King of an Empty Kingdom

I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."

He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."

He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"

I did.

"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."

It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.

listen.  we  love  you.  you  arent  going  to  become  irrelevant  if  you  dont  write  replies  everyday.  you  arent  going  to  be  forgotten  about  if  you  dont  write   every   starter.  no  one  cares  if  you  have  graphics  or  icons.  its  ok.  you  dont  have  to  impress  everyone,  because  if  someone  has  followed  you  that  means  they  are  already  impressed  by  your  work.  

Well, this was awkward.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

Bones gave the lion an encouraging smile as he stood by the entrance to the throne room.

Inside, she would see that there was actually light from outside filtering down through a crack in the mountain, just like in the Ruins. The ground was covered in golden flowers, and in the middle of the room, stood Asgore.

His back was to her, so she could take him in at her own pace. He was even taller than Bones; probably nine feet or so. Despite his towering frame, however, he tread lightly among the flowers, careful not to step on them as he watered them. “All done!” he said to himself, before turning around. It was here he noticed he had a visitor.

Asgore grinned broadly, eyes closed and face beaming. "Indeed I did. All of these were grown from a single flower from the surface world. Unfortunately, that flower has disappeared, or I would be happy to show it to you! But, I suppose the rest will do. After all, they all look the same, right?"

There was a note of cynicism in the question, not directed at her, but his decades of visitors who thought the same. Part of him knew it was because they didn't have his years of experience with each flower- his knowledge of the soil each was rooted in, how much water to give each plant- so he did his best to not hold it against them.

He beckoned her into the back of the throne room, pleased to see the care she took where she stepped. Behind his throne was a doorway, with a second throne draped in cloth beside it that appeared to not have been used in a long time. Inside the doorway was a little living room not unlike Toriel's, with a kitchen off to the side. Asgore led the way in there, setting a kettle on the stove and lighting it with his magic.

Asgore was going to ask who paid her to explain what the kids were saying these days to "old" people like him, but her explanation of the term made him pause.

This Mara girl knew his name, so she clearly knew he was the king, yet only addressed him with the honorific given to commoners. Not that Asgore minded; quite the opposite. Were it not for the sake of keeping up the people's HOPE, he would be tempted to give up the title of king altogether.