Chapter Text
A light breeze was blowing outside, you could hear the low rumble of it. The fireplace had a nice crackle to it, and was nice and toasty warm. The perfect kind of setting for hanging out with your friends. And that’s exactly how Martlet liked it.
She just needed to finish up cooking lunch for the group, and then everything would be perfect. She even stopped caring about the messiness of the house, and had kind of grown to accept it and let it be for now.
Having a somewhat messy house wasn’t the end of the world, and she didn’t have to stress over it whatsoever. It almost felt liberating.
She couldn’t let it be too liberating though, any dirtier and the house would look like it was in shambles, and she didn’t want that not only for her guests, but also for herself.
She liked having a somewhat clean house that you could walk around in, but that was just messy enough where you didn’t have to worry about how your actions impacted the cleanliness of the place.
The kitchen though, that was the one place where when cooking, no sh*ts were given whatsoever.
Big messes were made all the time, and Martlet didn’t deal with them until after she was done eating, or sometimes if the food needs to go into the oven, she will take care of it while it’s cooking. Today for lunch, she was cooking up some Corn Chowder.
Ceroba’s recipe to be exact. Except for this batch, Martlet wanted to try something new.
So she added in chopped up crispy bacon, chives, and she had some shredded cheddar cheese on the side ready to be topped onto the soup.
It already smelled pretty good, and looked amazing so far, even before taking the time to present it with a bit of extra bacon and chives on top of the soup to go along with the cheese.
As for the others, Dalv was busy outside salting the walkway leading up to the house, and Starlo was still on the couch, salivating over the absolutely delicious smell of corn chowder.
“Martlet, I don’t think I can take it anymore, it just smells so damn good!” Starlo said while everyone within a ten-mile radius could hear his stomach grumble.
“Hehehe, sounds like you’re hungry as well. It shouldn’t be long now, I’d give it about seven minutes until it’s ready to be served.” Martlet responded back.
Dalv went back inside the house, and as he was putting his outer layers up on the coat rack, he got a whiff of the corn chowder. The smell was too hunger inducing for not only Starlo, but Dalv as well.
Corn Chowder was somewhat of a comfort food for the guy, and he was excited to try Martlets adaptation of it.
After putting his outdoor getup away, he went to go sit down in the Living Room and opened up his laptop to get a bit of work done, while also checking on the progress of that new ski mountain.
“So Star, I’m assuming you’ve heard about the recent developments surrounding Snowdin Mountain, right?”
Starlo had to think for a second, he wasn’t too familiar with the politics of Snowdin, But he knew enough to where he eventually remembered the proposals for the development of Snowdin Mountain.
“I do remember that they were looking to build a ski area there, but that’s all I know. Mostly surface level stuff, I don’t really go too deep into any big projects outside of any that are either in Wild East, or Oasis Valley.”
Dalv nods, looking back to his laptop to check if there were any new developments.
“Ah, I see. Well they’ve had approval for trail cutting for a couple of months now, they are currently wrapping that up as we speak. As far as new developments are concerned, they just got the permits needed to build the summit chairlift. The only thing they need to worry about is where they are sourcing the lift from.”
“Nice, that should be fairly simple, right?”
Dalv thinks for a moment, none of this was simple at all and he knew damn well about that.
“Uhh… I don’t exactly think so… From what I could find, there are an abundance of chairlift manufacturers on the surface. Although the logistics of purchasing one from there, not to mention getting it down here and installing it is a whole can of worms that I don’t think the team wants to deal with.”
“Oh, that’s a shame right there. But surely somebody down here has manufactured chairlifts, right? Surely they must have something.”
Dalv takes a look at the business repository for the Underground but can’t find any bespoke lift manufacturers there.
“Unfortunately no, we don’t have any dedicated companies that do such a thing. We’ve never had a need for it since any form of mountainous terrain here that needs to be traversed can be done with elevators and paths.”
The two suddenly hear a kitchen timer go off, sounds like lunch should be ready soon. As Dalv puts away his laptop, he remembers something.
“You know, now that I think about it… I do know that there’s this guy from Snowdin Town who works on a lot of the complicated engineering projects that we see down here, and I think they just recently got him on board, I think the guy’s name is Sans or something like that. Short skeleton, wears a blue jacket around everywhere, and always appears in places that you don’t expect.”
