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It starts like this: they slice you open, and you bleed out in the sand. There’s this mountain facing the sea, abandoned by everything, even beastclan, where dragons go to die. You climb it, bandage tied around your torso dragging on the ground but you're too tired to replace it, not when you just need to get there. You'll be free to bleed out. You'll be free of your uselessness, free of your broken body, free of everything. You get to the top of the hill. The ocean below is deep blue, swallowing light. You can't stop staring at it: you strain your eyes and think you catch a flicker of colour in the depths below. And then the ground crumbles beneath you, and you fall. You thrash as you hit the water. You don’t want to drown, you were supposed to lie down where the worst thing that could happen to you was wind blowing into your face as you died, you don't want to drown and you don't want to be terrified but you are. You call out for help, once, uselessly. Air streams from your mouth and disappears into the void. No one helped you then. Why would they come now? (“Mom!” something bleats, and clawed paws drag you away and down - ) You blink your eyes open and immediately regret it. The light is bright and unavoidable, even behind your eyelids. Someone is touching you: you register a closed-eyed Imperial, a bright green tuft of a mane, then the den that’s far too soft. You heave yourself up with an effort - Wind dragons, lining their nests with feathers when you’re used to ice - and fumble up to your feet. You can't stay. You should be dead. You're infringing on someone else's hospitality. They'll ask you questions you can't answer. You shouldn't be here right now. You're trying not to panic, trying to remember where you are and where the nearest Talonok clan is, when someone taps your shoulder. You turn so quickly you almost fall over. “You shouldn’t be walking, my child.” the Nocturne says. They cut me open with that knife, you say. They left me to bleed out slowly. Asriel gasps quietly - you can't see his expression when you're both lying in the dark, but you know he's horrified. No one he knows bleeds like you do; he cried so much while Toriel redressed your wounds. "...that's so cruel." he murmurs. You say nothing. Hatred burns in you, shining even brighter than your dragon's soul, for the unfairness of it all. You hate a lot of things. You hate your murderers for being out in a place that's sunny and beautiful and full of real stars at night, you hate the dragons here for wanting it so much, you hate them for loving you (a soul to cross the barrier), you despise Asgore and Toriel and Asriel for taking care of you when they have every reason to hate. You hate that you would give everything to them. Your broken body, the soul they value so much. None of it means anything to you. "...hey." you say. Asriel's sniffling stops. "It's okay. I have a plan." No knives. That's Asriel's rule. That's fine; you don't think you could kill yourself, and you don't know where Asgore and Toriel put away the weapons. You need to figure this out yourself. They have weird plants down here. Some taste like meat, but they're all edible, even to you. Magic, apparently. Except - ("Three cups of butter?" you ask Asriel. Asriel brightens. "I know where Dad keeps those!") "It's - those are poisonous." Asriel says. We almost killed Dad with them, he doesn't need to say. "Yeah, I know." you say. "That's the point. If I eat them, at some point my body's going to give up, right? Then you can take my soul and cross the barrier." Asriel nods. "Just trust me, Az." you say, quiet. "It won't take that long for me to die, and then everyone'll be free." In retrospect, you really shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. “Come in, Asriel.” Toriel says softly. As soon as the door closes he runs to you and kneels at your side with a thump. Asriel’s eyes are wide and green and scared and his touch bites into you even though he’s being gentle, for him. “I don’t like this idea, Chara.” he whispers, too-loudly like always. You try to answer and splutter, choking on blood. Your throat feels tattered. “W-what?” You didn’t want him to see this. You agreed, you want to spit at him, you’re the only one I need for this. He's not even the one dying. All he needs to do is listen to you, to work with you, and right now he has to bring you the flowers. “We have to do this, Az.” you whisper. “We’re the future of all outsiders, remember? We’ll do this together. Everyone’s going to be free.” “Yeah, you’re right.” Asriel says. There is so much pain reflected in his eyes as he looks at you - most of it is because of your pain, because Asriel has always cared too much. You can tell he’s about to cry again. You can't let him back out now. “Don’t you trust me?” you ask him, with all the feeling your broken throat can muster, and he looks at you and says, “I do, Chara! I’d never doubt you, never... ” and you tune him out in the resulting wave of relief. “We’ll do this together.” you tell him. He chokes back a sob and says, “We’ll be strong. We’ll free everyone.” You are so proud of him. There's your king: there is the prince of all outsiders, willing to sacrifice for the war that will free his people. You think of the dragons who'd chased you away for your white eyes and imagine a battlefield drenched in blood, dragons' eyes ringed with hate. Once Asriel sees what they have done, you might even have trouble holding him back. “Go get the flowers.” you urge him, and you hear him standing up and leaving you. The feeling of triumph lasts until Toriel comes in to bathe your wounds, and then there is only pain. It gets worse. You don't just bleed; you leak from every orifice. When you try to walk your limbs give out, and you bite through your foreleg when Toriel carries you back. None of the physicians Asgore summoned know what to do. Dragons from the Underground don't get sick easily, certainly don't bleed, but here you are, falling apart remex by bloody remex. You stay lying down from the third week onwards. From the sixth week, people start talking about how you might never get up. Some come to visit you: the well-wishers' solemn expressions twist with emotion when they see you in your nest. Dr. Gaster drops by weekly, conversing hushedly with Asgore just outside your door. Asriel smuggles you flowers, and you swallow them whole rather than work the pulp with your tattered gums. Your dreams get worse. If you said the right words, Asriel would kill you. The moment you think it you hold onto it like a talisman, you fall asleep imagining his claws at your throat. If you told him that you wanted to be dead, that you wanted him to kill you, if you widened your eyes and begged - You have that power, but you won't make Asriel do it. The time will come, and he'd promised you that he'd be strong enough. For once in your awful, miserable life that actually means something. You breath in pollen and believe. Determination.

