#written thing

i realize:

i have never heard my mother truly happy

sure, she has said "thank you" and "love you" and smiled at all the right times

but there's nothing behind it

she will never say she's unhappy, not to my sibling or i.

but i realize:

she pretends

and packages away

for us

and i wonder:

She had at least turned back to her normal size long since, so Frisk decided to port back into the hotel room to check in on everything, yawning.

Being in Ebottstadt was a blessing, when going back to her timeline used to mean returning to a cold and dangerous underworld, but some things still made it seem uneasy. She expected it to be late in the day when she went into the timeline but instead it was early morning, the sun not quite risen yet. A scattered rain over the city sparked a mist outside the window, and most of the lights were out. It was pretty, but there was a reason for it.

Tired and not inclined to move her gaze, she spent a few minutes looking out at cars that drove by past the hotel. Until there was a grating, booming shout that caught her attention behind her, “FRISK! WHEN DID YOU GET HERE?”

She turned, startled, to see Papyrus in a pair of black skull-pajamas, having taken half a step back on emerging from the bathroom as though he were equally startled.

“...What are you doing in my room?”

He huffed, scowling. “YOU SAID I COULD USE IT!! SINCE AS YOU SAID, YOU HARDLY EVER DO!!”

Did she? ...Maybe she did. She couldn’t remember. Oh well, she did remember at least that there was nowhere else for him to stay while Sans kept himself locked up in his room. Kicking him out would be… something. The word suddenly escaped her. “Oh, right, uh.”

“…DID YOU WANT TO USE THE ROOM??”

Frisk snorted, and Papyrus stared in even bigger confusion until the child murmured, pointing a lazy finger, “Never seen you wearing pajamas before.”

“OH!!” He scowled. “WELL I WOULD LIKE TO WEAR MY ARMOR TO BED AT NIGHT BUT IT MAKES MY BONES ACHE.”

Another snort, which made a transformation into a full giggle, and his scowl grew sharper. She looked back up and murmured, “That’s just really weird though. I mean,” she added, as he raised an eyebrow at her, “same, really. I guess. It’d be like sleeping on the floor.”

“EXACTLY! SO IF YOU COULD STOP GAWKING AT MY PAJAMAS, THAT WOULD BE GREAT!”

She shook her head, as if snapping out of the trance that lead her to stare. To a skeleton, wouldn’t it be PJs covered in smiley faces? She rubbed her face. “Yeah. I should keep my pajamas around here somewhere. Sleeping in these clothes doesn’t hurt but it gets icky.”

“SO YOU ARE USING THIS ROOM NOW?” His stricken expression, which the gold tooth detracted from a bit, was so irritating to her. “DOES THAT MEAN I HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR TONIGHT??”

“Yeah. No. I’ll sleep on the floor.” When that changed his expression to another, more uncertain one, she shrugged. “Well, I might leave when its night time. I have plenty of rooms in other places.”

“NYAH! THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.” So saying, he marched back into the bathroom with a swivel of his lanky form, and Frisk followed along after him without thinking about it. Without looking at the child he snatched up a red toothbrush and smothered it in paste, leaning over the sink as he furiously scrubbed his fangs.

He deliberated on the gold tooth for a while, as if it were in need of such polish. It had changed. It wasn’t sitting uneasily in his bony mouth anymore.

Frisk leaned an arm on the sink counter, observing all this. “Hey Papyrus, you’re not sad about… anything, are you?”

“NO.” He spat into the sink and then continued brushing.

The child blinked. “Just no?”

“IT DOESN’T BENEFIT ME TO BE SAD,” he said, matter-of-fact as he spat a second time (how did he do that without lips?) and started taking off his pajama top.

“Does it benefit you to wear clothes…”

He was already stalking back into the main room, where his armor was set on a stand waiting for him. “I DON’T HAVE FLESH. IF YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE YOU CAN ALWAYS LEAVE.”

Frisk had seen naked skeletons all the time in school, in textbooks and once in person. Somehow it felt different when the skeleton was moving around. “Um...” She didn’t look directly at him until she heard a squeak and clap, and when she had glanced back his way his ribs were secured inside the spiky black armor. She repeated the process when he replaced his pajama bottoms with the black pants and skull belt buckle. Smiley face buckle. Frowny face buckle.

