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luna-is-a-main-now · 5 years

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Your Words and Feelings, Chapter One

When his alarm went off, Virgil flinched in surprise as his eyes snapped quickly to the time displayed at the top corner of his phone. Had he really stayed up all night again? Apparently, yes, he had, and he was sure to get called out about it later. With a heavy, exhausted sigh, he made the alarm shut up and reluctantly rolled out of bed to start getting ready for the day. After doing his regular morning routine, he grabbed some food and finally looked down at his hand to check for the writing he knew would be there.

In red ink and fancy handwriting in the middle of the back of Virgil's hand was a small line of text reading: Good morning, my loves, I hope you all have a lovely day!

Below it, Virgil watched as sky blue ink in a curly, bubbly font quickly appeared in response, showing a drawing of a smiley face with a text bubble that cheerily proclaimed "You too! Thank you, Red!"

Virgil grinned as he pulled out his purple pen and scrawled back a small, quick note above the red. "Thanks Princey, right back at ya." With a sigh, he grabbed his stuff and set off for school, not even bothering to see if the owner of the occasional dark blue ink would reply. He rarely did, but Virgil got the impression that he appreciated seeing the notes from his soulmates nonetheless. At least, Virgil hoped he wasn't bothering him or the others with his little notes.

Entering his first class, Virgil sighed heavily as he dropped his bag heavily to the floor by his desk, then proceeded to drop himself heavily into his chair, both resulting in loud thumps. One more small thump sounded as Virgil laid down heavily over his desk, hiding his head in his arms and appreciating the soft warmth his hoodie’s sleeves provided.

He ignored the teacher as class started, figuring that because it was the Friday before a three day weekend, they wouldn’t expect them to do anything too important anyway. Not that he really cared right now even if it were important. He honestly would not have budged the whole time he had been in class if it hadn't been for the hesitant taps he felt on his arm. He snapped his gaze up with a glare, expecting it to be the teacher, but his eyes immediately softened when he saw that it was just the kid who sat next to him, looking hesitant as he fiddled with and adjusted his glasses numerous times.

“Hey… do you by any chance have a pen I can borrow? I must have dropped mine on the way to school.” Virgil sighed softly, but he looked so hopeful and desperate that Virgil couldn’t bring himself to say no. So he handed over the first pen he found, only realizing too late that it was his purple pen, the one he only used when communicating with his soulmates. The person who Virgil had given the pen to thanked him profusely and quickly started taking the notes before Virgil could do anything about his mistake though, and now he felt far too anxious to ask for it back before he was done using it, despite the pen belonging to him. He just hoped he would get it back, but for now, Virgil just put his head down again. He was too tired to deal with things at the moment.

The sound of the bell dismissing first period startled Virgil out of his half asleep state, causing him to slam his knee into the metal leg of his desk suddenly, and do so with enough force that it made Virgil’s stomach hurt. He hissed in pain at the same time the person next to him did, as they both reached for their knee. Surprise and dim recognition lit up in Virgil’s eyes as he rubbed at his knee, but the boy next to him hadn’t even realized what had happened, and was too preoccupied checking over his own knee to notice Virgil.

“Show me your hands,” Virgil requested, his voice still a bit gruff from exhaustion and pain. The person in question looked up at Virgil and nervously picked at the cardigan draped over his shoulders. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached his hands out to Virgil while looking at him curiously and very confused. Grabbing the one he knew it would be, should Virgil be right, he bit his lip and looked at it closely. Not that he needed to look to close before catching the fancy red script followed by sky blue and purple ink, and a small dark blue check mark. Checking his own hand, Virgil realized he must have missed it while he was asleep, but he had the dark blue check mark on his hand as well. Giving the boy in front of him a tired smile, Virgil held his hand out as well, watching as his new-found soulmate’s face went from puzzled to elated in seconds when he realized.

“Oh this is wonderful! I’m Patton!” He enthusiastically introduced himself as he seemed to literally vibrate with happy energy. Before Virgil knew it, Patton had flung his arms around Virgil’s neck and pulled him in for a hug. “I’m the sky blue ink! I’m assuming you’re purple?” He giggled softly as he stepped back to hand Virgil his purple pen back. Virgil could only nod numbly, being too tired to really keep up with Patton’s quick speech and excitable energy.

“Uh, I’m Virgil.” Virgil smiled at the slightly shorter boy, then pulled his phone out from his jacket pocket. Unlocking it, he quickly navigated to the phone keypad and handed it to Patton. “Give me your number? That way we can talk over the weekend?” Virgil offered awkwardly. He needn’t have been worried though. Patton beamed brightly at his suggestion and eagerly grabbed the phone from Virgil’s hands. Virgil had never seen someone type so quickly in his life.

“Ooh! I have C lunch! What do you have? If you’re up for it, we can meet up and talk then!” Patton bounced up and down excitedly. He beamed at Virgil as he handed him his phone back.

“I have C lunch too, and yeah I’m down for meeting up and talking then. I need to get going now though or I’ll be late for my next class… but I’ll see you later?” He smiled softly at Patton, and he nodded vigorously, before quickly grabbing his stuff and basically skipping out of the room with a cheery goodbye.

Virgil blinked, half believing he had imagined it all through his sleep deprived state, but glancing down at his phone, Patton’s contact was still there. Virgil smiled when he noticed he had added a sky blue heart emoji after his name. Virgil decided to keep it that way forever, and he really hoped that soon, he’d have two other names in his phone set up in similar style.

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Roman felt completely and utterly drained and fully exhausted, right down to his very soul. One or more of his soulmates must have pulled yet another all-nighter, and he had a pretty good idea of who it was. It was becoming much too common a habit these days, and Roman was getting sick of it, even though he knew that if it was the person he thought, he couldn’t control it any more than Roman could.

However, on the same token, normally Roman was a morning person. Before, people had even said that he practically glowed in the morning; they would always say that Roman was so bright and full of energy and that it made them happy to see someone so excited about every day, no matter how weird that mindset was as a freshman in college. Roman didn’t care that it was weird, he loved being full of energy and starting the day off in a positive mood. After all, the whole world’s a stage, as the saying goes, and Roman needed energy to perform his very best on that stage.

However, with the extreme lack of sleep running in the background of his brain all the time, all he got now was concerned comment after concerned comment. Roman was touched that his peers and teachers cared about his well being and that they actually checked in when his normally chipper mood was drastically different, but he swore he was going to scream if one more person asked him if he was alright when he was so clearly not. Despite Roman’s strict sleeping schedule and him getting more than the typically recommended eight hours, he still felt exhausted straight down his very bones. It was annoying. It also didn’t help that his knee hurt, also a result of one of his soulmates.

Sometimes the shared feelings bond between soulmates was such a hassle. Sure, he enjoyed feeling when his soulmates were excited and happy about things, as it made him feel all warm inside, happy that they were happy. However, he hated when he could feel when they were sad, depressed, hurt, angry, in pain, tired, etc and had no way to be there for them and help. All he could do now was write messages to them in red ink, and not even the messages that truly mattered such as his name, his number, or his location in order to meet them faster, due to whatever strange magic governed the soul bond between soulmates.

Grudgingly, Roman pulled out his fancy red pen, the pen he used only to write to his soulmates, because they were special and deserved a special pen. Wiping away their standard morning greetings with the help of a one-use rubbing alcohol pad, Roman began to write in his fancy, flowing script. He couldn't help but notice that it was actually much sloppier than it normally was. He couldn’t really bring himself to care all that much either though. He blamed his exhaustion and frustration for both.

Okay, which one of you pulled another all nighter? This is three in a row and it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Also, who hurt themselves? My knee has been aching all morning! You all must be more careful; injuries especially when exhausted have more effect, you know.

The scrawling purple text was slow to appear. It was as if the writer was hesitant. Roman felt bad that he had been so demanding; he never wanted his loves to be hesitant around him.

Sorry Princey. Those were both me. Insomnia is hitting me hard this week; I’ll try harder to sleep tonight. As for the knee… I got startled and rammed it into the metal leg of my desk. Not the best start to my morning, honestly.

Roman winced in sympathy. That all sounded horribly unpleasant. Roman wished he knew the owner of the purple ink. He wondered if he could help with the sleep issue in any way. He understood that insomnia couldn’t be controlled, but he wondered if maybe he could be able to help at least by singing or cuddling him till he was lulled to sleep. He wished to meet his soulmates soon; he was a hopeless romantic and thrived off of giving and receiving affection, love, and care with those he loved dearly. Despite never meeting his soulmates, Roman already knew he loved them to the very bottom of his heart. He only wished he could show them just how much in person.

Then, strangely, a small note began to appear on Roman’s wrist. However, this note wasn’t in purple, sky blue, or dark blue, the only colors his soulmates used. It was in a thick, dark black ink, like that of a sharpie marker.

Note to self: replace lost pen. Also, cookies? Or brownies?

The last part gave away who had written that easily enough and Roman chuckled. It was sky blue, or as they had nicknamed him, Padre. He was always making lists and reminders on his skin, and a lot of them pertained to sweets most of the time. Roman couldn’t wait to try the baked goods his soulmate must be quite good at making by now.

Okay, don’t worry about it Stormcloud. Roman wrote to purple, smiling as he used their occasional nickname for him. Take it easy today though, alright? Maybe ice that knee when you can. Also, Padre, did you really lose your pen?

Roman couldn’t help but smirk as he wrote back, addressing sky blue. He really did hope purple got some rest soon though, his insomnia was getting much worse lately and it was concerning. However, he was thoroughly amused at sky blue’s forgetfulness. He found it endlessly endearing and adorable, even though he had never seen it in person. This time, when Padre wrote back, it was in standard black ink pen, which Roman figured he must have just found in order to abandon the sharpie.

Yeah, I must have dropped it on the way to school or something! No biggie though; at least it was something easy to replace, even though I did love that pen in particular!

Roman smiled at that, too. He loved everything about his soulmates, even the one who used dark blue ink and didn’t interact as much as the other two. He had explained before that he didn’t really like writing on his skin directly, but that he didn’t mind seeing his soulmates converse. In fact, he had admitted it was enjoyable to see them talk, even if he wasn’t a part of it all that often.

Oh! Princey, Padre and I met this morning in class. Maybe now that one of us has met the other, that means we’ll all see each other soon? I hope so, at least. What about you?

The purple ink’s words made Roman’s heart stop for a second. Stormcloud and Padre had met? Oh, Roman was jealous, 100%, but he was also beyond excited.

Oh, I do hope so too! I can’t wait until I meet you all! Then I can spoil you all properly with plenty of love and affection!

Roman sighed happily as he began daydreaming about meeting his soulmates again for the thousandth time. He wanted to know all about them. He loved them with all his heart; they were all bound to be wonderful people and Roman had always felt so incredibly lucky that he seemed to have three wonderfully unique soulmates that he was destined to be with one day. It made his romantic heart melt and ache all at once everytime he thought about it. Checking his hand and the ink that had travelled up and down his arm as space ran out, he realized that Stormcloud had only responded with a checkmark, due to there being no open spaces left to respond. Roman quickly added his check mark, and so did dark blue and Padre. On cue, the ink started to disappear as one or more of them began wiping away the writing, save for Padre’s sharpie note.

The four of them had come up with that system long ago; if multiple parties were conversing and space ran out, they would all have to indicate whether or not it could be erased. Without 100% agreement, the writing would stay in order to prevent each other from getting rid of important things or things they hadn’t read yet. Dark blue, or Teach, as they often called them, had proposed that plan, and Roman had to admit that it worked perfectly for all of them.

After everything was wiped off, Roman smiled fondly at his arm, still stained with the colors of his soulmates. Occasionally, even wiping the ink off so soon after it was applied still left ghost marks of the words and colors behind. Roman loved that it occasionally looked like his arm was a faded tie-dye project. It was colorful and beautiful and served as a pleasant reminder of how lucky he was. Roman adored it.

Eventually, and with a small sigh of exhaustion, Roman decided to head off of his college campus, and toward a local coffee shop that had opened close by recently. He didn’t have any more classes today anyway, and a friend had told him that the coffee there tasted simply amazing, and that even other people who claimed to not be coffee people liked their stuff. Personally, Roman had never been overly fond of coffee, but he did appreciate the effects it had, especially in times such as these when he felt he might pass out at any second. He felt more and more tired as time passed, and he could only guess at how awful purple must be feeling since the exhaustion originated from him. However, Roman couldn’t help him yet, so he had to settle for trying to chase away the exhaustion that crept into his own system from the soul bond.

As he pushed open the door to the small little cafe, a small bell chimed pleasantly to announce his arrival. An employee greeted him politely with some sort of standard welcome, and Roman politely smiled and nodded at her in acknowledgement. He quickly walked up to the order counter and looked over the menu.

“Hi, what can I get for you?” The cashier asked cheerfully, smiling at him brightly. Roman smiled back at her tiredly.

“Ah, what do you suggest? I’m normally not much of a coffee guy, but a friend insisted I try coffee from here and that it would change my mind.” Roman chuckled softly. “It’s my first time here so I honestly don’t know what most of this,” he gestured slightly at the menu off to the side, “is. What’s good, is basically what I’m asking.” Roman laughed slightly, the notes laced thick with nerves and exhaustion. The cashier only smiled back at him again.

“Oh this happens all the time now! So many non-coffee drinkers have been coming in lately on advice from a friend; it’s kinda crazy actually!” She chuckled and threw her hands out in an ‘I dunno’ gesture. “People new to coffee typically like sweeter drinks as opposed to more bitter, so a frappuccino might be a good place for you to start! I personally say you can’t go wrong starting off with a standard vanilla or mocha frappuccino, depending on your tastes.” She offered helpfully, pointing to the mentioned items on the menu so Roman could look at the printed pictures of them more closely.

“Ooh, I do indeed like sweet things! Let’s go for the mocha thingy you said.” Roman chuckled as he forgot what it was called already. “Thank you for the help by the way.”

“Frappuccino, but most just call it a frappe or a frap.” She explained with a smile. “You’re welcome, and what size would you like?”

“Ah, probably a large if I’m to make it through the day. I’m exhausted; my soulmate pulled an all nighter.” Roman explained with a little laugh.

“Oh I know the feeling.” She chuckled. “That will be $2.34, would you like anything else?”

“That’s all, thank you. You’ve been a wonderful help.” Roman pulled his wallet out and gave her a five. “Keep the change as a tip, okay? I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day and night ahead!” Roman smiled at her brightly. She grinned at him brightly and nodded, waving at him as he walked to the end of the counter where they put out completed orders.

It didn't take very long for his drink to be called, and an employee handed the drink directly to Roman. Thanking him, Roman grabbed a straw and took a test sip of his drink. He hummed, pleasantly surprised at the taste. It was sweet, but not overpoweringly so, and the drink was smooth and perfectly blended, and the soft scent of coffee mixed with the whipped cream and chocolate drizzle on the top just made the drink seem all the more better to him.

On a whim, Roman checked his hand again, delighted to see more writing. This time it was in dark blue ink, meaning their seldom seen soulmate was reaching out. Roman couldn’t be happier about it.

Purple, please try to get sleep tonight. Your immune system must be severely compromised from the lack of sleep you are already experiencing. Sky, please also eat some healthy foods; not just baked goods, okay?

Roman smiled. This was how Teach showed his love, despite them all having heard the same advice over and over again. It seemed as though he valued how much his soulmates practiced self care and healthy choices, which Roman found touching.

Yeah, I got it Teach. Sleep is important, I know. Thank you for the reminder though.

Oh, I suppose I could pick up stuff to make food other than baked goods. However, I wanna show Stormcloud my famous chocolate chip cookies now that we’ve met! And I’ll do the same for all of you when it’s our turn to meet!

Roman practically squealed in delight as he pulled out his red pen to reply to that. However, he ended up bumping right into someone, and spilled both of their coffee’s. Roman winced, embarrassed at his careless mistake, but also managed to pull the person out of the way in time so that nothing spilled on him personally. He still felt bad about the lost coffee and the huge mess he had created in the middle of the cafe.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!” Roman cried. “I should have been paying more attention, are you alright?” He asked, as the other male adjusted his glasses with a disgruntled expression. Roman’s eyes caught on a flash of dark blue, light blue, and purple ink on his hand before it was hidden again, but he couldn’t help but notice the dark blue pens in his shirt pocket. Roman wanted it to be true, but he swallowed down his excitement for now.

“I am alright. Unfortunate to lose my coffee before I can assume any of its benefits, but no matter. Are you alright? I admit it was also partially my fault.” He frowned slightly, as if he didn’t quite like how that had been presented, but was almost too tired to care. Roman noted that he didn’t have dark circles under his own eyes, so the extreme exhaustion he was displaying was a result of the soul bond, not his own sleep schedule. That only gave Roman more hope, and he couldn’t help but smile at the man in front of him, who he was sure was his soulmate.

“Oh yes, I’m okay. And, please, no, that was my fault. I was too busy conversing with my soulmates.” Roman smirked as he held his hand up and out towards the other male, making it as easy to see as possible, and prompting him to look at his hand closely. “I’ll assume you were possibly doing the same?” He asked as he saw the other’s expression go from neutral to surprised, and he smiled softly, an expression that had Roman’s heart doing flips in his chest.

“Well it seems you are correct. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Logan. You may have already guessed but I’m dark blue.” He gestured at the pens in his pocket with a smile, and Roman easily returned it.

“I’m Red, or Princey, or whatever other nickname I’ve been given by now,” Roman chuckled softly, and held his hand out towards Logan for a handshake. “My name is Roman, though. It’s a pleasure to meet you too, my dear soulmate.” Roman smiled at him even wider when Logan shook his hand.

“Here,” Logan commented as he took out his pen and started writing on a napkin, handing it to Roman once he had finished. “It’s my number. So we don’t lose contact when we leave.” He smiled at Roman in an almost shy manner.

“Thank you, and that’s smart! For now though, why don’t you grab a table? I’ll clean up this mess and order us some new coffee so we can talk? That is, if you’re free of course.” Roman offered hopefully as he accepted the napkin with Logan’s number on it, putting it safely in his pocket. Logan bit his lip and seemed to think on that for a bit before slowly nodding.

“Yes, I can stay for a bit. I have a class at three, and it is only one thirty, so I can stay until about two? I know thirty minutes isn’t long, I apologize.” Logan explained slowly. Roman only smiled at him brightly.

“No need to apologize! This was honestly a very sudden meeting, so of course you may have other plans! Or well, a class, but same difference. We can plan something better for next time now that we’ll be in contact over text?” Roman offered as he started off to grab a stack of napkins, and also requested a mop or something from an employee.

“Yes, for sure.” Logan smiled at him gently. “I shall look forward to getting to know you better, Roman.” He stated, then waved as he went off to find a table for the two of them. Roman quickly got to trying to soak up the spilt coffee on the floor with the napkins, and was very grateful when someone brought out a mop for him, making the process go much faster. Once he had cleaned up the mess he accidentally made he went back up to the order counter.

“That was quite the situation.” The barista snickered at him good-naturedly. Roman couldn’t help but chuckle back as he scratched the back of his neck nervously. He had made quite the spectacle of himself, admittedly.

“Yeah, not the most elegant or graceful way to meet a soulmate, I admit, but at least I met him.” Roman smiled softly. “I couldn’t be more excited about it, quite honestly. I can’t wait to learn more about him.” Roman said in an almost dreamy tone of voice, allowing his inner hopeless romantic to shine through. He had been waiting for the day he would meet one or all of his soulmates for years, and finally it was here and Roman already thought Logan perfect.

“I’m so happy for you! You should thank the friend that told you to come here. After all, had you not, this never would have happened.” She commented with a gentle smile. “Anyways, I’m assuming you’re trying to replace the drinks? So another mocha frap for you and an iced coffee for him?” She questioned, getting back to business. Roman grinned at her.

“Yep! And yes, I will be sure to thank my friend, for sure.” Roman smiled brightly.

“3.84 is your total, will that be all?” She questioned politely as she finished tapping in the order on her computer. Roman nodded, and handed her another five.

“I know I already said it, but I hope you have a wonderful day and night!” Roman called as he headed down to the pick-up counter. He only had to wait for a few minutes again before being handed both of his drinks, straws already in them. He thanked the employee who handed him the drinks, and quickly made his way over to Logan with an excited grin plastered onto his face.

Sitting down and sliding Logan his drink, Roman couldn’t help the grin that crept back up onto his face, and continued to grow. He couldn’t help it; he was just so happy. Logan tilted his head at Roman inquisitively and Roman practically melted off the chair at the gesture. He was ecstatic that Logan was his soulmate, and that he had finally met him.

“I’m so happy we finally got to meet. I’ve been wanting to meet any of my soulmates for so long and now you’re here, actually in front of me and it’s amazing and kind of surreal.” Roman sighed happily. “I just couldn’t be happier about this right now.” Roman finally said in response to Logan’s earlier questioning glance.

“Oh, well, yes.” Logan smiled and adjusted his glasses. “I, too, have been wanting to see who my soulmates are for quite a while. Though, I am worried about Sky Blue and Purple’s unhealthy habits.” Logan commented with a small frown, and tapped his coffee pointedly.

“Oh, yeah, I feel that one.” Roman raised his coffee towards Logan slightly. “Especially as college students. The lack of sleep of just working on my own projects is bad enough, but then purple never sleeps and it’s a nightmare getting through the day. I mean, I don’t blame him and I’m not upset, just concerned and very tired. Though, I can’t imagine what actually having insomnia must feel like.” Roman shrugged and took a long sip off his drink as Logan considered his words carefully.

“That’s fair. I just hope that when we meet him, perhaps we can help a little? One can hope, at least.” Logan sighed tiredly, and also took a long sip off his coffee. “I agree with you though. Especially about being a college student. Classes are much harder to perform well in when I feel I’m about to pass out from exhaustion half the time, despite keeping a fairly good sleep schedule myself.”

“You said it.” Roman chuckled. “And yes, I do hope that when we meet them, we’ll be able to help in some way. Even if it’s a small way.” Roman sighed softly and frowned in thought, staring down at his hand but without really looking. How long would he have to wait before they were all together? Of course, he was beyond excited he had met Logan, but he wanted to have all of his loves in one space and give them all as much affection as he possibly could.

“Oh, look at the time!” Logan exclaimed, checking his phone. “It’s already 2:05, I have to go. Uh, text me later, okay?” He asked hurriedly, and hardly waited for Roman’s quick, enthusiastic nod before he was rushing out the door. Roman shook his head with a small smile.

He didn’t get to talk with Logan long, but Roman knew he was already completely in love.

He couldn’t wait to fall in love with his other soulmates too.

#ts #ts roman #ts virgil #ts logan #ts patton #lamp/calm #polysanders #soulmate AU #soulmates #ink on skin #you feel what your soulmate feels #fluff #like so much fluff #fic #chapter 1 #YW&F

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who-is-reign · 4 years

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Hello, hi, hey

Hi I did a short writing thing- here it is!!

Everything starts with a hello, a hi, a hey. A greeting of some kind. Ours started with something else. It started with a trip, a lot of apologies, and crying. Though I feel like I should probably start at the beginning. That makes more sense anyway.

It all started on what I knew was not going to be a normal day. The day started with two pieces of toast, 3 slices of peaches, and a mug of earl grey tea. Or what I was hoping to be a mug of earl grey tea. I poured the rest of what was left of my mug into a thermos and walked out the door.

3 stairs, take a left, 5 steps forward to the next stairwell. 10 steps down, 5 breathes, 2 stops I could have taken, 7 doors I could see. I ran to my car, even if it was only 5 feet away.