You die, finally, and are reborn. Asriel takes your soul, and the physical sensation is odd, like touching through a glove, but his relief at feeling you again makes you feel alive like you never were in life.

He would stay there, crouched, tears of relief streaking his face, but your will drives him forward. When you phase through the Barrier his joy mingles with your drive until it’s a singular determination. We’re going to show everyone what this is like!

This is it, you say to him, watching the head of your body loll across the hated flowers. He can’t hear your words, but you can feel the emotions pounding in your shared body, his excitement and your triumph. These are the dragons that killed me. Now, take their souls, and we’ll free everyone.

“Chara,” he says out loud, “I can’t.”

You splutter in shock. Asriel is quiet as you pull yourself together. You’d hit yourself, were you alive - you should have seen this coming. Your prince is merciful to a fault.

“I won’t do it.” he says, and this time you react, burning white-hot with rage.

How dare you.

Sparks of magic fly from your shared body. Asriel sits down, stumbling a little, and holds his head in your palms.

"Chara, I won’t. I can’t."

You’re not doing this for them! you explode. We’re going to save the world, Az. LET ME GO!

“N-no, I won’t let - I’m not going to kill them!”

“Then let me do it.” you snarl, and clamp down on your SOUL as his face contorts. In terror? You twist his expression to reflect your disgust. This is not your body. This is wrong. You can feel him thrashing inside you, like a fish on a hook.

It’s too late. They’ve seen him, glowing with elemental power as the two of you fight for control, eyes and talons flashing. The sentries take one look at your body and him spasming in the grass and rush back to their posts, screaming for help. In seconds they are accompanied by their warriors, already roused by your noise. Magical attacks connect and sear your shared flesh. Each blast chips away at his soul. The noise is unbearable, but he shuts his eyes and runs, even as you twist away and scream.

In his final moments — you will not pretend that you could have saved him — he looks back at the waves of magic behind him, tightens his grip on your body, and pursued by spitting magic jumps.

His fall is not graceful, but physical force is not what kills outsiders, only cruel intent. If he’d attacked them - if you’d been in control - if he'd only listened -

(“I didn’t kill them.” he whispers, and your mother’s face cracks open with understanding. “I… mom, I didn’t. They tried to make me fight, but…”)

Dying again hurts, but being betrayed cuts through you. You don't feel your soul gutter out, his body turning to dust. You’re already gone.

