but… it gave my people hope. Who was I to take it from them?

“But it all cools in the end. Anger, shame, fear, hope, joy. It all cools. It was not enough to sustain me. It was not enough to support me. So many children came down here and died. Defending themselves and harming us, but died all the same. I…” He stops. “I do not want this anymore, Chara. I want to see my wife. I want to hold my children. I want to apologize to them and to you. I want peace again.” Finally the king looks at you.

“Child,” he says. “Whoever you are. Please. Take my soul and leave this wretched place behind. Be free of us, from the burdens we have put upon you. Let Chara rest.”

You both look at him. You slip the knife into your pocket. Then, you reach out and kneel onto the floor. You gather up the pieces of mercy scattered on the pristine tile and set them back together, one by one. They scrape your fingertips and blood soaks into it, but it holds. You lift it up and walk towards Asgore. You press Mercy into his hands and shake your head no.

“We’re gone, dad,” says Chara, steady and practiced. “All that is left of us is echoes now. But… this child isn’t. The people and things they treasure are still here. Why not try again, with them? They want to leave, yes, we want to leave, but —”

You swallow. You drop your shoulders. You exhale. “I can’t do this,” you admit. “I can’t kill you. I can’t. Rachel would never forgive me, I’d never forgive me. I don’t think I’d be free if you died… I can’t do this.”

And he looks at you, looks at you both and whispers. “After everything I have done to hurt you, you would rather stay down here and suffer…”

You smile again and you nod. Because you wouldn’t mind. If you can just get Rachel here, even this ending would be all right.

Asgore finally smiles, through tears, through pain and says, “I promise, human, that we will, my wife and I will —”

You don’t know what he and his wife will do because bullets float into view and kill him where he kneels. Then, they destroy his soul.

Chara screams inside your head.

You don’t scream. You are numb again as the flower, as Flowey, comes into view. “You idiot,” he says. “You haven’t learned a thing.”

The six souls float in a swaying loop around him. His vines drag themselves up into view as the yellow Soul shakes, and a familiar form, drenched in red and wearing a dress is pulled into view. She does not move. Rachel is not breathing.

“In this world,” Flowey says gleefully as you feel something snap inside you. “It’s kill or be killed!”

The thing inside you snaps and suddenly, you understand why people would kill each other.

Flowey laughs at you and the world blossoms white.

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