Chapter Text
PART I: A QUEEN'S QUEST
Scene 1: Cool Gray Tears
or
“Death Report”
Against the backdrop of a glowing, fluctuating hall filled with the sounds of aching, the judge stared at a pile of dust.
What he felt at that moment was definitely negative, but it wasn’t disappointment. It was dread. Dread, mixed with a little curiosity, at the disappointment that others would soon be feeling all across the kingdom. All because of a little pile of dust. And a wall that wouldn’t stop moaning with the pain of its own existence.
The judge went forth and spread the word to the storytellers. The storytellers spread the word to the royal guard, and the guard informed its captain. The captain of the guard arrived in a rage, made a fuss, gave orders, and set a dozen things in motion before stamping home to complain to her neighbor. But by that time, the judge was long gone.
A whisper of despair blew like a dust storm through the kingdom of monsters.
Meanwhile, in a living room on the fringe of the kingdom, the former queen sat reading one of her books for the eighty-third time. It had been some years since her last reading of it, so the little tidbits were fresh for her enjoyment.
Number eight hundred sixty-one, she read, pronouncing each word aloud in her mind. The tiny teeth that cover the radula are called 'denticles.'
Toriel paused to savor this word. Denticles. Small teeth. Toothlets. Dentinas! Mini-choppers. Chuckling, she sank a little deeper into her easy chair before deciding to continue forth to number eight hundred sixty-two.
It was at that moment her reverie was interrupted by twinkling droplets at the edge of vision. Fearing that Whimsuns had invaded her house again, she promptly set down the book. But it was only her friend Napstablook, forming from specks and nothingness in their peculiar fashion.
This was a relief… except that despite being her chief conduit to the outside world, the ghost had never appeared directly in Toriel’s home before. Typically, if she saw them appear at all, it would be in the catacombs, submerged shyly into the floor, or behind a pillar. Or inside a pillar. She stiffened: something must be wrong.
Her incorporeal visitor, now fully formed, said nothing, only turning to not quite make eye contact. Toriel waited in patient consternation. She was determined to draw out the courage in Napstablook, to teach them basic politeness, which in this case meant them speaking first. So she only drummed her fingers on the cover of her book, looking grim, until finally…
"ummmmmm, sorry to burst in like this. i guess you must be pretty busy..."
Her fingers stilled with one last -plomp-. “What is it, my friend? Has something occurred?”
Napstablook looked away awkwardly—so much for partial eye contact. “um… funny you should put it like that… because, well, the answer is yes, good job. something did happen…”
Of course it had. Toriel was nearly certain she knew what it was, too. Only days before, her ninth child had passed all too briefly through her care. She was not even justified in thinking of them as her child, as they had only spent a day with her, and yet she could not help it. “And what was that?” she asked.
“…it’s a little awkward to talk about,” said Napstablook.
With this individual, that was hardly news. Yet Toriel could see how it might indeed be awkward to inform a mother that, yet again, her child had perished at the unfathomably cruel hands of the one she used to love. She had done everything in her power to stop this child from leaving, everything short of incapacitating them through battle or forcing them to kill her. “I see,” she replied.
The ghost shied back a little. "maybe it's better if i don't just tell you at all... that way you won't have to think about anyone from the past... i know it's awkward when people talk about my exes... and i don't even really have any exes..."
“It is all right, my friend.” Of course, it was not all right. But what could she say? When this news had come in the past, it had been delivered by spiders, or by the tiny frogs who lived in the wall—all more able messengers than Napstablook. Yet she would take the news of her child’s death however it came to her. “You are speaking of King Asgore, I presume? Am I right to infer that he has done something unspeakable?”
The ghost now seemed to be staring through their own body at the floor behind themselves. Well, if the matter truly was unspeakable, she could hardly blame her informant for not speaking about it, could she?
She would bite the bullet and say it herself, then. “My child. My child is dead. Is that what you have come to tell me?” Her voice became a growl. “That my ex-husband has murdered another innocent child, all in the name of war?”
“oh. um, this is really is awkward. no, not exactly…”
With a gasp, then, Toriel remembered. This was the seventh. If Asgore had successfully preserved his barbaric trophies, this one would tip the scales. She rose to her full two-meter height, looming over the uneasy ghost. “No,” she said. “This is not like before, because this was his seventh soul.” His seventh atrocity; his seventh foul stone cast into the abyssal river of sin. “Has he broken the barrier then, Napstablook? Is that what you have come to say? That the barrier is destroyed, and we are free to wage war with humanity all over again?” In truth, the prospect of freedom excited her, but not at the cost of seven innocent lives.