“Sans, Sans, Sans… That skeleton that I met on my way here, that’s the guy who spearheading the engineering portion of this project?” Starlo thought to himself, fascinated about the sheer talent of this guy.
“Apparently they’ve managed to get him on board with the project by saying that the chairlift “supports laziness and lazy behavior”. Which I guess is kind of true when you think about it for a second.”
The two hear somebody at the door, Starlo wonders who it could be at this hour.
As the door opens, he gets a glimpse of who it is.
Bingo.
It’s Ceroba.
“Hey Ceroba, I see you’ve finally made it here. What took you so long?”
Ceroba takes off her jacket and hangs it up, setting down her laptop bag on the table in the entryway, thinking about how she is about to get grilled by everybody here.
“Hey Star, I took the River Person’s boat to Snowdin thinking that it would lead to the river right here, or that it would at least make a stop here. But no, I thought wrong. It took me about fifteen minutes to find my way here.”
Starlo chuckles a bit hearing what Ceroba went through with the River Person. Turns out she didn’t run into Sans. Interesting.
Martlet walks over to the table, Chowder in hand, and sets it there. The aroma is quite satisfying, and impossible to ignore now.
“Hey Ceroba, you got here just in time. I just finished making lunch, we’ve got Corn Chowder today. Do you want some?” Martlet asks.
“Heh, sure Martlet, thanks.” Ceroba responds, walking towards the kitchen table and taking a seat.
As the corn chowder gets absolutely demolished by the four, another breeze can be heard. Even felt, since it was a bit stronger than what was normal around here.
“You know Martlet, you should probably look into a more permanent solution for that barely patched together hole in the wall, that draft is going to lead to a ton of heat loss.” Dalv says, shivering ever so slightly at the drop in temperature.
“Yeah I know, There’s just so much going on regarding home repairs and additions that it’s hard to keep up.” Martlet responds before digging into the corn chowder.
As everyone takes their first bite of the chowder, a noticeable silence falls over the table. Almost as if time stopped for a moment, with seemingly no end in sight.
Silence.
Peaceful Silence.
Until it was interrupted by Ceroba.
“Holy sh*t Martlet, I don’t know what you did but this is really f*cking good. I can’t stop and rest for a minute, I just have to keep eating this.”
Martlet nods her head in approval. Surprisingly the end result actually tastes pretty good, which she wasn’t expecting.
As everyone enjoys their meal and finishes up, Star and Dalv sit at the counter, while Martlet and Ceroba are taking care of the dishes.
It didn’t take too long since Martlet did the bulk of the work while the soup was cooking, so they only really had bowls, silverware, and the pot of Corn Chowder that ended up being so popular that there was none left in it.
As time passes and Afternoon turns into Evening, everybody is sitting in the living room by the fire, enjoying themselves after what was a pretty hectic day. As they all are talking about how today went, the question on everyone’s mind had to come up at some point in time.
“So Ceroba, how’s your day been so far?” Martlet asks.
Ceroba knew this was coming. She knew that at some point in time this was going to come up. She was preparing herself to answer honestly, and earlier she felt like she was ready to go. But now? All that confidence is gone. Evaporated.
“Not too bad Martlet, just very busy.”
A short answer. Should be good enough without giving out too many details. Unfortunately, Dalv and Starlo are sticklers for information, and she knows that quite well.
“What kind of things have been keeping you busy today? I mean I’d have to assume it must be so important that you forget to tell your friends about where you’re going, right?” Starlo says, trying to keep his composure, but loosing it throughout the sentence where by the end of it, he can’t keep himself together to save his life.
Starlo, Dalv and Martlet are laughing their asses off. They all knew this was coming, and they all knew that they were just giving Ceroba sh*t like they always do. Nothing special.
Ceroba knew this too, and couldn’t help but give a slight chuckle at the group’s attempt to be all accusatory. If this were a court trial, they wouldn’t survive a single minute.
“Heh yeah, I know. I’m sorry about that Star, I was just dealing with so much this morning that I completely forgot to let you know that I was busy. I know I should have done at least something.” Ceroba says as she moves closer to Starlo on the couch, putting her
arm around him and resting her head on his shoulder.