30 minutes and a coffee stop later, I was at work. I work at a publishing firm as the executive editor. I have been there since the start of this company, Indigo Query. I helped with the name of course. Most of the books that I edited are Best Sellers right now. I can’t say I’m not proud of that.

Today is the release date of the first book I wrote. I have babied this book for 4 years. All of the characters are complex and have their own stories. I tried to make it to where there weren’t any background characters. To where there were stories going on behind the scenes, or the main focus of the chapter. It is 1563 pages, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 468900 words. This book is my literal child. I have had these characters since I was in 6th grade. I only started seriously writing out their story in the last 4 years.

I just realized that you know nothing about me. Maybe that’s for the best. You’ll find out later anyway.

I walked in, went through the cafe, up the elevator, through the small library. I was there, and my book was there. On my desk, I saw a hardcover copy of my book. I almost started crying. Okay, I did start crying. That art was my choice, it was made by one of my oldest friends. I carefully picked up the book, letting my hands run over the almost woven texture of the cover, the embellished sides, and the title. Lastly, my name, small in white coloring. I turned to the copyright page and breathed in. My name is listed as the author and editor. My best friend’s listed as the cover artist. This is what I was meant to do. Write books, edit books, publish books.

I put the book down, I couldn’t read it. Not yet. I needed to meet with Leo Adams, president of the company. He is not the original president, he took over after the old president passed. I personally am not a fan of his. I think he is corrupt and doesn’t deserve the company. The only thing I can hope is that one day this company, my home, will get a better president. The only reason I stayed with this company, is because of my book. I could leave if I wanted to, other publishing companies have asked if I wanted to sign for them.

But I have something in my eyes, something I can’t give up. I want to own Indigo Query. I want to own the thing I love more than anything. This company is my life, my livelihood. I hate seeing a man who doesn’t care about books be in charge of it. I need to save the company I have over a decade of time into. But right now, it is my time. My book is getting released.

I need to focus on that and nothing else. I need to work, that’s what I need to do. What I want doesn’t matter right now, and it won’t matter for a while.

I walked as fast as a caffeinated lesbian could without it being considered running to Leo’s office.

“Ms. Kore, it’s fantastic to see you. And of course congrats on the book release, it looks fantastic already.” Leo’s words drawled on, a slight curve to his phrases. I hated it.

“Of course sir, I couldn’t have had this book released without you,” I replied, trying desperately to keep the ill intent out of my voice.

What I didn’t say, was that of course, I couldn’t have had this book released without you. Even with you, there were so many issues with getting it released. Including the date getting pushed back 6 months. I could have had this book out, and sold by now. But no, he said it was too problematic. It took all of the editors, our cover designers, the VP of the company, and basically everyone to get him to allow it to be sold.

“Though Ms. Kore, I must tell you, I really do not think this book will thrive that much. I just do not want to see you getting hurt. Take the day off, you need to.” I almost scoffed once he said that, but I really only muttered thank you and walked out of the office.

I practically ran to one of my coworker’s desks and sighed completely and utterly overdramatically. This coworker has been my friend since high school and they helped found the company. They also know about my aspiration to own Indigo Query.

“Oliver, I can’t believe him. He literally said that he didn’t think my book would work out and that he just didn’t want me to get hurt.” I groaned and tried to not sound whiny, though I know I did.

“Babe, that is so horrid but also you are so close to literally owning this company. You are so close, and you can’t lose sight of what you have done because our boss is horrible.” I know they’re right, and I am really close, but I need a break.

“I’m leaving for the day, Adams said I had to.” I sighed.

“Girl you have been here for less than an hour, sit down.” Oliver raised their eyebrows and practically forced me to sit at my desk.

I just rolled my eyes and got to work on a new manuscript that came in today. It wasn’t long before my eyes felt like they were going to burst from my head.

“I’m taking a coffee and tea run. Want anything?” I closed the manuscript, my question aimed for Oliver who was holding a red pen and had a red pen tied up in their hair.

“Yes, yes, and yes please darling. You know my order anywhere.” And they were right, their order hasn’t changed since freshman year. Unlike everything else. Oliver used to be really shy, with red curly hair, they didn’t have confidence. And now they talk or flirt with everyone, have longer sunset ombre hair, and have more confidence. I’m proud of them.

I walked out of the building and to the nearest cafe. I ordered Oliver’s, which was a matcha latte with added raspberry syrup, apparently, it was amazing. Then I got a London fog earl grey tea with extra vanilla syrup.

I noticed the cafe had a small bookstore and I walked over there after ordering. I saw something that warmed my heart, my book. I inhaled deeply in shock, already a small bookstore had my book in it. I grabbed a copy and read through some of it. My words, my characters, my world. I get now why it is such a big deal for Oliver every time they see a book they wrote. I only walked away when I heard my name getting called. I grabbed both of the cups and walked away, saying thank you many times.

Close to the door, the not so impossible happened. Someone ran into me, my tea spilled everywhere. Oliver’s drink ended up being safe somehow.

“I am so sorry, I can’t believe myself, I’m so sorry. Deeply sorry. Let me help.” The person who ran into me sputtered out.

“Don’t be sorry it was an accident, it is okay,” I say looking at them softly.

They had hair a little bit longer than their shoulders, it was a coppery red. Their eyes were a shade of amber. That was when I realized.

“Laurette?” I asked, stunned that this may be her.

“Yeah? Do I know-- Persephone!” Laurette hugged me and sighed. “It’s fantastic to see you!”

“Good to see you too. What are you doing these days?”

“Oh! I’m living with Ophelia with our kid. I’m a fashion designer and she is a daycare owner. So she gets her share of kids every day. What about you?” as Ophelia spoke I could practically feel her love for her wife.

“That is fantastic! I’m the chief editor and now an author for a publishing company called Indigo Query. My first book got released today actually. I work with Oliver Evanora.” I was filled to the brim with pride.

“Really? Congrats! I bet the book is amazing! I’ll have to check it out sometime. Tell Oliver I said hi. ” Laurette sighed happily, “Well, it’s been great seeing you, I’m so sorry about the tea. I hope to bump into each other again.”

I smiled and went back up to the counter to grab the tea they remade, gave them a 10 dollar tip, and left. A newfound pleasure seeped through me. I walked back to the office, careful not to spill anything. I gave Oliver their drink and went straight back to work.

4 hours later and the clock showed 5 pm, the day that I had been waiting for years to happen was over. Since I needed desperately to get home, I made Oliver give me a ride home.

“Why didn’t you drive to work? You have a car.” Oliver asked when they were in their car.

“Because I wanted to walk.”

“It’s winter, it is dark at like 4. You can’t walk home when it’s dark. We live in a city, girl.”

I just sighed, they were right anyway. I didn’t think it through.

“Want to get food?” They asked, “Cause I am starving!”

“Nah, I’ve got to get home.”

“Ok girl, whatever you deem useful,” Oliver said, already pulling down my street.

“Thank you so much! Oh and by the way Laurette said hi.” I said as I shut the door.

I went inside and set water on to boil. I started stirring the water clockwise and humming a distant melody. It was almost time. The water started to bubble like an ancient potion that had just been given the final ingredient. I poured the water over a mug, grabbed a tea bag, and let it seep. At this point, the stars were already out and thriving.

After a quick 5 minutes, I grabbed my mug and walked outside into my backyard. I went directly to my shed. My shed was more of my office than a shed. It had a typewriter, my laptop, a shelf filled with different types of teas or coffee. Plants were scattered about, my desk had a big fluffy white chair pushed up to it. Everything was a pastel blue, pink, or white. It didn’t really seem like it was mine, but it was. And it’s more of a home to me than my room is.

I sighed as I sat down on my mug, put on gardening gloves, and grabbed my spade. I went outside and started to get to work. I planted a new rose bush, I replanted my lemon tree that's growing out of their pot. I moved my ever-growing cherry tree to where they’ll get better sun.

All of this I did while humming, or singing in some parts. I am the type of person to sing and talk to my plants. I am also the type of person to own 3 trees and more plants than I can count.

I heard a bang and I flinched, my entire body froze in place, as if any movement would cost me my life.

“Is anyone there?” I whispered, barely to where anyone could hear it.

“Hello, darling” When I heard Oliver’s voice I calmed down, “sorry to scare you babe, but you seem stressed. Thought I’d help.”

“It’s okay, Oli.” I sighed, already putting my spade and gloves away. “So, how did you plan to calm me down?”

“Stargazing with some people from high school,” Oliver replied, smiling.

“Like who?”

“Kira, Raven, Laurette, Ophelia, Lilith--” Oliver was about to continue but I cut them off.

“Okay, I get it, almost everyone. Let’s go.” I said, laughing, “Let me change first.”

Five minutes later I was in Oliver’s car wearing a star printed black layered lace dress and 4-inch heeled black boots.

“Let’s go! I wonder if they all brought their kids! Oh, I can’t wait to see Sabrina or even Litha! I miss my coven friends.” Oliver used to be in a coven at school, it broke up after our senior year.

“Where is the place we’re going anyway?” I asked, playing with my acrylics.

“It’s only 30 minutes away, a small little cabin. Though, we are staying for a week. I took all the clothes that are yours at my house, it’s enough for 7 days. Plus they all look great.”

“What about work?!”My yells could probably be heard by our high school friends.

“I got it covered babe, don’t worry,” Oliver said in a sing-song tone.

“Got it covered? Um, no. My book just got released, I need to be in town.”

“Honey, your book is already almost sold out at 3 stores. I only bought one copy. Your child will be fine.” Oliver sighed as he looked at me, “You need this. More than any of us do. So, I dragged you into the countryside to look at stars and hang out with people from our high school. Don’t you want to see everyone’s kids? I’m pretty sure Ophelia and Laurette are bringing theirs.”

“Okay, fine. I do need this, don’t I?” I pulled out my phone and breathed in.

‘I need this, I need a break. 7 days hanging out with old friends will give that to me.’ I thought as I mindlessly scrolled through twitter.

Then I came across this,

‘Jdjisddsj this book came out today! I already love it! #ScarletDreams #Persephonekore’

“Holy bees, Scarlet Dreams is trending in the literature section on twitter.”

“That’s fantastic, but we’re here.” I looked up and saw a cottage with wildflowers surrounding it, two beehives sitting among the flowers, a few kids running through fields.

We parked next to where a collection of other cars were. Immediately I was pulled into a hug by Ophelia and Laurette.

“I missed you!” Ophelia exclaimed as she pulled away, her child pulling at her sleeve.

“I missed you guys too, it’s fantastic to see you.”

Oliver looked at me, then to everyone and said: “Was I right? Did you need this?”.

I could practically see his fear of him making a mistake, a dark sludge crawling through him, pulling him down and towards his own Tartarus.

“Yeah Oli, I really did. Work was starting to hurt a little.”

A group of three people left the cabin, they were all holding hands and walking right next to each other.

“Oh, hello. I’m Cassandra. I don’t remember you from high school” She said her last sentence more like an inviting question than a statement.

“Hi, I’m Persephone, I didn’t really talk to many people other than who I knew so I can’t expect you to remember me.” I ended my statement with a small laugh, trying to match her tranquillity.

“Babe, you said there wouldn’t be that many people” The person who spoke was as far behind Cassandra and they could be while still holding her hand.

“I wanted you to come, plus I didn’t that many people would show up, darling.” Cassandra's voice was somehow softer than it was before, it seemed as soft as flower petals blooming out to show a beautiful rose.

Or rather the sun urging a rose to show it’s own beauty. Cassandra’s red hair had so much volume it seemed to live on its own, like a red fox laid over her shoulder. She was wearing a vintage lace dress that was white with roses on it, you could tell a petticoat was hiding beneath the layers of the dress from how it poofed out. Her cheeks were a rosy red, and her eyes had pink eyeshadow flowing out from them. Her eyeliner wings were sharp enough to stab, and honestly, I wanted her to stab me with them.

As soon as I realized what I was thinking I felt guilty, though I wasn’t sure why.

A voice snapped me out of my thoughts, “Hi, I’m Jade!” said the other person next to Cassandra.

Her hair was a really big fluffy black braid, purple threaded itself through the braid, and blue and green followed. The braid went to her lower back and was tied with what I thought was a gold string. A black mini dress hugged her sides. A light pink fluffy jacket was partially zipped and fell off her shoulders. The dress went to her lower thighs, then a few inches down my eyes trailed down to her light pink knee-high boots.

“Take a picture and it will last longer darling,” Jade said, the tone of her voice playful yet held enough flirtiness to send shivers up my spine and turn my face red.

“Darling, let's not immediately start to flirt with the new girl. Let’s not kill her on the first day here.” Cassandra spoke, her tone matching Jade’s.

The one who has stayed behind Cassandra the entire time stepped forward, appearing to gain confidence from my embarrassment.

“Why not? She may hold up longer than I did.” They said, their voice was soft yet firm. It held together like a cactus in heavy wind, trying to keep its grip. I felt like that’s the type of person they were, a cactus. Harsh on the outside with spikes and a few flowers to lure you in, but held water and healing on the inside.

I knew my face was painted a shade that countered everything around me and the dress that now seemed to hug me instead of flow around me. Like the petals of a tulip instead of an orchid. My heart sped up and I felt frail, yet held stable by these people who I had only met what seemed hours ago but what I knew was minutes, or even seconds that had just been drawn out to a century.

Then coughing erupted into my thoughts as Oliver shimmed their way in between me and the group, “Let’s go inside, I need warmth.”

“It’s not even cold” I sighed.

“Whatever,” They said as they already started towards the cottage.

As soon as people realized that Oliver had started to walk away, people hurried to follow them. That was Oliver for ya, they could sure direct a crowd.

#writing #writing save #I did a thing #please read this #it took so long #pleaseee #my writing #original characters #original writing #i did this with my brainnn

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cheriesjubiles · 4 years

Text

please don’t look under the read more i’m just testing

Can you imagine a world where we're all represented by a font? Huh, I wonder which one I would be? sees Arial Too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. sees Badaboom Too.. uh... Deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now THAT'S the one! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. If your personality were represented by a font, what font would you be? Take a moment and put your font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I'm getting bored with ol' Calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you all have wanted Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. True loyal theorists will know that Earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played Undertale I'm sure that was a really weird opening. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause the video and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in underworld seems to be correct. The evidence seems to point the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.”

This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they clearly-- uuuGGHH take two CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would? We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "i know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, i gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? The Franklin badge. Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Franklin badge is a pivotal item from the Mother series. You know, the one with Earthbound. Or, maybe you don't know that one either. Uh, you know, the one with Ness from Super Smash Bros? Yeah well, Ness is from Earthbound, and Earthbound is the second part in this larger Mother trilogy. Alright? Good. Anyway, the Franklin badge is a really important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life multiple times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the Smash Brothers series. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was THAT EXACT badge?

Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite game, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of Earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the best, most satisfying endings in gaming to look back on your journey in picture form. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Mother series. But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Earthbound, Ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien Giygas. To do that, Dr. Andonuts (remember him, by the way, he's going to be important later) with the help of the science geniuses Apple Kid and Mr. Saturn, create what's known as the Phase Distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes with a cost. It can't transport organic material. As a result, the young heroes must put their souls into robotic bodies to use the machine, and thus, save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor Andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love and care about are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful RPG. So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that Mr. Saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken Phase Distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot. If Sans wound up in Undertale via Phase Distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the Phase Distorter is a time machine. By being in underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between Earthbound and Undertale continue. When you speak to Apple Kid at the end of Earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of Ness overcoming Giygas, saying that he's going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to harness its power. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments. But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. During one of the endings of Undertale, we see Undyne and Alphys hanging out on the beach on the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical resort location named Summers that you play through in Earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of Mother. When Undertale's crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset falling across the landscape of a tall mountain, a large city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection to indicate water, and a lack of trees in this middle section here, hence the sand.

Well, in Earthbound you have the big city of Fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a desert that just so happens to be adjacent to some water, and to the east, the mountain in Onett where a meteorite lands on Earth. I always called it Aw-nett. But if that's not clear enough for you, Mother 1, Earthbound Zero, Earthbound Beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of Eagleland (Eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) between the world of Eagleland and the surface world of Undertale. But the strongest physical connection, one that definitely unites these two franchises, comes from none other than Papyrus himself. He wears a custom-made costume known as his “battle body”. But if you look really closely at the design on the armor, you'll notice some markings on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of Starmen, the most iconic enemy of Earthbound. And look at the way he stands! I always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arms of the Starmen in the Mother series! In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Earthbound universe is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Ness from Earthbound? Sent through the Phase Distorter during a test of courage, carrying the Franklin badge and his photo album and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior. Remember, Sans can seemingly teleport. And Ness just happens to have the PSI ability to teleport. Now look the way Sans always stands, hands in his pockets, directly facing the camera. It's a very similar stance to how Ness is depicted standing in most marketing for the game. It even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, Sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of Ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale, had previously worked on a Halloween hack for Earthbound. But this just wasn't a simple reskin. The Halloween hack tells the tale of Dr. Andonuts after the events of Earthbound. Remember, I pointed him out? He's the one who made the Phase Distorter. In Toby Fox’s version of the story, we see that after Giygas' defeat, the souls of the kids never return home. Instead, by going to the past to defeat Giygas, they create a new timeline that they're stuck in. As a result, Jeff never reunites with his father Dr. Andonuts. And Dr. Andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, and extracting the souls of his son and his son's friends to send them back to what he assumes was their death. In his mind, he's killed 4 kids. And in Toby Fox's game, he's lost his mind trying to deal with that guilt. I'm telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of Undertale in this game. The appearance of Amalgamates, the first use of the awesome song Megalovania, the prototypes for Flowey? And the theme of having the choice to be nonviolent in an RPG, SPARING your enemies. But then why's all this matter to the theory? Well, remember, in Toby Fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home. Just like Sans. And, in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. Presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his 3 friends.

In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Earthbound, with Ness never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans, and accompanied by Papyrus, a former Starman, an alien force able to speak English and still equipped with his armor, and signature posture, but without any knowledge of earthly things... like the Sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

#it’s the sans is ness game theory video copypasta

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writingontheclouds · 5 years

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Chapter 3: How To Hijack Dates

Sometimes you stop procrastinating when stuck in lockdown.

Sometimes you don't.

This is a result of the former.

Read it here on ao3.

...

Sirius Black had just spent a lovely afternoon with Mum Potter, helping her rearrange the books in the library downstairs. It could have been done easily with magic, or the many house elves that offered to help again and again, but Euphemia Potter was very possessive about this part of the Manor. She liked doing it by hand, putting the books back into their designated spot alphabetically by author name and loved finding old gems that she told Sirius very enthusiastically about. Mum Potter (yes, she insisted he call her Mum Potter for the very least) had put together a pile of books that she wanted to read for herself, and another for Sirius, declaring that a young wizard ought to read these books by the time they come of age. Sirius was now balancing a huge stack of books and taking them into his room when he saw James’ room door wide open and he peeked in. James was smoothening out a crisp black shirt, looking nervously at himself in the floor length mirror. Sirius’ curiosity piqued.

"Going somewhere?” He called out from the entrance of the room. James instantly turned around. He looked like he was about to throw up. "Do I look okay?"

"Yeah?” Sirius offered, from somewhere above the pile of books.

"Okay, good.” Looking somewhat satisfied, he turned around and picked up a black dinner jacket and shrugged it on.

"Where?”

"Emily's taking me out.” James said, now running a hand through his messy black curls, trying to tame them.

"Out?”

"Yeah, we're going to a fancy Muggle restaurant, somewhere in Leicester Square, I think. One of her favorites."

"James..” Sirius started, but wasn’t sure how to approach the subject again. James picked on it, nevertheless.

"I'm not having that conversation again, Sirius.” He said, with a deep sigh.

“You've gone on 3 dates in 2 months. If you don't slow down, you might end up surrounded by dirty diapers in a matter of weeks, James.” Sirius joked.

"Sirius.."

"Yes, but I am serious James. You don't know each other that well.."

"Sirius.."

"You don't fit well together, you know..” Sirius offered again, but to be honest, he didn’t really have any reason why James should not be with Emily. Aside from the fact that Lily now finally fancied him. But he couldn’t tell him that. It was not his place.

"Sirius! I'm gonna ask her to be my girlfriend today.” James said, looking at him dead in the eye.

"..wha..what?”

"You heard me."

"But what about Lily?”

"What about Lily? I've moved on."

"But James-"

"No, Sirius. I'm done. I told you that." James looked at him sincerely, and Sirius knew the conversation was over. James patted Sirius once on his shoulder as he walked out the door. "I'll see you later, buddy."

...

Sirius stared at James walking away with wide eyes, unsure what to say or do, and walked the few steps to his room, plopping the books on his table. It was a guest bedroom originally, but was now officially Sirius'. His study table was mostly bare, on account of summer holidays, but he had pinned some pictures on the wall above. One in particular, was among his favourites, hung right in the middle.

It was the day Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup just a few months ago after a brutal match with Slytherin. They had just landed on the pitch when the entirety of Gryffindor piled onto the grounds, cheering and hug and congratulating the players. In the midst of all that chaos and confetti and blaring music in the background, someone had picked up a camera and shouted “Smile!" and all the people just piled on top of each other to be in the frame. Hair completely disheveled, mud and paint caking their faces, but the moving picture was so precious for Sirius.

There was Peter and Remus already on the ground laughing, with Sirius and Marlene and Dorcas and Alice and Frank cheering and swaying, almost falling over the former, trying to balance themselves as they held on to each other. Then there was James in the end, with this broken glasses, splotches of blood on his forehead and a shit eating grin looking at Lily, who was laughing and blushing looking back at him.

To Sirius, that one picture was enough to know that they belonged with each other. And he decided, that he would at least TRY for his foolish best mate and the fiery red head that had become a part of the marauder family. Sirius knocked on the faded green colored door, hoping he finally found the right house. He had already spent a good half an hour stumbling from house to house, finding everyone from grumpy old couples who did not liked to be disturbed to little kids who almost trampled him in an attempt to play. He then realised he apparated in the wrong neighbourhood.

For Merlin’s sake! This is exactly the reason he didn't fancy this method of travel; he screwed up almost every damn time. It was miracle in itself that he got the license at all, courtesy of an ignorant old Ministry employee who didn't seem to give two fucks about how he apparated a few feet from where he was supposed to and splinched his pinkie in the process.

A woman with fading red hair tucked neatly in a bun opened the door and Sirius nearly hugged the woman in relief. He knew that red hair very well.

"Can I help you, dear?” Mrs. Evans asked sweetly and looked at him, confused at his relief.

“Hello, Mrs. Evans. I'm looking for Lily.”

“Oh”, She turned around, possibly to call for her daughter, but stopped short. “You must be.. uhh..” She trailed, guessing his name.

"Sirius Black. We're in the same house at Hogwarts.” He replied, and she suddenly lit up at the name. Lily had clearly told her mum about him.

"Nice to meet you, Sirius. I'm Darla. Come on in.” She extended a hand, and he returned the greeting, and she invited him in.

Sirius was immediately hit by the pleasant smell of Eucalyptus and hints of Lavender as he entered the house. It was a quaint, cozy little place, and it was so Lily that now, he could not imagine Lily Evans living anywhere else.

"Lily! There's someone here for you!” Darla Evans called in the general direction of the stairs.

A moment later, there was some shuffling, a door opening then clanking down the stairs as Lily Evans appeared in her full glory, decked in a tshirt that said “Not Today" and blue pyjama bottoms. Sirius could see tiny red hearts on them. She looked shocked, to say the very least. "Black? What are you doing here?” She said as she continued down the stairs and stood directly infront of him. "Good to see you too, Lils.” Sirius said, giving a full smile.

