I'm going insane about aconite and wrote this with feverish inspiration. idk if it makes sense but it's here now lmao. a little bit of aconite's origin story. may be deleted later lol
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"creature! being! dealmaker! I know you are here!"
wisteria scratched and pounded at the hallowed ground until her fingers bled. this place was old. forgotten. it had been a temple, once, centuries ago, but was rotted and overgrown now. this place was a crumbling remnant of a forgotten era. this place, a mossy and bug infested shrine to a spirit of old yore, was where you, if you were lucky, could find It.
she was 23 and half dead. she had nowhere to go. and she was so, so angry she wanted to rend the world to shreds.
she knew the stories. the whispers. there was a being here who despised the shallow games of mortals but, rarely, would grant wishes when called upon, if you were interesting enough. if you paid the price. It was someone who toyed with lives like hers. at this point, she didn't care what it took. she merely wanted vengeance so badly she thought she would drown in it.
suddenly, a clawed hand was on her shoulder. it was colder then ice. she stopped breathing, and didn't dare turn to look.
"you called, little mage? oh, don't look so shocked, this is what you wanted! ah, you're just a kid! come now, what could a little thing like you ask for? I'm not a candy shop, you know, but eh, this should be interesting…"
she was rarely speechless, but the being's voice had so much magic in it made her knees want to give out. how was that much power possible? and yet it's voice was sing-songy, that of a mad trickster; as if all her desperation was the funniest joke it had ever heard. "i, I-"
"I only came because you sounded so pitiful~ don't ruin my fun, little mage. speak of what you desire, before I get bored and smite you for bothering me."
"power. I know… I know you have power. I… need power. I need to burn this wretched world to the ground. what can you give me?"
"anything your pretty little head can come up with. if you can pay appropriately. what are you offering? you bare your little fangs so viciously- but it's all talk. I can taste your fear. your hate. your fury.
what will you give to see your will done? will you be like all the others, twisty-turning words to try trick me, to try and pay me in a stupid way? I won't have that you know, it won't work~"
it's accuracy unnerved her. she was terrified. she was furious. she ached, and she yearned, and so she spoke without restraint. "anything. but I don't have… a bit of my soul. I can give you a portion of m-my soul- half! I'll give you half! no will can be enforced if I am dead and unable to see it, s-so… half. maximum."
"half a soul… now that's an old-school price, right up there with firstborns and servitude, though I get the sense you wouldn't want to offer the second one.
it's been quite a while since I've had one like you. thirst for power is a common greed, but you… oh, you want these things for something else, don't you...?
tell you what, I'll take it. but that's not a lot. half a soul? why would I give you anything, for an incomplete product? and yikes, I can sense the damage from here. I don't see why we should do business…."
she thought frantically and offered the first thing that popped into her head, on impulse. "my name! my name as well. you may have it. don't beings like you, fae, savor names, for they represent one's heart of hearts? you may take my true name, it, it is wisteria, and do what you wish with it! in exchange, I want to be free from any and all beings, or states, or slavers, including you! I want my free will to remain free!
I want magical power that can bring this world to it's knees; I want power that can tear the sky asunder! and… acumen. skill- in enchantments, spells, anything useful; power is useless without the knowledge to wield it. give me these things, ensure I survive after you take what you want, and I will give you half of my soul, and my name."
"hm…. interesting. but what you want is more then what you can pay for. let me look and see what else you have…….. my you truly are destitute aren't you, nothing much material to offer… oh, I know! flesh!"
The thing took it's hand off her shoulder and clapped it's hands, sounding excited. "these things come in threes you know, since we're doing this traditionally, ~ mind, body, and magic. you've given me your name for the mind, soul for magic, but what of the blood you owe? hm… maybe an arm? you won't miss an arm too much, will you? or perhaps all of your teeth…?"
"I-"
she started to try and answer, but the fae cut her off.
"ah ah ah, you can't cheat and offer me a fingernail or a hair or a flake of skin, I want something whole. I'll even give you options~ flesh or bone? come now, don't tell me all that talk was for nothing? pah, such cowardice.. come on, little mage, speak up!"
she distantly felt as if maybe she was making a horrible, horrible mistake, but marshaled her will. she couldn't back down now… what was an organ she wouldn't miss? "I… I will need my strength, I cannot afford a limb. I have already lost an eye, I cannot give you another. my- my womb then? since you need flesh? my ability to bear children will be gone along with it… this bloodline will end with me. i-is that symbolic enough to satisfy the terms?"
"hmm.. unusual, unorthodox, most strange, I tell you, but I'll take it! ah, think of it, the first of my kind here in this AU to be offered such a thing! arms and legs and eyes and teeth and even hearts are so common, I've got something new! the bragging rights will be so entertaining~. I know at least 3 other fae who will be jealous. how marvelous! yes, yes, I'll take it."
the being's voice changed from it's trickster like levity to that of something else- something ancient and terrifying and binding, like a contract being branded on to her flesh.
"be warned, child.
a loss of true name will unmoor you from shore, remove you from the syntax of the multiverse- systems will crash when they try to read you, and you will never truly fit in any world.
a loss of half-soul will undo your sanity; the power you seek will destabilize you and you will go mad beneath it's weight.
a loss of womb destroys a realm of possibility, and biological children will no longer be on your path.
in exchange for these things, I will give you magical power, the acumen to wield it, and ensure that you survive the process- and that you will keep that free will you cherish so deeply. do you forsake half a soul, a name, and a womb for power, skill, and freedom?"
she felt her heart, hammering in her chest, and her soul, fluttering nervously, and steeled herself, clenching her fists. No. There was no fear. This is what she wanted. She straightened, and did not waver.
"I do. I forsake them. I give them freely. what I want is worth it. And besides… I've never fit anywhere, I will need to be a little insane for what I'm going to do, and no child deserves to come along on the path that I will tread."
"Then turn around. Shake my hand, little mage~ I'll give you what you desire, and take what is mine."
she shook it's hand. the world went black.
.......
when she woke up she was in the worst pain she'd ever been in her entire life. it was agony just to move, but she was back home, in the little room onyx had given her in their shop. she bounced a check off herself, to see if the deal was done.
half her soul was gone, and in the place her name should be, it merely read "REDACTED."
she tried to remember what she was once called. it was difficult to force the word past her mouth. she was.. a flower. a purple flower, the one that peeked from her turban and hung past her ear. the flower was called wisteria. she was called…. another voice screeched in her head and gave her a splitting headache. REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED, hey, quit trying to summon it back, it's mine now!
clearly that name was no longer hers to claim. she would need something else to call herself. what was another flower? another flower would be fitting, maybe… with great difficulty, she looked around her room. ah, she had hung some flowers to dry by the window, to later grind into various poisons/medicines. the front for onyx's illegal… business was an apothecary, after all. her eyes zeroed in on the worst among them. poisonous, a similar shade of purple to her original namesake when fresh, and called by many things. monkshood. wolfsbane. devil's helm, queen of poisons….
