by GR Griffin
Chapter 37: Dawn
If dreams could come true, then the sight of those two children, one monster, the other human, was the seed for the future, a symbol of hope between both races. For centuries after the war ended, when its legacy lived on whilst the memories faded, the question as to whether the two sides could ever coexist like before was the burning question for the ages.
Could humans be trusted to act fair around a species whom were inherently inferior?
Could monsters be trusted around a species whose life-force could exalt them to godhood?
It was unthinkable to believe that such peace was obtainable. That hundreds and thousands of living, intelligent beings could act upon the same principles and not have a single one step out from that thin line. They speculated that their return would amount to nothing but more violence, to another life of running and hiding just like in the Dark Ages.
However, maybe now, as they watched Fleck and Asriel – fingers interlocked – the future wasn't as dark as they had thought. Flesh and blood next to fur and magic. It was not one human child and one monster child, but two children. Their differences were cast aside, and they became not two people of different species, but two people of the same planet.
Emperor Zeus gingerly stepped over, eyeing the boy who bore a remarkable resemblance to King Asgore and Queen Toriel. One eyebrow was raised so high it strained the muscles in his forehead. "…Advisor? Is that you?" he asked.
The soppy terrain muted Brute's hefty stomps as he closed the distance. His head cocked to one side, index finger scratching it. "Where Advisor gone?" he wondered. Asriel felt a flush, his cheeks swelled into a shade of pink as the hulking creature loomed over him; he wasn't the one atop his head no more. Those beady eyes begged the answer to many questions. "What this hairy thing?"
Asriel's parents marched over. "Excuse me," the mother, taking hold of her son, scolded the monster twice her size. "But this hairy thing is our son."
Her commanding attitude – aided by her lifelong vocation – made Brute flinch like one of the many unruly schoolkids in her class. While hard on the outside, her insides melted as those same hands which held her son when he was but a day old felt him once more. Just by having Mom and Dad around, Asriel, the little prince, never felt safer.
Juhi was beside Zeus, as amazed as he was. "The resemblance is remarkable," he commented.
A quiet giggle tickled Asriel's throat. "It's okay… Mom," he said. Jeez, to think he could call Toriel Mom again, not to mention King Asgore became Dad. "It's a long story, Brute, but... the advisor hasn't gone anywhere. I'm the advisor." Hesitation made his lips go numb. "I was that flower all along."
Everyone gazed, beset with baffled silence; most notably his parents. Fleck excluded.
"Then why didn't you tell us?" Asgore asked, lowering himself on one knee. Deep down, his wife and himself still believed their son the innocent, misunderstood youth who always kept to himself, hardly socialised with others much, and couldn't hurt a fly even if the world depended on it.
Asriel pondered. What was he to say? I did… once. The first time. But then you forgot after I went back and did everything all over again, and… did things…
His jaw hung open. No words came out.
"I guess…" King Asgore, noticing Asriel's hesitation, spoke softly. He rubbed his thumb against his son's cheek, and said, "I guess it's not important now. You're here and that's all that matters."
Asriel fought through his insecurities to look up at his father, nearly jumping out his skin upon noticing Papyrus's empty peepers peering over his broad shoulder. He resembled a child – the very one whom the boy had the most fun with during those dark days. Those ame eyes which heralded the Flowey Fan Club.
"Mini Asgore…" the skeleton whispered the same way a birdwatcher would upon sighting the rarest breed. He narrowed the breadth between his mouth and Asgore's ear. "You must've been a beautiful baby, Your Majesty."
As Undyne found her eyepatch and slung it over her bad eye, her other eyed the kid. Asriel Dreemurr was a tale shared to her on a handful of occasions, only after the most gruelling of training sessions and during the warmest heart-to-hearts at home, around the table, with cups of golden flower tea and a stray marshmallow caught in the King's facial fuzz. It was Asriel's demise which ignited the Underground's wrath and the founding of the Royal Guard, in turn fuelling her desire for vengeance upon humanity – a desire born from her king and instilled into her.