She completely ignored him. "Why are you here?” She pressed.

"I need to talk to you." Lily frowned, looking skeptical. "It's about James.” He added and the furrow between her eyebrows was gone in an instant, followed by what Sirius thought was either concern or.. Or something. She definitely blushed a little though.

Lily nodded and motioned him to follow her. It's funny how that one name turned around Lily Evans’ priorities now.

Sirius followed her upstairs, past a couple of doors to one that had Lily written on the door, the four letters in different fonts cut out from newspaper. She closed the door behind them, turned around and stared at him.

"Talk.” Sirius was surprised at the authority and urgency in her voice.

"You've got a cute room there, Evans. Didn't peg you for pink walls kind of a girl but..” Sirius said instead, walking around her room and taking it in. It was a small room, overlooking the front yard, with green curtains. The wall behind her bed was completely covered up by photos, print outs, clippings. Everything Lily Evans held dear in her life. He could spy the same picture he had pinned above his study on the wall as well, along with countless others. It made Sirius smile internally. He always did love the idea of having a wall like this. An ode to all the good times.

"Six year old me liked pink. Now, tell me what is it?” She pressed, hands crossed.

"Okay, but promise not to freak out, okay?” Sirius started in a soothing voice already, his hands feigning a calm down gesture already.

Lily waved her hand in front of her. "I can't promise that.” She said, as a matter-of-fact, without even pausing for a beat.

"Okay, okay but don't hex me?” He asked, nervously. Lily nodded, reluctantly. "James is planning to ask Emily to be his girlfriend..” He blurted out, almost stumbling over the words.

"Thanks for the reminder but you already told me that.” Lily gave a small smile, crossed the room and sat on her bed. She didn’t look at him, instead stared at her shoes.

“..tonight.” He finished, and her face shot up. Lily's face paled. Shock and disbelief coloured her face, which quickly turned solemn.

"Alright.. okay.. that's good? That's good, right?” She tried, stumbling over her words. She looked visibly dejected. "I mean.. he's.. moved on. He wouldn't sit around waiting for me, you know?” Classic Lily, trying to reason everything, Sirius thought.

"But I think James should know the truth before he asks her. That your feelings have changed.” Sirius said, sitting down on the chair of her study, leaning forward to look at her at eye level.

"I can always, wait you know? When they break up-"

"-if they break up, Evans. And don't tell me seeing James frolicking with another girl wouldn't kill you."

Lily’s eyes brimmed with tears at that statement. It was like she actually saw James happily kissing Emily in her head. She blinked away the tears and shook her head.

"Why are you here telling me all this?” She asked, in a small voice.

"I don't know..” He said, leaning back and looking out the window, trying to look for words.

"Emily's a nice, polite and caring person, I apologise for calling her a tart earlier, but James deserves that.” Sirius looked at Lily’s sullen face again, as she spoke. "He deserves someone who tells him how nice he is, not someone who calls him out for his every mistake. Certainly not someone who has insulted him infront of a crowd on numerous occasions.” Sirius could hear the sincerity in her words, despite knowing how much it was visibly breaking her to say out loud.

"Well, to be fair, James did deserve that. He can be a prick sometimes, and his ego can inflate to the size of the black lake, but..” He paused, leaning ahead again, taking Lily’s hands in his, “He needs you. He needs you to ground him, to bring him back to Earth whenever he tries to fly too far away, and I'm sorry but Emily can't do that." Sirius said, shaking his head a little.

Lily just stared at him, her eyes brimming with tears again.

"There is no James Potter without Lily Evans.” As if on cue, the tears fell. She swallowed, looked down at her feet again and smiled a little.

"You're uncannily good with words.” She said in a very small voice, after a long time. Sirius chuckled.

"So, how do we get to him?” She sniffed, wiped the tears from her cheeks and squared her shoulders, as if preparing for a battle of sorts.

Sirius chuckled again, but then his grey eyes widened as realisation dawned on him.

"I.. might.. have not thought this through.” He said, slowly.

"Well, where is he? We could apparate there.” Lily asked, expecting an answer.

"I don't know..” Sirius braced himself.

"You don't know?” She asked, incredulous.

"No..” He said, stretching out the o.

"You didn't ask him where he was going before deciding to show up here?” She asked, her temper flaring.

"I'm thinking I'm not as clever as I thought I was.”

"You think?!” ...

James Potter and Emily Cooper sat in a fine dining Italian restaurant in Leicester Square, had just finished their main course and were waiting for dessert when, suddenly, all hell broke loose.

It started with collective shrieks, which converted into full on screaming as guests suddenly got up from their chairs and ran in all directions possible. James turned around to see what the commotion was all about, when he saw a people tripping over each other and food flying in all directions.

“What the..” He started to say, when the staff of the restaurant were waving the leather bound menus up in the air, trying to swat at something. The grey blob, as if suddenly angered by the swatting and shrieking, dipped on to one table, actually picked up a container of what looked like red marinara sauce and dropped it all over one of the wait staff.

That was precisely when James had a mini heart attack.

Instead of getting up and actually doing something, he seemed to be frozen, too shocked at the sight in front of him. It reminded him of the tne night at Hogwarts, when the marauders had enchanted the plates to randomly fly into student’s faces when the word “Stop” was spoken. Needless to say, it escalated very quickly and they had spent an entire month in detention with Filch.

The bird was now flying low, almost into everyone’s faces as they screamed and scrambled away from it. A few of the seated guests fell backwards on their chairs. The ones standing slipped in the marinara. There were dishes and lasagne and spaghetti flying in all directions as Isis hooted happily in the air before landing herself in the middle of the table in front of James. She hooted happily once more, nipping at James’ frozen hands on the

table affectionately as a way of greeting. He just stared at her for a good minute before noticing a letter attached to her talon when James had another mini heart attack.

What the..? He thought, brows furrowing at the letter as he untied it from Isis and put it in promptly in his jacket pocket.

“ISIS!” He angrily whispered. She hooted, hardly bothered by the anger. James now looked at up Emily, who was just gaping at him, shocked and then looked over to something behind James. He turned around, following her gaze, and found the entirety of the restaurant, now covered in sauces red and green, just looking at them in various stages of utter shock, disbelief and anger.

James turned around and got up promptly, Emily mirroring his movements, Isis now happily perched on his shoulder and did the one thing 6 years at Hogwarts and being a Marauder had taught him. He got the hell out of there.

#jily #jily fanfiction #jily fandom #jily fanfic #James Potter #james and lily #Lily Evans #lily and james #james x lily #Sirius Black #writingontheclouds

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demaury · 5 years

Photo

Some kind of mistake (cha. 2)

Ever since Eliott first came across the new resident of the apartment 320, he made peace with the fact that Lucas ‘Big Blue Eyes’ Lallemant would, one way or another, turn his life upside down. Thing is, he hadn’t expected that Lucas’ wife and Lucas’ daughter would play a part in it. Because, you know, he didn’t know they existed until it was too late. (ao3 link)

Eliott wasn’t a morning person generally speaking, mostly because his daily schedule included more often than not coming back home past two in the morning and sleeping off until noon, but he had at least assumed that all the noises he had been hearing since Saturday would stop on Monday morning. Because, you know, as Sofiane said, not everyone had a job like his.

Well, he was wrong. On Monday morning, it was yet another string of loud noises that woke him up, growing louder and louder as they pulled Eliott out of his heavy slumber a little bit more each time, until a final metallic thud resonated like a shotgun through the overall quiet building.

He bolted out of sleep, head spinning a little as he tried for a few seconds to gather what the hell was happening, where he was, what day they were and if, somehow, he could get his heart to start beating again without having to call an ambulance. His eyes kept fluttering from one corner of his room to the other as the thoughts streamed in.

The good news was that he was in his bedroom — alone, which was always a plus.

The bad news was that the clock on his nightstand read half past ten in the morning, and that technically, he was the one in the wrong, because technically, people were allowed to make noise at this hour.

He hated that.

Eliott dropped himself back onto his mattress with a sigh, rubbing his face with his hands, occasionally staring and blinking at the ceiling. Moving in wasn’t easy but apparently, Blue Eyes wasn’t the quiet type either — he knew he should have picked up on the name used on Saturday, but he just couldn’t remember, so Blue Eyes it was. So far, all he had heard from his new neighbor were yelled-out conversations during the entire duration of the weekend, in large part coming from his too loud friends, and the incessant come-and-go and rattling noises of someone settling in. Not much to make an opinion, one would say, but the other people living in their apartment complex were discreet, for the most part. In the nearly five years he had lived here, Eliott still had no clue what was his next-door neighbor's name. All he knew was that the man was probably in his forties, single and likely an accountant, or something equally unattractive and equally boring. They had passed each other by a handful of times, and he always looked like he was exhausted and drowning in his ill-fitting suits.

He was still staring blankly at nothing when his alarm went off, and Eliott grabbed it from the nightstand to shut it down as the first couple of notes from Boy Epic’s cover of City of Angels hummed quietly in the silent room. He had exactly thirty minutes to get up, get dressed, and get ready to go before the meeting one of his clients had scheduled with him (read: for him). He took a rapid shower and was heading for the front door when someone knocked. Once. Twice. Eliott frowned and unlocked the door, chucking it open when he found Blue Eyes standing in the doorway.

His hair was even more of a mess than it was already Saturday morning, and a few light bruises marbled his arms pocking out of his one-size too big tee-shirt. Eliott didn’t know why he found the whole thing alluring, but he did anyway.

“I was starting to think you had well and truly died this time,” he remarked with a cocked eyebrow.

Blue Eyes gave him a look and mechanically rubbed the bruised spot on his forearm. It was the exact gesture he had made on Saturday morning, after the bed base disaster, and Eliott could only guess that those were the casualties born from Murphy’s Law. “Nice to know you got worried, I appreciate.”

Eliott found himself grinning, and maybe he tried to contain it. It was only the second time they were talking but for some reason, it didn’t seem nearly as emotionally draining as it could have been. It felt easy. Almost Natural. Comfortable, somehow.

Blue Eyes cleared his throat a little, starting to fidget with his hands. “I- uh. I wanted to apologize for the mess I’m doing these days in the building. I’ve been told by someone from the first floor that it was starting to get on people’s nerves. And, like, my friends- they can be loud. Like, really loud. And messy. Back where we lived everyone was kinda used to it, but-”

His voice trailed off and Eliott tilted his head to the side, slightly intrigued by the sudden change in his demeanor. He hadn’t picked him as the rambly, dorky type — it left Eliott to wonder how those different personality traits didn’t just end up short-circuiting each other in such a small body.

“It’s fine,” he said with a casual shrug. “I got loud friends too.” After an awkward second of silence, he held out his hand, Blue Eyes glancing back and forth between his face and his hand before shaking it. “I’m Eliott, by the way. In case you need an alibi, you know where to find me.”

Blue Eyes frowned, looking rather confused. “An alibi?”

Eliott smirked. “Well, you stated that you were on the verge of murder, if I remember correctly.”

A smile broke onto Blue Eyes’ face, illuminating his features as realization hit him. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on that someday,” he said, then he seemed to remember he was still holding Eliott’s hand and nearly dropped it right away. This time, Eliott well and truly bit back a chuckle. “I’m Lucas. Lallemant. Nice to meet you.”

Lucas. Right. It was a cute name. A cute name for a cute face. Back off, Demaury, you’re staring, a voice chided in his brain, and strangely enough it sounded an awful lot like Idriss’.

“Nice to meet you too.” He shoved his hand into his jeans’ pocket, cocking an eyebrow. “Was that all?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, then he tore his eyes away to what Eliott just knew was an invisible spot above his shoulder before adding quickly: “I mean, no. I also wanted to thank you for helping me last weekend. It’s really not the best way to make an impression but you didn’t laugh at me and let me die a slow and painful death, so I figured maybe I could offer you a coffee at the very least. Well, only if you’re free, I mean.”

There he was, rambling again, and every single word made it harder for Eliott to restrain a large grin from splitting his face in two. His phone pinging made it a hundred times easier, though, as Eliott was suddenly brought back to reality. “I can’t right now, I was just about to go,” he admitted, and Lucas’ smile fell a little bit.

So that wasn’t just his brain messing with him. This guy really was an open book.

Lucas took a step back from the doorway. “Oh, right. Sorry for the bother,” he winced.

Eliott grabbed his leather jacket and from behind the front door and closed it behind him. For some reason he didn’t want Lucas to think it was just a made-up excuse, so he fished for his keys in his jacket’s pocket and started locking the door behind him. “Another time?” he offered, looking behind his shoulder, where Lucas was already retreating towards the stairs.

Lucas turned around. “Sure,” he nodded with a grin. “Anytime.”

“It needs to be perfect. The opening is all that matters, you get that, Eliott, right?”

“I already knew that a week ago,” he remarked as he glanced sideways at the blonde girl next to him.

Scheduling meeting with clients wasn’t something he was doing all that often. Not to be overly introvert, but he had found out early in his career that it was easier to review what the clients wanted once it was laid out on an email rather than simply spoken out in the open. But, eh. Daphné Lecomte was another level of enthusiastic. And nervous. Sometimes he wondered what she was on, because it sure as hell looked like it wasn’t legal.

They had met back when he was working on the opening of a club, the year before; at the time, Daphné was the new recruit of an event planning agency, and she had taken the habit of slipping his name to her boss every once in a while, when they needed to promote new places and book new events. Now she was a few months away from launching her own business, the project of a travel agency she claimed she had been nursing since high school, and it was entirely because she had asked him with her huge, puppy eyes (and, granted, because she had helped him out in the past) that he had agreed on helping her to design the perfect logo.

God knew he had come to regret his decision. It was the second meeting and she had yet to decide on a color palette. “You can do that without me,” Eliott had observed on their first meeting.

“No! I need you. I need to know things work fine,” Daphné had protested.

And so he had stayed. Far too long, if you asked him.

“Coffee, I need coffee,” she mumbled, running to the tiny kitchen adjoined to her office, where they had been locked up for two hours already.

Eliott rolled his eyes to himself and slumped back against his chair. Her habit of pacing back and forth while he was sketching things away was always making him dizzy after some time, and he was trying really hard not to tell her to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. It took another two hours after lunch for her to finally decide on a color palette, and by then Eliott had already made peace with the fact that they would need to schedule another meeting, if not two, to sort out the rest. He was already dreading the moment she’d have to pick a font.

It was four in the afternoon when he made it out, half-past five when he dragged himself to the bar next to Sofiane’s place, and almost eight when he came back home after both Sofiane and Idriss suddenly called it a night after Eliott suggested they go out.

“Are you kidding me?”, he protested, annoyed.

“Nothing against you, Demaury,” Idriss snorted, stretching out his long limbs high above his head. “Siham will just skin me alive if I get home late. Last time she got mad at me for a fucking week.”

“And she banished me from the flat,” Sofiane reminded, looking all gloomy in his drink.

Eliott shrugged. “She’s never mad at me.”

“No one’s ever mad at you, you fucker,” Idriss grumbled. “Not even your exes.”

“Joris did threaten to burn his apartment to the ground, though,” Sofiane observed carefully.

Idriss barked a laugh that made two girls behind them scoot around on their chair. “But he didn’t.”

“I wouldn’t call that a victory,” Eliott cringed, the story still leaving a bad taste on his tongue.

He and that Joris guy had been dating for about a month a few years ago, and half of their relationship was a blur leading to a manic episode he had very scarce memories of. He didn’t recall very well what happened after that, only that Idriss and his girlfriend Siham had taken him in for a few days while he was coming down from his high and going through the depressive episode that always followed. As it had turned out, Joris had never been heard of ever again and after some time Eliott finally obtained that Idriss and Sofiane kindly backed off and stopped acting like they were his bodyguards. Only Siham continued to treat him like he was her baby, but it wasn’t strictly babying per se — it was just keeping the door wide open whenever he needed anything and never getting mad at him for literally anything.

After separating with his friends, Eliott had taken advantage of the time spent in the subway, on his way home, to rapidly review his most urgent emails and to track his parcel through the Chronopost app — only to find that his precious, 300€ Wacom Tablet had been delayed. That was his luck, really, and that’s why he found himself knocking at the apartment 320 instead of going straight back home.

It didn’t take three seconds before the door swung open, taking him a little aback when a grinning Lucas exclaimed: “Not only on time but-” before his voice trailed off and his eyes widened a little bit when he realized Eliott wasn’t whoever he was waiting.

Technically, he would have found it funny. And probably made a remark. But right now he was too busy trying not to stare at the large patches of skin he could see thanks to Lucas’ denim button down hanging wide open.

Fuck he was fit. Who would have thought?

“Oh, shit, sorry. Hey,” Lucas said, clearing his throat a little bit, and it was thankfully enough for Eliott’s brain to snap back into place. It wasn’t the first six-pack he saw in his life, after all.

“It’s fine, no harm done. I need a small favor though,” he admitted, wincing a little.

Two days had passed since Lucas had popped up to his flat but Eliott hadn’t had much time left to make due on his rain check. The most they had taken together was the elevator so far, and some part of Eliott regretted not having told Daphné to fuck off on Monday, if only for a couple of hours.

Lucas tilted his head to the side. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Will you be home on Friday?”

Lucas’ eyebrows shot up and he blinked a little. “I, uh. I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I mean, I guess it’s going to depend on the time.”

Eliott gave a small nod. “Yeah, right. More like, in the morning? I’m waiting for a really important parcel and I had cleared my schedule tomorrow to be able to be there when it’s delivered, but it got delayed. Not to be mean but I’d rather have it in your hands rather than literally anywhere else.”

“No problem, I’ll be there,” Lucas nodded, and he ran a hand through his messy hair. “I’ve got the rest of the week off anyway.”

“Awesome,” Eliott said, leaning back from the doorframe. “Thanks a bunch.”

Thanks a bunch. That was an Idriss thing to say, not an Eliott thing to say, and the worst part was that he was practically sure that the way Lucas’ brows furrowed a little bit meant that he was very much aware of that. He was going to strangle Idriss. That was all his fault anyway.

“It’s fine, let’s see if I manage to get it and then you’ll thank me,” his neighbor snorted.

Eliott huffed a laugh and started walking away when Lucas called him. For some reason, he liked the way he said his name, and he internally rolled his eyes at the cheesiness. He scooted around nonetheless.

“There’s still some coffee left,” Lucas said, and this time he was looking at him straight in the eye.

“Make it beers, make it my place, and make it Friday and I’m all in,” Eliott replied nonchalantly, his lips curving into a smirk just as the elevator dinged.

Lucas’ eyes traveled to his right, and Eliott couldn’t refrain himself from following where they had landed. One of the three guys he had seen in the hall the day Lucas had moved in was walking out of the elevator — the person he had been waiting before Eliott turned up, surely. He took it as his cue to leave, and before he could even think it through, he found himself giving Lucas a wink, before jumping up the stairs to his own flat.

#skam france #*skm #elu fic #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury #mine #*

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whitehorsetiger · 6 years

Text

Trust the Toad

Fandom: The Dragon Prince

Pairing: Rayllum

Rating: G

Word count: 1.4 K

Summary: Rayla was used to being watched whenever she visited the palace, not that she could really blame the guards for being cautious of her. But there’d been peace for over a year now and besides, if she’d wanted to kill the prince and king, they wouldn’t exactly be able to stop her. So, Rayla was used to being watched, but normally a bit different than this.

Set two years after Azymondias has been returned to his mother, Rayla visits Ezran and Callum after three months away. Sorting out her own feelings and those of someone else.

Rayla was used to being watched whenever she visited the palace, not that she could really blame the guards for being cautious of her. But there’d been peace for over a year now and besides, if she’d wanted to kill the prince and king, they wouldn’t exactly be able to stop her. So, Rayla was used to being watched, but normally a bit different than this.

Bait looked up at her, blinking and making slight grunting noises. He looked, almost judgemental whether or not she was just looking too much into his usual expression was still up for debate. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, she was just watching Claudia and Callum practice magic in the courtyard, she was perfectly in her right to do that.

“I’m just making sure Claudia doesn’t slip back into bad habits,” she said, “And I haven’t seen Callum in over three months.”

Why was she justifying herself to a glow toad?

Bait wandered over, clambering into her arms. Rayla smiled, patting his head lightly. Laughter rang up from the courtyard, Rayla tightened her arms unintentionally around Bait.

“Wow, that’s an interesting colour Bait’s turning,” Ezran said from behind her.

Rayla looked down, oh god, she really was crushing him.

“Sorry,” she muttered to Bait, placing him back down.

Ezran stepped up beside her, stroking Bait’s head.

Claudia was laughing, Rayla felt her entire body tense up.

“You know you could talk to him,” Ez said.

“What?”

“You could talk to Callum,” he repeated, “I’m sure he’d want to talk to you too.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Rayla said, looking down at her hands.

“Is this because of your argument?”

“We didn’t have an argument,” Rayla said, crossing her arms.

Ez didn’t even bother reply, he didn’t really need to, just shot her a look that made her feel like she was being chastised. By a twelve-year-old, a twelve-year-old king, but still a twelve-year-old.

“You should still go talk to him,” he said.

The disagreement, Rayla wouldn’t call it an argument, happened last time she’d visited the palace. They needed a human ambassador to travel around and speak to the elves. Naturally, Callum was the first choice. He’d wanted to stay with Ezran though, helping him rule at least until he was old enough to do it by himself. When she’d thought about it afterwards, it made perfect sense, she’d been a bit annoyed. They’d offered him the opportunity to see all of Xadia, to learn magic from elves, travel around with her, and he’d said no. It had hurt, more than she’d expected it too. She’d known she was developing feelings for him, she just hadn’t realised how intense they were until that moment.

“Bait says you should tell him how you feel,” Ez said suddenly.

“What?” Rayla said, looking down at Bait, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ez hummed, before picking Bait up and holding him up to her face.

“Look him in the eye and say that,” he said, “Look right into those big eyes and say you feel nothing for my brother, you may convince him.”

Ok, she could do this. She was an assassin, trained from a very young age, she could look right at Bait and.

“I have feelings for Callum,” just blurt everything out.

Ez seemed surprised at this confession.

“You were right,” he said, “You could get it out of her.”

There was a yelp and a shout from the courtyard, Rayla’s head snapped towards the noise, on high alert. Claudia had fallen backwards, Callum stood beside her, eyes wide. Suddenly bother their faces broke into bright smiles.

“You did it!” Claudia shouted.

“I did it!” Callum yelled, throwing his hands up in the air with excitement.

A smiled spread across Rayla’s face without her permission, she probably looked horribly lovestruck.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said, “He seems happy enough.”

Ez glanced between the two of them.

“What? With Claudia? Nah, he got over his crush for her ages ago, I think the whole trying to take the egg thing, chasing us, sending shadow wolves after us killed the crush,” Ez shrugged, “Trust Bait and tell him how you feel.”

“I’ll think about it,” Rayla said, “Happy?”

Ez shrugged, before shouting, “That was amazing! Look who’s here!”

Callum turned, a bright victorious smile was on his face, which only seemed to grow brighter when he spotted Rayla.

“Hey! I didn’t think you were able to visit for a while?” he asked walking over.

“I managed to get away for a while,” she shrugged, smiling lightly, “Impressive work.”

“Thanks,” Callum said.

“He’s doing so well,” Claudia said brightly, “He’s going to be better than me soon.”

Callum flushed and looked away, Rayla felt something twist in her chest.

“I’ve not been training long enough for that,” he said.

Claudia laughed, “Well of course not now!”

Bait waddled in font of her, looking right at her face.

“Callum, can I talk to you?” she said, looking over at him.