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that scene was too epic not to try and draw so here's a rough sketch of aconite's starfall spell during the golden festival rp over at @ratsoh-writes blog. the silhouette is supposed to be kay @the1920sisntaphasemom oop
How does dealmaker approach rosie when they meet in the woods (or wherever we said they met)
Does he recognize her as the fruit of his loins immediately
.......
the forest is beautiful. you don't know how deep you've gone into the endless, endless spread of trees and flowers and ferns.... until it's too late. children are curious creatures.
they've experienced so little of the world, is the thing. they can't help but be so. dealmaker knows that himself. his own curiosity is just as insatiable.
dealmaker is an old being, you see. he knows what blood smells like, tastes like, feels like when spilled- and he can feel his own bloodline as easily as breath. it's something he innately understands, a thread that stretches from his own veins across the generations, on and on and on, and he cannot help but see it whenever it is there.
many children have wandered into his glen, entranced by how the sun pours across the mossy stone like thick honey, the flowers that bloom sweet, the dancing shadows cast by leaves that glint gold even in the dead of winter. children are too simple for him. he doesn't waste the energy on them. a child's soul is an uncomplicated thing, and he has no desire to have anything dull.
this child carries within her that thread.
it winds around his skin and flesh and bone, pulled taut by the millennia, and he sees it glinting in her hair, in that quicksilver grin, in the curious, curious soul that peers back at him from behind her face.
he doesn't want to scare her. mortals are so easily frightened.
she sees him not, hidden away in the shadows.
a brilliant green and gold butterfly lands on her nose. it flaps around her, for a time, and leads her back to where she was meant to be.
I will someday write this out into a complete, fleshed out story, like I did that little one-shot about her fae deal, but for now have a map of sorts to aconite's backstory with quite a few sordid details and not a lot of grammatical correctness lmao
tw for blood, violence, torture, death, trafficking, allllll the bad shit
by the time she had hatched her plan of escape, she and onyx had been trapped together in the market for a little over a year. she did not tell him of it, of course, but carried it out when she felt she could take no more.
tricking their guard into aconite's cell was easy- she had watched his behavior for long enough to manipulate him. a comment here, a stumble there, and there he was, unlocking her cage, muttering about needy brats getting sick for no reason. ripping out his jugular with nothing but her teeth was harder, but she made do.
she used his keys to unlock her shackles, her collar, and breathed freely for the first time in a long, long while; her magic was back, crackling beneath her skin in a way she had never truly noticed before; she hadn't realized how much she missed it.
she unlocked onyx next, who had narrowed his eyes with a wary sort of consideration as he looked at her bloodstained mouth. was he judging her? no, the glint in his eyes… it was.. approval? her friend was impressed by her viciousness. she didn't know if she felt proud or a bit ill at that. perhaps both.
he rubbed his wrists when the shackles fell, then simply took a corner of his tattered suit and began wiping her face and fingers, saying nothing. she took the acceptance for what it was, and told him her plan for their escape. she would free whatever other trafficked slaves she could, tell them to run and run far, but in the end, she could not save everyone.
she could kill them all, though. free them from this hell, and punish the bastards who imprisoned them. it was a mercy she had wanted, in the darkest days of being curled up in that cage, slowly withering and waiting to be sold.
she supposed it was lucky the market was hidden deep in a uncharted forest, reachable only by helicopter or by the river that ran through it. there was a lot for the fire to feed on, and the majority of the wealthy patron's boats ran on oil and sentient suffering…
all she needed to do was spill a little gasoline in a few spots and cast a spark. her magic liked sparking. it liked fire and the all consuming nature of it; she was far more wild, back then. a brazen young thing drunk on adrenaline and terror- it made for an effective combination, at least. after she burned the market to the ground, she went on the run with onyx- the trafficking organization had a vendetta against her, now, for killing so many of their precious workers and cargo.
the terror and fury of that day never really left her. her anger straightened her back and steadied her hand and warmed her marrow from the biting cold of LV and blood lust. she wanted revenge against the people who had ruined her- who killed her parents, who sold her, who stole her childhood from her and forced blood on her hands- who did not have the mercy to kill her when she was still young and confused and unaware of the world's atrocities. she was perhaps 9 or 10, now, but she felt like she was 50.
they forced her to survive. they would pay for that mistake, and she would make sure of it.
when she haltingly asked onyx to train her, he had studied her for a long, long moment, as if dissecting her very soul, and finally, simply, said, "you will regret this, someday."
he set on to beginning her training while they ran from their hunters.
onyx was not a kind master, not in the slightest. he lived by the principle that if one wanted skill, they must suffer for it- pain was the greatest teacher, after all. when she was young, aconite would run through weapons drills until her fingers bled, and still onyx would sniff imperiously, playful grin never having left his face, and tell her to keep going until her bones broke.
only when she could no longer move would she be allowed rest- and her guardian's somewhat softer side would come through. he would carry her to bed, bandage and cast her broken body, and heal her up until she was tip top shape for the next morning. then it would begin anew.
he taught her lessons, and while she repeated the same forms until they were perfect, while they sparred, onyx kept both his hands tied behind his back, to 'keep it somewhat fair'. still she could not land a single blow on him.
"potential without refinement is useless, child. when forging a weapon, one must hammer out the impurities to make stronger steel. it remains to be seen if you are the steel being tempered or an impurity to be discarded."
he would have an unreadable grin on his face as he said this, his head tilted, and it would make aconite want to work harder just to be able to punch it off his face.
so, she trained, for years on end. every weapon she could possibly learn, in every way she could possibly learn it- if she had to destroy herself a thousand times over for it all to grow back stronger, so be it. soon she was growing strong enough to help kill the people hunting them- but it was still not enough. both onyx and herself were paranoid people by nature- the running would not stop before every last one of their hunters was dead.
the mental side of her training was no less brutal. meditation instead of sleep was common- onyx would make her sit, in a trance, for days, with no food or water, and force her to reflect.
"take stock of yourself and your weaknesses," he said.
