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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9. IX

You open your eyes and everyone is around you. Everyone except two. One SOUL pulses anxiously on top of your chest. And one is gone for good.

At least, from here. You ache with loneliness anew. But you sit up and everyone looks relieved at you. They care and it’s frightening. Then they look back at Asriel, who is sleeping peacefully at your side.

The king and queen, for that’s what they are, it occurs to you that they’re really royalty and you look at them and think —

“Something’s wrong with dad!”

And you shake it out of yourself.

“Kid,” says Sans seriously, well as seriously as Sans ever gets, you’re aware. “Your eyes are looking banged up.”

You tilt your head at him, uncomprehending. Your world is spinning with another’s life in your soul, another’s memories in the core of yourself, so you draw from it, smile and lie properly for the first time and say, “I’m fine!”

He doesn’t believe you. You’ll have to practice.

The others notice you again and you smile at them too, even at their confusion over your eyes that you don’t understand.

Asriel is still held tight in his parents’ arms as he opens his eyes, big eyed and dewy and frightened. You’re filled with the urge to hug him, but you do not. You resist. Because you know it doesn’t belong to you.

“Welcome home!” you tell him, and you mean it. Then you pick yourself up and start to wobble about. You don’t want to hear everyone’s cries of joy or concern when you have one last thing to do. When Rachel’s SOUL is with you. You don’t really want to tear the king and queen from their child, you don’t, but you don’t know how to heal and what you remember of Rachel’s body is not good.

You nervously tug on Toriel’s hem. She remembers herself and looks down at you with a smile and says,

— “Is there something you need, my child?”

And your first instinct is to cower, your second to reassure her that you’re fine, it’s just a question and she needn’t worry but you —

Pull yourself out of that and quietly hold out Rachel’s SOUL.

“I think we can save her,” you say, as her face falls. “But, I uhm, I dunno how to heal so…”

“Of course, my child,” she says and pulls away immediately. Asgore’s eyes go solemn, as if he too remembers himself, and Asriel flinches. “Let me help you now. Do you know where she is?”

She and not it helps you stay grounded, the words keep you present. You nod, and hurry towards the line of coffins. She follows you easily, but you see her twitch the further down you go.

“I gave Asgore the blue soul,” she says softly after a while of walking.

You hum in confusion, then your knife flickers cyan and you think of a hunger stuck in your bones. “Oh,” you say. “Where I found the toy knife.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I found the body on my morning rounds. They were still warm and their soul was floating there. I… I couldn’t help but wonder if I had added an extra check before falling asleep, I could have saved them. The other monsters never said a word to me, I’d wondered if they’d killed them, but…” She exhales. “All signs pointed to the contrary.”

You know how they died, but you won’t say so. You don’t want to tell her that all of the souls are with you forever even though they’re gone, that the whole underground has marked you irreparably now. “I think they’d forgive you, Toriel-ssi,” you say instead. They wouldn’t have helped with the barrier if they didn’t.

“Perhaps, my child.” She wipes her eyes. “Perhaps. I hope Chara has, since we’ve been blessed with our son’s return. I hope they have.”

“They did,” you say simply, hoping it sounds like how a child is sure of things and not how truthful it is. “I bet they loved you all a lot. They saved Asriel after all.”

“You saved Asriel, my child,” Toriel corrects.

You hum and don’t disagree. You can’t. She wouldn’t understand that you’re both right.

You reach the coffins and Toriel gasps softly. They’ve all opened and the air stinks. You look into Chara’s first, quite without your eyes’ permission. There are only wrappings left and the rest are… well.

The less you look at it, the better you feel. But you don’t want to look away all the same.

Rachel’s coffin is the furthest back and the cleanest.

“Allow me,” Toriel says softly, voice steady. She picks you up in one arm and you don’t flinch. Rachel’s SOUL is vibrating steadily now, shaking to break free of your cupped hands. “You will have to hold her in, Frisk. Her body will need to remember it can be alive. With a monster SOUL, it doesn’t remember to be solid any more you see. It sees very little point.”

You nod and reach for Rachel, steadily keeping the SOUL pushed in at the sternum as Toriel works. You wish for her return. You wish for her life. She had been everything to you, once. She should be able to become anything again. You burn red for a brief instant. Color flows back into her face, things knit and mend close with ease and slowly the soul stops vibrating and begins to relax.

Rachel opens her eyes, and you smile at her.

“Bam,” she croaks as if in surprise.