"This is your kid…? He looks just like you," she said, having only seem him in the fading gloss of old photographs. Had this kid never died, Undyne struggled to think where she'd be, or what kind of person she'd have developed into without her king's resolve. With such a soft semblance to his parents, she concluded right there that she already liked this boy. "A little scrawny, a few feet off, but I can already see you becoming your dad."
Throughout all his smattered life, the golden flower was the entity which haunted Sans the most. Vague images, made dull through time, stuck to the walls inside his skull, pestering him now as he prodded and poked, trying to get a clear memory out. He succeeded in rooting out more pictures; a thousand images which each told a single sentence of a thousand stories; too contrived to piece together. But in so many, he found the grinning, chortling flower. He was either catching a glimpse of petals darting into the soil, staring him down, or confronting him directly. Could it be true? Could this child be him, who made his life a misery for so long?
Asriel turned to and fro, encapsulated in the kind-hearted gazes and friendly remarks by his family and their friends. Then, from out the corner of his eye, he spotted San's dot pupils and toothy grin and turned away the next instant.
That was all the evidence Sans needed.
His bony hands, tucked inside pockets, clenched. A flicker warmed the back of his left socket. For all the thought of having faced the flower many times in the past, he had not a single memory to go by. Not a single victory or loss, draw or stalemate, surrender or – for the sake of wishful thinking – truce. He would've liked very much to have at least one memory, and he could have it right now. This kid didn't look tough. Sans was confident he could wipe that smirk of this flower's face in five seconds flat.
He looked at the flower from his memories and, instead, saw a boy who took after his king, and who the old lady leant down and kissed on the forehead.
His fingers loosened. Flame subsided.
Get a grip, man, Sans told himself, wanting to add a slap for good measure. What ya thinkin'? He couldn't do that to Tori and King Asgore, not after everything they'd been through. There was no way Sans would be held accountable for costing his best friend and best ruler another child. Not after how deeply distraught she was after almost losing Fleck. Not after… Snowdin… and that other kid. Guess it was too late to take it back now.
"Hey. I gotta say…" Sans said quietly. Before he could falter, he switched on his usual attitude, flicking two thumbs up. "It's good to have ya back, bud."
Alphys opened her mouth to say something, regarding how she might've a clue as to how this came to be, but slammed it shut. The idea that she might have had something to do with this was too farfetched, she couldn't convince herself to believe it if she tried. Yes, she had experimented on one flower in her life. And yes, that exact same flower disappeared later. But how for certain did she know this was that flower? How did it get all the way from the King's garden in the Underground to here, the cusp of the Earth's atmosphere?
She might state her speculations at a later date. But for now, she perked up a smile and let Gorey and Tori have their son back. Let them have this.
Brute hummed a sleepy murmur. So monotone it tempted yawns from those around him. "Flower, pretty but cold," he articulated the best he could muster, sounding a little less like Frankenstein's monster. "Goat, fuzzy and warm. And cute." The tip of his index tapped Asriel's belly, forcing the giggle out in its entirety. "Squishy like marshmallow. Brute like new advisor. I… like the new you."
The little prince of monsters twisted to the right, laughing and clutching his side as his assistant playfully poked him. His laughter, his smile, Asriel thought he would never do any of those things ever again, nor did the others dream of seeing him again. Asriel returned to a state long forgotten. He wasn't a soulless flower or the god of hyperdeath or a shady dispenser of half-truths. He was a youngster once more.
Brute stopped and gave Fleck a tired glance which imparted a smidgen of the same energy; Fleck wanted to fall asleep just by making eye contact with him.
Without pulling away, he asked Asriel, "Still advisor?"
The boy gained control over his delightful belly to form coherent words. "I guess?"
"Then… still crush hum—?"
"NO!" Asriel shot forward and screamed – so abrupt that it startled everyone - whilst waving his hands in front of Brute's face. His petrified stare was wide and narrow, with beads of sweat trickled down around and between them. The many looks in his direction made the air grow thick, his head spin, his breathing short and rapid.
Toriel asked, "Asriel, what did he mean by—?"
