* She had always, always been afraid of this.
* No, no, it was nothing she could not manage with a session or two of patient healing. But Toriel was herself, after all, and there was little about herself she could count on more than her weakness to worry.
* She worried when she’d set Asriel safely into her car. She worried the entire drive home as Asriel told her what happened, that a band of angry humans had accosted a young monster in the street and that he’d intervened to let the latter escape, how it had led to a fight he barely escaped himself. She worried and fretted as she guided him carefully up the porch steps, across the threshold of her house and towards the washroom (her eyes found the clock above the kitchen and she noted when Frisk would be home). She worried as she insisted he sit on the rim of the bathtub and wait for her to return and treat him.
* She was still worried when she did, a worn laundry basket in her arms and a towel slung over her shoulder. Her chest clenched painfully at the sight of him; his robe was entirely mangled, and the tears only looked worse from here. His efforts to clutch the gaps back into place only pulled the threads looser.
*Every one of them exposed a terrible wound. Humans were powerful; if he had suffered any more of them she could have lost him again, again, she couldn’t do it again—!
* No, it is alright. Stay calm. You need to stay calm.
* “No, no, let it go, dear.” Her voice was low and tense as she knelt in front of him, set the basket beside them, and gently pushed his hand into his lap. “It will only be in the way. We will save what we can of it in this, for now..”