He looked a bit surprised, but nodded.

They wove through the castle hallways, ones Rayla had never been down, not that she’d been down that many. They were elaborately decorated, classic human, but she wasn’t paying attention to that. Callum was talking brightly about what he’d been doing, Rayla was only half listening, trying to work out what she was going to say.

Callum trailed off with a laugh, Rayla hadn’t heard what he’d said, but chuckled along anyway. There was a lull in conversation, now was the time.

“I’m sorry,” she said, slowing down to a stop.

“Sorry?” Callum asked, stopping beside her.

“For last time, for what I said,” she continued.

“Oh,” Callum replied, shrugging, “No, don’t worry about it.”

“I said stuff I regret and I’m sorry about it, just accept the apology,” Rayla said, crossing her arms.

“Alright, alright,” Callum smiled, putting his hands up, “I accept.”

They continued walking, but in silence this time. Eventually they reached one of the balconies looking over the courtyard, Rayla stepped out onto it, sitting on the railing. Callum lent on the stone beside her, a light smile on his face. He looked so peaceful and happy. There was a grumble from beside her, Bait was stood there beside her, looking up.

“Go away,” she hissed, “I’m handling it.”

He blinked, Rayla gestured for him to move. He grunted before waddling off. She tucked one leg under her chin, before looking back at Callum. His face went red as he looked away, apparently he had been staring at her.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, “How about, when Ez turns sixteen, we go travelling?”

“That’s four years away,” Rayla said.

“That’s like a week for an Elf,” Callum replied, turning so he was leaning against the railing.

Rayla nodded, “That’ll be nice, you’ll have to show me some towns without everyone trying to kill me.”

“Without people trying to hunt us down,” Callum added, “I’ll show you Katolis, you show me Xandia.”

“Sounds good.”

There was another pause, Rayla took a deep breath.

“There was actually something else,” she said.

Callum hummed, looking up at her. Ok, she really should have planned a head. At the very least she should’ve decided what to say.

“I have feelings for you,” or just blurt it out, that works too.

“You have feelings,” he said hesitantly, “For me?”

He pointed at himself, like there was anyone else around.

“Yes, for you,” Rayla said, “There isn’t anyone else around.”

Callum glanced around, like there was someone else around. Sliding off the stone fence, she grabbed the top of his arms.

“I have feeling for you, Callum, who I’m looking at, right now,” she said, looking directly at him.

“Oh,” Callum said, “Oh.”

Red spread across his cheeks and nose, covering his face and creeping down his neck. Rayla felt her own face heat up in response, she should probably drop her hands.

It seemed to take a minute for Callum to process, after a few minutes though, a smile started to spread across his face.

“You have feelings for me,” he said, “I don’t believe it, I never thought. I never thought my feelings would be reciprocated.”

“Reciprocated?” Rayla said, a smile spreading across her face.

Callum nodded, “So…”

“I’m going to kiss you,” she replied, moving her hands up to his shoulders.

Callum visibly swallowed, “Ok.”

To say they were both as nervous as hell and neither had any experience, as first kisses go, it wasn’t that bad.

#the dragon prince #tdp #rayllum #raylum #rayla #callum #ezran

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proxylynn · 6 years

Text

Underfell: File Name not Edgy Enough #12

Chapter 12: GASTER

WARNING: I WANT NO RESPONSIBILITY OVER SPOILING THINGS FOR OTHERS. THAT BEING SAID, THIS IS HOW FILE NAME NOT FOUND WOULD FUNCTION IN THE AU OF UNDERFELL. BEFORE YOU READ THIS, UNLIKE THE NICE TIME OF UNDERTALE, THIS WORLD IS KILL OR BE KILLED. THIS STORY WILL BE GRAPHIC, GORY, USE SWEARS LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS, AND DEAL WITH SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE READ THE FILE NAME RELOCATED SPOOF WILL KNOW HOW I PICTURE THIS VERSION OF LYNSIE COMING TO THE UNDERGROUND. IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING DUMB. IT IS BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO END HER LIFE. SO TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I MADE IT BECAUSE I NEEDED TO LET SOME OF THIS EDGINESS OUT OF MYSELF. WHICH I GUESS MAKES UNDERFELL LYNSIE EVEN MORE TRUE TO WHO I REALLY AM. ANYWAY, ENJOY. ^_^

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[One long but really quick chat and drink at Grillby's later]

"whoa, whoa, whoa...back that up for me one more time. she planned this out with who?"

Sans is confused by what Grillby has told him. But all the flame monster could do was shrug.

"I've told you all I know and all she told me. She said her brothers helped her."

"her brother is on the surface. and she only has the one."

Grillby smirks.

"don't look at me like that. she told. i didn't ask to know."

"Right...Either way, I doubt she meant her human brother."

"the flower is still only one."

"Hey, I'm only telling you what she told me. And she said 'brothers'."

Sans sighs.

"does this other 'brother' have a name?"

"She called him by a weird name. Chara I think? He was the one that saw you snooping."

That made Sans flinch faintly.

"impossible."

"Why's that?"

"because there was no one else there."

"She said no one can see him."

"a ghost?"

"Ghosts can be seen, Sans. Hell, that one family of them took up that area in Waterfall."

Sans holds his skull in his hands.

"this doesn't make any sense."

"What's there to overthink? She has an imaginary friend. Big whoop."

"not that. the name."

"What? Chara? What's so weird about that?"

Sans rubs his temples.

"that name...that was the name of the kid the King took in."

Grillby's professional calm falters.

"W-What?"

Sans tries to think harder on this. What did any of this mean?

"she lives with the queen, but i don't think tori would actually talk about heavy shit like her kids. it would open old wounds. so how...how does she know that name?"

A memory comes to the confused skeleton. A past conversation he had with the human.

"You have a brother?"

"just one. and you?"

"Human or monster?"

"um...both?"

"On the surface, I got an older bro and a younger sis. Down here, I consider Flowey like a bro. Not sure how old he is. Oh! Do ghosts count? 'Cause I got this spooky little kid that talks to me sometimes too."

"uh...what?"

"Eh, but enough about me. I've been prattling on for too long as it is. I wanna hear about you. This bro of yours got a name or am I digging too deep for my own good down here?"

That simple bit in their chat. He paid it no mind at the time. But now? Now he sees the hints inside.

"Sans? You okay?"

The flaming bartender's voice snaps Sans out of his thoughts.

"huh? oh. yeah. just thinking i got some more questions for that girl."

"When you do question her, will you be bringing her here?"

Sans looks at Grillby funny.

"now why would i do that?"

"Because...I might want to mess around more with that silly pussycat."

Sans gets off his stool and tries to ignore Grillby's teasing tone.

"well...i better get going. pap will be pissed if he catches me missing from my post."

"Want one for the road?"

Grillby dangles a mustard bottle temptingly and Sans smirks.

"how much do i owe ya this time?"

"Ow. That hurts. This one's on the house."

Sans cocks his brow at Grillby as he takes the bottle.

"free? why so generous?"

"I consider the entertainment of that girl to be very rich. I recommend you bring her over more and I might continue my generosity to, oh let's say, your tab."

"...i...i might see what i can do."

Sans teleports to escape the creepy grin Grillby gets just thinking about it.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself..."

So speaks Punk Hamster between drinks who sits at the end of the bar.

"I haven't seen you this giddy since those girls got wild on lady's night."

Grillby sighs at the memory.

"That was a wild night. So glad I put up those cameras. Bitches tried to deny all the damages they caused. But I get what you're saying. I am feeling a bit more...heated than normal."

"You don't think you're starting to carrying a torch for the little lady?"

Grillby snorts at the very idea.

"Please...I'm a monster, not a pig. Sure, I haven't been with someone in a while. But that doesn't mean I'm going to rush over and snatch any female that walks by."

Punk Hamster snickers.

"Heh...Well, that's kind of what you did."

Having walked into that, Grillby sneers and takes Punk Hamster's glass.

"Hey! I wasn't finished with that."

"Any decent bartender knows when a patron has had too much."

"Ah, come on man. It was a joke."

Grillby ignores him by going about his job, leaving Punk Hamster to lose his buzz and snack on nuts.

[Meanwhile: Back with the human]

Urgh...My head is pounding. I feel nauseous. The hell happened?

"🕈☜☹☹ ☠⚐🕈📬📬📬✡⚐🕆 ☹⚐⚐😐 ☹✋😐☜ ✡⚐🕆 ☟✌👎 ✌ ☝⚐⚐👎 ❄✋💣☜📬" (WELL NOW...YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME.)

Oh great. Now I have to deal with him.

"Hey, G. Um...What happened?"

Gaster chuckles.

"☟✌✞✋☠☝ ❄☼⚐🕆👌☹☜ ☼☜💣☜💣👌☜☼✋☠☝✍ ☠⚐❄ 💧🕆☼🏱☼✋💧✋☠☝📬 ✡⚐🕆🕯✞☜ ☠☜✞☜☼ 👌☜☜☠ ✋☠❄⚐✠✋👍✌❄☜👎 👌☜☞⚐☼☜📬" (HAVING TROUBLE REMEMBERING? NOT SURPRISING. YOU'VE NEVER BEEN INTOXICATED BEFORE.)

"Wait...So I did get drunk? I didn't get...weird...Did I?"

"☠⚐📬 ✡⚐🕆 💣☜☼☜☹✡ ☟✌👎 ✌☠ ✋☠👍☼☜✌💧☜ ✋☠ ✡⚐🕆☼ 💧☜☠💧☜ 💣✋☼❄☟" (NO. YOU MERELY HAD AN INCREASE IN YOUR SENSE MIRTH.)

"So...I was just a giggling idiot?"

"🏱☼☜❄❄✡ 💣🕆👍☟📬" (PRETTY MUCH.)

I snicker at that.

"Heh...Playful drunk. That's the best outcome that could've happened."

"✌☞☼✌✋👎 ✡⚐🕆 🕈☜☼☜ ☝⚐✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 👌☜ 💣⚐☼☜ 🏱☼⚐💣✋💧👍🕆⚐🕆💧✍" (AFRAID YOU WERE GOING TO BE MORE PROMISCUOUS?)

"Oh yeah. I don't want to end up being slutty drunk. Way too much can end up happening and I'd have no clue of any of it."

"✌☝☼☜☜👎📬 ✋❄ 🕈⚐🕆☹👎 👌☜ 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ 💧☟✌💣☜ ✋☞ 💧⚐💣☜❄☟✋☠☝ 🕈☜☼☜ ❄⚐ ☟✌🏱🏱☜☠ ❄⚐ ✡⚐🕆 ⚐☼ ✡⚐🕆☼ 💧⚐🕆☹📬" (AGREED. IT WOULD BE SUCH A SHAME IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN TO YOU OR YOUR SOUL.)

That tone he had didn't slip by my "well that's not good" radar. That has my senses on alert. After Chara's super weird warning, I'm a little on edge around him. Though part of me still wants to be kind and trust him.

"I've never asked this, and you don't have to answer if I'm being rude for asking, but...How did you end up here?"

He seems to be slightly taken back by the question. Yet he is quick to recover his composer like normal.

"✋❄🕯💧 ☠⚐❄ 💣✡ ☞⚐☠👎☜💧❄ 💣☜💣⚐☼✡📪 👌🕆❄ ✋❄ ☟✌🏱🏱☜☠☜👎 ☠⚐☠ ❄☟☜ ☹☜💧💧📬" (IT'S NOT MY FONDEST MEMORY, BUT IT HAPPENED NON THE LESS.)

He motions me closer and I do, all be it with what I hope is the subtlest hint of my nervousness.

"✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ ☟☜💧✋❄✌☠❄📪 ☹✋❄❄☹☜ ⚐☠☜📬 🕈☟✡✍" (YOU'RE HESITANT, LITTLE ONE. WHY?)

"What? No. I'm just still messed up from liquor. I don't want to fall or barf on you."

He eyes me a bit but appears to let my behavior slide.

"✞☜☼✡ 🕈☜☹☹📬 ✡⚐🕆 💣✌✡ ☠⚐❄ ☝🕆☜💧💧 ✋❄ ☞☼⚐💣 ❄☟☜ ☹⚐⚐😐💧 ⚐☞ 💣☜ ☠⚐🕈📪 👌🕆❄ ✋☠ 💣✡ 🏱☼✋💣☜📪 ✋ 🕈✌💧 ⚐☠👍☜ ❄☟☜ ☟☜✌👎 💧👍✋☜☠❄✋💧❄ ❄⚐ ❄☟☜ ☼⚐✡✌☹ ☞✌💣✋☹✡📬" (VERY WELL. YOU MAY NOT GUESS IT FROM THE LOOKS OF ME NOW, BUT IN MY PRIME, I WAS ONCE THE HEAD SCIENTIST TO THE ROYAL FAMILY.)

"Really?"

"✡☜💧📬 💣✡ ☞🕆☹☹ ❄✋❄☹☜ ✋💧 👎☼📬 🕈📬 👎📬 ☝✌💧❄☜☼📬" (YES. MY FULL TITLE IS DR. W. D. GASTER.)

"Initials?"

"✋❄🕯💧 💣✡ ☞✋☼💧❄ ☠✌💣☜📬 ✋❄ 💧❄✌☠👎💧 ☞⚐☼ 🕈✋☠☝👎✋☠☝📬" (IT'S MY FIRST NAME. IT STANDS FOR WINGDING.)

I tilt my head when something in my head clicks with that name.

"Wingding? Like the font?"

He nods.

"👍⚐☼☼☜👍❄📬" (CORRECT.)

He watches as the gears turn in my head and I am literally unsure about asking that which I know.

"☝⚐ ⚐☠📬 ✌💧😐 💣☜📬 ✋ 😐☠⚐🕈 ✡⚐🕆 🕈✌☠❄ ❄⚐📬" (GO ON. ASK ME. I KNOW YOU WANT TO.)

"Sans and Papyrus...Are you...related to them?"

The cocky grin smearing his face is chilling.

"✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ ✞☜☼✡ ✌💧❄🕆❄☜ ❄⚐ 🏱✋☜👍☜ ✋❄ ❄⚐☝☜❄☟☜☼ ☞☼⚐💣 ☺🕆💧❄ 💣✡ ☠✌💣☜ ✌☹⚐☠☜📬 ✋ 👍⚐💣💣☜☠👎 ✡⚐🕆 ☞⚐☼ ❄☟✌❄📪 ☟🕆💣✌☠📬 ✋☠👎☜☜👎📪 💧✌☠💧 ✌☠👎 🏱✌🏱✡☼🕆💧 ✌☼☜ 👌⚐❄☟ 💣✡ 😐✋☠📬 ✋☠ ☞✌👍❄📪 ❄☟☜✡ ✌☼☜ 💣✡ ✡⚐🕆☠☝☜☼ 💧✋👌☹✋☠☝💧📬" (YOU'RE VERY ASTUTE TO PIECE IT TOGETHER FROM JUST MY NAME ALONE. I COMMEND YOU FOR THAT, HUMAN. INDEED, SANS AND PAPYRUS ARE BOTH MY KIN. IN FACT, THEY ARE MY YOUNGER SIBLINGS.)

Initially, shock has me for the most part. But soon puzzlement takes over.

"But...Sans said he only has one brother."

"❄☟✌❄🕯💧 👌☜👍✌🕆💧☜ ☟☜ 👎⚐☜💧☠🕯❄ ☼☜💣☜💣👌☜☼ 💣☜📬 ☠⚐ ⚐☠☜ 👎⚐☜💧📬 ✌❄ ☹☜✌💧❄📪 ☠⚐❄ ☜☠❄✋☼☜☹✡📬" (THAT'S BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REMEMBER ME. NO ONE DOES. AT LEAST, NOT ENTIRELY.)

"Care to make sense out of that?"

"☝☹✌👎☹✡📬 ✡⚐🕆 💧☜☜📬📬📬✌💧 ❄☟☜ ☼⚐✡✌☹ 💧👍✋☜☠❄✋💧❄📪 ✋ 🕈✌💧 ☝✋✞☜☠ ❄☟☜ 👍☟✌☠👍☜ ❄⚐ 👎⚐ 💣✌☠✡ 🕈⚐☠👎☼⚐🕆💧 ❄☟✋☠☝💧📬 ✋ 👍☼☜✌❄☜👎 💣✌☠✡ ⚐☞ ❄☟☜ ☠☜👍☜💧💧✋❄✋☜💧 💣⚐☠💧❄☜☼💧 ☠☜☜👎 ❄⚐ 💧🕆☼✞✋✞☜ ✋☠ ❄☟☜ 🕆☠👎☜☼☝☼⚐🕆☠👎📬 💣✡ ☝☼✌☠👎☜💧❄ ✌👍☟✋☜✞☜💣☜☠❄ 🕈✌💧 ✌☠👎 ✋💧 💧❄✋☹☹ ❄☟☜ 👍⚐☼☜📬 ✌ 💣✌👍☟✋☠☜ 👍✌🏱✌👌☹☜ ⚐☞ ☟✌☼☠☜💧💧✋☠☝ ❄☟☜ ☝☜⚐❄☟☜☼💣✌☹ ☜☠☜☼☝✋☜💧 ⚐☞ ❄☟☜ ✞☜☼✡ 🏱☹✌☠☜❄ ✋❄💧☜☹☞ ✌☠👎 👍⚐☠✞☜☼❄✋☠☝ ✋❄ ✋☠❄⚐ 💣✌☝✋👍✌☹ ☜☠☜☼☝✡📭☜☹☜👍❄☼✋👍✋❄✡📬" (GLADLY. YOU SEE...AS THE ROYAL SCIENTIST, I WAS GIVEN THE CHANCE TO DO MANY WONDROUS THINGS. I CREATED MANY OF THE NECESSITIES MONSTERS NEED TO SURVIVE IN THE UNDERGROUND. MY GRANDEST ACHIEVEMENT WAS AND IS STILL THE CORE. A MACHINE CAPABLE OF HARNESSING THE GEOTHERMAL ENERGIES OF THE VERY PLANET ITSELF AND CONVERTING IT INTO MAGICAL ENERGY/ELECTRICITY.)

"Most impressive."

"🕈☟✋☹☜ ❄☟✌❄ ✋💧 ✌ ❄☼🕆☜ 💧❄✌❄☜💣☜☠❄📪 ✋❄ 🕈✌💧☠🕯❄ 💣✡ 🏱☼✋💣✌☼✡ 💧❄🕆👎✡📬 ☠⚐📬📬📬💣✡ 💣✌✋☠ ☼☜💧☜✌☼👍☟ 🕈☜☠❄ ✋☠❄⚐ 💧⚐💣☜❄☟✋☠☝ ☞✌☼ 💣⚐☼☜ ☞✌💧👍✋☠✌❄✋☠☝ ✌☠👎 ☼☜✞⚐☹🕆❄✋⚐☠✋☪✋☠☝ ❄☟✌☠ 💧✋💣🏱☹✡ 💧⚐☹✞✋☠☝ ☜☠☜☼☝✡ 👍☼✋💧☜💧 ⚐☼ ✈🕆✌☠❄✋☞✡✋☠☝ ❄☟☜ 💣✡💧❄☜☼✋☜💧 ⚐☞ ❄☟☜ 🕆☠✋✞☜☼💧☜ ✋☠❄⚐ ✌☠ 🕆☠👎☜☼💧❄✌☠👎✌👌☹☜ ☞⚐☼💣✌❄📬 ☠⚐📬📬📬💣✡ ❄☼🕆☜ 🏱✌💧💧✋⚐☠ ✋💧 👍⚐💣🏱☹☜❄☜ 🕆☠👎☜☼💧❄✌☠👎✋☠☝ ⚐☞ 💧⚐🕆☹💧📬 ✌☠👎 💧🕆👍☟ 🏱✌💧💧✋⚐☠ ✋💧 ☟⚐🕈 ✋ ☜☠👎☜👎 🕆🏱 ✋☠ ❄☟✋💧 ✞⚐✋👎📬" (WHILE THAT IS A TRUE STATEMENT, IT WASN'T MY PRIMARY STUDY. NO...MY MAIN RESEARCH WENT INTO SOMETHING FAR MORE FASCINATING AND REVOLUTIONIZING THAN SIMPLY SOLVING ENERGY CRISES OR QUANTIFYING THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE INTO AN UNDERSTANDABLE FORMAT. NO...MY TRUE PASSION IS COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF SOULS. AND SUCH PASSION IS HOW I ENDED UP IN THIS VOID.)

Creepy vibe alert! Red flag warning!

"Souls?"

"⚐☟📪 ✡☜💧📬 ✋ ☞✋☠👎 ✋❄ 💧⚐ ✋☠❄☜☼☜💧❄✋☠☝ ❄☟✌❄ 💧⚐💣☜❄☟✋☠☝ 💧⚐ 💧💣✌☹☹ ✌☠👎 ☞☼✌☝✋☹☜ 👍✌☠ ☟⚐☹👎 ✋💣💣☜✌💧🕆☼✌👌☹☜ 🏱⚐🕈☜☼📬 ✌☠👎 ❄☟☜ ✞☜☼✋❄✡✍ ☜✌👍☟ 💧⚐🕆☹📪 💧⚐ 👎✋☞☞☜☼☜☠❄ ✌☠👎 ✡☜❄ ☺🕆💧❄ ✌💧 🏱⚐🕈☜☼☞🕆☹ ✌💧 ❄☟☜ ☼☜💧❄📬 🕈☜☹☹📬📬📬✌☹💣⚐💧❄📬" (OH, YES. I FIND IT SO INTERESTING THAT SOMETHING SO SMALL AND FRAGILE CAN HOLD IMMEASURABLE POWER. AND THE VERITY? EACH SOUL, SO DIFFERENT AND YET JUST AS POWERFUL AS THE REST. WELL...ALMOST.)

He gets to my curiosity.

"What do you mean by almost? Are some souls more powerful than others?"

He smiles wickedly and my skin starts to crawl.

"✡☜💧📪 ☹✋❄❄☹☜ ⚐☠☜📬 ❄☟☜ ☼☜👎 💧⚐🕆☹ ⚐☞ 👎☜❄☜☼💣✋☠✌❄✋⚐☠ ✋💧 ⚐☠☜ 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ 💧⚐🕆☹📬 💣✌☝☠✋☞✡✋☠☝ ❄☟☜ ⚐🕈☠☜☼💧 🏱⚐🕈☜☼ ❄☟☜ 💣⚐☼☜ ❄☟☜✡ ☼☜☞🕆💧☜ ❄⚐ ☝✋✞☜ ✋☠📬" (YES, LITTLE ONE. THE RED SOUL OF DETERMINATION IS ONE SUCH A SOUL. MAGNIFYING THE OWNERS POWER THE MORE THEY REFUSE TO GIVE IN.)

"That is interesting. But I get the feeling this is leading to something."

That apparently was the bait he was hoping I'd take. Because within seconds, he has my wrists locked in two disembodied hands and holds me off the ground to the point we're at eye level with one another.

"*snarl* This is not a move that a wise man makes, G. This is the kind of thing that pisses me off and I make you regret it."

That smug grin never falter.

"✌☹🕈✌✡💧 💧⚐ 👌☜✌💧❄☹✡ 🕈☟☜☠ ✡⚐🕆 🏱☜☼👍☜✋✞☜ ✡⚐🕆☼💧☜☹☞ ❄⚐ 👌☜ ✋☠ 👎✌☠☝☜☼📬 💧🕆👍☟ 🕆☠👌☜👍⚐💣✋☠☝ ⚐☞ ✌ ☹✌👎✡📬" (ALWAYS SO BEASTLY WHEN YOU PERCEIVE YOURSELF TO BE IN DANGER. SUCH UNBECOMING OF A LADY.)