Asriel snapped around to face her. "Nothing, Mom!" he blurted. His innocent show of teeth was betrayed by the rivulets running down his face. "It's nothing. N-nothing really. He meant to say crush… er, crush hum… crush… huuuuuumm… errr…" His stammering, peppered with ticks of nervous laughter, was shaky enough to register on the Richter scale. Fingers fidgeted, fiddling to undo the knots on his own sticky situation. "Crush… huuuum… errr…ssss?"
A hand slapped down on his shoulder and there was Fleck beside him, grinning profusely at Mom and Dad. Crush hum… mus! Fleck answered in Asriel's stead. This big guy was a waiter – a personal waiter. Yeah. His specialty was crushed hummus. Isn't that right, Asriel?
His mind blank; the Underground's prince went along anyway, nodding and confirming what they just said.
"Crushed hummus?" Toriel reiterated. After both children nodded so fast their heads were in danger of falling off, her arms went akimbo. "You are aware hummus is already crushed, right?"
Asriel's head went up and down while Fleck's went left and right. The two shared a glance, trying to reach the same step, and ended up swapping gestures. Asriel's ear slapped Fleck on the side of the head multiple times, ruffling their brown hair.
Toriel's face slackened. "My son, please do not tell me you attempted to hurt Fleck…"
Right there, little Dreemurr and little Fleck needed a hero, and it came in the form of large, stony paws upon their heads. Touching, the connection he and Flowey formed over many weeks reignited, and the two became one – the brain and the body.
"Crush…" Brute began, trying to read his advisor's motives. With a hand on the human, he could have sworn he felt them too. "Crush hum… mus." Honestly, he had no idea what hummus was, but he played along nonetheless. "Crush hummus."
Toriel's features remained scrunched in thought until, at last, she relaxed, slowly nodded and puckered her lips into an expression of acceptance. Asriel and Fleck sighed with smiles on their faces.
"Yes. Crush hummus." Brute shook his head. "No more crush human."
Asriel and Fleck were still smiling, but rigid, giggling like madmen and sweating up a tsunami.
Their hearts raced at the sight of Toriel's arms folding. "Asriel…" she said in a slow, stern manner. Honestly, Fleck had no idea why they were concerned.
The hero wasn't helping anymore. Time for the heroine!
"I wouldn't sweat about it too much," Undyne said, taking a spot beside them. She swirled a finger lazily around. "Pretty much everyone here's tried to kill Fleck at some point. Tried and failed." It fell in the direction of Emperor Zeus. "Except that guy, he sorta succeeded. Sorta. Tried, succeeded and failed, if that makes any sense."
"How can you say that?" Toriel made her question sharp, openly expressing her disdain. "That is not an excuse—"
Undyne interrupted with, "And it's still the best thing to ever happen to us."
She gestured to what their adventure had brought them – all of them. The Outerworld, a mirror of the Underground. Before the seventh human's fall, it had its own history, its stories, lives, loose ends, and Fleck landed in the middle of that world just how they rose to the quandaries which plagued this one. Two sides, separated, brought together. Whether or not the introduction of a certain human child had anything to do with breaking the formula it was up to debate. But it was like this now, and they were altogether once more.
"She has a point," Asgore said, softly nudging his wife in the back. The foster father, who once planned Fleck's end, taking Undyne's side in this argument.
Toriel looked at the faces around her and realised she was alone from her point of view. She went to argue, then remembered her own instance with Fleck back in the old New Home. Had she won, driven them away, and destroyed the door, would they be where they were now? Obviously not. Then Fleck wouldn't have reached the castle, and the barrier would never have been destroyed, and none of them would've started their new lives under blue sky, sun, stars and clouds, or had this adventure.
Her arms went slack and she faced upwards in a show of forfeiture. Just as quickly, she regained her motherly doggedness. "This is the last time, though. After today, we are done," she announced as she looked to her associates, sharing her hard stare indiscriminately. "No more fighting, and no more of anyone trying to kill anyone anymore. Can we please agree on that?"