The snail farmer cringed. “um… no…”
“No? He has not broken it? Does he plan to break it, then?”
“…ummmm… no…”
She felt her toes strain against the wooden floor. “Did his plan fail, then?” she uttered, nearly spitting the words. “Did he harvest his last innocent soul, only to discover that the legend was untrue, and that he could not break the barrier no matter how many children he butchered?!”
“i guess there’s no point in dragging it out,” said the ghost. “he’s, uh. he’s dead.”
Toriel’s ears twitched. She unclenched her hands. “Dead?”
Slowly, the ghost drifted back. “…yeah… i heard from my neighbor. that kid went to see him, but i guess they didn’t really get along… that happens sometimes, you know…”
Toriel stood in stunned silence.
“…anyway, that’s all i wanted to say. i guess i’ll be going… sorry for being such a drama queen about it all…”
“Wait!” she commanded. Her voice broke; she could not believe what she found herself having to process. “Are you telling me that Asgore… Asgore Dreemurr, King of Monsters… is dead?”
Napstablook stopped retreating. “oh. yeah, that’s the gist of it. they went in to see him after the kid came through, but all they found was dust… so it’s looking pretty good for ‘dead’…”
Toriel broke. She wept at first standing up, then collapsed into her easy chair and put her hands to her face. She did not even know, at first, what she was weeping for, so unprepared had she been for this news. But it came to her soon enough: she was weeping for the fact that it was all over. Asgore. The vendetta against humanity. The quest for freedom, the ghastly collection, the endless parade of blood. All of it, at long last, done! She could not pull her hands away from her face.
“…well… i guess i could stay and cry with you a little,” she heard her companion offer. “if that’s what you’re doing now.”
She beckoned uncoordinatedly and continued to weep. Soon, the ghost’s presence was beside her, and before long she was deluged with their cool, gray tears. Relieved of being the only one weeping, Toriel sank further into her cushions. Soothed by the coolness of her companion’s tears, she presently fell asleep.
Dreams followed that touched on the distant past. Images and memories of a son she would never see again, her son, of her own essence, flowed past, their emotional content tinged with the sea-green flavor of inevitability. Waves of loss left their mark as she relived the pain of leaving Asgore, prolonged and embellished with dreamer’s fancy. Memories of her first few days alone in the Ruins commingled with memories of her very first days in the Underground. She had lived for far too long. She sailed through ages of regret, distant hope, and sorrow.
When she woke, Toriel’s robe was dry. The ghost’s tears were powerful, but they did not linger. She was relaxed. Her sadness was not gone, but it had found a place in her and settled. Her tears were done. She desired hope again.
When she looked to the floor, she found her incorporeal companion still present, lying at an oblique angle and staring at nothing.
Her mind now clear, Toriel began to wonder what came next. With Asgore gone, who would lead the Underground? Suddenly, with a rush of apprehension, she realized. That duty fell to her.
“Napstablook?” she asked.
The figure rippled, reluctantly awakening. “hm?”
“With Asgore gone… do you think the monsters will need someone new to lead them?”
The ghost blinked. “i guess… most people don’t like being unled, you know. too much responsibility…”
Toriel paused over her next words, because these were not words one could take back. But she was an honest monster, and after a deep breath, she forced herself to speak. “In that case, I shall go to the castle, and I shall serve once more as queen.” The words sounded hollow to her, as if they had merely been a line in a play, spoken by somebody else.
Napstablook peeled themselves up from the floor and failed again to establish eye contact. “well… i guess you can do that, if you like… i wouldn’t stop you. not that i could ever stop anyone from doing anything…”
She leaned over. “But would you wish to stop me, my friend?”
“…ohhh… no… i don’t think the kingdom could really get a better queen than you…”
It was rather tepid encouragement, but Toriel would take it. She would need support in what she was about to attempt. She knew almost nothing of the state of the world beyond the Ruins—only that which Napstablook and her various penpals told her—but she did know that, despite her centuries of reclusion, she was still the queen. She would be remiss if she did not go. At long last, her leadership was needed again.
Toriel walked to the hallway mirror and looked herself over. She put on a regal face. How much leadership was left in her, after all this time? Had she grown too soft? Would she be a relic of a past era, hopelessly behind the times?
Would the monsters be receptive to her leadership? What if, under Asgore’s rule, they had grown cruel or numb?
Well then, she decided, at the very least, she could set an example. If she could not lead the monsters, she would at least show them how to live. After all, Toriel had been living for a very long time. That much, she was confident she could provide.
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