"separate emotion from your every decision- until your every choice made even in the heat of battle comes from logic, not feeling. only then will you begin to use true strength."
they would spar, and he would say cruel, cruel things to catch her off guard- to harden her, strengthen her skin, regardless of how much it hurt. if an opponent sensed a weakness, they would not hesitate to use it, so it was necessary to either grow accustomed or perish. that wasn't his only teaching strategy, but it was one of the more painful ones.
he thought it was of particular import she learned logic, deduction, and battle strategy- often onyx would immobilize or cripple her, create puzzles, attach them to some sort of lethal scenario, and abandon her there. he would pull her out if she was close to death, sure- but not a moment before.
"you must think your way out, or die. your mind is your greatest weapon- do not allow it to grow dull."
she learned that the mark of a true assassin was one who had mastered themselves- their emotions, intellect and physical prowess was to be beneath their complete control. and so, she chased this goal ruthlessly. again, and again, and again she would train, break, then train again.
pain no longer made her flinch. cruelty, difficulty, sadness, anger- compared to her goals, her skills, her training, they became unimportant afterthoughts. at the state he had left her in, even her mild annoyance was lethal enough to kill the average civilian. once she reached this point, onyx stopped training her completely.
"I have taught you all you need. now, it is up to you to grow and maintain this skill. go forth and do things I have not done."
he gave her a mysterious smile, then. "I'm curious to see what you get up to, kid." despite it all, she found she did not regret her training as he had warned, so long ago- not a bit.
their first spar after her mastery, she was pleased to see onyx needed to use both hands to keep up, and was satisfied when she managed to punch him in the face, just as she swore to.
she did give him a hug right afterwards, though, in a rare show of affection; he was cruel teacher, and a barely passable parental figure, but she was grateful to him nonetheless.
she was still hungry for betterment, for that was all she had chased the entire time onyx had trained her, so she sought it from other avenues. she struck out on her own for a few years in her 20s- joined the military and found their training laughable in comparison, but their strategic efficiency intriguing. she was a fool and grew sloppy- fond of her fellow soldiers, and furious when they all died.
sorrow and love and anger- they weakened you. and in her one moment of weakness in years, she sold half of her soul to a fae. the rage that had filled her then- some part of her had thought it would drive her mad all by itself, all mixed up with her old vendetta, and so she sought to make use of it. avenge herself, and her comrades.
what a short-sighted fool she had been. it may have been the biggest mistake she had ever made, or the smartest thing she had ever done, but she digressed. she wasn't sane to begin with- some part of her mind had broken those first few months in a cage- and thought more strength was a fair exchange for stability she had deemed impossible anyway.
she returned home to onyx, missing a name, a womb, and half a self, and began to plot- if she wanted to take down the people who ruined her life, she had to be of equal or greater power to them; difficult, since they were a trafficking cartel older that she could imagine and infamous all over the world, but she was not one to shy away from difficult tasks.
slowly, surely, she amassed her power in different ways- first espionage and blackmail, then the acquisition of varied, skilled followers, and finally, her final show of power- the assassination of the man responsible for the hell she lived in and annihilation of everything he built. she remembered it as if it was yesterday.
the brutal training, the death, the years of carving herself up for parts- it came down to that moment. her vengeance. she had finally tracked down the man who had started it all. the one who had ordered the murder of her parents, had her kidnapped- the man who, depending on how you looked at it either created her or destroyed her.
she remembered it so clearly it was as if that whole day had been seared behind her eyelids, there in burning snapshots whenever she blinked. she had pulled her gloves on, took a deep breath- told her subordinates to have her base ready and to not follow.
he worked in such a nice, clean building, considering who he was and the blood on his hands. his guards were easily dealt with, achilles tendons severed, and she stalked in to his office, a dart flying into his neck before he could look up.
"do not bother struggling. you will be paralyzed from neck down momentarily."
he struggled, could not move, and reddened in anger, spittle flying as he screamed at her. she watched with detached amusement that just barely hid her disdain.
"who the fuck are you, and how dare you! guards! guards! grab this intruder and have her tortured- I want to know how the hell she got in here!"
at this, she gave him a mocking pout. "oh, but I killed all of your guards. the few still alive are twitching on the ground, bleeding out.
they will be dead soon, because I deigned to give them quick deaths."
she walked slowly, deliberately, up to his desk, her boots clicking against the floor, and patted his head patronizingly.
"a mercy I will not give you. what a shame."
he fell into shocked silence when she grabbed his face- old, flabby, and covered in stubble, and studied it, turning it this way and that, a manic smile on her lips.
"I expected the man who ruined my life to look more… demonic, somehow.
but you're just an old, decrepit man, as mortal as we all are." she pulled out a knife with gloved fingers and pressed it against his fat neck.
"you, the great, powerful head of the cartel, the man who commands legions of wretches to torture the innocent and abuse the vulnerable, to whom suffering is a commodity-
you dare not to recognize a victim of yours?"
she slammed her hands on the table, her voice clear and ringing like a death knell.
"tell me, pitiful creature- do you know who I am? how you have wronged me?"
he regarded her face for a single, terrified moment, then shook his head. "w-who are you?" her eyes darkened.
this was the nature of the casual atrocity creatures like this man committed; names, faces, beings, none of that mattered in the face of profit and entertainment. she smiled at him calmly. too calmly. "I am your death. you should have killed me when you had the chance."
she broke his fingers one by one, then his limbs, but his screams were uninteresting. such pitiful pleading and bargaining and wailing- she had all her limbs broken before, and she certainly didn't whine so much. he begged for his life as she flayed his skin from flesh, offered her every kind of pleasure and boon in the world, and none of it moved her. soon she tired of it.