The Imperial stands in front of a door. They sit there, not quite daring to touch. You know their name, even though Toriel never asked it: you have learned, since the phone call, that you have more power than you thought you had, for all that your fate seemed limited to trailing after a hatchling and being their guide to the world. "Who are you?" Frisk whispers.

"It's me, Chara." you say. You appear as you were to Asriel: young and pale, but whole. "Can you help me?" the Imperial asks, and you consider yourself and their situation for a long moment. Toriel is facing them, wings spread out. She's not looking at you. She's looking at someone who isn't there, you think - a body that won't turn to dust after the SOUL dies. Her eyes glow green, illuminated by the twin balls of fire hovering on either side of her. It's clear she won't let Frisk pass. But you, you knew Toriel, maybe even better than you knew Asriel, at the end. She doesn't really want to FIGHT Frisk - it goes against everything she stands for. It's a show of power, hoping that they'll back off before she has to do any real damage. The sensation of giving up, of knowing when to fight and to surrender yourself — that was your power. Unfortunately it was also love, though you didn't recognise it at first. In the end, Asriel was a tool: you loved him, and more importantly he loved you. You cared about him, but not about what he wanted, stupid in the knowledge that he would follow you. You make a decision. You won't interfere. Not again, not like this. “… knows best for you.” you say, and Frisk's eyes flash blue as their SOUL transcends their body.

“Let me at her!” you roar. It's your fourth death, but the only one where you've been fully-present and alert. Frisk is sweating with fear. How are we supposed to get past Undyne? is bright in your shared mind, not despairing, not yet. You need them to be strong, but...

“You dodge, I’ll fight.” you say, and shove them aside.

It’s weird. Frisk’s body is sinuous, a hundred clicks of vertebra. They’re more fluid than you'd be when they roll and duck. Tears drip down their face, eyes squinted shut, and now that you're paying attention you can feel the fur around your cheeks turn wet. When they surrender control to you, the sheer sensation of facing Undyne directly - from watching something from the side, so that you can only see one part of it - jars you for a moment.

Ten seconds in, you've decided that you really miss your claws.

Their dull body is worthless for fighting: they don’t have nearly as much EXP as you did after you fell, and they haven’t bothered to buy any weapons. You’d been too busy tuning in their conversation with Gerson (you hadn’t figured him to be still alive, blue-black and unchanged as ever) to make them buy something, or even equip a weapon. Each blow barely does any damage. You scarcely feel the fur around your cheeks dripping wet.

"Coward!" Undyne jeers, and you turn and run.



Again: the wind, howling. Undyne, shouting indescribably.

Cooperating does get you somewhere. Frisk is wide-open in their defence, barely dodging one spear quickly enough to turn to the next: fast, but not quick enough. You take control long enough to memorise the attacks, listening for the dull thump of each falling spear. You run.

Frisk strains at the edges of your vision, trying to look at the scrolling letters. Where are we?

“We’re in Hotland,” you pant. You’ve never gotten so far before.

“SANS!” you shout with Frisk’s voice, but you don’t stop to listen. Undyne’s armour-clad feet clang on the bridge behind you. Frisk is muttering prayers underneath their breath. You swivel, and stop. She’s stopped. For a moment you could swear she’s hesitating. Not that’ll do you much good if she throws a spear at you.

Then she falls over. You blink. The wood beneath you creaks and sways in complaint.


There’s a water purifier next to the bridge. You stomp over to it and take a cup. Frisk is laughing at you, you’re sure. You put your huge paws together and waddle over, dripping water. You pour the rest directly over her gills, since it’d just evaporate on her armour. The fins over her frills flutter and you jerk back when she stands up. Get ready to run, you warn Frisk. But she only shakes her head, doesn’t quite refocus on you, and when she stomps away you and Frisk both laugh, you hysterically, them in relief.