"Let me go and I will consider not adding to those cracks in your skull."

"✞☜☼✡ 👍🕆❄☜📬 👌🕆❄ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ✋☠ ☠⚐ 🏱⚐💧✋❄✋⚐☠ ❄⚐ ❄☟☼☜✌❄☜☠ 💣☜📬" (VERY CUTE. BUT YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO THREATEN ME.)

"We'll see about that."

I jerk my legs to kick but they don't move. Two more disembodied hands grip around my ankles.

"☹✋😐☜ ✋ 💧✌✋👎📬📬📬✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ✋☠ ☠⚐ 🏱⚐💧✋❄✋⚐☠ ❄⚐ ❄☟☼☜✌❄☜☠ 💣☜📬" (LIKE I SAID...YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO THREATEN ME.)

"You cocky son of a breastbone."

That takes a moment to sink in before he laughs.

"☟☜☟☜☟📬📬📬☝⚐⚐👎 ⚐☠☜📬 ❄☟✌❄ 🕈✌💧 ✌☹💣⚐💧❄ ☞🕆☠☠✡📬 👌🕆❄ ☠⚐❄ ✈🕆✋❄☜📬" (HEHEH...GOOD ONE. THAT WAS ALMOST FUNNY. BUT NOT QUITE.)

"What are you planning? In the very least, don't let it be something pervy."

He looks unamused.

"👎⚐ ☠⚐❄ ✌👍👍🕆💧☜ 💣☜ ⚐☞ 👌☜✋☠☝ 💧⚐💣☜ ☹⚐🕈☹✡ 💧👍🕆��👌✌☝📬 ✋☞ ✋ 🕈✌☠❄☜👎 ❄⚐ ☟✌✞☜ 💣✡ 🕈✌✡ 🕈✋❄☟ ✡⚐🕆📪 ✡⚐🕆 🕈⚐🕆☹👎🕯✞☜ 👌☜☜☠ ✞✋⚐☹✌❄☜👎 💣🕆👍☟ 💧⚐⚐☠☜☼ ✋☠❄⚐ ⚐🕆❄ 💣☜☜❄✋☠☝💧 ✌☠👎 ✡⚐🕆 😐☠⚐🕈 ❄☟✌❄📬" (DO NOT ACCUSE ME OF BEING SOME LOWLY SCUMBAG. IF I WANTED TO HAVE MY WAY WITH YOU, YOU WOULD'VE BEEN VIOLATED MUCH SOONER INTO OUT MEETINGS AND YOU KNOW THAT.)

"Then what is this all about?"

"✡⚐🕆 ✌💧😐☜👎 ✋☞ ❄☟☜☼☜ 🕈☜☼☜ 💧⚐🕆☹💧 ❄☟✌❄ 🕈☜☼☜ 💧❄☼⚐☠☝☜☼ ❄☟✌☠ ⚐❄☟☜☼💧📬" (YOU ASKED IF THERE WERE SOULS THAT WERE STRONGER THAN OTHERS.)

"And you said the Red Soul of Determination."

"✋ 👎✋👎📬 👌🕆❄ ✋ ☟✌✞☜ ☞⚐🕆☠👎 ✌ 💧⚐🕆☹ ☞✌☼ 💧🕆🏱☜☼✋⚐☼ ✌☠👎 💣🕆👍☟ 💣⚐☼☜ ✋☠❄☜☼☜💧❄✋☠☝ ❄☟✌☠ ❄☟☜ ☼☜👎 💧⚐🕆☹📬" (I DID. BUT I HAVE FOUND A SOUL FAR SUPERIOR AND MUCH MORE INTERESTING THAN THE RED SOUL.)

I sigh.

"Let me guess. Mine."

"☠⚐🕈 ✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ ☺🕆💧❄ ❄✌😐✋☠☝ ❄☟☜ ☞🕆☠ ⚐🕆❄ ⚐☞ ✋❄📬" (NOW YOU'RE JUST TAKING THE FUN OUT OF IT.)

Before I'm able to rebuke that with a rather scathing set of choice words, he places his actual hand on my chest and I become a rather flustered mess.

"Take your fucking hand off!"

"🖂💧✋☝☟🖂 🕈☟✌❄ 🏱✌☼❄ ⚐☞ ✋🕯💣 ☠⚐❄ ☝⚐✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 👎⚐ ✌☠✡❄☟✋☠☝ 💧👍✌☠👎✌☹⚐🕆💧 👎⚐☠🕯❄ ✡⚐🕆 🕆☠👎☜☼💧❄✌☠👎✍ ☟⚐☠☜💧❄☹✡📪 ✋ ❄☟⚐🕆☝☟❄ ✡⚐🕆🕯👎 ☼☜✌👍❄ 👎✋☞☞☜☼☜☠❄☹✡ ❄☟✌☠ ❄☟☜ ⚐❄☟☜☼💧📬 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ 🏱✋❄✡📬 ☠⚐🕈 ✋☞ ✡⚐🕆 ☺🕆💧❄ ☼☜☹✌✠📬📬📬" (*SIGH* WHAT PART OF I'M NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING SCANDALOUS DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? HONESTLY, I THOUGHT YOU'D REACT DIFFERENTLY THAN THE OTHERS. SUCH A PITY. NOW IF YOU JUST RELAX...)

Wait, what does he mean by 'others'? Before I can ask, a strange surge of energy floods into my chest and I roar out as this new type of pain worms its way inside me. A delightful sparkle comes to his eyes, like a child getting a new pet, he knows what's to come but there's enough mystery to get him excited.

"✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ ☼☜💧✋💧❄✋☠☝📬 👎⚐☠🕯❄ 👌☜ ✌ ☞⚐⚐☹📪 ☹✋❄❄☹☜ ⚐☠☜📬 ❄☟☜ 💣⚐☼☜ ✡⚐🕆 💧❄☼🕆☝☝☹☜📪 ❄☟☜ 🕈⚐☼💧☜ ❄☟☜ 🏱✌✋☠📬 ☞⚐☼ ⚐☠👍☜📪 👌☜ ✌ ☝⚐⚐👎 ☝✋☼☹ ✌☠👎 👎⚐ ✌💧 ❄⚐☹👎📬 ☼☜☹✌✠ ✌☠👎 ✌☹☹⚐🕈 ❄☟✋💧 ❄⚐ ☟✌🏱🏱☜☠📬" (YOU'RE RESISTING. DON'T BE A FOOL, LITTLE ONE. THE MORE YOU STRUGGLE, THE WORSE THE PAIN. FOR ONCE, BE A GOOD GIRL AND DO AS TOLD. RELAX AND ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.)

I shiver and hate that Gaster knows how to speak in such a way that it gets to me. His words tickle a part in my brain that is powerless to him. As much as my body screams to keep fighting this energy and deny him of what he's expecting, I am only a human. I'm a weak creature by nature. I give in. I give up.

"❄☟☜☼☜ 🕈☜ ✌☼☜📬 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ ☝⚐⚐👎 ☝✋☼☹📬" (THERE WE ARE. SUCH A GOOD GIRL.)

Seconds after allowing his magic to flow freely into my body, from out of the hole in his palm emerges the heart-shaped core of my being that is my very SOUL. Yet something isn't right. A soul is primarily a single color. Now I know mine is a bit odd as it tends to change its color instead of staying a single solitary color. But this? This was new and very unexpected. This SOUL was not one, two or even three colors. No. This thing was a swirl of multiple colors all sloshing about like clashing waves, each one seemingly colliding with the others for more space for itself, almost like the colors are fighting for dominance of the SOUL itself. And the colors themselves, so many of them. Orange, red, blue, yellow, green, light blue, purple, and black. Though very faintly, two more colors were drowning under these crashing waves. From the little bits that can be seen, it looked like white and...pink? What the fuck?

"☞✌💧👍✋☠✌❄✋☠☝📬📬📬✋🕯✞☜ ☠☜✞☜☼ 💧☜☜☠ ✌ ☟🕆💣✌☠ 💧⚐🕆☹ ☜✠☟✋👌✋❄ 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ ✌☼☼✌✡ ⚐☞ ☜💣⚐❄✋⚐☠💧📬 👌☼✌✞☜☼✡📬 👎☜❄☜☼💣✋☠✌❄✋⚐☠📬 ✋☠❄☜☝☼✋❄✡📬 ☺🕆💧❄✋👍☜📬 😐✋☠👎☠☜💧💧📬 🏱✌❄✋☜☠👍☜📬 🏱☜☼💧☜✞☜☼✌☠👍☜📬 ✌☠👎 ❄☟✋💧 ⚐☠☜📬📬📬☼☜☹☜☠❄☹☜💧💧☠☜💧💧📬 ✞☜☼✡ ☼✌☼☜📬 ✋🕯✞☜ ☠☜✞☜☼ 💧❄🕆👎✋☜👎 ✌ ☼☜☹☜☠❄☹☜💧💧 💧⚐🕆☹ 👌☜☞⚐☼☜📬 ✌☠👎 🕈☟✌❄ ✌☼☜ ❄☟⚐💧☜ ❄🕈⚐✍ ❄☼🕆☹✡ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ☝⚐✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 🏱☼⚐✞✋👎☜ 💣☜ 🕈✋❄☟ 💣🕆👍☟ ☝☼☜✌❄☜☼ 🕆☠👎☜☼💧❄✌☠👎✋☠☝ ❄☟✌☠ ✋ 👍⚐🕆☹👎🕯✞☜ 🏱☼✌✡☜👎 ☞⚐☼📬" (FASCINATING...I'VE NEVER SEEN A HUMAN SOUL EXHIBIT SUCH A ARRAY OF EMOTIONS. BRAVERY. DETERMINATION. INTEGRITY. JUSTICE. KINDNESS. PATIENCE. PERSEVERANCE. AND THIS ONE...RELENTLESSNESS. VERY RARE. I'VE NEVER STUDIED A RELENTLESS SOUL BEFORE. AND WHAT ARE THOSE TWO? TRULY YOU ARE GOING TO PROVIDE ME WITH MUCH GREATER UNDERSTANDING THAN I COULD'VE PRAYED FOR.)

This feels so weird, my chest hurts from the pressure of his hand and the forced emergence of my soul. The longer it's out the more it hurts. But my discomfort means little to him, if anything my reactions only seem to further get his interest.

"✋❄ 🏱✌✋☠💧 ✡⚐🕆📪 👎⚐☜💧☠🕯❄ ✋❄✍ ☟✌✞✋☠☝ ✡⚐🕆☼ ☹✋☞☜ 🏱🕆☹☹☜👎 ⚐🕆❄ ☹✋😐☜ ❄☟✋💧📬 ✋ 😐☠⚐🕈 ✋❄ 👎⚐☜💧📬 ✋❄ ☟🕆☼❄ ❄☟☜ ⚐❄☟☜☼ ☟🕆💣✌☠💧 ✌💧 🕈☜☹☹📬 💧🕆👍☟ ☞☼✌✋☹ ❄☟✋☠☝💧 ❄☟☜✡ 🕈☜☼☜📬 💧⚐ ☞🕆☹☹ ⚐☞ ☞☜✌☼📬 ☺🕆💧❄ ✌💧 ✋🕯💣 💧🕆☼☜ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ☠⚐🕈 ❄⚐⚐📬" (IT PAINS YOU, DOESN'T IT? HAVING YOUR LIFE PULLED OUT LIKE THIS. I KNOW IT DOES. IT HURT THE OTHER HUMANS AS WELL. SUCH FRAIL THINGS THEY WERE. SO FULL OF FEAR. JUST AS I'M SURE YOU ARE NOW TOO.)

I know I was resigned to just letting him do as he pleased before and honestly, I would've stilled allowed had he not said that. Fear? He thinks I'm afraid? Oh hell no! Who the fuck does he think he's dealing with here?! He's toying with me, like being a cat and thinking I'm a mouse. The hell I am! I won't give in. Not anymore. Not to fear and damn sure not to him!

"You bipolar manipulative fuckwad!"

He's taken back by my sudden snap. But his eyes never leave their locked on gaze from my soul, which is starting to stir a lot harsher now.

"You think this scares me? That YOU scare me? Papyrus scares me more than you. At least he makes his intent clear. He tells me without hesitation that he has no issues ending my life. You? You can't seem to pick whether or not you want to be all friendly or be an outright creepy asshole. So no. Fuck this. Fuck you. This bitch ain't taking this bullshit anymore!"

My soul beats loudly and fast. The swirl of colors hitting each other harder. Two beginning to show more predominately as they are more fueled at this moment. Red...and Black. But my verbal venom does nothing to phase him. He sees right through me, chuckling with amusement as he leans in closer and the tips of his fingers claw into my chest harshly.

"💧🕆👍☟ ✌ 👌⚐☹👎 💧🏱✋☼✋❄ ✡⚐🕆 ☟✌✞☜📪 ☹✋❄❄☹☜ ⚐☠☜📬 ✞☜☼✡ ✌💣🕆💧✋☠☝📬 ✋ ☹✋😐☜ ✋❄📬 💣✌😐☜💧 ❄☟✋☠☝💧 💣⚐☼☜ ☜☠☺⚐✡✌👌☹☜ 🕈☟☜☠ ❄☟☜ 💣⚐🕆💧☜ ❄✌☹😐💧 👌✌👍😐📬 ✋ 👍✌☠ 💧☜☜ ❄☟✋💧 ✌💧 ❄☟☜ 💧❄✌☼❄ ⚐☞ ✌ ✞☜☼✡ ✋☠❄☜☼☜💧❄✋☠☝ ☜✠🏱☜☼✋💣☜☠❄📬" (SUCH A BOLD SPIRIT YOU HAVE, LITTLE ONE. VERY AMUSING. I LIKE IT. MAKES THINGS MORE ENJOYABLE WHEN THE MOUSE TALKS BACK. I CAN SEE THIS AS THE START OF A VERY INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.)

"I'm not your fucking lab rat, Gaster."

"✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ 🕈☟✌❄ ✋ 💧✌✡ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ 💧⚐ ☹⚐☠☝ ✌💧 ✡⚐🕆 ☼☜💣✌✋☠ ✋☠ ☟☜☼☜ 🕈✋❄☟ 💣☜📬 ✋🕯💣 💧❄🕆👍😐 ✋☠ ❄☟✋💧 ☼⚐⚐💣 ✌☠👎 ✌☹⚐☠☜ 🕈☟✋☹☜ ✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ ✌🕈✌😐☜📬 ✋❄🕯💧 👌☜☜☠ ✌ ✞☜☼✡ ☹⚐☠☝ ❄✋💣☜ 💧✋☠👍☜ ✋ 🕈✌💧 ☹✌💧❄ ✌👌☹☜ ❄⚐ ☟✌✞☜ 👍⚐☠❄✌👍❄ 🕈✋❄☟ ✌☠⚐❄☟☜☼ 🏱☜☼💧⚐☠ ⚐☼ 🏱☼☜☞⚐☼💣 ✌☠✡ 💧⚐☼❄ ⚐☞ 🕈⚐☼😐📬 ✌☠👎 ✌💧 ✌☠ 🕆☠😐☠⚐🕈☠ ✞☜☼✋❄✌👌☹☜📪 ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ✌☠ ✌☠⚐💣✌☹✡ ✋ 🕈✋💧☟ ❄⚐ ☜✠🏱☹⚐☼☜ ✌☠👎 🕆☠👎☜☼💧❄✌☠👎📬 🕈☟✌❄ ☜✠✌👍❄☹✡ 💣✌😐☜💧 ✡⚐🕆 ❄✋👍😐✍ ☟⚐🕈 👎✋👎 ✡⚐🕆 ☼☜🏱✌✋☼ ❄☟☜ ☺🕆😐☜👌⚐✠ 🕈✋❄☟ ❄☟✌❄ ⚐👎👎 ☝☹✋❄👍☟✍ 🕈☟✌❄ ✋💧 ❄☟☜ ☞🕆☹☹ ☜✠❄☜☠❄ ⚐☞ ✡⚐🕆☼ 💧⚐🕆☹🕯💧 🏱⚐🕈☜☼✍ 💧⚐ 💣✌☠✡ ✈🕆☜💧❄✋⚐☠💧 ✌☠👎 ✋ 🕈✌☠❄ ❄⚐📬📬📬☠⚐📬📬📬✋ 🕈✋☹☹ ☞✋☠👎 ⚐🕆❄ ❄☟☜ ✌☠💧🕈☜☼💧📬" (YOU ARE WHAT I SAY YOU ARE SO LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN HERE WITH ME. I'M STUCK IN THIS ROOM AND ALONE WHILE YOU'RE AWAKE. IT'S BEEN A VERY LONG TIME SINCE I WAS LAST ABLE TO HAVE CONTACT WITH ANOTHER PERSON OR PREFORM ANY SORT OF WORK. AND AS AN UNKNOWN VERITABLE, YOU ARE AN ANOMALY I WISH TO EXPLORE AND UNDERSTAND. WHAT EXACTLY MAKES YOU TICK? HOW DID YOU REPAIR THE JUKEBOX WITH THAT ODD GLITCH? WHAT IS THE FULL EXTENT OF YOUR SOUL'S POWER? SO MANY QUESTIONS AND I WANT TO...NO...I WILL FIND OUT THE ANSWERS.)

We glare deeply at one another. Sizing the other up, even though I'm clearly not going to win this. But it would be a cold day in hell if I'd let him treat me like some stupid lab experiment. I am no one's toy.

"...And if I refuse?"

"📬📬📬✋ 🕈⚐🕆☹👎 🏱☼☜☞☜☼ ✡⚐🕆☼ 👍⚐⚐🏱☜☼✌❄✋⚐☠📬 ✋❄ 🕈⚐🕆☹👎 💣✌😐☜ ❄☟✋☠☝💧 ☜✌💧✋☜☼ ☞⚐☼ 🕆💧 👌⚐❄☟ ✌☠👎 ☠⚐❄ 👎✋☹🕆❄☜ ❄☟☜ ❄☜💧❄ ☼☜💧🕆☹❄💧 🕈✋❄☟ ✡⚐🕆☼ ☠☜☝✌❄✋✞✋❄✡📬 👌🕆❄ ✋☞ ✡⚐🕆 ☼☜☞🕆💧☜ ❄⚐ 👌☜☟✌✞☜📪 ❄☟☜☠ ✡⚐🕆 ☼☜✌☹☹✡ ☹☜✌✞☜ 💣☜ ☠⚐ 👍☟⚐✋👍☜📬 ✌☠👎 ✋ 😐☠⚐🕈 ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ✌ ✞☜☼✡ ✋💣✌☝✋☠✌❄✋✞☜ ☝✋☼☹📬 ✋ 👎⚐☠🕯❄ ☟✌✞☜ ❄⚐ 💧✌✡ 🕈☟✌❄ ✋ 🕈✋☹☹ 👎⚐ 👌☜👍✌🕆💧☜ ✋ ☟✌✞☜ ☠⚐ 👎⚐🕆👌❄💧 ❄☟✌❄ ✡⚐🕆 ☟✌✞☜ ✌☹☼☜✌👎✡ ❄☟⚐🕆☝☟❄ ⚐☞ ✌❄ ☹☜✌💧❄ ❄☜☠ 👌✡ ❄☟☜ ❄✋💣☜ ✋ ☞✋☠✋💧☟ 💧🏱☜✌😐✋☠☝📬" (...I WOULD PREFER YOUR COOPERATION. IT WOULD MAKE THINGS EASIER FOR US BOTH AND NOT DILUTE THE TEST RESULTS WITH YOUR NEGATIVITY. BUT IF YOU REFUSE TO BEHAVE, THEN YOU REALLY LEAVE ME NO CHOICE. AND I KNOW YOU ARE A VERY IMAGINATIVE GIRL. I DON'T HAVE TO SAY WHAT I WILL DO BECAUSE I HAVE NO DOUBTS THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY THOUGHT OF AT LEAST TEN BY THE TIME I FINISH SPEAKING.)

"Twenty six actually."

"💣✡ 🏱⚐✋☠❄ ☼☜💣✌✋☠💧 💧❄✌☠👎✋☠☝📬 ☠⚐🕈 ✋ ✌💧😐 ✡⚐🕆 ❄☟✋💧📬📬📬🕈✋☹☹ ✡⚐🕆 ☟🕆💣⚐☼ 💣☜ 👌✡ ☝⚐✋☠☝ ✌☹⚐☠☝ 🕈✋❄☟ 💣✡ 🕈☟✋💣💧✍ ⚐☼📪 🕈✋☹☹ ✡⚐🕆 💣✌😐☜ ❄☟✋☠☝💧 🕈⚐☼💧❄ ☞⚐☼ ✡⚐🕆☼💧☜☹☞ 👌✡ 👌☜✋☠☝ ✌ 👌✌👎 ☝✋☼☹✍" (MY POINT REMAINS STANDING. NOW I ASK YOU THIS...WILL YOU HUMOR ME BY GOING ALONG WITH MY WHIMS? OR, WILL YOU MAKE THINGS WORST FOR YOURSELF BY BEING A BAD GIRL?)

I look at him funny.

"Dude, I want to take that seriously but...wow...That was the lamest way you could've said that."

He rolls his eyes and sighs.

"☟⚐🕈 ☟✌💧 🏱✌🏱✡☼🕆💧 ☠⚐❄ 😐✋☹☹☜👎 ✡⚐🕆 👌✡ ☠⚐🕈✍" (HOW HAS PAPYRUS NOT KILLED YOU BY NOW?)

"Because not even Pap wants to piss off Toriel."

He shrugs his shoulders.

"✡☜✌☟📪 ✋ 👍✌☠ 💧☜☜ ❄☟✌❄📬 ☠⚐🕈 👍☟⚐⚐💧☜✏ ❄☟☜ ☜✌💧✡ 🕈✌✡ ⚐☼ ❄☟☜ 🕈✌✡ ❄☟✌❄ ✋☠✞⚐☹✞☜💧 ✌ ☹⚐❄ ⚐☞ 🏱✌✋☠ ✌☠👎 ✌☹☹ ✌☼⚐🕆☠👎 🕆☠🏱☹☜✌💧✌☠❄☠☜💧💧✍" (YEAH, I CAN SEE THAT. NOW CHOOSE! THE EASY WAY OR THE WAY THAT INVOLVES A LOT OF PAIN AND ALL AROUND UNPLEASANTNESS?)

"You paint such a beautiful picture. Are you a poet?"

He doesn't like sarcasm, as evidence of his clawed fingertips digging in so hard that they start to break through to enter my flesh.

"✌☠💧🕈☜☼ 💣☜📪 ☹✡☠💧✋☜✏ ☠⚐🕈✏" (ANSWER ME, LYNSIE! NOW!)

"Easy way! Easy way! Fuck! I pick the easy way!"

Now with an answer of my hopeful cooperation, his fingers release their grip into my skin and he removes his hand from my chest. This lets my soul return to me and I can now feel slightly less violated.

"❄☟☜☼☜📬 ☠⚐🕈 🕈✌💧 ❄☟✌❄ 💧⚐ ☟✌☼👎✍" (THERE. NOW WAS THAT SO HARD?)

I sneer at him.

"I'm beginning to see the family resemblance. I don't know who's smugger. Sans, Pap, or you."

He scowls and makes the other hands disappear, dropping me on my shaky feet that almost buckle.