"how disappointing. you're not even fun to torture. it seems you will rob me of this satisfaction, too."
she sighed, and severed his head in a fluid motion, watching dispassionately as it fell to from his body to the floor. it felt empty. there was no reward. no joy. it was a profound sense of dissatisfaction- after all she had sacrificed, all she had bled for, her victory here rang hollow.
all she felt was… weariness. exhaustion. it was done.
she cleaned up the last dregs of the organization, stole all their wealth, intel, and weaponry, and just like that, the most infamous trafficking cartel in the world was gone.
she left his head in the office of their country's defense chief, for it was he who had ordered countless pointless wars sitting in his cushy chair to try and catch the filth she had slain. he had ordered the death of her comrades- it was only fair for him to stare mortality in face, in her opinion. it made the news, and the world was abuzz for days- but of course they never found her. how would they? she left no survivors and no trace. for all the public knew, the man was killed by a vengeful ghost.
but there were whispers, in the underworld. of a new, big name emerging from the shadows, of a syndicate that was not to be crossed. it's insane, ruthless head had annihilated one of their own so easily that it made them all wary- and intrigued. there was no power vacuum, for this woman had already taken it. smarter leaders saw the opportunity and attempted to ally with her, and she took the offers that were advantageous and crushed the pathetic attempts to dispose of her.
soon, aconite's little company was one of the most feared assassination and information guilds in the world. well connected, wealthy, with every member loyal and immensely skilled, but still it was never enough to fill the gaping emptiness within her.
there was no need to run, anymore. she and onyx were safe, powerful, feared. yet that paranoia always lingered, urging her on. she had to maintain her reputation. she had to keep her prowess. it was the only way she could ensure their survival. from what? there were no threats. no, arrogance was dangerous. she must do better. better. better.
it had become almost a compulsion, at that point, this relentless thirst for power. she didn't know who she was without it anymore- or if there would be anything left of her if she stopped chasing it. this greedy, ravenous hunger for knowledge and strength and intel left her perpetually unsatisfied and exhausted- it defined her now. had defined her for years.
at some point, onyx was able to understand the scope of the monstrosity he had created, and watched worriedly as she kept on burning herself to the ground in the name of progress. he begged her to slow down, to stop-
"aconite, REDACTED, kid, you've won. all you're doing now is digging a grave. let go of the shovel before you bury us all... you're hurting yourself. you won't last."
she scoffed at him, dismissed him- had he been any other man, she might have killed him for the insolence. how could she stop? when he set her on this path? was it not he who taught her to take before someone takes from you? that survival was a luxury afforded to the strong? that in this world, it was kill or be killed?
she would be there, on her throne of thorns and blood, and wait for her next potential killer, but she knew the truth deep down. in the end, she knew- her killer was already there, sitting on that throne, beneath her skin, and that when death came for her it would be wearing her own face.
oh, well. she had killed herself a thousand times over, for her empire. she had already suffered a thousand little deaths of her soul with every choice she made, all the way back to that first taste of torn flesh betwixt her teeth. she measured the scales, tit for tat. that was all it came to- exchanges. innocence for freedom. souls for power. sanity for progress. it no longer mattered, anyway.
this was originally supposed to be a long au fic deep-diving into sans (morel's) and papyrus' (porcini's) lives underground in mycotale. and frisks eventual rescue of monsterkind- but I lost focus after writing the first chapter. idk if I'll write any more. I am on a writing roll today tho lmao
papyrus got up at dawn. that was how he woke, every day, without fail, since he began his training; his body had grown accustomed to rising with the morn. he groaned and stretched as he peered outside, greenish light from the spores filtering in through the blinds as he cracked his back.
light snow. spores floating in the air, as usual. quiet- none of the usual spell-fire. he had learned not to trust silence.
he went through his daily routine. a very brief shower to not waste clean water, clothes pressed and crisp, badges arranged neatly, weapons and boots polished- ready for action.
he headed downstairs to find sans at the kitchen table, tapping away at his ancient laptop and holding a steaming mug of ground chicory. his expression was grave, dark smudges beneath his eyes telling of another sleepless night.
sans wordlessly pushed a cup and a slice of toast towards him. coffee had long stopped coming with the ration shipments, but chicory, a bitter, floral weed, grew well in the cracked corners of the waterfall's caves. it made for a poor substitute, but it was something.
he sipped at it with a grimace. "GOOD MORNING, SANS. WHAT ARE THE READINGS FOR TODAY?"
sans' concentrated frown only grew deeper. "airborne spores are at 32.4%; higher than last week. 16 deaths last night. no progress in lab, but we must be patient.. though it feels like we're doing fuck-all at this point."
he sighs heavily and takes a bite of stale toast. "WE TAKE WHAT WE CAN GET, I SUPPOSE. BE ON YOUR GUARD. THE CULT OF DECAY HAS BEEN TOO QUIET LATELY. THEY ARE PLANNING AN ATTACK, I'M CERTAIN OF IT."
sans scoffs,his eye socket twitching slightly. papyrus knows his frustration is more directed at the situation then it is at him. "they're always planning something, paps, y' don't have to worry so much. I can handle them."
papyrus drains his chicory in one go and places the mug on the table. "I WILL WORRY REGARDLESS. JUST..."
he trails off, his jaw clicking slightly. he wants to tell sans to be careful, but he knows care means little when the world is destroying itself. what else could he say? he merely turns away and puts on the scarf sans had knitted for him- deep purple, to match his uniform, and gives him a crisp salute. "I WILL BE HOME BY SEVEN. YOUR LUNCH IS IN THE FRIDGE. SEND WORD IF YOU NEED ANYTHING."
they had long stopped saying goodbye as a custom. it felt too final.
papyrus marched out to his usual patrol route, his face blank and his eyes focused. nothing... amiss. the usual timid hustle and bustle of town was present, but there was a tension there that unnerved him. snowdin seemed to be holding its breath. either something was about to happen… or something already had.
he headed towards base and watched as all of his soldiers lined up and saluted, a fist over their chests. the crease between his brow-bones deepened and he resisted a scowl. two monsters were missing. dead, defected, or lazy, he would soon find out.
"AT EASE. LUITENENT, REPORT."
the luitenent saluted, gulped slightly, and began.
"Squad 3 encountered four armed cult members at ruin's gate. They seemed to be trying to break it open with motive to assassinate the former queen.
Two soldiers fell, and one cultist escaped. Another has been taken into custody, though they refuse to speak, and the other two were killed in battle.
Other patrol routes remain secure and the rations shipment from New Home is set to arrive on schedule. No rouges sighted."
papyrus regarded this for a moment, sparing a brief prayer for the fallen. the attack did not surprise him much, except for it's small scale- perhaps the group was a splinter faction? or maybe this was an attempt to lull them into a false sense of security, a cover up for a larger attack…. hm.
but no rouges… this was unusual. rouges, or those with extreme cases of Rot, were violent and unpredictable, but there was always at least one wandering the wastes. none at all... that was suspicious. he clasped his hands behind his back and began issuing the day's orders.
"SEND A MESSAGE TO THE CAPITAL THAT WE HAVE CAPTURED A TRAITOR AND HAVE THEM TRANSFERRED TO NEW HOME; IF WE CANNOT GET ANYTHING OUT OF THEM, I'M SURE GENERAL UNDYNE CAN. THIS MAY BE ABLE DRAW OUR ENEMY OUT OF HIDING; THEY MIGHT WANT TO DEAL WITH THEIR COMRADE BEFORE THEY SPILL ANY SECRETS.