They like Sans even more for this. You don’t, much. You prefer Papyrus - there’s a reason you told Frisk to flirt with him, not that it did any good (which was disappointing, but it’s not like you didn’t expect it). You expected this, too - Gerson had been the Head of the Guard back when you were alive, but he’d been close to retiring even then. Undyne is a fitting replacement: tall and bulky and intimidating in her chiseled armour, spikes and cold edges.

Now that you've had a chance to catch your breath you remember again what it feels like to have your skin tear. Your soul never broke, not until the day you gave it whole to Asriel, when the last thing you saw was his tearstained face and his claws dirty with your blood.

You crave it.

It occurs to you that maybe you shouldn't have helped.

But it’s stupid, to watch Frisk die over and over again. They're better than before, but they're still bad at rationing, and you're not Flowey, content to sit and watch. It's stupid to watch them freeze up, dull with terror. They’ve never killed anyone, and you regularly imagine just how the knife, properly wielded, stabs past hard flesh and metal and bone and explodes into a whirlwind of dust.

For some reason, this time the fantasy rings sour. You blame Frisk, who's buzzing with joy. They call Papyrus with adrenaline-shaky paws, closing their eyes as he asks them questions from the other end of the line. That gives you an idea.

Hey, you say, mischievous, you should go see Undyne.

Wait, wait, point at her, you snicker, and laugh uproariously when her face contorts into a scowl. “Cut that out, she’ll kick us out again.” Frisk whispers anxiously, and you subside. You tell Frisk to pick the tea. (It was Asgore's favourite: the dried petals inside looked like buttercups, but they didn't taste the same at all.) You luxuriate as the tea boils. If you focus you can imagine steam wafting across your tongue, cupping your bandaged paws together to keep in the warmth. Frisk looks around while Undyne scowls into the air, only startling back to attention when she shoves the cup at them and yells at them to drink. Asgore...? Frisk wonders as you sip your tea. You feel their worry quickly dissipate when Undyne suddenly stands up and announces that they're going to have Papyrus's cooking lesson in his place. “Let’s start with the sauce!" Undyne shouts, and you grin when Frisk throws the tomato (with their short paws it's more of a tap) against the counter without being told. There is absolutely no way this can go wrong.

You grimace as the heat from the burning house reaches your fur. The air smells like burnt fish, and also like burnt spaghetti. Undyne is smoke-grizzled and grinning. Toriel would definitely have a heart attack if she saw you like this. From Frisk’s mental expression, they're thinking the same thing.

Undyne is staring at the wreckage of her house pensively. “No wonder Papyrus sucks at cooking!” she says, turning to you. She grins, baring her teeth.

“I can't force you to like me, kid.” she says. "Some people just don't get along with each other." Oh. So that's the way it is. You leave Frisk to it.

"-- IT MEANS I CAN DESTROY YOU WITHOUT REGRET!"

What do I do? You'd thought Frisk would be frantic: they're calm instead, reaching towards you for the answer. You wonder when they thought to trust you.

Fake attack. you say, dryly. Obviously.

From Frisk’s expression, they haven’t thought of this. They reach out with exaggerated care and pretend to hit Undyne with all their might.

-1.

Undyne looks baffled.

"That's the best you can manage? Even attacking at full force... you just can't muster any intent to hurt me, huh?"

Frisk nods, and Undyne lets her spear fall. Told you.



(A memory: you and Asriel in a clearing, watched over by Gerson. He's teaching you battle-tactics. You're listening, and Asriel is braiding daisies. You'd feel irritated that he's clearly heard most of this before, but it's hard to be when he keeps slipping the sweet-smelling results over your head. Pollen stains your coat and his paws yellow. Gerson somehow manages to stay pristine from Asriel's flower-braiding endeavours.

"Doesn't the blood get everywhere?" you say, offhandedly, interrupting a story where a group of outsiders rushed a dragon, only to fail and regroup for another try. You don't even know if outsiders can get hurt. On your part this is a gamble: if Gerson tells the King and Queen that you'd asked a question like this, they might think you're threatening them. You doubt that they see you as a threat, but why else wouldn't they let you leave?