She received a unanimous agreement from the rest – with Fleck being the first to get behind it. Just as Sans nodded, Toriel grabbed his sleeve and yanked his hand out of his pocket, revealing two fingers crossed. He received an extra dose of her branding not-mad-just-disappointed stare until he uncrossed his fingers and proclaimed scout's honour.
Zeus, however – while everyone else had their fill of laughs – remained caught up on the first topic.
"You mean to tell me," Zeus began, "all this time we had a kid collecting our info, sharing our secrets and discussing our plans?" His confounded look switched from Ariel to Fleck. "And you knew all along…"
Fleck guessed there was no point in weaselling their way out. They answered with a sigh, a nod, and a shrug in that order.
"Fleck?" whispered Asgore. His entire perspective on everything turned upside-down. This reunion sprouted questions, and unearthing those unearthed more questions. Already the digging had made a rabbit hole. "You knew about…?"
Asriel spoke in their defence: "It's a longer story than I'd like."
The late Emperor Juhi stepped forth and inserted his own thesis into the conversation.
"It's difficult to describe. But it would appear that something inside our advisor that wasn't there before has returned."
Zeus asked, "What do you mean?"
"I always thought Advisor Flowey was a strange one, even before I died. It got stranger after I found nothing inside him. He was completely empty, without a soul. Now, I sense one pulsing inside him."
Juhi felt his son's intense gaze move off him for a brief reprieve to bore into the advisor. They were back on him in no time at all.
"Anyone with one eye intact can see that," Zeus replied, "but… that can't be it, can it?"
Juhi thought about it a little. His influence flowed through the nooks and cracks which comprised what was left of the Land between Heaven and Earth and identified nothing else altered. He gave the human a quick look and received averted eyes as an answer.
"I think it is," he concluded with a shrug. "I apologise if you expected more."
Zeus shook his golden crown. "I'm not upset. Just surprised." It sank in to the Emperor; he, a monster, gave up his wish to another, a human, so they could give it up to another monster. Whether it was ironic, befitting, or downright insulting, Zeus could not gauge. He trusted that Fleck would make the best wish, that they alone held its best usage, and this was the result.
"Are you seeing this?" he posed to Kanika's spirit. "How does this make you feel?
You spent all that time trapped inside that rock, holding the greatest power known to the Universe, and it all came to this."
Her glossy lips curved upwards at the sound of it. "And yet," Kanika said, "I'm not mad at all. In fact, I'm rather content with that."
"How?" Zeus sounded incredulous.
"I don't know Kanika's intentions exactly…" the spectre placed a starry hand upon her starry chest. "But through her feelings, I think I now understand what I am. Before the first war ended, her last moments were spent beside the Obelisk." Eyes closed. "Her body is failing. Soul ready to shatter. Her dreams of peace between the two are tarnished. All hope faded… except for one tiny shred. One palm cold, pressed against flat stone; the other, running something against its surface…"
Opening them up, she drew them to the markings.
World forsaken
Hope remains
True power awaken
Upon greatest strength's dawn
"There's nothing else after that," she said. "That's where she died, and how the first Outerworld ended." The same hand, now clenched into a fist, fell to her side. "If this is true, then I am that shred of hope."
This would mean the spirit was not all of Kanika, but a small piece of her; a representation of a small aspect bestowed upon the Obelisk. Everything else – her memories, personality, drives, beliefs – perished with the real her. This was all that remained, a single entity which learned as she watched the world turn on its axis, clinging to the residual feelings left by her predecessor. She was Kanika's final trace, and yet she wasn't Kanika at all.
"One shred of hope, waiting for the greatest strength…?" Zeus asked. Pieces of a puzzle fitting together.
Kanika's one shred of hope scratched her lip. "I have this feeling… this whole thing was one huge test."
"A test?"
"To see if both humans and monsters were capable of… being better, I guess?" She pointed to the markings on the pillar's face. "World forsaken. She wasn't referring to this world, she was referring to Earth. Kanika felt much injustice during the war. Saw much hate, and no mercy. Thoughts all aimed inwards, focused on themselves instead of others. And she realised it would repeat itself on Earth just as it happened here…