TIGHTEN SECURITY ALONG THE RATION'S ROUTE; THAT IS THEIR MOST LIKELY TARGET. OTHER PATROLS MAY PROCEED AS USUAL. CALL TWO SENIOR CADETS IN TO REPLACE OUR FALLEN FOR THE RUIN'S GATE POST, AND HAVE THE MOVEMENT REPORTS ON MY DESK BY NOON.
I WILL BE INVESTIGATING THE LAST ROUGE SIGHTING PERSONALLY. SEND WORD OF ANY NEW DEVELOPMENTS. MOVE OUT."
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
he encounters a sad, but familiar sight.
two monsters, surrounded by townsfolk pointing weapons at them in terror. a mother, protecting her red-eyed, infected child who was foaming at the mouth and attacking anything that moved with wild, untamed magic and blood-lust. the mother looked desperate. the child was a rouge.
they knew they wouldn't last long. they wanted to survive. The Rot wanted to spread farther, and the type this little one had, the decay- it did not care who or what was in its way. it would consume without pause. it would devour them all, as it's meeker cousin strains had tried.
the people parted for him; they knew better then to get in the way of an execution. he unsheathed his sword, staring the mother and child down as he summoned his magic. his LV made the air feel like static, grating and muffled and ominous. copper sparks crackled around his hands and bounced off his sword in little arcs, his eyes aglow.
"MADAME. STEP ASIDE. YOUR DAUGHTER IS A DANGER TO ALL THAT ARE HERE, INCLUDING YOU."
she throws herself over her daughter. the girl growls and throws attacks indiscriminately. the mother is barely able to dodge a bullet to the head that screams of mad, confused, desperate intent. papyrus sidesteps the attack easily.
"No, no, no, not her, not my daughter, take me instead, captain I beg of you, take me instead- we can, we can wait for a cure, I can keep her contained, captain please-"
papyrus lets her plead, his expression without feeling. he didn't want to kill the girl, truly. he wished he could spare her. he wanted to believe that there could be a better way.
but he had a duty to fulfill. they did not have the resources to spare to keep the girl contained. this was all he could do. he would be stone where his people were salt. he would give the child a painless death with honor, however bitter it made him. and he would do the same for her mother, if she got in the way of protecting everyone else.
"WE BOTH KNOW I HAVE NO CHOICE, MADAME. STEP ASIDE. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DIE HERE."
she tremulously sets her jaw and summons magical attacks herself, throwing her snarling, rabid daughter behind her, who releases more wild magic into the forest surrounding them. a pine tree falls and the others watching scramble to get out of it's way. to her credit, the mother doesn't flinch, splinters flying through the air.
"I would kill and die for her. I knew you wouldn't understand, you emotionless bastard-"
papyrus knocks her out with single hit, and watches as she crumples to the ground.
the girls manic eyes clear for a split second as she stares at her mother, collapsed in the snow. she sounds afraid. it makes him ache.
"….mama?"
he beheads the child in one strike, containing the red spores that spread with the girl's dust with a small, sphere-like barrier of bone. he carefully placed it in his dimensional box so he could submit it to the labs later.
he glances at the other folk, who stare, petrified, and nods at the monster unconscious on the ground. his tone brooked no argument.
"TAKE HER TO THE NEAREST BASE AND SAY CAPTAIN SERIF SENT YOU. WE WILL PROVIDE MEDICAL CARE IF SUPPLIES ALLOW."
papyrus saluted the small crowd, then turned on his heel and stalked off to finish his patrol, flicking the blood off of his sword and sheathing it. he tasted iron. his bones felt gritty with remains of the fallen. his boots crunched through the snow and he studied it grimly. it was always hard to tell how much of the white that blanketed snowdin was dust.
he kept his back ramrod straight and marched on, his oath in his ears alongside the girl's last, terrified squeak, echoing in sync, rattling around in his skull as he tried to quiet his grief.
"….mama?"
"I swear on my soul to protect monsterkind. I swear to serve with loyalty and dignity. I swear to follow the orders of my king. I swear to fulfill my duties with honor. for king and country, hearth and home."
he wondered how much of home was left. how much of it he had destroyed with his own two hands. he took solace in the small mercies, though- that should he ever succumb the decaying Rot himself, his fellow soldiers would kill him without a second thought.
sans taps away at his laptop, near feverish as he calculates and recalculates and recalculates. no. the spore concentration had increased. the Rot was spreading faster, growing stronger. they didn't have time-
sans forced himself to take a deep breath. it was a 0.2% increase from last week. it was manageable. it was manageable, they would deal, the mountain would hold, they wouldn't starve….
he hears screams in his ear, the mushrooms growing out of his head pulsing in time with them. the tortured wails of all those he could not save. the wretched cries of his people, reaching, wanting, and left hungry, crumbling, accusing-
his eye-socket twitches and he pinches the bridge of his nose, swearing. not real, he reminds himself. auditory hallucinations were a common side effect, and it would not do for him to lose his mind now. if they were real, papyrus would have already left in answer of whatever screams were out there- his brother was one to act now and ask questions later. instead he could faintly hear the sound of water running as his brother took his usual morning shower. he stands to make him something to eat before he heads out.
he frowns at their empty cupboards and takes the last of their bread and a can of dried, powdered chicory. he places the bread in their near-dead toaster and sets their old teakettle to boil. soon enough there's a plate of stale toast and two steaming mugs on the table, and he quietly pushes papyrus' meager breakfast towards him as he nurses his mug and re-reads the numbers.
he barely hears his brother's morning greeting, as caught up in his own head he was. he tells papyrus not to worry about him. there was already enough to worry about. he did not say goodbye to his little brother as he marched out of the door with so much purpose. he was not so cruel as to remind him of last goodbyes.
sans grabbed the lunch papyrus had prepped from the fridge, gathered his notebooks and laptop, slung on his frayed lab coat, and shortcutted to the labs.
the labs were a different kind of beast then what remained of their crumbling, fungi-infested infrastructure. centered in hotland and close to the CORE, it was a gargantuan building that had been expanded upon multiple times, fortified with magical steel-alloy and crawling with guards. second to only the royal palace in security, this was where sans and the few surviving scientists of the underground tried to battle the infection that was killing them all head on.
sans flashed his ident pass to the guard at the door and gave a curt nod to doctor alphys as she greeted him when he entered. the woman was a nervous wreck during any social interaction, but her mind was a brilliant one, and sans respected skill.