“Hi Rachel,” you say, and your original goal crackles in your arms, in your skin and seeing her breathe makes it all come back again. But you remember yourself and say instead. “Welcome back.”

You jump as she hugs you and cries. “I’m sorry,” you tell her and you hug her back. It feels empty now.

“Me too,” she says.

For the first time, you’re not sure if she means it or not, but you’re okay with that.

It won’t be long now.

---

It takes Rachel time to be able to move. Asriel apologizes to her in a shaky trembling voice that even she seems to melt at. You think they’ll be fine. Then they’re talking about going up to the surface. You don’t beg off, it’d be strange if you did. But your heart trembles. What if you can go through?

You’re afraid to find out, if you’re honest. But you will and you must.

“We must see it,” Asgore insists gently. “We need to be sure.” He’s carrying Asriel, likely afraid to let him go.

You nod. You gently push Rachel ahead of you. She falters. “Bam…?”

“I’m tired,” you say. “And you’re hurt more. I’ll go behind you and catch you.”

She squints at you, and then reaches out with both hands to muss up your hair. “Don’t act tough.”

“I’m not,” you protest, laughter squirming in your throat. “I’ll let people know if I need help.” She squints at you a bit harder but then lets it go, lets the others lead.

You follow. Sans is the closest to you, the furthest from the door. He stops a moment. “Yo, kid.”

“Yeah?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Good job. You found the right answer.”

You smile because he’s a liar still. “I wouldn’t have found it alone.”

He chortles. “I dunno, I think you did a good job.” And he steps through the doorway.

You make to do the same.

Then the world falls to black around you, and you can’t see, hear, or feel anything for a long time.

You come to and see Rachel in tears, Asriel also in tears, and everyone looking down at you. You blink at them fuzzily, confused. “What’s wrong?” you ask.

They all look at each other and then Sans replies, “Kid, you went through the exit and your heart stopped beating. We’d thought you’d just passed out.”

You blink slowly. “Oh… so that’s it.” You feel remarkably calm about this, even for you.

“That’s a bad thing, Frisk!” Asriel shouts. “You didn’t tell me that’s what would happen.”

They all look between you two, baffled, as you watch Rachel’s face turn stormy. You shake your head slowly. “I didn’t know.” And it’s not even a lie. You’d figured that you’d just bump into something and not be able to get past and have to wait for them to notice. Death seems… weak in comparison but simple enough. “I guess I won’t be able to see the stars, will I?”

Rachel’s face is unreadable. You don’t need to read it though.

The room erupts into chatter, euphoric and sad and bending and twisting and impossible to track.

“I think…” you say eventually. “We need to change the story. I can’t be the one who represents monsters for the humans, if I’m still stuck here. I think Rachel needs to tell that story and convince people.”

They all gape at you.

“But… but I didn’t do anything.” Her voice is weak. She is disbelieving.

You shake your head. “You’re the reason I could do any of this at all. And you’re much more educated and used to people than me. You’re clever. I think that people would listen to you. And you know of the people where you play at, the chosen people. They could come through too, and we could empty out everyone.”

“Everyone except you, nerd,” Undyne says, uncharacteristically somber.

“You can figure that out when everyone’s out,” you say. “It’ll take a while anyway. It gives Alphys plenty of time.”

“Me?” she squeaks, utterly shocked.

You nod. You feel you are being watched. Then you notice a crick in your neck. “Sorry, uhm, can I go rest?”

No one is sure what to say to that, so you slip away and return to Asgore’s castle. You settle under the blankets before anyone can actually catch up with you. You’re so tired that even the sound of heavy thudded footfalls don’t wake you when they come.

You’re right and they know it. They don’t like it though. They never would. But that’s okay. It’s not your concern.

You have a promise to keep. You have work to do.

Even if your eyes are no longer simply gold.

---

The hardest part is, apparently, convincing the humans with Rachel to help.

Apparently, because you’re not allowed to see them. Or you try, but the sheer amount of sight and sound is physically overwhelming for you, so you hide and watch. You stay in Waterfall, mostly. The Riverperson floats around you sometimes, but mostly you’re stuck with the little white dog. Very nice and quiet.

Rachel sometimes seeks you out. Not often, but you can tell it’s when the lines on her face are the most scrunched and the dress Miss Toriel had made her is wrinkled heavily.

You can’t bear to call Toriel and Asgore parents. You don’t even know where to start. You’re barely certain that you have parents and are uninterested in them.

She seems to like these two, so you’re okay with it. “Is it hard?” you ask when she sits beside you. You like to stay by the water. It’s soothing.