"🏱✌🏱✡☼🕆💧 ✋💧 ☼✋☝☟❄📬 ❄☟✌❄ 💣⚐🕆❄☟ ⚐☞ ✡⚐🕆☼💧 ✋💧 ☝⚐✋☠☝ ❄⚐ ☝☜❄ ✡⚐🕆 ✋☠ 💣⚐☼☜ ❄☼⚐🕆👌☹☜ ❄☟✌☠ ✡⚐🕆 🕈✌☠❄📬 ☹☜✌☼☠ ❄⚐ ☟⚐☹👎 ✡⚐🕆☼ ❄⚐☠☝🕆☜ 👌☜☞⚐☼☜ ✡⚐🕆 💧✌✡ 💧⚐💣☜❄☟✋☠☝ ❄☟✌❄ ✡⚐🕆🕯☹☹ ☼☜☝☼☜❄📬" (PAPYRUS IS RIGHT. THAT MOUTH OF YOURS IS GOING TO GET YOU IN MORE TROUBLE THAN YOU WANT. LEARN TO HOLD YOUR TONGUE BEFORE YOU SAY SOMETHING THAT YOU'LL REGRET.)

I smirk, sticking out my tongue and taking hold of it.

"*mumble* Is this better?"

He looks at me deadpan and slaps his hand to his face.

"🖂💧✋☝☟🖂 ✋ ☟✌❄☜ ✡⚐🕆 💧⚐ 💣🕆👍☟ ☼✋☝☟❄ ☠⚐🕈📬" (*SIGH* I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW.)

I let my tongue go.

"You say that, but you know you're glad I come by. After all, it's like you said. You're stuck here, all alone with no one to talk to or interact with. You're lonely. It's understandable. It's why I don't hold this nutty side of you in the wrong. You're just a little awkward dealing with me. And I know I'm not the greatest human when it comes to rubbing you monsters the right way. I antagonize, sometimes on purpose. But do you know why I do it?"

"👌☜👍✌🕆💧☜ ✡⚐🕆🕯☼☜ 💧❄✋☹☹ ❄☼✡✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 😐✋☹☹ ✡⚐🕆☼💧☜☹☞✍" (BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?)

I snort a laugh.

"Nah, man. That sad part of me had it's chance and failed. I'm not brave enough to try meeting death again. Our long distance relationship will just have to continue. No...The reason I purposely bug the shit out of you boys is simply this...I like you."

Emotion leaves his face.

"You look confused. Let me explain. To strangers, I try to come off as normal. Letting them see the good in me and allowing them to make the choice of wanting to know more about me if they want. But when they do, when there are continued interactions, I let my real self come out more. The real me is kind. The real me likes to tell crude jokes. The real me will fight if something is wrong. The real me is a loyal friend once you earn my respect. And it's the real me you get when I see you trying to be real with me in return. That help make sense?"

He just stares at me for a minute or two. Just letting my words sink in. Then his composer returns.

"✡⚐🕆 👍☜☼❄✌✋☠☹✡ ✌☼☜ ✌☠ ⚐👎👎 ⚐☠☜📪 ✋🕯☹☹ ☝✋✞☜ ✡⚐🕆 ❄☟✌❄📬 👌🕆❄📬📬📬✋ 💧🕆🏱🏱⚐💧☜ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜☠🕯❄ ❄☟☜ 🕈⚐☼💧❄ 🏱☜☼💧⚐☠ ❄⚐ 👌☜ ✌☼⚐🕆☠👎📬" (YOU CERTAINLY ARE AN ODD ONE, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT. BUT...I SUPPOSE YOU AREN'T THE WORST PERSON TO BE AROUND.)

I smile.

"Same, G. You can be a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but for real, who isn't? Yet if you try to hold that side back then I'll hold my more obnoxious traits back in turn. If you play the gentleman, I will not play the bitch. Sound fair, Dr.?"

I hold out my hand in a friendly manner. He looks at my hand and then me.

"What's the matter, G? Don't you know how to greet a new pal?"

For a moment, a small smile creeps onto his skull but is quickly replaced with his normal flat line and he shakes my hand.

"✡⚐🕆 ☼☜✌☹☹✡ ✌☼☜ ✌ 💧❄☼✌☠☝☜ ⚐☠☜📬 ✡☜❄📬📬📬💣✌✡👌☜ ❄☟✌❄🕯💧 ✌ ☝⚐⚐👎 ❄☟✋☠☝📬" (YOU REALLY ARE A STRANGE ONE. YET...MAYBE THAT'S A GOOD THING.)

"I'm glad we can be cool about this. Honestly, when you started being all creepy, I was beginning to believe the warning Chara gave me that you were not to be trusted."

Things go quiet and the room gets ice cold.

"🕈☟✌❄ 👎✋👎 ✡⚐🕆 💧✌✡✍" (WHAT DID YOU SAY?)

I feel like I just fucked up.

"❄☟✌❄ ☠✌💣☜📬 ☟⚐🕈 👎⚐ ✡⚐🕆 😐☠⚐🕈 ❄☟✌❄ ☠✌💣☜✍" (THAT NAME. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT NAME?)

My continued silence does not please him. He grabs me by the throat with both hands and gets in my face. The rage in his eyes almost makes me piss myself.

"✋ 👎⚐☠🕯❄ 😐☠⚐🕈 ☟⚐🕈 ✡⚐🕆 😐☠⚐🕈 ❄☟✌❄ 👌☼✌❄📪 👌🕆❄ ✌☹☹⚐🕈 💣☜ ❄⚐ 💣✌😐☜ ❄☟✋💧 ✞☜☼✡ 👍☹☜✌☼📬 ✋☞ ✌☠✡⚐☠☜ ✋💧 ☠⚐❄ ❄⚐ 👌☜ ❄☼🕆💧❄☜👎📪 ✋❄ ✋💧 ☟✋💣📬 👎⚐ ☠⚐❄ ❄☼🕆💧❄ 💧💣✌☹☹ 👍☟✋☹👎☼☜☠📬 ❄☟☜✡ ✌☼☜ ❄☟☜ 💣⚐💧❄ ☜✞✋☹ 👍☼☜✌❄🕆☼☜💧 ✡⚐🕆 🕈✋☹☹ ☜✞☜☼ ☟✌✞☜ ❄☟☜ 🕆☠☞⚐☼❄🕆☠✌❄☜ ❄✋💣☜ ❄⚐ 😐☠⚐🕈📬 👎☜👍☜🏱❄✋✞☜ 💣✋☠👎💧 🕈✋❄☟ ☞⚐☼😐☜👎 ❄⚐☠☝🕆☜💧 ✋☠ 💣✋💧☹☜✌👎✋☠☝ 👌⚐👎✋☜💧📬 ❄☟✌❄ ✋💧 👍☟✌☼✌📬" (I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU KNOW THAT BRAT BUT ALLOW ME TO MAKE THIS VERY CLEAR. IF ANYONE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED, IT IS HIM. DO NOT TRUST SMALL CHILDREN. THEY ARE THE MOST EVIL CREATURES YOU WILL EVER HAVE THE UNFORTUNATE TIME TO KNOW. DECEPTIVE MINDS WITH FORKED TONGUES IN MISLEADING BODIES. THAT IS CHARA.)

"B-B-But he..."

"👎⚐ ✡⚐🕆 ❄☼🕆💧❄ 💣☜📪 ☹✋❄❄☹☜ ⚐☠☜✍" (DO YOU TRUST ME, LITTLE ONE?)

"I...I want to..."

"❄☟☜☠ ❄☼🕆💧❄ 💣☜📬 👎⚐ ☠⚐❄ 👌☜☹✋☜✞☜ 👍☟✌☼✌📬 ✋☞ ✋❄ 🕈☜☼☜☠🕯❄ ☞⚐☼ ☟✋💣📪 ❄☟☜ 🏱☼✋☠👍☜ 🕈⚐🕆☹👎 💧❄✋☹☹ 👌☜ ✌☹✋✞☜📬" (THEN TRUST ME. DO NOT BELIEVE CHARA. IF IT WEREN'T FOR HIM, THE PRINCE WOULD STILL BE ALIVE.)

I feel my face pale.

"Asriel?"

"✡⚐🕆 😐☠⚐🕈 ⚐☞ ☟✋💣 ❄⚐⚐✍" (YOU KNOW OF HIM TOO?)

His grip on me loosens and the rage in his eyes dims.

"✋ 🕈✌☼☠ ✡⚐🕆 ☠⚐🕈📬 🕈✋❄☟ ✌ 💧⚐🕆☹ 💧🕆👍☟ ✌💧 ✡⚐🕆☼💧📪 ✡⚐🕆 💧☟✌☹☹ 🏱☹✌✡ ✌ ☼⚐☹☜ ⚐☞ ✋💣🏱⚐☼❄✌☠👍☜📬 👎⚐ ☠⚐❄ ✌☹☹⚐🕈 💧🕆👍☟ ✌ ❄☟✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 👌☜ 🕆☠👎☜☼ ❄☟☜ 💧🕈✌✡ ⚐☞ 💧⚐💣☜⚐☠☜ ✡⚐🕆 😐☠⚐🕈 ☠⚐❄☟✋☠☝ ✌👌⚐🕆❄📬" (I WARN YOU NOW. WITH A SOUL SUCH AS YOURS, YOU SHALL PLAY A ROLE OF IMPORTANCE. DO NOT ALLOW SUCH A THING TO BE UNDER THE SWAY OF SOMEONE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.)

"And what about you?"

He looks sternly before sighing into calmness.

"✋☞ ✋❄ 🕈✋☹☹ ☟☜☹🏱 ✡⚐🕆 ❄⚐ 😐☠⚐🕈 ✋ ✌💣 ☠⚐❄ ✡⚐🕆☼ ☜☠☜💣✡📪 ❄☟☜☠ ✋ 💧☟✌☹☹ ❄☜☹☹ ✡⚐🕆 💣⚐☼☜ ✌👌⚐🕆❄ 💣✡💧☜☹☞ ✌💧 🕈☜ 👍⚐☠❄✋☠🕆☜ ❄☟☜💧☜ ✋☠❄☜☼✌👍❄✋⚐☠💧📬 👌🕆❄ ✋ 👎⚐ ☟⚐🏱☜ ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ 💣⚐☼☜ 👍✌🕆❄✋⚐🕆💧 🕈✋❄☟ 🕈☟⚐💣 ✡⚐🕆 👍☟⚐⚐💧☜ ❄⚐ ☹⚐🕈☜☼ ✡⚐🕆☼ ☝🕆✌☼👎 ✌☼⚐🕆☠👎📬" (IF IT WILL HELP YOU TO KNOW I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY, THEN I SHALL TELL YOU MORE ABOUT MYSELF AS WE CONTINUE THESE INTERACTIONS. BUT I DO HOPE YOU ARE MORE CAUTIOUS WITH WHOM YOU CHOOSE TO LOWER YOUR GUARD AROUND.)

There's this look on his face. I can't quite place it but it feels something like worry. I nod my head.

"I understand. Heh...Funny. Sans told me something like that when we first talked."

"💧🏱☜✌😐✋☠☝ ⚐☞ 💣✡ 👌☼⚐❄☟☜☼💧📬 ☹☜❄ 💣☜ ☝✋✞☜ ✡⚐🕆 ⚐☠☜ 💣⚐☼☜ 🏱✋☜👍☜ ⚐☞ ✌👎✞✋👍☜📬📬📬" (SPEAKING OF MY BROTHERS. LET ME GIVE YOU ONE MORE PIECE OF ADVICE...)

I expect a warning. I expect the kind of protectiveness a father tells a boy that seeks his daughter. What I don't expect was his face to distort and this suffocating red aura to swallow everything around him.

"✋☞ ✡⚐🕆 ☜✞☜☼ ☟🕆☼❄ 💣✡ ☞✌💣✋☹✡ ✋☠ ✌☠✡ 🕈✌✡📪 💧☟✌🏱☜📪 ⚐☼ ☞⚐☼💣📬📬📬✋ 🕈✋☹☹ ☠⚐❄ ☟☜💧✋❄✌❄☜ ❄⚐ 👌☼☜✌😐 ✡⚐🕆 👎⚐🕈☠📪 ✌❄⚐💣 👌✡ ✌❄⚐💣📪 ✌☠👎 ☜☼✌💧☜ ✡⚐🕆 ☞☼⚐💣 ☜✠✋💧❄☜☠👍☜ ✋☠ ❄☟✋💧 ✌☠👎 ✌☹☹ ☼☜✌☹✋❄✋☜💧📬📬📬👎⚐ ✋ 💣✌😐☜ 💣✡💧☜☹☞ 👍☹☜✌☼📪 ☟🕆💣✌☠✍✏" (IF YOU EVER HURT MY FAMILY IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM...I WILL NOT HESITATE TO BREAK YOU DOWN, ATOM BY ATOM, AND ERASE YOU FROM EXISTENCE IN THIS AND ALL REALITIES...DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR, HUMAN?!)

I open my mouth to utter the first real scream in my entire life but no sound escapes me, there's only the terrified look of horror on my face. That look seems sufficient enough to give him an answer and he reverts to his normal professionalism.

"☝⚐⚐👎📬 ✋🕯💣 ☝☹✌👎 ✡⚐🕆 ✌☼☜ ✌ ☼☜✌💧⚐☠✌👌☹☜ 👍☼☜✌❄🕆☼☜📬 🖂✌☟☜💣🖂 👎⚐ ☞⚐☼☝✋✞☜ 💣✡ ☜✌☼☹✋☜☼ 👌☜☟✌✞✋⚐☼📬 ✋❄ 🕈✌💧 🕆☠👌☜👍⚐💣✋☠☝ ⚐☞ 💣☜📬 ☺🕆💧❄ ☼☜💣☜💣👌☜☼ 🕈☟✌❄ ✋ 💧✌✋👎📬" (GOOD. I'M GLAD YOU ARE A REASONABLE CREATURE. *AHEM* DO FORGIVE MY EARLIER BEHAVIOR. IT WAS UNBECOMING OF ME. JUST REMEMBER WHAT I SAID.)

He pats my head and my eyes roll into the back of my head as I pass out from all this insanity.

[Meawhile: In Snowdin Town]

Another hard day's work for the skeleton brothers. As like most days, no humans entered their territory. Aside from his normal watching duties, Papyrus had Sans stop by the house every hour to check on the human. Which after finding her at Grillby's halfway into the day and bringing her back to the house, she hadn't moved from the couch where she crashed. In fact, the only change he noticed since then was that the flower had placed the blanket it was hiding under on her, but nothing else. So when the time came, they clocked out and headed home for an evening meal before resting up to take on another day.

"SHE BETTER HAVE COMPLETED ALL HER CHORES."

"i'm sure she has, boss."

"I MEAN IT. IF SHE'S SLACKED OFF THEN I'M BREAKING SOMETHING."

"a bit much, don't ya think?"

"FINE. *HUFF* I SWEAR, THIS WHOLE 'DO NOT HIT HER' THING IS HARDER THAN I FIRST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE."

"goes to show that not everything can be solved by hitting it."

"*SCOFF* I BEG TO DIFFER."

Arriving at their home, the door is unlocked and they enter. The house smells clean and isn't on fire, so that's a good sign. On the couch, the human slumbers and above her in the windowsill the flower watches her with a concerned look. Papyrus gives the scene one look before ignoring it to see if there's any food waiting in the oven. Sans, on the other hand, knowing that she hasn't budged an inch in hours, approaches curiously.

"yo, weed. what's up with her?"

Flowey glares at the weed comment.

"This happens sometimes. I don't know why and she doesn't tell me either. But something happens when she sleeps."

Sans cocks his head to the side.

"oh yeah? like what?"

Flowey gets quiet and it gets his attention.

"uh...you gonna answer me or what?"

Flowey looks uncomfortable.

"Sometimes..."

"yes?"

"Sometimes she..."

Before Flowey can finish, the human bolts upright and gasps for breath. This scares the shit out of Sans who ends up falling back on his butt while she tries to relax her rapid breathing.

"Yeah...Sometimes this happens."

Sans growls in annoyance until he actually gets a look at her. She's pale as a ghost, covered in a cold sweat, slightly hyperventilating, shaking, her eyes wide open and dilated. If he didn't know any better, he would swear she was in shock.

"kiddo?"

She's like a statue. Well, a statue that's shaking like a leaf and breathing just as bad.

"lynsie?"

That brings life to her as her pupils retract to tiny dots.

"hey, are you..."

"HUMAN!!"

Papyrus shouts and she leaps off the couch...only to get tripped up in the blanket a couple time.

"GET IN HERE NOW!"

She stumbles her way into the kitchen and for a moment Sans wondered if this was the same girl he's been dealing with. Because right now, she resembled a frightened puppy hoping not to get kicked into its kennel.

"EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IT IS I'M LOOKING AT."

His curiosity having been tempted, Sans sneaks his way silently over to the kitchen's doorway and peeks in at the scene unfolding. Papyrus is not happy and the human has her head down in submission.

"WELL? TELL ME WHAT THIS IS."

Papyrus points to a glass container filled with some weird brown mass.

"It's meatloaf."

"AND PRAY TELL, WHAT IS THE MAIN INGREDIENTS IN THIS LOAF OF MEAT?"

"Ground beef."

"HOW MUCH?"

"W-What?"

"HOW MUCH?! HOW MUCH DID YOU USE IN THAT SIN YOU'VE SULLIED MY KITCHEN WITH?!"

She seems to shrink under his voice and it has Sans puzzled. Her personality is all wrong. She would stand her ground, not give in. What in the fuck happened?

"T-T-Three pounds."

*SMACK*

She hits the ground and Papyrus is livid.

"THREE POUNDS?! YOU WASTED THREE POUNDS ON THIS TRASH?! IF YOU WEREN'T CONNECTED TO THE QUEEN, YOU'D BE DEAD BY MY HANDS AND THAT SOUL OF YOUR SHATTERED BECAUSE SOMEONE AS STUPID AS YOU COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE ANY POWER TO SET US FREE!"

She lays there for a bit and Sans almost makes the move to jump in to ease some of this tension. But she makes the first move, picking herself partly off the floor.

"Master..."

Master? Don't tell me he's really got her calling him that. Geez, bro, how massive is your ego?

"Forgive me. I wanted to try something new. But with the limitations of what is here and us all agreeing that I can't leave, I can't fetch more food. I tried my best with what I had."

Papyrus's stone cold death glare softens slightly to a less harsh but still harden look of disdain.

"BE THAT AS IT MAY, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY LASAGNAS THAT COULD'VE MADE? IN A SINGLE DISH, YOU'VE SET ME BACK QUITE A BIT. AND THAT IS NOT A SMART THING TO DO."

"I'm sorry, Master. It won't happen again. I shall request your approval in future meal preparations that might interfere with your culinary craftsmanship."

Much to Sans's surprise, she managed to settle Papyrus down with that. Catering to his ego, a very smart move on her part. She's learning how to survive and roll with the punches.

"HMMM...PERHAPS I MISSPOKE. MAYBE YOU'RE NOT NEARLY AS STUPID AS YOU MAKE YOURSELF OUT TO BE."

Papyrus takes a few steps closer to her and stops when she doesn't make a move.

"HUMAN..."

She looks up at him.

"TAKE THAT JACKET OFF. IT DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU."

She merely nods before slipping out of Sans's old jacket.

"GOOD..."

He takes it from her.

"NOW GET UP. AS MUCH AS THAT THING YOU CALL A DISH OFFENDS ME, I DO EXPECT SOMETHING TO EAT. BRING MY PLATE TO MY ROOM ONCE YOU'VE TAKEN THE CORRECT STEPS IN FIXING IT TO MY LIKING."

She picks herself up and he leaves her, exiting the kitchen to shove the jacket at the apparently not so stealthy brother.

"THIS IS WHAT I MEANT ABOUT BEING SOFT ON HER. YOU GIVE HER AN INCH AND SHE'LL THINK SHE CAN DO AS SHE PLEASES."

Sans sneers.

"you said you'd try not to hit her."

"I DID TRY. I ONLY USED 5% OF THE POWER I WANTED TO HIT HER WITH."

Sans's annoyed look got stronger.

"WHAT? I AT LEAST DIDN'T BUST HER LIP OR BREAK HER NOSE."

Sans's look increases.

"I'M NOT GOING TO SAY ANYTHING THAT MAKES ME LOOK GOOD TO YOU, I AM?"

"no, bro. just no."

Papyrus sighs through his nasal hole loudly

"WHATEVER. I'LL BE IN MY ROOM. SEE TO IT SHE DOESN'T FUCK UP ANY MORE."

Papyrus walks pass his brother with little care and Sans mutters curses under his breath as he now enters the kitchen. To no surprise, the girl is setting out plates and still visibly shaken. He sighs.

"hey...try not to take what pap said or did too seriously. he just lacks the skills needed to not come off as a total prick."

She doesn't say anything. She merely goes about fixing a quick side-dish to compliment the main course.

"come on, kiddo, lighten up. this ain't the first time pap roughed ya up. and it certainly won't be the last. why not look at it this way...ya took the hit like a champ. that's something to be proud of."

She stops.

"Sans...I appreciate what you're trying to do. I really do. But can we not talk for a bit. Please?"

She didn't even sound the same. Something must have really gotten to her. Oh, the choices. On the one hand, part of him knew it was better to leave her alone. Yet, on the other hand, he wanted to make her suffer for leaving. What to do, what to do? Being the clever schmuck he is, Sans picked both options. Here's hoping she got so mashed she doesn't remember anything.

"yeah, okay. we'll talk later."

She appears to relax a little and returns to her work.

"Thank you."

"no problem. what are pals for?"

He turns on his heel then starts to leave, but pauses and looks her way.

"oh! before i forget..."

This gets her attention and he smirks mischievously.

"thanks for the fun at grillby's. i had a really great time."

He gives her a teasing wink before walking away and he swears that he can hear the gears turning in her head.

"...What the hell does that mean?!"

A quick shortcut away to his room prevents her from questioning further and allows him to let out the laughter a successful mind fuck gives. That'll teach her. See Pap? You don't have to hit her to make a point. Mind games are just as effective and even more enjoyable than violence. This is the good shit.

I can hear the laughter in the room above me and I growl in annoyance. God damn you, Sans. I have no idea if he's just messing with me or if something really happened at Grillby's. Argh! These skeletons! They will be the death of me! No, calm down. I need to relax and get my head together. I can grill Sans later when I force his supper down his...wait...How the fuck do skeletons eat?! Why am I only realizing this now? They have no tongue, throat, stomach, or anything else one would need to take in foodstuff. So how the hell do they do this?

"Lynsie? You okay in there?"

Flowey's voice derails this crazy train of thought.

"Yeah, bro. I'm fine. I'll bring you your plate in a sec."

I finish all this food mess and quickly bring him to the table where his share awaits.

"So you're really okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Because you freaked out a lot worse than your past nightmares."

"I told you, I don't get nightmares."

"Yeah, and I'm still not buying it."

"And again, I don't care if you do. But thanks for being concerned."

"You're welcomed. Thank you for dinner."

"Of course."

"When did you even make this?"

"Did it way earlier and had it on a slow cook so it would be done by the time they got home."

"Smart."

"I try."

"Try more."

"...Eat your damn loaf, flower-boy."

I return to the kitchen and get Papyrus's plate before heading up the stairs to his room.

[Knock, knock]

"ENTER, HUMAN."

I open the door and see he has his attention in one of those books they brought home the other day.

"PUT IT ON THE TABLE."

I do as told.

"If you want, I can get you some milk or water to drink."

The second he sees that the plate has touched down on the table, he moves quickly and the next thing I know is my back is slammed against a wall while his hand is over my mouth, pinning me in place. I'm confused by this sudden attack but the angry look he has tells me I'll know why soon enough.