"D-dr. Serif, what will y-you be doing t-today?"
"same as usual, dr. alphys. the synthesis team will continue working on the new fortification alloy under my supervision, and I will be in the agriculture lab. the newest fungicide looks promising."
alphys mutters to herself, considering. she grew remarkably less nervous when there was science involved. "hmm… send s-samples of the fungicide to the medical labs. I want to see if they could be synthesized into a t-treatment with alterations; we must attack from all a-angles, after all."
sans gave a sharp nod in acknowledgement, then turned and headed towards his lab.
it always smelled strongly of formaldehyde and ethanol here, sour and clinical. his lab and office was a mess, but it was one he knew how to navigate, frantic papers and whiteboards full of notes adorning the space, sample jars and petri dishes stacked all the way to the ceiling, and vats of various compounds pushed against the walls.
he pulled out the sample jar and petri dish that he had been working on labelled in his messy scrawl: the mutated strain of The Rot that had infected their wheat.
The Rot worked uncannily like an intelligent enemy, though sans always dismissed his more unhinged colleagues arguments to its sentience. it mutated disturbingly quickly, though all of it's strains came from a mother genetic code, and jumped from host to host, species to species, with extreme efficacy- likely because of it's magical nature. it behaved like a virus but grew like a fungus. some variants ate through stone and mortar. others plants and crops. and the worst of them all, the infecting Rot, the one that hunted monsters ruthlessly and seemed to affect every person slightly differently. sometimes it killed. sometimes it didn't. it was like trying to fight a creature that changed disguises at the drop of a hat.
he had purified and grown the wheat-killer strain, and was now going to test which of his proposed synthetic fungicides would work against it. slow, meticulous work, but essential nonetheless. it narrowed their options.
his first test of the day failed. as did the second, and third, and twentieth, but he would keep going…
he was pulled out of his focus by a timid hand tapping his shoulder. he turned to glance at the small crowd of lab techs that had clearly scurried here together to ask him something.
scowling thunderously, he pulled away from his microscope to answer questions from his clueless subordinates. his voice was sharp and clipped.
"I gave you those projects because I believed you could complete them with minimal supervision, but it seems I overestimated your intelligence. how could you ask me a question that anyone with basic schooling could answer?I would have been better off growing my own assistants from the fungi itself you incompetent piece of-"
sans ranted at them and knew damn well that he was being unfair. most of the lab technicians and students they had taken in were half trained since their universities were of the first to collapse. the majority of them were armed with textbooks, the surviving journals and papers, and self-study. their incompetence was systemic, not a personal failing.
he wanted to teach them, properly, but they did not have the time to do so. he wished he could do it all himself, but he could not. he had to settle for barked verbal lessons in between experiments and hope it was enough; and demand better when it wasn’t. anything less then perfection would get them all killed, and sans had no desire to feel any more dust on his hands.
"our studies are the last defense we have against the rot. you can come here ready to be efficient, or stay out and die as one of the unmourned thousands.
you know what you signed up for so either take some goddamn initiative or get out of my laboratory. refer to the following titles and journals, then return with real questions before I take those books and beat you to death with them!"
most of the techs looked cowed and scampered off to find the textbooks he spat at them. he caught a stray glare aimed at his back and narrowed his eye lights at the little froggit who dared do so, pointing at them threateningly. they squeaked.
"affirm your base knowledge and come back if you don't get it. I don't have time for hand-holding. move it, people!"
he turns back to his testing. another failure, damn it all. time to try the next one.
papyrus had to kill three of his fellow monsters today. he stubbornly refused to think about it as he reviewed his troop movements, finished his paperwork, and cleaned his office. he had to keep a cool head. if he faltered, his soldiers would falter- so he remained steadfast and straight-spined as he walked home.
he did not… regret his choices, per say. he was good at war, at killing. at battle, at strategy. at making the hard decisions and remaining steady without fail. and who else would fulfill a role then one who was best at it? his fault was lain in the fact that he yearned for there to be no death at all. and he yearned so deeply it made his every step walked as a soldier feel burdened with sin.
he walked in silently and sat on their old coach, just…. staring. he turned the TV on, but didn't really watch the shows that flicker before him. he can't break now. he can't. if he falls to pieces who will protect everyone? who will protect his brother? who…
despite all of his stoicism, there's howling, desperate creature inside of him that scrabbles at his bones and begs to simply stop. to rest. to lay down his sword and let whatever happened pass him by. he bows his head, and he almost wished he could simply walk out into the snow and let it swallow him. dust to dust. at least sans wouldn't have to bury him.
he tries to remember his training, from so long ago when the world started to end. as flowers are grown by rain, so is the soul grown by war. battle is his crucible. duty is his way. suffering may be his only reward, but that pain will shape him into someone better. there is no light without darkness, and he must endure for the sake of all that depend on him. his task is a thankless one, but it is not without honor. or so he is told.
he doesn't feel grown, or bettered. his soul feels no honor in culling the defenseless. destroying the wretched few for the good of many. he just hurts. he's not strong enough…
there's a fine tremor shaking his bones and he clenches his hands to try and still it. his marrow aches. he can see them, flashes of all those who's lives he snuffed out at the corners of his vision. just out of his peripheral; never directly facing him, but taunting him all the same. he's swallowed up by the ghosts that haunt his every step, every choice, wailing into the black on how he so terribly failed them. he-
he startles when he feels something being pressed into his hand. a steaming mug of…. hot chocolate? he glances at sans, who looks at him flatly, the blue light of the TV washing his face in a cool glow. there's something in his eyes that papyrus is too tired to try and read. he settles next to papyrus and leans his head on his shoulder. papyrus sags, his skull tapping sans', and doesn't bother to hide the full body shudder that escapes him. he places the mug on the table so he could curl in on himself.
"I……"
"I know, paps."
there is no respite for them, not as they burn and bleed in the name of making a better tomorrow. this is something he knows well. he drowns in it, most days. but here, with his brother beside him, he cannot hide behind the usual desperate lie.
"WE'RE LOSING, AREN'T WE?"
sans is serious, a bit of his temper sparking in his eye-lights, and somehow papyrus takes comfort in it. if sans still has enough in him to be angry, maybe they hadn't lost everything yet.
he can't remember when his big brother turned from a chronically unserious prankster to a foul-tempered, world-weary man, but then again, he can't remember when he became the duty-bound shell he is now.
