A Deltarune AU: What if Toriel had woken up prior to the end of Chapter 2?
A breeze stirs within the Dreemurr residence. A shiver down the spine stirs Toriel from her slumber, her head craning up from that dreadful drooping posture. The faint glow of moonlight gives shape to the den before her, and even before the knowing of it, the arrangement is all so thankfully familiar to her. As she fully comes to, resting against the soft back of her upholstered throne, and addresses all those aching age-addled joints, she looks over to the children. Both of them still here, both still safe, both still fast asleep on either side of the big couch. Toriel smiles, relieved, overjoyed. For just this moment, everything is going to be fine.
Not that moment later, Toriel had quietly made her way to the bathroom and after shutting the window and duty calling, began to run the tap to wash her hands. And yet, despite starting to run her hands over one another, she couldn't help but linger on this moment, hunkering over the sink, listening on as the water continues to run, splashing all too loudly against the porcelain, plunking down the drain into the black and running through all those pipes to god knows where. Maybe she's still only half-awake, thrown out of sleep too early to have totally bounced back up, but a feeling lacking a thought keeps her there at the vanity, listening on to the running water…
…the chill air which for these late hours had suffused itself throughout the bathroom strikes her back again, setting her fur on edge. And as a morsel dislodging, there was a great gasp of air and then, coherence. A question wriggles alive… Who had opened the window?
Kris? That moment when they were washing their hands. No one else had gone in here since. They were taking such a long time… and then she went out to the car to get the sugar…
It could not have been Kris. There's no reason to think her own child would do something like this, would have gotten her so worried about a burglar or a kidnapper or a serial murderer or something as dangerous. It was a dreadful thing to consider, assuming something so alarming of her child, and yet… all things considered…
She had to go and check.
As quietly as she could, she went upstairs to fetch a flashlight and her cardigan. Even if it wasn't all that cold outside, already that chill had seeped into her, her teeth set on edge and jaw chattering slightly as even the carpet seemed to sap the heat from her. Treading a careful path back into the den, she looks over to the children again on the couch. Both Susie and Kris still here, both still safe and fast asleep. Silent as the ongoing night as some warmth seemed to return, Toriel kneels down before Kris, tucked within the crook of the armrest, making themself small against the cushions. It was a wonderful sight to see, Kris coming home with a new friend, and it seeming their friendship was already having an impact, on them and on Susie. Leaning in, Toriel places a kiss on the pads of her fingers, then ferries that kiss to Kris's forehead. Bringing her hand back to wipe away a tear, she stands up and exits the house.
On each of the tires were long singular gashes. She was knelt down with bated breath as she examined these gashes, periodically wiping black dust from off her fingers. She would glide her hand along with the movement of the blade, from the initial puncture with small cracks spiderwebbing off from the impact flowing through to the blade's exit. If this was quick work, the blade would've been something wide, not anything like a pocket knife. Something like a kitchen knife, perhaps… And none of the slashes seems to zig-zag one way and then another, to artificially extend it past one clean motion. Whoever did this could've been more methodical, could've really given it a good thorough slash to make sure the job was done, but already, her stomach was turning inward as the evidence before her failed to exonerate her child. She snaps a picture of two of the tires with her phone and moves on towards the back of the house…
As she rounded the corner, Toriel's stomach was busy twisting itself into knots as she reckoned then she was moving farther than she should from the children given what threat had been levied against her home. In some ways, the idea of what had transpired being Kris's doing was admittedly a relief, that no third party was presenting any danger to her and the kids. It was still very much worrying, seeing as she'd even see fit to call the police (and more worrying still that Undyne hasn't shown up yet), but her vying to confirm that line of possibility was the one great thing propelling her away from Kris and Susie and onward to the thin "backyard" of the house.