As a result, Star got a bit flustered as his mind started racing a bit. Is this an apology for the mess up? Is it something else entirely? Is this really happening or am I dreaming?
Martlet and Dalv look on at what’s happening with the two, both of them giggling like teenagers who just discovered swear words in foreign languages. Starlo was clearly embarrassed at the whole ordeal, but part of him kind of liked it. Ceroba didn’t care though, she had more important things to worry about. She had to make things right to Starlo, she couldn’t let him down now.
“I already heard that you seemed to be a bit frazzled by it. And for that I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause you any worry, especially with what’s been going on lately. I promise that I’ll try my best to not allow this to happen again.”
Ceroba sits up straight again, looking at Starlo. She ended up giggling a bit too, she couldn’t help herself at the sight. Absolutely flustered, blushing like crazy, it was painfully obvious. But she still needed to answer the question.
“And I guess in order to prevent that from happening again, I need to be better at being honest. And that starts now.”
Ceroba sighs as she recalls everything that happened that day, how absolutely insane it was.
“So I guess I’ll start off with the letter from the Royal Science Division.”
After explaining (almost) everything that happened and talking about it with her friends, Ceroba looked tired. It was almost ten o’clock at night, and she felt like she was about to fall asleep at any moment.
It didn’t help that she was essentially using Star’s shoulder as a pillow. Drifting off to sleep, it was the signal that it’s about that time to go to sleep.
Dalv went off to his room to get some last minute work done, and Martlet joined Starlo to help move Ceroba to the other guest room.
She asked Starlo if he wanted to take her bed for the night and she would sleep on the couch, but he declined the offer. His reason being that he was grateful for Martlet allowing him to crash for the night, and he didn’t mind sleeping on the couch.
After a bit of back and forth, Martlet ended up backing out of this battle, and Starlo won. As everybody got comfortable and drifted off to sleep, a light breeze came through. It was pleasant. It felt like for once in their lives, everything was going to be okay.
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Ceroba was the first to arrive at the Cherry Blossom tree, where Clover’s memorial was located. Today was the 4th anniversary of Clover's sacrifice, and she didn’t want to be late. Every year, Starlo, Dalv, Martlet, and Ceroba would take time out of their day to visit the memorial to pay their respects to their fallen deputy.
Even though their adventures with Clover only lasted about half a day, they made such a significant impact on those four that it was still a sensitive matter. At this point they could talk about Clover and their life down here, but occasionally one of them would start to tear up when discussing about them.
It didn’t matter though, they were all there to support each other during rough times. They all grieved together the day after Clover’s sacrifice, who knows how many hours on end they’ve spent crying together. But at this point, they were used to it. It wasn’t a big deal.
As Ceroba walks up closer to the memorial, she starts to get a bit teary eyed. To her, Clover’s sacrifice almost felt like she lost another child of hers. Even though she only knew Clover for a few hours, she still felt responsible for failing to help Clover realize the mistake that they were about to make.
Clover was just a child, they shouldn’t have had to bear the weight of the world’s mistakes on their shoulders.
They could have easily spent the rest of their life with their new friends. It wouldn’t have been the easiest thing in the world, but it would most certainly be doable with a bit of work.
Ceroba stops for a second, takes a deep breath, and tries to clear her mind of all of these “what if’s”. It wouldn’t do her any good to ruminate over what could have happened, what’s done is done. And unfortunately, there’s no changing the past.
After taking a few deep breaths, she hears a couple sets of footsteps right behind her. She doesn’t look back, her head held down. The footsteps grow in volume until they stop. She hears someone on her right kneel down to her level.
She feels an arm wrap around her shoulder, and immediately could tell that it was Starlo. She tilts her head back up and looks over to her right to confirm, and yep. It’s most definitely Starlo. Cowboy hat and everything.
She then hears more footsteps approaching to her left, she hears them kneel down as well, and put their wing around her shoulder. Martlet.
Ceroba didn’t know how to feel about this. For one, she felt like she was solely responsible for what happened, she was the last person that Clover saw, she had the power to do something, she didn’t have to accept their soul. She felt disgusted by it all, and she was expecting her friends to come to the realization that she could have done something and leave her for good.
She was especially worried that Star would leave her, hell at this point in time he was pretty much all that she had left to hold onto. She knew that Starlo had a crush on her for the longest time and while he tried to hide it as best he could, it was painfully obvious that he liked her.
