❛ we were here before you fell. you will be here when we rise . ❜
[ they smile, and it’s bittersweet, tight-lipped without reaching their dark eyes. one hand presses to the stone where the barrier had stood for . . . what, hundreds of years, now? it’s been worn smooth as glass by the steady ebb and flow of magic, like the breaking of the tides, and the ebbing light catches in it, reflects off of it and through chara, their form not solid enough to cast shadow. ]
[ toriel, pressing a kiss to the top of their forehead, and chara laughing for her fur tickling them. standing looking out on the balcony, their parents proud behind them, and asriel - their brother - right beside them. standing as a family, looking out over the capital city, now abuzz with activity and construction. there had been life sparked in the underground with chara’s fall, and this city’s foundation was to be hope, it seemed. ]
[ you two will be in charge of this all, one day, toriel had said, stroking over chara’s hair, then long enough to reach their shoulders, bangs shaggy and falling over their eyes. asriel and they had been solemn, both of their shoulders straightening. their brother’s chin had tipped up proudly, but they had frowned. were they meant to rule here? wasn’t the reason they had been taken in at all to help get them out? ]
[ still. their shoulders had straightened, tension easing out. they could rule here. it was the first good place they had ever known. ]
‘ someone has to look after the place. ‘
[ it’s said almost cheerfully to undyne, the chip in chara’s teeth visible when they smile at her, but there’s melancholy deep there, too. they said, after all. they and asriel would take care of the underground. ]
[ and so they would. an empty place, now, and both of them were little more than echoes. asriel, soulless, in the body of a flower, and chara, bodiless, with the tattered remains of their own soul. they had been the hopes and dreams of the underground, once, but there was so much opportunity for new dreams, now. the old ones were to be left behind. ]
[ they trust undyne. they think of the people frisk has met along their tumultuous way, they trust undyne and papyrus most. there’s something understandable about their conviction, and admirable in their execution of it. ]
[ chara had had one. not the other. ]
‘ . . . can you keep an eye on frisk and my p- asgore and toriel? ‘
[ a wry grin, and they nod at undyne’s eyepatch. ]
‘ only the one, of course. ‘