His scaly face crinkles up, and the look he gives you is almost pensive. You try not to bristle. "Outsiders' bodies are attuned to their SOUL. If a outsider doesn't want to fight, its defences will weaken. And the crueller the intentions of their enemies, the more their attacks will hurt them."

"...oh." you say.

"Asgore and I made a agreement. There's no point to escaping if we'd just get slaughtered."

You don't argue with that. You mull, that night, over what that means for you, but the next morning you wake up with still no real clue of what to do. Trying not to meet Toriel's eyes as she sets a plate in front of you, giving one-word answers to Asgore's gentle everyday questions, you realise that even if you figured it out, you wouldn't want to understand.)

Ironically, the thing that finally brings you apart is a question. “What should I do?” It’s so obvious to you, but they die over and over again, getting increasingly distressed when you say nothing. Just because they’re determined doesn’t mean they can waste their lives like that. They can’t depend on you — they can’t. Because that brings you to the last time you shared a body, when Asriel got you killed — “Sorry.” they say, quiet. “Don’t be sorry, just DO SOMETHING!” your voice rises to a screech, and when you give over control Frisk starts talking quietly to RG01, too late. They die in the next turn, slow and uncoordinated in the heat. “You know what to do now, then.” you say, and retreat to the cool corner of your shared mind. If you were them - if you were them - Well. You’d have been strong enough to pass Undyne without help or health items, had enough EXP and insider’s knowledge (and cruelty) to kill Asgore. You wonder how Frisk will react to the fact that they’ll have to fight him. You wonder what he'll do with their soul.

There is a box - two boxes - in the centre of what was once your old room, and you recognise neither when Frisk asks you what they are. “Look yourself, if you’re so curious.” you say, and end up helping them unwrap the first, pulling gently with their huge paws until the ribbon gives. It's a knife. Your old knife, now worn from use as a pick. It was nothing special, back aboveground, just sharp and yours. Now it looks like someone else's garden tool. Frisk won't use it, dull or not, so you stop paying attention as they lay it to the side. In Frisk's body, you can feel the current from somewhere high above aboveground. From the way Frisk's ears flick, they know it too. You eye the space of the other open box and wonder if you'd fit. You do. Pleased, you settle down and arrange yourself so that none of your paws clip through. You turn to see if Frisk needs help with the other box - and flinch.

"Best friends forever." Frisk reads off, sounding mystified. They've already slipped it on, and the thin gold chain hangs easily against their chest, his - your - locket held carefully in a paw. "Chara?" "That's me." you say automatically, and they smile, more deliberately than they've ever smiled at you before, you think. "Is everything okay?" "I'm fine." you say. "Just. Old memories." "Did you live here?" they say, with real curiosity. "With Asgore, and Toriel, and..." "Asriel." you say. "The Prince of the Underground." You don't elaborate. Frisk doesn't ask about him, and you should drop the subject, but... it feels wrong to leave it there. I knew him invites questions you don't want to answer. You imagine Frisk asking Really? How did you know him? He was my brother, you imagine saying, he was my best friend, and - it turns out that you can cry, but your tears aren't magical, which is hardly a loss on your part. It's a good thing you're a quiet crier: Frisk never looks back.

Asgore greets Frisk almost exactly how you expected. He, like Asriel, always had a penchant for the dramatic. Only Asriel's was comically overdone, a hatchling's ideas backed with magic, and Asgore is just large, and cloaked protectively in regal formality. His sunset-pink wings reflect the Barrier's light and begin to glow as he charges up an attack.

Another similarity: neither of them want to kill you. If Frisk had been in the village at the time you and Asriel passed through the barrier, you would not have hesitated to crush their SOUL. If damage equalled intent, your village would have been so much dust in an instant. Asgore's attacks look like they'd barely sting.

Frisk dodges and weaves, their movements sure, and Asgore does not step forward. They skid to a halt in front of him - he is so small, like this, is this what Asriel saw? - and say, all at once, "Please. I don't want to fight you."