"it doesn't matter where we think we're heading, paps. we keep trying. maybe fate will surprise us… and if not. we can say we fought. until the end. that makes it worth it. that means we didn't give up."
sans tries for a smile. those smiles used to come so easily. now it's the barest of twitches. "besides, I'd still have you, yeah? if we're going down, at least it's together. at least we tried to do the right thing while the world went to shit."
he holds papyrus' hand. papyrus feels it shake. "at least we're not alone."
papyrus closes his eyes, leans on his brother, and tries to settle the bitter, grieving creature in his bones so that it would not torment him so.
"THERE IS THAT. WE TRY. AND WE'RE NOT ALONE."
perhaps what he did was not honorable. but it was necessary. that would have to be enough for now. he could not obsess over his failures, not when there was so much left to protect and death loomed over them like a constant warning. there was no time to search for the wasted meaning behind it all.
whatever he felt, he would let it be lost to the coming dawn. his duty was not done, after all. stone and salt. he would be stone, for a little while longer.
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Wisty, what's the plan for aconite now that she's magicless
she's essentially become an ex supervillain, cursed with immortality and locked up in a magical glass box of a cell. despite it all her new digs aren't awful. bigger than the first cage from the black market, with plumbing and running water, regular, if gross food, and the chains that bind her every limb are changed regularly with new runes so that they don't eat at her skin.
onyx is locked up nearby so she can have a real screaming row about her childhood and trauma whenever she wants and he'll just sit there and take it and agree and cry and their guards will take notes because oooo insight to the madwoman's psyche! the royals will be pleased
the royals use her expertise a lot. she's a genius in various aspects. spellcraft, geopolitics, battle strategy, war, murder, hacking, and of course, spywork. she's the most disrespectful asset they've got at the moment, and with her mind working all the time to counter her boredom of being locked away, she only gets smarter and snarkier over the years. she softens. grows friendlier, if no less dangerous. at first her advice comes with supervillain monologues about ripping hearts out with her bare hands but those subside with time.
her curse from The Dealmaker makes it so she can't die or use magic until she atones and genuinely feels sorry; so her body is frozen in time from the moment she cast the black hole spell, covered in unnerving, glowing iridescent cracks. she's functionally immortal. she ends up a bit of a royal secret, trapped for a couple centuries in her cell in the palace, and countless royals go to her for advice because as tinged with evil it may be most of her words are strategically sound and even wise at times.
she serves the country without realizing it, and eventually saves just as many people she's killed. she'll grow fond of her rotating guards; did they all used to be that young? she'll forgive onyx as he grows old, weep bitterly when he dies and finally understand this is what she did to so many people, that she was loyal to him, that she was foolish for a long time. she'll finally feel remorse. the cage will collapse, her chains will fall away. and aconite, being a wisteria, able to unlock anything with magic, will walk free a kinder woman, a mage once more. heroic, even, in some aspects. she'll be aging again.
she'll "escape" by traveling to the heart of the deepest woods, building a little cottage by hand, and living the rest of her days as a wild mage of the forest who bakes bread and offers kind little spells and sarcasm smack in the middle of the prettiest flower field in ebbott. the royals leave her be. the dealmaker forgives her, mostly because at that point it's been centuries he can't remember why that foolish thing she did as a 'girl' made him so mad, kids will be kids (she nearly ended the world but eh), and returns her name and soul on whim. the renamed wisteria reaches the form all wists want; random powerful forest cryptid.
she dies alone, but okay, at the end of her natural lifespan. she never marries or takes children. her bloodline and legacy of pain and hope in equal measure dies with her. wisteria trees overgrow that clearing where her cottage once stood, afterwards. it stays a beautiful place, for a long time.
there was a pattern, a blueprint, to black markets. a rhythm in the undertow, chaotic with thousands of shiny things and cheap stalls vying for attention, growing dirtier and poorer the further you were from the center, with a dark, seedy underbelly you would only find if you knew where to look.
sure, the majority of illicit activity was done through the internet, nowadays, but the killers and the thieves still needed their places to gather and trade and do business.
aconite found herself there on her usual search for intel. the constant hunger-need-want for knowledge that fueled her often drove her to the worst places, but she could handle herself easily. it was a simple thing, to watch the streets, to keep her ears pricked for stray whispers. she was a master at melting into a crowd and being just a another nameless nobody when she wanted to be- her training had ensured it.
which is why she was surprised when a withered hand grabbed her arm- the lack of malicious intent in the grip the only thing keeping her from cutting it off immediately.
it was an old, wizened women, covered in mismatched layers of clothing, sitting in a tiny stall propped up in an alley. her hand was cold, from where it gripped her arm tightly, her withered voice a low croon.
"lost daughter, burning girl, come, come! care to let me tell you a fortune?"
aconite wrenched her arm away from the woman's grip, prepared to tell her off, but something made her pause. the woman. her milky pale eyes, succumbed to cataracts. there was knowing, in that gaze, and it intrigued her. true seers were rare. had she found one?
she sat on the little stool in front of the stall, and steeped her fingers.
"what fortune?"
the woman chuffed, amused.
"have I interested you, she-who-burned?"
aconite was rarely caught off guard, but this, this was not just interesting- it was dangerous. she-who-burned. there were no other survivors, of that day. how did this woman know? she leaned in, her gaze colder.
"what do you know?"
she grinned, her teeth mostly gone, the few left in her mouth yellow and cracked. the smile stretched her wrinkles. she gripped aconite's hand, as if to read her palm, but said nothing that she'd ever heard at any palm reader.
"ah, she-who-burned, you never rose from the ashes. you were not reborn. you just kept dying.
you carry much. you've tainted much, with blood and fire. your every step is another brick for the altar built to your vengeance."
aconite raised a skeptical brow. somewhat accurate, she supposed, but with too many riddles for her liking.
"perhaps that was a lucky guess on your part. go on."
she studied aconite's hand intently, tracing the lines of her palm and fingers, aconite's fingertips hard and calloused from years of labor.
"you bear the mark of a revolutionary in your half soul, she-who-burned-then-became-a-husk. but only the living can alter that which is written, and you are not living.
the tumult is eating away at you. you carry fire in your marrow, and the smoke poisons you still."
aconite scowls and snatches her hand back, her patience thin. was this woman looking down on her, somehow? was it a curse or spell, of some sort? she felt no active magic, or spells… she didn't understand, and that irked her.
"what does that mean? cease your riddles, madwoman. if you are trying to warn me of some bad omen, be straight about it."
the woman hummed mysteriously, looking almost amused. aconite wanted to kill her for the audacity.
