A Hopeful Dreemurr

[[ @hot-cross--puns ]] Hope had wandered her way out of Snowdin forest, and into the town itself. It was ill-maintained, even Grillby’s old bar surrendering to the relentless cold and moisture, but it was at the least familiar. She’d seen plenty of pictures of the place, and explored the old inn with gusto. Still, she was starting to get cold despite her fur. She frowned, staring at the grey door that had appeared at the foot of the inn’s upstairs bed.

The last time she took a grey door, it took her to meet a particularly strange version of her older sibling. She hadn’t been through one since. Now, though... it had to beat this dreary place, and maybe she’d wind up closer to Waterfall. She reached for the knob, twisted it open, and took a deep breath.

No time like the present, she quickly decided, before jumping through.

Life was hard enough for the lonely queen without strange doors opening in her kitchen. Yet this one did, very briefly replacing her refrigerator, and sent the diminutive Hope flying face first into a (thankfully cooled) pie on the counter.

There were worse landing places, Hope decided, and swallowed the mouthful of pie she’d acquired before sighing deeply into the oozing filling. Maybe she was home. That’d be nice enough, even if she’d have to explain herself.

[[ Closed starter for @determinedtemperance ]]

Hope stared at the grey door. 

It was a little alarming, really. The thing had popped up behind her as she was exploring Grillby’s, and now stood in place of its own door, imposing and tall. Sure, she could shoot out the windows, but that seemed wrong- and the Fire Exit still wouldn’t allow passage to non-fire entities. She was stuck, save for that weird grey door.

And then there was the other problem. It opened outward, and it was quite stiff in doing so. She really had to shove to get it to budge. Standing back near the old, deteriorating bar, she weighed her options. 

Then she shut her good eye, put her arms out, and ran at it yelling at the top of her lungs.

Hope Dreemurr, the Princess of Monsters, was breaking the rules.

Granted, that wasn’t hard. The list of things she was allowed to do out in the world felt pretty slim some days, and at thirteen, she had enough energy to find her way into trouble anyway. This time though, she was climbing Mount Ebott, an explicit defiance of her mother’s orders. And her father’s. And Frisk’s. And Sans’, come to think of it.

They were probably just being weird over-worrying family members. That was how this worked, right? The adults had always been like that, ever since Hope was seven years old. She’d gone off on her own, gotten lost in the city, and wound up accidentally taking out her right eye with her own magic in a panic. She was tougher now! And trained! It was fine! Her family was just obsessive about keeping an eye on her since then, and she was tired of it.

Which was to say nothing of Ebott itself! None of them would give her a straight answer, and in the sixteen years since the barrier had fallen, many of the Underground’s more esoteric facts had drifted into myth and legend. As a result, Hope was flustered. If Ebott was really boring and empty, then she wouldn’t be barred from going there. But if it was dangerous, surely Frisk or someone could have told her why! Determined to solve this problem herself, the young boss monster ditched her house in the dead of night and made for the mountain.

Now, she was approaching the middle of the climb, and starting to regret her decision not to bring some kind of snack. Her magic lit the way nicely, and her fur and pads meant the hike itself was no big deal, but she was getting awfully hungry. At the sight of a cave and some plant life, she happily ducked inside.

The cave was being slowly coated by the thick green vines that emerged from a pit in the center. Hope gaped. She’d been hoping for some berries or something, but adventure would do just as nicely. The Underground’s plant life was never said to be anything particularly unusual, so what the heck was the story here? She approached as cautiously as she could, her eye wide.

Admittedly, not quite wide enough. One wrong step, and her missing eye kept her from noticing a particularly loose vine. She yelled as she tumbled forward, dropping into the hole unceremoniously.

“Oh, god.” Hope mumbled. Her back and head hurt, and she was having a hard time seeing straight. The landing hadn’t been hard enough to do any permanent damage, thanks to the carpet of vines on the ground, but in the moment that didn’t exactly make her feel any better about her situation. “Anyone there? Hello?”

She wasn’t particularly thrilled when the vines started to move. All of them. The ones on the walls, the ones under her, the ones up near the hole. Something massive shifted, and their source revealed itself.

Flowey hadn’t changed much in sixteen years. He was still primarily a flower, though his roots had become the tangled mess of vines that now coated half of the ruins. He was still alone, and if he’d had his way, that might never have changed. Instead, he found himself roused from his halfway-comatose state by a girl’s voice. Another child? The mountain was pretty well off-limits, as far as he knew. His vines snaked across Hope’s body, and he raised himself to get a better look at her. Then he froze.

It couldn’t be.