You hear him stop breathing. Try that again, you say.

The fireballs move in a different pattern, this time. Frisk springs past a wall of flame as you watch in horrified fascination, screams "I don't want to fight you!". A stream of fire singes their fur, scorch-marks over stripes that you know will peel back to blisters, not that you'll live long enough to witness it.

He won't let you go. It's you or him. You don't say it.


"STOP FIGHTING!" Frisk cries, and you watch, expectant. You know who you are, don't you? You watch, you witness, you judge. You can't help yourself. What you do is nothing like how you feel. For all you're worth, you don't look away.

Asgore doesn't stop, but he's.. weaker. He shakes his deadly head and doesn't look at you, not once, and the clawed talons holding his trident tight tremble. This, out of everything, is what hits you the hardest. It is like watching a hatchling fall into a hacksaw. It is somehow, terribly, worse than if you were striking him down yourself.

You want to help. Your dagger is on the floor back in your room, but the locket Frisk took from you hangs securely from their neck. Take heart. I'll help, you think, and they look at you with wild eyes. They don't cry.

Frisk cedes control seamlessly. You stand in front of Asgore, the tallest, most physically imposing Wildclaw you've ever met, who wore your poorly-knitted sweaters and piggybacked Asriel until he got embarrassed and cried, and you think about how you're going to kill him.

All you have is the pan Frisk picked up from a boiling-hot metal railing back in Hotland and a piece of fabric that might have once been a dress that Frisk thoughtfully rummaged around in a bush for five minutes to rescue, forestalling all your incredulous complaints all the while. They thought it was pretty. You thought it was pretty wet.

I'm sorry, you think, furious at yourself and your weakness. You should have finished it long ago, stuck a knife straight in your heart and damned the consequences. You miss Asriel so much. You wonder how you ever thought you hated him.

You back up a couple of steps and spring forward. The pan clangs against Asgore's chest - ceremonial plate armour, all of it gold. A smattering of dust follows its trajectory, white against rust. Oh, god, you say, or Frisk thinks, and then you're thrust out of your body as Frisk screams and throws themselves to the side. A wall of flame closes in, heat searing over Frisk's body. Your-their-body shudders and flinches like a dying animal.

You hate yourself. You move to strike again.



“If you let me live…”

“I’ll come back.”

Of course he will. He’ll come back even if you kill him, you tell Frisk, partly because you are beyond being untruthful and partly because you are utterly sick of your brother’s face. If it were you — but you aren’t you, not really. You’re Frisk, and right now you’re almost glad for that, whatever that means for you.

They could do anything, now. There is Frisk, and there is you, and there is a flower, eyes growing more and more desperate as they bore into you. Frisk says nothing. They don't even twitch as Flowey contorts his face into hideous, cracking expressions, head twitching on his vine.

"Why," he says, so desperately unhappy, "are you being so nice to me?"

You do not tell Frisk that they should have killed him, as you're sure they're expecting by now. You just turn away, something like ashamed.

"... I just can't understand."

Flowey is gone. There is a Wildclaw-shaped indent where he was. Frisk turns to you, alarmed.

"Time to go." you say. You are more exhausted than you have any right to be.

---

---

Frisk and Asriel track you down south of the Greatwyrm's Breach. You knew they were coming, and so when they find you you are raising your head from the hole you made in a Longneck's guts. You look at them, unblinking, as gore dries on your lower jaw.

Frisk approaches you first, paws unadorned, expression as clear as the sea.

"Chara." they say, and Asriel's footsteps pound the ground behind them. "Chara." he whispers. His voice is infinitely more painful to listen to; you are familiar with its tone, and intimate with its disappointments. "Please come back. Mom's forgiven you for what happened."

-ah. That had been an experience.

(grab his horn, tighten your jaws and wrench, and your Clanmates pull you off with bone in your jaws as he wails mercy, mercy. I’ll kill you, you remember howling in his ear, I’ll kill you, you’ll wish you were dead