It was hard to know what exactly to look for in the dark. Little indentations on the grass, some strand of hair or piece of thread dropped somewhere, some fleck of tire to step on to ruin the texture of this nighttime walk. Shining the flashlight against the back of the house, Toriel moves to beside the bathroom window, just as a means of retracing her child's potential steps at first, when her eye catches something about the vinyl siding underneath. Bending down, she traces a claw along what she had illuminated. A piece of the vinyl had been caved in, a rounded indent with hairline fractures where the vinyl was bent the most. She stands up and pulls up her foot to place against the indent; obviously, it's too small and too short for her own foot, but it would've easily been the right height and size for someone littler than her to push off from the wall and then…
Toriel had to step away from the house, staring off into the woods, more questions coming to wriggle into her head. This didn't necessarily mean it was Kris, but every other possibility would've been more complicated and more frightful to consider, that someone might be sneaking around their house at this very moment, that Kris may have even let them in.
She rests herself against a tree as she continued to let the dark of the woods subsume her vision. So this all must have been Kris, but… why? Why do all of this, my child? To orchestrate a sleepover? If you had wanted Susie to stay the night, you needed only to ask. Did Susie know of this? And yet this all seemed too much for her to have concocted for such a purpose (and, loathe as Toriel was to admit, too cunning as well). Something was missing, it seemed, but what could it be?
Could Kris have been keeping something from her? What had they been keeping from her? Do they not trust her, their own mother? What is going on here, what...
She couldn't go back inside, not right now. She needed time to not startle the children with a shriveling sobbing mess. She needed to let the night's events rain out from her, to not be so stiff and wound-up as she'd been. She needed to process all the old worries before anything new could come shutter her here in the dark.
In the dark… a bead of sweat drips down the cheek… Is Mom still…
…she's not coming down… good. Well… maybe not good. But good. And Susie…
Wiping away her tears, Toriel extricates herself from off the tree. She's been out here longer than she's needed to be, that's for certain. She moves back out of the woods, snaps a photo of the indent in the vinyl and, just for completeness's sake, continues around to the other side to make a full loop around the house. Though right now, any attempt to look for further clues is half-hearted. Now is not the time to give this any more thought than strictly necessary, that can come later. Kris needs to sleep, Susie needs to sleep, she needs to sleep—
A blinding light shone through the windows, dazzling Toriel and knocking her flat on her ass. It took her a moment to collect herself on the grass, her vision swimming and muddled from the flash, before she could pick herself back up, dust off her clothes, and point the flashlight towards the window. Inside, something was roiling within, something inky and black… this smoke, it seemed it was, was impenetrable, everything within was hidden from view from without.
Toriel's breathing began to pick up. Her voice hisses out the children's names in frightful tones as she begins to run back towards the front door. Any thought of culpability or blame had escaped her thoughts as she rounds the corner to see the front door cracked open, a plume of pitch-black smoke filing out from it and rising into the night sky above. The kids were still asleep inside, they could suffocate, they could…
Toriel throws open the door, expecting some great belch of heat or another flash of light, only to be met with more of this terrible smog exhaling out. She instinctively goes to cover her mouth and back away from the door, cognizant not to breathe in any of the smoke… only she wasn't smelling smoke. She stared at the scentless smoke for a second, but only a second as her instincts kick back in. She tries to wave away the smoke to clear a path for herself… but it wasn't moving out of the way, even as she stuck her hand clean through it. Again, she's transfixed by this… smoke… fog? Whatever the hell it is, it's so dark that it causes Toriel's mind to swim just looking at it, seeing shapes that couldn't possibly be there. Maybe this wasn't a fire after all, but whatever it was, she wasn't going to leave Kris and Susie trapped within it.
Taking in as deep a breath as she possibly can, she breaches the darkness, steps onto the carpet past the threshold…
…and falls into the void…
(This took forever to write, but the introduction here is honestly the only part of this I have fully fleshed out; having to actually determine the logistics of why Toriel is awake without making Chapter 3 moot will do that. I also cannot guarantee that a) I'll be able to continue this or b) it will be in this exact form, in fact I'd prefer otherwise for b. I do have some ideas for what happens next though, including what's up with this funny little fellow has accompanied Toriel up top, how Deltarune's combat could work without a SOUL, and what might happen if Toriel manages to catch up to the Fun Gang...)