"YOU THINK YOU'RE SO CLEVER, DON'T YOU? DID YOU REALLY THINK I WOULDN'T NOTICE?"

Unable to speak I merely tilt my head in puzzlement.

"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME! I KNOW YOU'VE LEFT THIS HOUSE. YOU CAN'T EVEN DENY IT. YOUR STATS ARE DIFFERENT AND YOU ARE WEARING SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T HAVE BEFORE. SOMETHING I KNOW I'VE SEEN BEFORE IN THAT RABBIT BITCH'S SHOP."

Ah shit. He just had to be a smart guy. Okay, think. Don't panic and play to his nature. Be a good girl.

"WHAT? WHAT IS WITH THAT LOOK?"

He lowers me down enough for me to stand on my own and moves his hand to my neck, at least allowing me to plead my case.

"SPEAK, HUMAN."

Keep calm. Just mix some truth with a bit of lies. It'll sound believable that way.

"I can not lie, Papyrus. I admit it. I did leave the house."

His harsh eyes narrow in a glare that spells death unless I say something to explain my clearly wrong behavior.

"You're probably wondering why."

"I'M WONDERING WHY I SHOULDN'T RIP YOUR STILL BEATING HEART OUT AND SMASH IT INTO YOUR EYES."

"Look, I'm sorry. After I did all the chores, I got bored and curious. I wanted to see what neighborhood was worthy of my Master's greatness. So I went out to have a look, in disguise of course, and no one suspected a thing. Hell, most thought I was a dude. The only one to see through my ruse was Grillby. I gotta say, for a guy made of magic fire he's one cool dude. No pun intended."

He remains silent and brooding in a judging way.

"To be honest, I thought you already knew and that's why you were so pissed."

That gets him.

"NO. I HAD NO CLUE. WHY WOULD YOU THINK I'D HAD KNOWN?"

Payback is a hard bitch, Sans. You mess with me, I mess with you.

"Because Sans knew."

His sockets widen.

"HE WHAT?"

His grip on my neck tightens and I hiss at the rather sharp pain the pressure causes.

"YOU LYING CUNT! IF MY BROTHER KNEW YOU HAD LEFT THE HOUSE, HE WOULD'VE REPORTED IT TO ME! DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A FOOL? DO YOU REALLY THINK HE'D LIE TO ME TO PROTECT YOU? EVEN IF YOU ARE THE QUEEN'S LITTLE FOSTER CHILD, YOU ARE STILL JUST A PATHETIC HUMAN. YOU ARE NOT WORTH RISKING HIS LIFE OVER."

The pain is getting worse. I try prying his hand off but he's too damn strong. All I can do is wince.

"COME NOW, I'M BARELY SQUEEZING. YOU ACT AS IF..."

He seems to put two and two together while I'm still on side of confusion. He lets me go and moves the bandanna to expose my neck. I can't see what he sees, but if the look in his eyes tells me anything, I'd say he sees something I'd rather not see.

"HMMM..."

"What? What is it? Is there something wrong?"

"TELL ME, HUMAN...WHEN GRILLBY FOUND YOU OUT, DID HE HAVE YOU STAY IN HIS BAR?"

"Yeah. He said Sans would find me there sooner or later."

"AND DID YOU CONSUME ANYTHING THAT MIGHT HAVE HAD ALCOHOL IN IT?"

I'm starting to not like this line of questioning.

"Yes? He recommended a booze burger."

He sighs and now I'm getting nervous.

"YOU PROBABLY HAVE NO MEMORY AFTER A CERTAIN POINT IN TIME, RIGHT?"

"Dude, you're starting to freak me out here."

He just grins at me.

"Why are you smiling like that? Papyrus? Tell me!"

He shoves me back against the wall and laughs.

"NOW I SEE WHY SANS DIDN'T TELL ME. THERE WASN'T ANY NEED TO. HE ALREADY HAD THE PLEASURE OF PUNISHING YOU HIMSELF."

What the fuck does that mean?! Wait, so Sans's tease wasn't a tease? Did something really happen at Grillby's? Is Papyrus just being a huge asshole and messing with my head? I need answers damn it!

"YOU MAY GO NOW, HUMAN. BUT KNOW THIS...THIS IS THE LAST NIGHT YOU STAY UNDER THIS ROOF. DISOBEDIENCE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AND PRIVILEGES WILL BE TAKEN AWAY BECAUSE OF IT."

I rub my sore neck and grimace at the thought of what else he's planning on not allowing me for this.

"I understand. I did wrong and deserve this. It won't happen again."

"OF COURSE IT WON'T. YOU'LL BE RESTRAINED WHEN WE GO OUT NEXT TIME."

Oh, that's just peachy. Not like that really worked last time, but it was super annoying.

"Understood."

I slowly take my leave.

"Good night, Papyrus."

I almost make it out of the room when he blocks the way.

"AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING?"

I shake my head with a smirk.

"You enjoy me saying it too much."

His grin is amusing.

"WHAT CAN I SAY? HEARING THE SUBJUGATION OF A LESSER CREATURE PLEASES ME. NOW...SAY IT."

Maybe if I stroke his ego enough it'll take some of the marks off my naughty list. It's worth a shot.

"Yes, Master Papyrus. A thousand apologies, Master Papyrus. Forgive me, Master Papyrus. I am but a lowly human and utterly unfit to bask or even gaze upon your godly visage, Master Papyrus. Oh! To what ends must I do to once more gain the favor of my lord, Master Papyrus? How doth this foolish mortal woman redeem herself in yon glorious eyes, oh great and terrible, Master Papyrus? I beg thee! Pity me, oh marvelous skeletal lord of edge, I am not worthy of you."

I am such a ham when the mood strikes. What started out normal became a big dramatic display the likes of which you'd see being mocked in cheesy movies where teenagers do a high school play. I half expect tomatoes to be thrown at me while those two old muppets mock me from an unseen balcony. Yet he further exceeds my surprise by not only laughing at my childishness, but I can't help noticing the red coloring that is starting to show on his cheekbones. Really brings some much-needed kindness to that grumpy face of his. But the moment doesn't last long and he tappers into lite chuckling.

"YOU...YOU CAN BE QUITE THE KISS ASS WHEN YOU WANT TO BE."

I get out of my little finishing pose and smile.

"Maybe. But did you enjoy that?"

Remember when I said the blush made him look kind? Yeah, that look is gone now. With the look he gives me now, that blush makes him look downright creepy. Like, this is the face of a sexual predator.

"DID I ENJOY YOUR LITTLE SHOW? HMMM...HOW DO I PUT THIS?"

He grabs my chin and forces me to make rather uncomfortable eye contact with him.

"YOU'VE MADE ME QUITE PLEASED."

This feels so awkward.

"IT MAKES ME WONDER...IF YOU'RE CAPABLE OF SUCH PLEASANTRIES, IN WHAT OTHER WAYS ARE YOU ABLE TO PLEASE ME?"

It doesn't take much to trigger my imagination and filthy mind into overthinking what he could possibly have meant by those words. So like any sane woman that's already unsure of what men have done to her due to drunken memory loss, I jerk away from him and nervously get the fuck out of his room to rush my ass downstairs.

"*quickly* Okay, thank you, have a good night Papyrus!"

I hear a small snicker followed by the closing of his door and I take a few minutes to calm down. Normally, had a human guy been like that with me, that would've gone down much differently. Hell, I fought off three guys when that shit happened in middle school. Bastards thought the sickly looking girl in her grandma's sweater was a weak easy mark. Proved those fuckers wrong real fast. But those were humans. These are monsters. And I've finally faced the facts that they are a hell of a lot stronger than humans. If they wanted to...If the intent is there...They could do anything to me and no amount of fight in me would make a difference. I'd get a good couple of hits in but that's it. It wouldn't matter. Compared to them, I'm as weak as a newly hatched bird that fell out of its nest and down a mountain. Wait...God damn it! That is exactly how it is! Mother fucking life! Quit being so piss poor to me! I already hate myself! You don't have to add to it!

I sigh to get all this emo steam out of my system. I have to stop doing this. Building all this negativity up. It's not good or me and very unhealthy. I have to be more positive. Think happy thoughts. Because when life gives you lemons, flip off life and find someone who'll exchange lemons for strawberries. Mmmm...I could so go for some strawberry milk right now. Maybe Grillby has some. I'll have to ask him or Sans about that. Speaking of the smiling butt-munch...I should give him his food before it gets cold. Scooping up his plate of goodies, I head back upstairs and creep quietly pasts Papyrus's room. Lord knows I don't want his attention anymore this evening. Looking over the railing, I see Flowey's the first to sleep unless Sans beat him to it. I need to get his plate before I try to rest. I make it to Sans's door, the strange flames that burn beneath it have intrigued me since I first set my eyes on them. What makes them and to what purpose do they serve? Either way, even if I don't get an answer to those questions, I can still get the chance of seeing inside Sans's room. If Papyrus's room is anything to go off of, then his brother's is bound to be just as cool. Here's hoping he's still awake.

[Knock, knock]

"*muffled* who's there?"

Really? Are we really doing this?

"Room service."

"*muffled* room service who?"

"Yeah, can I get the house special and a wake-up call for nine? Maybe have it brought up by that sexy bellhop at the front door."

The door opens and he's giggling with confusion on his face.

"hehe...what the hell kind of knock-knock joke was that?"

"The kind you get when I couldn't think of anything."

I offer the dish.

"May I come in?"

He eyes me a moment before taking it.

"sure. we need to talk anyway. bet ya got loads of questions and junk."

He opens the door more and I step in. Instantaneously I'm hit with a smell. Since cleaning, the house has had this pine tree smell to it and Papyrus keeps his room so clean it doesn't even have a scent at all. But Sans's room...It's like...I'm not sure if I can describe the smell. Not bad, just...lived in maybe? It's strangely familiar to me for some reason. The room itself just feels comfortable despite its disheveled appearance. Sans's room is messy, containing a somehow self-sustaining twister of random trash, a dusty unused exercise bike, a dirty sock pile, a worn mattress with sheets ripped up in a weird wrinkly bundle, an uncovered pillow that is on the floor, what looks like some mail, a lava lamp with a flashlight stuck in the bulb socket, and a decently sized chest of drawers from which the lamp sits. There's also a window over his bed, a closet off to my left once you enter, and the thick carpet is done in wavy lines of red and yellow.

"yeah, the place ain't fancy or anything, but it'll grow on ya. i mean that figuratively yet sometimes literally."

Sans seems more relaxed as he goes over to his bed to eat. He looks very much the same but minus the jacket he regularly sports and nothing is on his feet apart from some black slippers.

"They say a man's home is his castle. And by the looks of it, you are a very relaxed king."

"eh, i try. so...what's on your mind?"

I shut the door to be safe in case Papyrus were to pass by and hear anything odd.

"Okay, let's just tear the band-aid off now. What the hell happened at Grillby's?"

He chuckles knowingly as he eats.

"don't remember a thing, do ya? that's a shame. you were quite the good-time gal by the time i showed up."

"Come on, dude. Be real with me right now. I am not in the right state of mind to deal with teasing."

He takes a moment to chew the mouthful he has before responding.

"if you're wondering if ya did anything stupid, no. we did nothing but make jokes. now if you did anything with grillby before i got there, you'd have to ask him because he didn't say he did when i got him talking."

I sigh and palm my face.

"but grillby ain't a douche. i've known the guy for a good chunk of my life and i will bet gold on him doing nothing to ya while you were fucked up."

"I'm going to choose to take your word on that. I honestly don't remember much of our time together, but the dude seemed pretty cool. Against my better judgment, I'd probably hang out with him again if the chance were given. Though I wouldn't request that burger again."

"i doubt you'll get the chance."

"Yeah."

I move a little closer and lay on the floor while my head rests on the mattress. I don't want to be weird by sitting on his bed.

"Papyrus said I'm to be restrained when you guys leave tomorrow."

"heh... a lot of good that'll do. you'll just escape again."

"That's what I was thinking."

There's a pause as he eats.

"so...maybe you can answer a couple of questions for me too while we're at it."

"Sure. Why not?"

"do you remember me bringing you back here?"

"Nope. But based on what Grillby said, about you being his most common barfly and that you show up a lot, I kinda figured you did."

"yeah. the bar is like a second home to me."

"I can see why. It's so warm there. Felt...I don't know...Safe?"

"that's the reason he'll never go out of business. ya don't feel that way in many places down here."

"True. And he's a nice guy. That helps too."

"yeah."

I think for a moment about what I want to ask next.

"by the way...who is chara?"

Well, that came out of left field.

"What brought that up?"

"you told grillby that chara was the one that spotted me watching you."

"Oh yeah...So?"

"how do you know chara?"

"How do you know Chara?"

"i asked ya first."

"He's my dead bro that talks to me in my head."

"don't bullshit me."

"Do you really think I'd say something that crazy if I didn't mean it? Hell, you're not even the first person to ask me that same question today."

"who else asked you about chara?"

"Your brother."

"pap? that don't make much sense."

"I didn't say it was Papyrus."

That got his attention in a big way.

"what?"

I look up at the ceiling.

"Sans...Do you know who Gaster is?"

There's a thud sound as he drops his plate and what little remained of his dinner.

"h-how...how do you know that name?"

I look over at him. Shock and maybe a small tinge of fright make up his expression.

"I get the feeling we've got a lot of talking to do."

"yeah. yeah, we do."

He looks really serious until he looks at the mess.

"but first...mind cleaning that up for me?"

I snicker.

"Was wondering if you were gonna ask me that or not. Really hoping you weren't."

"if it makes ya feel any better, it wasn't as bad as what pap was making it out to be."

"Thanks."

I pick up most of it with my hands and get ready to take the remnants with me.

"while you're down there, would you mind bringing back a thing of mustard?"

I look at him funny.

"Mustard?"

He rolls his shoulders.

"we've all got our vices. mine happens to be a tangy condiment. got a problem with that?"

"Really? Any particular type you prefer?"

"not really. it all depends on my mood. if i wanna treat myself, i enjoy a nice dijon. if it's been a shitty day, i'll have a beer or spirited mustard. and if i'm in a pissy mood, i'll punish myself with the hot pepper stuff. but mostly i just drink the classic yellow kind."

Wow, he wasn't joking.

"Okay...Be right back with your 'drink'."

I take the dish with me out of the room and back downstairs, collecting Flowey's along the way. I do a spot of speed cleaning before putting dinner away, I'm not eating tonight. I have no appetite at the moment. But a drink is never something I turn down. I fix me up a little something, grab his mustard and napkins, then get my butt back up the stairs to his room. I find him still on his mattress only now he's apparently playing a game of solitaire with an old beat up deck of cards.

"Got bored? I was gone maybe two minutes."

He hardly bothers with glancing at me.

"it helps me relax."

I don't like that sound of that. I let him be and place the condiment bottle beside him as I get to cleaning the small stain trying to stay on his floor. I think not, stain! Not on my watch. He starts drinking while I carry on with this maid-like chore.

"what's in the glass?"

I was beginning to wonder if he'd ever notice my own drink.

"This? Got me some milk. Though, kinda wish you boys had stuff to with it is."

"like what?"

"Maybe some strawberry mixing power/syrup? I'd settle for some chocolate or cookies too."

A small chuckle escapes him.

"heh...women and their sweets."

"I know, it's cliché. But hey, think of it this way. Maybe if I had more sweets then I'd be sweet back."

He scoffs.

"yeah, i can totally see that happening. toss ya a bit of sugar and suddenly you're little miss sunshine? nah, ain't buying it."

"I did say maybe."

With the task of cleaning done, I invade his space. Moving to sit at the foot of the mattress to show that I am here taking this a bit more seriously than most of the normal shit I tend to do. He, in turn, responds by swiping the cards onto the floor in one motion and finally looking at me. His eyes are dark.

"so...seems we each know something that the other wants to know."

"Indeed. We both have stories to tell."

"true. but that implies someone might not be very truthful in the telling of their tale."

"Withholding information is very damaging. Not a very wise move, nor one I intend to make. You?"

"the line between truth and false is blurry. it's up to the listener whether to believe it's fact or fiction."

"Very well...Fact, we have never met before until I left the Ruins. We have never shared any point of our lives with each other or gone into much about our history. So far, to you, is this correct?"

"so far, you are coming up as truthful."

"Then I shouldn't know any of the following...W. D. Gaster was once the Head Scientist to the Royal Family until something happened. Something involving his study of understanding the power of souls."

He gets really quiet. So quiet that the snow falling onto the roof can be heard, snowflake by snowflake.

"lynsie...this is going to be one hell of a long night."

"That it will be, Sans. That it will be."

#undertale #underfell #Anomaly #Lynsie #sans #papyrus #gaster #grillby #grandpa semi #flowey #Asriel #asgore #toriel #chara #napstablook #frisk #mettaton #undyne #alphys

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doodlefox-beta · 6 years

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ｂｕｎｇｕｓ

can you imagine a world where were all represented by a font? What font would I be? Hmmm, no, not Arial, that's too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. Too uh, deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now that's the ONE!!! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a personal question. If you're personality were represented by a font, which font would you be? Take a moment and put you font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I get bored with old calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many request to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you've all been wanting Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. Truly loyal theorists will know that earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, comic sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played undertale I'm sure that was a really wierd opening. ANYWAYS, sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE Is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given by a shopkeeper in Snowden, who claims that sans and papyrus just, and I quote, "showed up one day and asserted themselves." Wierd, right? What's more is that papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. SANS is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly deadly and much more serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts through the world on ridiculous routes. He even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, that he doesn't belong in the underground seems to be correct. The evidence shows he used to be a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, papyrus asks sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, we call that the sun. This is important because A, the use of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun, shows that sans has a kinship or knowledge of other humans, and B, that despite he and papyrus both being skeletons, and BROTHER, and apparently both appearing in the underworld at the same time, the clearly have two very different histories. Why would papyrus not know the name of the sun but sans would? We get further clues to sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say that means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is " and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on the dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, and as though the surface he's from is from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface but from a different time period, who seemingly had the power to teleport. That a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After visiting the workshop you find some items that leave a lot more questions. A photo album featuring sans and a bunch of people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean. Well a lot of undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named w d gaster. A ghostly figure who never truly appears in the game, honestly covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably best saved for another day. All of the gaster theories i've seen haven't been able to explain all the details. A photo album, and the badge, and that's what kept nagging me as i researched undertale. A badge? That one in particular stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of the room. Something that supposedly reveals the truth about sans. Badges just aren't important in undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was infact the most important badge in the history badge in the history of gaming? This franklin badge. And for those of you who are wondering what i'm talking about, the franklin badge is a pivotal item from the mother series. You know, the one with earthbound, or, maybe you don't know that one either. You know, the one with ness from super smash bros? Yeah well, ness is from earthbound, and earthbound is the second part of this larger mother series. Good? Yeah, well anyways, the franklin badge is an important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life many times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the smash brothers series. So i asked myself; what if the badge in sans drawer was THAT badge? Well first off, it would make undertale connected to earthbound, thereby making it even COOLER? But that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as i started looking more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the most satisfying endings to a journey. And what does sans have in his other drawer? A photo album of people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not character present in undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the mother series linked to the mother series. But how do the broken machine and blueprints fit in? Well, in the final stretch of earthbound, ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien giygas. In order to do that, with the help of dr. andonuts (remember that, he's going to be important later) along with science geniuses apple kid and mr. saturn, create a machine known as the phase distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes at a cost. It can transport organic material, as a result the young heroes must put their souls in robot bodies in order to save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and i'm not ashamed to admit that when i first saw this scene i cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's all a very dark departure in what was otherwise a fun, colorful, and quirky RPG. so what does all of this have to do with undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that mr. saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken phase distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch but it actually explains a lot. Sans wound up in undertale via phase distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences, not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the phase distorter is a time machine. Based on the way he talks, he's not only from a different space but from a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between earthbound and undertale continue. When you speak to apple kid at the end of earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of ness defeating giygas. Hes going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to obtain its power. That seems awfully familiar to the experiments happening in undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that sans was a key player in those experiments. But i'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, i have plenty. During one of the endings of undertale, we see undyne and alpyhs hanging out on the beach of the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical location summers that you play in earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of mother. When undertales crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset with a tall mountain, a big city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection, hence the water, and a lack of trees in this middle section, hence the sand. Well, in earthbound you have the big city of fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a dessert that just so happens to be adjacent to water, and to the east, a mountain on onett where a meteor hits earth. I always called it onett. But if that's not clear enough for you, mother 1, earthbound zero, earthbound beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of eagleland (eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) and the surface world of undertale. But the strongest physical connection, the one that definitely connects these two franchises, comes from none other than papyrus himself. He wears a custom made costume known as his “battle body” but if you look really closely at the designing on the armor, you'll notice a few marks on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of starmen, the most iconic enemy of earthbound. And look at the way he stands, i always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arm and hand of the starmen. In short, we have some strong proof that the earthbound universe is somehow connected to the undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took in one final step and said that sans happened to be ness from earthbound. He hopped through the phase distorted as a test of courage, carrying his franklin badge, a photobook, and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does sans’ behavior. Remember, sans can seemingly teleport. And ness just happens to have the ability PSI teleport. Now look at how sans stands, hands in his pockets, legs out, it looks very similar to how ness is shown on most of the marketing for the game. It even explains why sans bleeds when you hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creators previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind undertale, had previously worked on a halloween hack for earthbound. But this isn't just a simple reskin. The halloween hack tells the tale of dr. andonuts after the events of earthbound. Remember i pointed him out, he's the one who made the phase distorter. In toby fox’s version of the story, we see that the souls of the kids never returned home instead, by going to the past to defeat giygas, there stuck in a new timeline. As a result, jeff never reunites with his father andonuts. And dr. andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, taking the souls of his sons and his sons friend to what he assumes aws their death. He's killed 4 kids, and in toby fox's game, he's gone crazy with guilt, trying to deal with that. Im telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of undertale in this game. The appearance of amalgamates, the use of the awesome song megalovania, the prototypes for flowery? And the theme of being nonviolent in an rpg, SPARING your enemies. So why is this important to the story? Well, remember, in toby fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home, just like sans. and , in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his friends. Which brings us back to undertale. 3 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? Its ness, trying to remember his 3 friends. In short, undertale is a continuation of toby’s version of earthbound, with ness never being able to get home, adopting the name sans, and being accompanied by papyrus, a starman, with knowledge of english, his armor, and his signature posture, but without any of his memory of human things, like the sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’d have a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

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dedalvs · 7 years

Note

How did you come up with the spelling of the title of your book?

Good question with an interesting story behind it! Might as well tell you the full story so you can better appreciate the final design.

In early December of 2014 I got an email from Colin Webber saying he had a design idea for the book. He said he’d been reading it and found it really interesting, and that based on some of what I described in the Sounds chapter he thought it would be cool to break things down syllable by syllable. Before pitching it to the rest of the team, though, he wanted to be sure he had the actual symbols right, so he showed me his work in progress. This was it:

The design really blew me away. I had sent along some ideas about cover ideas (ideas featuring dragons, quills, parchment, etc.), but they were nothing like this. This was wild in its minimalism, and, well, modernism. It looked so sleek! And I loved the colors. If you’ve read my book (or glanced through the first chapter, at least), it looks like Colin was probably inspired by the section on Optimality Theory, where I group words by feet (not syllables) using parentheses.