“The adults are useless,” she says with a grunt. “The monsters are willing to catch them and everything.”

“Do you think they’ll fight?”

Rachel snorts. “No one in this dumb place has the determination to fight.” She looks at you, and you look back. “You want to play a game, for old times’ sake?”

You think about it, and then shake your head no. “I thought you’d want to rest.”

She flops back into the grass. “Kinda do.” You flop down beside her and it feels softly nostalgic. “I saw the stars, Bam.”

“You did?” You smile.

“Well, I saw the stars out there. I still dunno if they’re real. They say there’s classes I can take and proof and stuff where I can find out.” She sighs. “But I have to do all of this catch up with Asriel first.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’d better be.” She smiles as if to push off the feeling of her words, which is good because, well, you’re not particularly sorry. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she says after a while. “It’s nice for people to listen to me. And being outside is great when I get to be there. It’s hard to come back in.”

“I probably wouldn’t come back if I could go.”

“Bam!” she protests.

You smile at her. “This place reminded me of how much I was desperate not to be lonely. And then I had you. And now, well… I think I went a bit too fast.”

You watch the water fall beside you both.

“Maybe a bit,” she admits after a while. “I thought about that sometimes. When I heard stories about the tower, or when you once asked me to bring you up. It would have probably freaked you out if I could have.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“… I still wish you could see it.”

“Alphys will figure something out. When she and Undyne aren’t busy.”

“Look at you sounding all grown up.” she teases, poking your cheek.

You both laugh, and you don’t say a thing about it.

You can’t. You don’t want to see her face if you do.

It’s rather cowardly. But so is the admission that wasn’t spoken. She would have left you anyway. And it hurts to be certain of that now. But you have experienced so many feelings in the span of time since you fell into the underground that parsing them all and trying to understand them is more effort than trying to express them anymore. You have to think about it later.

When you’re alone.

---

Someone makes a habit of finding you wherever you are in the Underground. You haven’t been back to the place where you slept since, because there are people running through it, but there wasn’t much there anyway.

Usually it’s Sans, popping up beside you and sleeping. Rarely it’s Alphys, asking for a bit of your blood. Once in a while it’s Asriel, who is small and warm and lays on you like a blanket. It’s sometimes someone else, but you tend to tune them out eventually. The encounters start to blur together. You have to be careful.

You think they notice but you can’t worry. You’re piecing together Chara’s memories and your dreams. They haunt you, Chara’s enraged screams and the horrible ragged coughs of buttercup flowers, the sensation of love and the smell of smoke from a fire. You dream of yourself being locked away, of voices murmuring and a terrible pain in your sternum.

Those dreams leave you shaking.

Perhaps that’s why you’re not being left alone.

Eventually, the other humans seem interested in working with the monsters. People begin making inventories and creating systems to pull useful things out. People are packing and working. You help sometimes, because they don’t notice you at first.

Then they do. You lie and tell them you’re someone from outside who stayed with the monsters. With Chara’s memories, the lie comes easier. And they don’t know you well. So you help. It’s a struggle. Your body is weak. But you manage. You manage.

That’s all you have. That’s all you can.

You feel everyone’s eyes on you, but that’s fine.

It only fills you with more determination.

Once you meet a woman while you’re watching. She drifts rather than walks on sandaled feet. It doesn’t look like she’s ever touched dirt. She looks up at the cracks of Waterfall with wonder and you watch her. She just seems ordinary at first, but the more you watch her, the more your hair stands on end.

And then her eyes, exactly like yours down to the shape and color, or what they once were anyway, rest on you.

Pain laces through your skin and bones and muscles and SOUL as she whispers, “My Violet. Your time is coming.”

You can’t move.

She smiles sadly at you. “Your time is coming, my little monster. My sweet little Violet. My little girl. Don’t fight it. Break it.”

Someone’s voice calls out in the distance, frantic, but you don’t hear it. You sway and the world sways to black around you. And yet, you feel a hand in your hair when your head touches the ground.

“Peace, child of mine,” whispers the woman from your nightmares. “Be at peace. Soon it will come. You just need to wake up a little more.”

Peace does not come for you, but something does.

You wake up and there is something in Rachel’s eyes you don’t like. You lie to her face when she asks what happens.

She believes you.

But all you hear is the word, a name, thundering in your ears. “Violet.”

Your scalp itches, your eyes hurt. And everything, everything, is cold.

You decide to knit a blanket.

Something in it makes you shrivel.

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