Mind wandering back, she asked, “So if it did benefit you to be sad right now, would you be?”

“… YES??” He squinted, pulling a glove up the length of his arm. “SURE. IF IT BENEFITTED ME.”

The child pulled at their sleeve. “What are you sad about?”

He turned his head to glare at her, bewildered. “NOTHING?? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU SAD ABOUT SOMETHING?”

It wasn’t an actual inquiry, she knew, but a commentary. She shrugged. “No.”

With a “HMPH,” he was pulling on his high-heeled boots, steadying himself with his foot on the bed.

“Are you glad everyone’s free now?”

“I’M—” he stopped, the buckle in his hand, and Frisk blinked. He was thinking. It wasn’t that often that he didn’t already have an answer on hand for one of her questions.

After a moment, he mused, loudly and yet as if to himself, “I REALLY THOUGHT!!! THAT I’D GET MORE OF A HAND IN IT WHEN THE TIME CAME....”

“--Oh...”

“I’M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL???” He rose his hands up defensively, although the usually crabby attitude she sent his way wasn’t here today. “BECAUSE THE SURFACE IS INCREDIBLE!! I ALREADY HAVE PLANS TO BUY A MOTORCYCLE! BUT!” Another pause. “IT FEELS LIKE! NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED FOR ME UP HERE YET. I’M NOT ADMIRED NEARLY AS UNIVERSALLY AS I WAS EXPECTING TO BE BEFORE I BECAME THE LEGAL DRINKING AGE, FOR EXAMPLE, NYAH HAH HAH!! 

“...NOT FOR SANS, EITHER. YOU’VE SEEN HIM?? HE’S BEING IMPOSSIBLE AND IRRESPONSIBLE AS HE ALWAYS IS! IT’S LIKE HE DOESN’T CARE AT ALL THAT WE’RE MAKING HISTORY!!!?”

“Um. Um, yeah.”

“IT’S ALREADY LOOKING UP FOR OTHER PEOPLE. SO, I THINK--I’LL BE HAPPIER WHEN THINGS CHANGE FOR ME!! FOR NOW, I’M JUST DOING MY JOB!”

She exhaled. “What if they don’t change for you?”

“THEY’RE GOING TO CHANGE??” He snorted, giving Frisk a shove as he finished with his boots and meandered around the bed. “ASGORE WILL REPEAL HIS LAWS, MORE PEOPLE WILL BE COMING UP FROM THE SURFACE, THE CITY’S GOING TO BE FINISHED, THE HUMANS WILL LEARN TO MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS!!!....” A huff. “ANYWAY, I HAVE TO GO TO WORK!”

You have officially turned my persona character into a evil creature. Congratulations. Now I can't make happy-go-lucky videos with my persona as a character in them because the video turns into something practically based on the mastermind from Dangan Ronpa.

  Also, I've found that I fail to be actually upset about this and am more going "well... this is an interesting turn of events".

  Sincerely,

  The Artist

So, part of my, not really resolutions, but rather, improvement goals for the year is to write more. Believe it or not, at one point in time, when I was but a wee little geek, I wanted to be a writer. This plan was snagged by my special genetic brand of lack of self confidence, and was later put on the list of past regrets.

I am not yet thirty, but I feel like I spent the majority of my twenties just trying to survive them. Well, it looks like I just might make it. To my forties, even, if trends continue. Hell, in two month's time, I will have health insurance for the first time since 2009! Excitement! (One day those under twenty-five may understand.)

Well, I suppose this blog is as good a place as any to write on, hopefully someone will read it. If not, what else is new, eh?

At first glance, the hotel seems perfectly normal. If you stare long enough, you see small cracks forming in your peripheral vision. The desk stands alone against the cream-coloured wall. A collage of keys, clanking in the slight breeze, reflects rays of dim light through the dust filled air. The corners of the hallway are hidden by ancient cobwebs that look long forgotten, even by the spiders themselves. No sound disturbs the eerie silence except the pounding of your heart, nor the millions of dust particles suspended beautifully in the musty air. Behind you is a short corridor, with three doors on either side. At the end, the air seems to be thicker, dulling your vision of the last door. This peculiar sight is formed to encourage curiosity and bewilderment.