"I do not warn, or advise. I only reveal what must be- so that you may brace yourself for what is to come. nothing you do will change fate.
heed me, burning girl. your path will not satisfy you. your soul will forever hunger. it will consume the world and swallow the stars. death wears your face, but beneath your skin, you are hollow.
only when you can no longer take, no longer steal or succor from the world you so despise, when you learn the value of the weaknesses you so readily discard- only then will you ever be whole."
aconite glared and spat at the woman's feet- this was the hag wanted to tell her? preachy garbage about morality? how absurd.
"you dare underestimate me? I am fulfilled as I will ever be. I am strong. whatever tragedy you think you see is probably something a fool like you can't hope to understand.
this was a waste of time."
in a fit of pettiness, aconite threw handful of money on the ground and stalked off, fuming.
she didn't believe in bullshit like that anyway.
she'd write her own fate.
……............
It was only later, much later, after her capture, that aconite would understand that she had been given a prophecy. that her fate had been sealed from the start, not because it was impossible to change, but because she had refused to. she was too single minded, wrapped up in her schemes and her atrocities, to see the truth before her.
she wondered if that woman was laughing, now, at what a fool she had been.
he comforts his brother, because that is what older brothers do, as best as he can, but he had to be honest with him. there was no escaping the inevitable. the numbers did not lie, and the current statistics did not speak of a cause that was "winning."
yet he clung to foolish hopes. he extrapolated beyond logical reason, not following any rational thought, but instead a manic, feverish need to make all their effort mean something. he has the funniest feeling that the apocalypse had broken them in different ways. papyrus used to be the idealist of the two; perhaps the guard's brutal training had beaten such idle thoughts out of him.
it hurt him to watch the light in his brother's eyes slowly sputter out and die, so he adapted. he was never one to shy away from responsibilities; he would just have to have enough faith for the both of them. the lingering habit of numb, empty hopelessness from his youth would merely have to be stamped out with vengeance, and well, spite and anger were great motivators.
even if, perhaps, his dogged determination was beginning to veer into delusion. bah. if he was self-aware enough to know he sounded ridiculous, he wasn't completely mad yet. he had to keep believing that dying for something meant more than just dying, and somehow, convince papyrus of that too. it was the only way either of them were going to survive this hellhole. fuck despair. they didn't have time for it.
he was trying to sell the broken world to his brother, and well, like all salesmen, half of his pitch would be random virtues pulled out of his ass and dressed up pretty.
so, he bundled his brother up in every blanket they owned, pressed mugs of scarce, watery hot chocolate into his hands, and stubbornly refused to acknowledge how his hands shook. on nights like these, they tended to pass out on the couch, and he knows the cushions are going to give them both a horrible crick in the neck, but eh. worth it.
he woke the next day with blankets draped over him and his brother already gone off to work, having left him a quick note. he got off the couch to crack his back, wincing as he felt his neck pop. he felt so old sometimes- his aches had aches, these days.
welp. back to the grind, he supposed. he popped to his room to sling on a fresh hoodie and lab coat, though they were just as frayed. he washed his face, took a ration bar from their bare bones cupboards, and headed straight to the labs.
the same routine, the same work- it became monotonous, after a while. at the stage their experiments were at, it was simply a lot of repetition as they gathered data. they couldn't draw conclusions from papers that didn't exist, after all, and sans was patient in this regard. maybe that was why he found it difficult to keep a lid on his temper lately; he was using up all his patience on grueling studies and it left none for anything else.
as he did the endless task of logging and writing and pipetting, he let his mind drift, and of course the first thing the traitorous bastard decided to do when he let it wander was go to the things he didn't want to think about. his hands tightened around the test tubes he was holding, and he carefully gentled his grip. he felt his knuckles creak with the effort.
the resets. that horrible, sickening, cellular dread and deja-vu. the quicksilver memory of calculations he hadn't done yet, results he hadn't run, the dust, the dust, the dust.....
he remembered the first fragments with perfect clarity, is the thing. a face, pale and smiling far, far too wide in a glasgow grin, determination spilling across the ground in flooded red, the brilliant light of the judgment hall and it's shattering windows. the rain, and an odd new friend, something was off about him, why was his voice so familiar, this cycle, why wouldn’t it break? golden flowers, flowers, it was something like a flower-
but something shifted. his basement machine stopped working. as the fungi overtook his body, thoughts of fragmenting, repeating timelines filled his head with white noise. buzzing static in the soul where memory should have been.
sans is a scientist; he knew how to deduce conclusions from yawning absence. now, the resets always came back to the same point- when The Rot first began to spread. he had realized, with dull horror, that the parasite fed on determination just as eagerly as it did magic, and imposed limits upon the most determined entity in the underground. the creature could now only reset to that first point in time, that first, terrible spore- and not a moment before. and sans would feel himself making the same choices all over again, going through the motions as time folded in on itself like quantum origami.
yes, the appearance of an apocalyptic bigger bad didn't bode well, but it allowed for one, crucial detail.
the rot was using it as fuel; the determination itself was running out. the resets grew less frequent and shorter in length. the fungi were growing faster, yes, and choking them all for breath, but the rot's relentless consumption meant they were inching closer and closer towards a permanent timeline. the fits and starts of endless saves were stuttering.
they were barreling towards a timeline that would stick, and for that, he could bear to chase hope that bordered on delusional. permanence was in sight. meaning was in sight. he had to keep working on a cure no matter how many times he had to restart, because at some point time would only move forward, and it would then begin to run out. permanent mortality- it was coming. it was coming, and there was no turning back, not even for that wretched plant-creature that liked to toy with their lives.
maybe it was already here, devouring them slowly as history often did to shattered worlds. perhaps the broken clock was finally right.
sans felt righteous fury burn in his marrow, driving him, fueling him, and he cursed when a glass beaker shattered in his hand from being gripped too tightly. he meticulously picked the shards out of his palm with tweezers and set his jaw.
he refused. he would not use the precious grains of sand in the hourglass as if he was without, lacking meaning or drive or love or hope. he had spent too much of his life numb to settle for more emptiness.
he would not lose anything else, even if all he had now is that ephemeral purpose that eluded him so- he wouldn't lose it, not to time, not to the grave, not to that horrible thing that reset over and over again in search of fulfillment long gone. papyrus had asked if they were losing. they were not. they were not. they were so close. they were so close-
he would not allow death to claim them without fighting tooth and nail. it was the only comfort that he could afford himself anymore; that he would pry every extra second from fate's grasp with his own hands. it was a promise. sans never broke his promises.