Naturally, though, the symbols here aren’t close to right, and since the whole point of the book is to learn the actual fundamentals of phonetics, among other things, I thought we should try to get it as close to right as possible. Even so, there’s no way we were going to get away with a cover that was 100% in IPA. So what I did was I emailed Colin back telling him I loved the look of it, and I gave him the title transcribed in several different transcription systems. This is what I sent (note: the IPA lines are my pronunciation [since it’s my book!], not general American):

IPA (Narrow): [ði ˈɑɹt ʌv ˈleŋ.gwɪdʒ ɪɱ.ˈvɛn.tʃɨn]

IPA (Broad): /ði ˈart ǝv ˈleŋ.gwɪdʒ ɪn.ˈvɛn.tʃɪn/

Americanist (Broad): /ði ˈart ǝv ˈlæŋ.gwɪǯ ɪn.ˈvɛn.čɪn/

Mirriam-Webster Transcription: thē ˈärt ǝv ˈlan-gwij in-ˈven(t)-shǝn

Dictionary.com Transcription: thee ahrt uhv lang-gwij in-ven-shuhn

Only one difference: the “th” in M-W is underlined. I also made sure to let Colin know that there was a crucial difference between the mark used for primary stress and an opening single quote mark.

I sent that info on to him, but my agent Jo made sure to let me know that Colin contacting me was extremely unusual and a bit of a mixed blessing. An author rarely sees a work-in-progress cover (unless they have some personal connection with the artist, which is rare), and is also rarely consulted in this way—and, furthermore, the artist rarely takes the time to read the book the way Colin did (remember that this isn’t fiction here, but a rather esoteric art form that delves heavily into linguistics. Far from a light or easy read!). So this was really cool, and showed that Colin was dedicated to the task, and that was great, but Jo told me that the cover is still a group project—that often after a cover is presented, it gets workshopped, and not just with the artists, but also with the marketing and sales team. So it was great that Colin was dedicated, and great that I liked what he produced, but she warned me that the end result might not look anything like this, due to circumstances out of our control. This was good info to have, but I thought that was fine, since this was a cover I was never expecting in a million years.

A month passed, and my editor reached out to me and said they’d selected two finalists, and these were they:

As you can see, Colin made some compromises, clearly trying to satisfy as many wishes as possible, while staying true to his original vision, which I loved. First, we now have the subtitle of the book in there. Second, in case there would be any confusion, the title now appears in English in white. Third, he primarily stuck with the M-W transcription. There’s no overline or underline on the first word, “the” (so that the first word is totally familiar to English speakers, I’m guessing), and proper IPA primary stress marks are used throughout. I’m not certain why the “v” was changed to an “f” in the transcription of “of”, since no version has that, but you’ll also notice the (t) which is present in the M-W version has been moved to the last syllable, where it’s reminiscent of my IPA transcription which uses tʃ, and places it at the head of the last syllable. (Also, I imagine that you don’t have either “laŋ” or “lang” because the descender would mess up the spacing.)

While full IPA would be great, I loved this cover. I was absolutely ecstatic about the look of it. I did ask that the stress mark be removed before “of” and that the “f” be changed to a “v”, and both my requests were honored. Also, though, when it came to color, I had a choice to make. Originally I fell in love with the blue cover, but as I looked at these more and more, I found the black to be more striking—and also felt the white stood out on the black much better than it did on the blue. For that reason, I went with black as my choice.

So, having passed that info on, I was quite content! I was going to have a great cover, and I had some meaningful input on it both before and after the presentation. This was great!

Then in April of 2015 I got an email.

Apparently marketing and sales were concerned that the cover wouldn’t tap into the the sci/fantasy market, since the cover was just text. They decided to ask Colin to go in a different direction, and asked me to choose one of these two as the final cover, as they were planning to finalize it the next week:

Now, don’t get me wrong here: These are handsome covers—and Colin clearly did a lot here to try to ameliorate the fact that my top choice cover was being passed over (and I was grateful for it!). First, he used my narrow IPA transcription in its entirety (save for the missing stress mark on [ɑɹt], which I’m sure could’ve been added very simply); second, he mentioned my other book, Living Language Dothraki; third, he included my original idea of having different types of writing implements. Furthermore, I had been told specifically by my agent that this might happen at exactly this stage.

Still, I was heartbroken.

I disliked the book/author font; I disliked the colors; I found the icons a little too cutesy (plus, I would’ve switched the robot and crown. Placed where they are, the robot looks like it’s misaligned. It’d be better in a square [I do love that dragon, though]); the style wasn’t classically heraldic, in my estimation… But for some reason the thing that got me the most is that we don’t see the other end of the brush and pen. I recognize full well that we should not, due to the angle, but it still drove me nuts. It’d be like seeing a skull and cross bones with only the top of the X appearing above the skull.

I initially asked my agent to try to sway Penguin for me, because I wanted to be diplomatic. She encouraged me to voice my opinion in my own words, though, so I sent an email back detailing everything that concerned me about this new direction. Ultimately, I said (and I still think this is true) that there are a large number of people who know who I am because of Game of Thrones. I could imagine fans of Game of Thrones hearing about the book because of the show, going to the store, picking up the book, looking at the cover, and putting it down. The cover is just too juvenile. (Though if it had to be one, it would be the blue one; that was certain.)

I sent that email off, and waited.

The next day I received good news. My amazing, fantastic, wonderful, outstanding, incredible editor Elda Rotor went back and interceded on my behalf, and she won the day! We were going back to Colin’s original design, the one I liked.

So, yes, the title of the book is not in proper IPA—it’s not even in proper Mirriam-Webster transcription—but I LOVE the cover. I adore it. And we had to fight for it—and I’m so grateful to every person at Penguin and New Leaf who helped make it a reality. The book could’ve had a cover that looked totally different and had the actual IPA title on it, but ultimately, I think this one is the one it was meant to have:

(And note that Living Language Dothraki made the final cover!)

Also, check out what happened afterwards. The Art of Language Invention was published September 29, 2015. In December, Colin Webber, designer of my book cover, was recognized as Print Magazine’s Designer of the Week. If you follow that link you can see a nice writeup they did on him, and throughout they show images of some of his work, including—wait, which book?!

OH YES THAT IS THE ART OF LANGUAGE INVENTION!

And it gets better! In January 2016, Colin’s cover for The Art of Language Invention was selected by the Type Directors Club as one of the winners of the 2016 Award for Typographic Excellence! ARRRRRGHGHHEHIPWE81-8128128218!*!*!3838 I WAS SO EXCITED FOR HIM!!!!!!

So, yeah, that is the story of how the title of my book is spelled. Some day if someone is curious I’ll also tell you how I got the title of the book itself, since that was not the original title, and that too is a bit of a story. But, yes, I love the cover of my book—every single letter of it. It makes me happy every time I see it. :)

#aoli #conlang #typography #book cover #cover #covers #book covers #transcription #ipa #romanization #design #book cover design #Colin Webber #Anonymous

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multiphandomunnies · 7 years

Text

Twice Haunted House AU

Prompt:Haunted House AU.

Requested: Omg that’s a really good list of au may I request twice haunted house au? Ty!!

Admin:Mirae

Day 1

It wasn’t your idea

You didn’t want to move out of your old house but your parents insisted

They said it would be a better experience for your family

Of course, you thought that it was a complete lie

The bough an old house out towards the country

You didn’t know much about the place except that it was incredibly huge and nice

It needed some work done on it but nothing major

You overheard your parents talk about why it had such a low price

Apparently, it was incredibly cheap for house its size, even if it did need work done

You hadn’t cared much

As long as it had running water and heat

You could live

You let out a sigh as you opened the car door

Your parents were right when they said it was a nice house

But they were also right again when they said it needed some work

The entire paint job was coming off

Part of the front deck was missing

You looked over at you mom and rolled your eyes

“I promise we will get you a dog,”

She said knowing what you were going to say

“Uh, at this rate I better get 4 dogs,’

You replied looking back at the house

“Why do we even need all this space?”

You suddenly asked

It was a huge place for only your mom and dad plus you

Your mom gave a knowing look to your dad before looking back at you

“We are turning it into a daycare,”

She said with an enthusiastic smile

Your head tilted to the side as you thought for a moment

“Daycare? Mom this place is in the middle of nowhere what kind of parents will want to drive all the way out here just to drop their kid off”

You pointed out sighing at your mother’s stupidity

She rolled her eyes with a sigh

“Y/N you think I didn’t plan ahead? This is the house is right in the middle of a whole bunch of towns. Most people have to leave their town to get to work. This house happens to be right on there way. don’t judge me,”

She said doing jazz hands at the end to add to the effect

You sighed and grabbed your bag from the car

“Can I at least choose my room before you give it up to a bunch of 5 yr olds?”

You asked exhausted and tired from the long drive

She nodded her head

“Let’s let you father get all the heavy boxes. We can go look around,”

She said with a cheerful voice, waving goodbye at your dad

You laughed to yourself before looking up at the house

You tilted your head in confusion when you saw a girl standing in the window

“Mo-”

Your voice trailed off when you realized she was no longer there

“What? What is it, sweetie?”

She asked confused

“Oh nothing, I thought I saw something but I was wrong,”

You said with a laugh

Your mom nodded before grabbing your hand and pulling you into the house

She opened the door with the biggest smile she could muster

Pushing to door open your mouth fell agape

It was huge

The room you were in must have been your living room

Some of your furniture was already moved her thanks to the moves

You walked inside and looked around

“Mom…wow,”

You simply said

“We might need more furniture,”

You then added soon after

“Well, we will be doing a lot of renovations. We already have 3 clients anxious to drop their kids off her. We need to childproof this place and do the rooms. Plus redo the paint job and replace some of the things,”

Your mom rambled

You nodded your head before something shiny caught your eye

“Mom, what’s that?”

You asked walking towards it

She didn’t say anything or follow

Your hand reached out for the object

Pulling you had managed to get it out

It was a small silver necklace

Some kind of design was on it

J.Y.P was written in a fancy font

You turned to look at your mom who only shrugged

“It might have been the movers. I’ll have to call and see if anyone of them had lost a necklace,”

She said easing your stomach

You looked at the necklace in your hand

Something about it scared you

Something in your gut was telling you to run

Put it away and get out of here

However, you simply put it in your back pocket and followed your mom up the stairs

“I’ll show you the kitchen later but first let’s pick your room,”

She said leading you to a hallway of doors

“You have 4 options. Option 1 has a balcony,”

She said opening the first door

You looked at it, it didn’t seem so bad

You just didn’t like how small the closet was

“Option 2, has a walk-in closet,”

She said reading your mind

You laughed as she opened the door

It was nice, but you wanted a room that just pulled you in

“Okay Option 3, It’s bigger than the others,”

She said opening the third and final door

You smiled this one was really nice

It had a balcony and walk-in closet

Why did your mom even think that you would want a different room

“I like-”

You mom cut you off before you could even finish

“Option 4, is the entire attic,”

She said gesturing for you to follow

An even bigger smile stretched onto your face

“Why did you even consider those other options when I could have had the entire attic?”

You asked

She rolled her eyes and pushed you

“I want to build suspense for the attic,”

Your laugh got cut off when you shivered

“It’s kinda cold? Please tell me we have working heat,”

You said almost desperate

“Yes, but it’s chilly. Maybe we should turn it up when we get back down,”

She replied shivering a little

Her hand reached out as she opened a door. Inside was a staircase leading to the attic

She turned and made a face at you before waking up them

You laughed and squealed with excitement

“This is so nice!”

You said walking around the place

It was huge

It had a cushion right by the window so you could look out

You smiled and moved to the window

Looking at you waved at your dad

He looked up at you and waved by with a cheerful grin

A thought came to you

This was where you thought you saw the girl

You turned around only to see your mom sitting on a crate

“Y/N before we get fully settled in there was something I wanted to tell you,”

She said looking somber

You could feel your heat drop at her face

“What is it?”

You asked sitting down also, afraid that whatever she had to say would scare you

“I know this has been hard for you but I want you to know that your father and I are here for me. Just promise me one thing, don’t lock yourself up and away because of you’re upset..please?”

She asked giving you the mom talk

You nodded your head feeling some relief

“Mom of course. I thought you were going to tell me someone died here,”

You joked with a laugh

Your mom’s eyes widen before she laughed also

“Yeah..someone…die…here”

She joked out

You nodded your head

“Let’s go help dad, I can’t wait to move in,”

You said standing up

Your mom followed close behind you as you left the house

Day 2

Your eyes flit heavy as you peeled them open

You had woken up with a pounding headache

The sun shined into your room rather brightly

“I need a curtain,”

You mumbled to yourself in a scratchy voice

“Y/N are you awake?”

Your mom called from downstairs

“Yes, mama,”

You hollered back

You heard a few thumps before you mom had opened your door

She looked at you before shutting the door and sitting on your bed

“I called the movers,”

She said looking at you

“Oh, was it there?”

You asked curiously

“No, but Y/N why are you wearing the necklace?”

She asked confused

You made a face at her before touching your neck

You gasped when you realized it was around your neck

You knew for a fact that you didn’t put it on

But your mom wouldn’t believe you so you lied

“I’m so stupid! This necklace is mine, I guess I forgot to tell you last night,”

You said with an awkward laugh

You mom rolled her eyes

“Where did you get it?

She asked reaching out to hold it

“I got it from my teacher,”

You lied

“What does it stand for?”

She had asked once more

“Joyful, Young, Persevering. JYP,”

You replied making it sound like it was the most obvious thing ever

She nodded her head before standing up with a crack of her back

“Well come on downstairs I made breakfast”

She said

You yawned and move the blankets off of you

“Alright,”

You simply said following her out of the door

Once you got down the stairs

You and your mom jumped when your bedroom door slammed shut

You jumped at the sound before looking at your mom

“Wow its really drafty up there,”

She said shrugging her shoulders

Yous stood frozen in place

Maybe that girl you saw yesterday was hiding somewhere here

Maybe she was the one that placed the necklace around our neck

You sighed and followed your mom into the kitchen

“Some nice guys are stopping by later to repaint the house,”

She said placing an apple in her mouth

You did say anything instead nodded

“Mom do they have a library near here?”

You asked staring out the window

She nodded her head

“Yeah, it’s not that far from here why? Do you want your father to give you a ride?”

She had answered

“Yes, please. Can you ask him for me? I need to go get ready,”

Your mom nodded

“Yeah, I’ll give you 30 mins,”

She said

You smiled and grabbed an apple before heading back up the stairs

Time Skip~ I have never seen a time skip in a kpop fanfic but oh lordy have I seen them in anime fics.

You hurried down the stairs and waved goodbye to your mom

Your dad was waiting in the car

You opened the door and joined him

“Ready kiddo?”

He asked

“Yeah, lets go,”

You replied hurriedly. You just needed to get some info on this house

maybe you did put the necklace on but I couldn’t remember anything regarding that night

SOmeone had to put it on you

You stared out the window as the boring car ride almost came out and end

Your dad pulled inform of the library

He glanced over at you before speaking

“I’ll be back in 1 hour to pick you up. You better be outside and ready,”

His voice was stern so you knew he would be mad if you were any later

“Yesiry,”

You replied with a laugh

He chuckled at your actions

You opened the car door and hurriedly entered the library

Since you had never been here before you had no clue where to start

Hesitantly you approached a worker

“Ma’am, I just moved into a house out in the country and I would like to do some more research on it. Where do I look?”

You asked in your most professional voice

The lady breathed heavy as she looked you up and down

“From here go straight until you reach the Teen Romance section then take a right and go until you see a blue ball hanging from the ceiling above you. If you take another right there you will find the section you’re looking for,”

Her voice was dry and scratchy sounding, almost painful for you to listen to.

“Thank you,”

You said with a bow

The lady nodded and went back to what she was doing in the first place, nothing

You followed her directions like your life depended on it

Even though you didn’t like her, you would have to thank her later because her directions were spot on

The small sign hung above, it was a section about the history of the town

You bit your lip, finding it now would still be hard but at least you knew where to look

Something would have to explain the girl the cold and the necklace

You almost choked when a book fell off the shelf and nearly hit you

Holding your hand over your heart you picked up the mouth and nearly dead

It was a book all about an old music academy

On the cover was your house

Your house was known as the JYP music academy

With a sigh, you opened the book

“JYP, the pristine all girls music academy that only the best musicians can get into and after years of hard work, is finally ready to show the public his best students. Of course, if you see a young girl wearing JYP you better ask for her autograph, it could be worth thousands in the future,”

So it housed students?

THat would explain the necklace but not how it got on your neck

You randomly flipped through a few pages trying to find something interesting

“You have an interesting taste in books,”

A deep voice said behind you

You turned around only to make eye contact with a guy that looked your age

“WHy? You have a problem that I want to read about JYP?”

You asked trying to sound rude

“No, its just. I feel bad for those girls, you know?”

He said trying to stand his case

You rolled your eyes before turning away

Your heart stopped when you replayed what he said in your head

“What happened to these girls?”

Your voice was wavering

“Ah, haven’t you heard? The school housed 9 girls, they were the best students. One night as the girls practiced their song some strange person broke into the house. All 9 of the girl were killed. They haven’t found the killer yet though, it’s a tragedy,”

He said watching your face to see how you would react

“He killed them? In the house?”

That couldn’t have been true!

Your mom would have boughten it if some girls were murdered in it

“Yeah, I heard they sold the house recently. Those folks will move out in no time. Rumor has it that the girls haunt the house seeking revenge for their untimely death,”

He made a weird gesture with his hands

You would have replied if you didn’t notice a girl staring at you from behind a shelf

Hestitnly you raised a hand and waved

She bit her lip and waved back, only to hid behind her long hair soon after

Holding the book to your chest you thought about your newly found information

Stopping you looked up at the guy before looking back at the girl

She was still staring at you, but you noticed something wrong

Her shirt was covered in blood, you looked at her face

She looked familiar but you don’t know why

With a gulp, you looked back at the guy

“How were they killed?”

Honestly, you probably sounded like a freak by now but you didn’t care

“Well with a knife, they were all killed in different ways but one thing was consistent a knife,”

This guy was just sitting out all the information that you needed

“Did the cops ever figure out why?”

You asked biting your lip

“Yeah, there had been a rumor going around that there was a safe in the house. Supposedly it held so much money, that not even a poor man would know what to do,”

Your eyes wandered to the girl before you pushed past the guy

“I’ve got to go,”

You said walking towards her

She started to back up, causing you to shake your hands no

You had remembered reading and seeing in movies that ghosts could have a spiritual attachment to an object

You were guessing that the necklace you were wearing was hers and that was how she was able to travel here

She more and likely had an attachment to it

“What’s your name?

You asked getting closer to her

Now that you got a better look you could see what she looked like

Her hair was long and she it was dark brown

She was certainly beautiful

You watched as she pointed at the letter T

“T? T and what else,?”

You asked before your eyes happened to land on a clock

Your heart sank when you realized your dad would be here soon

“T, follow me,”

You said walking back to the front of the building

You needed to check out this book

Once at the check out the same breathing problem lady looked at you

“You can’t check out that book. Town history books cannot be checked out,”

She said

“Yeah well, and you can’t breath now let me ask this book home,”

You snapped

She reached over and grabbed a walkie-talkie

“Secretary we got a code 3,6,1 here I’m going to need back up,”

Her eyes never left you’re as she spoke

You looked at T before bottling it out the door

T eyes widened at your actions

Luckily your ad was here

You ran to his car and shut the door, buckling

“No questions just drive,”

You yelled looking at him

He looked at the book in your hand before sighing and looking at the library

“You little-”

He said before noticing the guards coming out of the building

“It’s literally just a book that I will return why are they acting like this,”

You said tapping your foot

He rolled his eyes and backed out

Your dad drove out of there as fast as he could

No word was exchanged on the car ride home

Once he pulled into the house’s driveway you thanked him and ran inside

Running past your mom you entered your bedroom

Your heart sped up when you noticed a brown box sitting on your bed

Looking around you wondered where T was

Almost like she could read your mind T appeared on your bed

She looked at you anxiously before gesturing to the box

“Your throat didn’t slit, I think you can talk,”

She rolled her eyes

“I’m Tzuyu,”

She said in a soft voice

You smiled brightly

“hi Tzuyu in Y/N,”

You said waving

She giggles slightly before pointing at the box

You reached out and opened it

Inside was a photo of 9 girls

You were guessing they were the girls that lived here

You recognized Tzuyu

Looking at there faces you pointed at a girl who was sitting on a bench with 5 other girls

“WHo is the girl, 2nd to the right?”

You asked curiously

“That’s Jihyo,”

She said

“Why don’t the other girls appear?”

Tzuyu looked at you before looking away

“They were too scared. The only reason appeared is because I’m the youngest. They placed my necklace on your neck while you spelled, it was also the one you found,”

Tzuyu smiled at you

“How can I help you, girls?”

Nayeon

Nayeon was the first in the house to die

She was in the living room preparing snacks

Someone came up behind her and slit her throat

Nayeon died form blood loss

Whenever people moved into the house she was violent

She was angry that her and her best friends were killed

She would leave scratches on people

Sometimes she would pull their hair

Nayeon didn’t like people living in the house either

She was always the first to find out if people moved in

Jeongyeon

Jeongyeon was with Nayeon at the time

She hit the perpetrator with a chair

However she failed to defend herself

She got stabbed straight in the heart

Jeongyeon was a friendly ghost

She didn’t hurt people like Nayeon

She just always watched and observed people

Jeongyeon often just stayed in one of the rooms not leaving

Momo

Momo was one of the last to die

She was with Mina and Sana practicing Korean when the killer came

He killed Momo first, hitting her over the head with the butt of the knife

She died from blunt force trauma

Momo haunted the house and the people

She played tricks on everyone

Moving things was a frequent pleasure

She would misplace things in order to scare others

Momo didn’t want to hurt people

Jihyo

Jihyo felt guilty

She saw the guy kill Nayeon and Jeongyeon but she didn’t do anything

She simply hid

Jihyo ws the leader

She should have come out and prtect them

But she didnt

Jihyo died when the killer turned around and stabbed her in the heart

She made apperacnes to people

Jihyo would appear and scare the guests living in the house

That was why you saw her on the day you moved in

She wanted you too se her

She wanted you to know that the house was haunted

She craved for your fear

Sana

Sana died with Momo and MIna

She was kileld after Momo

Slit throat

Sana couldn’t talk as a result

She could say anthing in the afetr life

Sana had to write things

Which would be why people in the house found notes

On the notes would be things wirrten like

“They don’t know we are here yet,” “Nayeon should just kill them,”

This would terrify the people living there

Mina

Mina died after she watched Momo and Sana die

She got pushed off the balcony

Mina fell to her death

In the afterlife Mina was nice to the guests

She knew Nayeon hurt them so she did her best to leave medicine around

Mina would put blankets on them if they fell asleep

Mina would sometimes leave food around for them

Dahyun

Dahyun was held hostage

She was told to lead them killer to the safe

Dahyun didnt know what he meant

She nevr heard of s safe

She wanted to live so she lead the person to the basement

When the killer realized that she was lying

He pushed her down the stairs

Her back was bent and broken

Dahyun would appear to people if they came to the basement

She would follow them

You know when you feel like you are being watched?

Thats Dahyun

Chaeyoung

Chaeyoung was the last to die

After the J Line

She had been outside the enitre time

When she came in she screamed from the horros she saw

Chaeyoung got stabbed right in the back

Chaeyoung was the one who put the necklace around you

She was violent like Nayeon

Chaeyoung would push people

She would hit them and pull their hair

Tzuyu

Tzuyu had her stomach slit

It was because she had lied with Dahyun

Tzuyu was the one who appeared to you

She didn’t like how her and the other girls died

When she appeared to you she didn’t know what to do

This wasn’t her kind of thing

Tzuyu was afraid

She wanted someone to free the girls spirts

She wanted to move on

Find peace

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