No time for pleasantries. His vines wrapped around Hope’s wrists and ankles, and roughly yanked her up to eye level. He stared into her good eye, then took in the rest of her appearance. His breath, such as it was, became shallow. This couldn’t be real. Another boss monster? And one with his mother’s eyes, his father’s hair.

“Who the fuck are you?” He half-spat.

Hope winced. The vines held her tight, and she was dizzy enough from the fall before being slung into the air like this. At this point, Flowey's face blurred and distorted the more she tried to focus on it, and the room seemed to be spinning around her. “Mmh.” She managed, then raised a finger. “M’name. Hope.”

“Hope what?” Flowey growled, sliding in closer.

“Hh. Hope Dreemurr?” She offered, then yelped. Flowey’s reaction was immediate and visceral, as though hearing the name aloud was enough to send him into a rage. He yanked her across the room and back again, spun and twisted her in the air, then let out an unnatural roar of anger. His vines seethed, slamming the rock and snapping in the air. Hope came out the other side dazed, fighting unconsciousness, but unharmed.

Flowey settled, his bullets whizzing into various stones in the room. Of course. Just like Frisk before her, this was inevitable. But maybe, he reasoned, things weren’t as bad as he thought. Maybe she knew about him, about Asriel, about what had happened to him before. Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t simply a new child for the royal family. Maybe he hadn’t been forgotten. He slid forward again, inches from her ear. “Ever heard the name Asriel?”

When Hope feebly shook her head, he snapped back, hissing. She managed to steady herself for a moment, clenched her jaw. “Who’s Asriel?”

Flowey tightened his grip on her wrists until her hands started to go numb, vines writhing along the walls. There it was. There she was, his replacement in a way Frisk never could be. He didn’t think he could ever feel more hollow, but right now he felt the twisting, sickening feeling in what might have been described as his mental ‘gut’, and he trembled. The girl was barely conscious anymore- the fall had done her no favors, and his thrashing about hadn’t helped- but still he stared at her. He inhaled, not caring that Hope was barely able to steady her head enough to look straight at him. He’d tell her, dammit. “Me. I’m Asriel. I’m Flowey, and I’m Asriel, and I’m the one who broke the barrier, and I hate you.”

He wanted to tear her apart. He wanted to scream at her until she got the hint that she should never have come here. The last thing he needed was to know that there was another child of the royal line out there, one who would have what he should’ve had, who would get to have the life he deserved to have. Hope, vision dimming, groaned as he squeezed. It would be so simple, but…

He couldn’t. Not anymore. Frisk would figure out what had happened, and even if Flowey had a hard time caring what his parents thought- hell, maybe they’d learn to stop forgetting him if they couldn’t just replace him so easily- he wasn’t sure he could take the way Frisk would treat him after that.

“They’ll forget.” He hissed, coiling up to Hope’s ear like a snake. “You’ll disappear down here, you’ll die just like all the other children did, and they’ll forget you just like they forgot Asriel, just like that old woman replaced those six human brats. Remember that. You’re nothing. Just another disposable kid, just like them.”

When the girl didn’t respond, and her head lulled forward, Flowey snarled. He twisted her in his vines, too fast, then threw her out of the chamber into the hallway beyond. There the plants still provided a cushion, but they didn’t report the impact to his simulacrum of a nervous system. They were wild vines, as much a part of him as the golden flowers around the rest of the Underground, unfeeling parts of his greater whole.

He didn’t look back at her. Vines snapped upward, sealing the cave containing Chara’s gravesite behind a wall of thick foliage. Hope would wander and die in the underground, and he would never have to think about any of them ever again. He could go right back to being alone in this empty place, curling his roots tighter around the patch of earth underneath him. He could mourn Chara, he could mourn what could have been, and he could certainly not worry about the replacement for his replacement. Not even with the grey doors outside, or the way things had changed. It wasn’t his problem.

Hope woke some time later. It was impossible to know how much time had passed in the Ruins, but she still had a sore back and head, and her wrists still tingled from Flowey’s vines. She cradled her head, groaning quietly. Well, that had sucked. And though it was a bit of a blur, some of the things he’d said were terrifying- how could he hate her so much? How could he hate her family? She’d done nothing to him except fall into a hole he happened to be hiding under!

The girl shook her head lightly to clear her vision, fixed her eyepatch, and stood. The ruins were darker, but some of the torches still came alive as she walked past them, following the path deeper in. There wasn’t much else for it now. She’d have to go further before she could get out, and while she was frightened, she couldn’t help but bounce a little as she walked. A real, proper adventure, like the ones Frisk told her about! Now that was exciting!