Ceroba on the other hand did a better job at keeping her own secret, but as they grew up, she kind of started to drift apart from him. She felt like that she wasn’t good enough for him, that she had too much going on in her life, that he would leave after a few seconds of her going through some bad sh*t.
She had all of these worries that stemmed from years of untreated anxiety, and that’s not even mentioning her parents who somehow went missing when she was only fifteen. And by the time that they were adults, she had been with Chujin for a little over a year.
She thought that her relationship with Chujin would have been the nail in the coffin, but it wasn’t. Starlo was still her best friend, and despite his dreams being absolutely crushed the day that Ceroba and Chujin got together, he wasn’t going to stop being friends with her over something as silly as that. Hell, he even got to know Chujin pretty well and hung out with him a lot over the years.
When the two had Kanako, Starlo helped out where he could, mostly out of the goodness of his heart. He helped babysit when Ceroba and Chujin were off at work, he instilled some of his good natured attitude onto her, and it gave her an excuse to hang out with Starlo more often.
He ended up being a big help the day Chujin passed. It was a rough day for all of them, and Ceroba was in absolute shambles. Ugly crying for hours on end, unable to say anything, she was so distraught. And throughout all of it, Starlo never left her side. He always lent a shoulder to cry on, and Ceroba took full advantage of that.
Kanako was also distraught as well, her father’s death was a shock to her since she couldn’t tell that Chujin was unwell. Still crying and all, but she had so many questions about everything. And Starlo answered them the best that he could.
The days following, he took care of the kid while Ceroba was grieving. There were some days where she couldn’t get out of bed, and on those days Starlo and Kanako would cook and bring her all of her meals throughout the day, they would keep her company when she could talk, he would keep Kanako busy throughout the day. She could even hear the two laughing, having fun with each other.
She didn’t have the heart to tell him what actually happened when Kanako was nowhere to be seen. Even though Kanako referred to him as Uncle Starlo, and he took that nickname with pride, Ceroba knew that deep down he was the best father figure to Kanako that she could ask for.
It still confuses her to this day. After years of dodging the subject with no clear end in sight, after many heated arguments about Kanako and what happened to her, after so much that happened, she didn’t understand why Starlo still considered her a best friend.
She didn’t understand why Starlo still gave a sh*t after she clearly stopped caring about herself. She didn’t understand why Starlo still put effort into helping her out when she was being a sh*tty person to him on some occasions. He had every reason in the book to leave her to her own devices.
But he never left.
Ceroba came back to her senses as she saw what looked to be the signal of the end of the “ceremony”. Starlo took off his cowboy hat and placed it on the headstone, Dalv put a bouquet of Clovers at the base of it, and Martlet put a framed photo of everyone together right below the text on the headstone.
Everyone noticed the empty space below the text on the headstone, and why it was completely blank. It was obvious now, it was meant for a photo.
The photo was really well done, and now Ceroba could see why it took a few years for it to come along. The frame was custom crafted by Martlet herself, she spent the last couple of years chipping away at the frame, and in the end made one of the most beautiful picture frames that she ever saw in her life.
As a light breeze picked up in the area, resulting in pedals falling down from the Sakura tree above, it felt like it was time to go. Everybody said a quick thing individually, and then they all got up and went to leave.
Dalv and Martlet went off in separate directions, leaving Ceroba and Starlo together.
Alone.
As they walked along, Ceroba couldn’t help but think about what Starlo was thinking of now. She knew that he really enjoyed his time with Clover, she knew that they meant a lot to him. She knew that both Kanako and Clover meant a lot to him, but he only knew the fate about one of them.
Ceroba felt like it was time for him to know the truth.
Even though she told Starlo that Kanako was in a “hospital”, she wasn’t honest as to why. Even after explaining some of the situation after Alphys sent that letter almost two years ago, she still left a good chunk of the story out.
Despite everything that happened between the two, despite the fact that Starlo had never left her out to dry regardless of what happened, she still thought that this could be the nail in the coffin.
She still thought that this would be the tipping point, where he would reconsider his friendship with her.
She worried that once the truth was out, she would lose her only friend that she felt truly comfortable confiding her secrets with, who she always felt safe with regardless of what happens.
But now, she felt like enough was enough. In her mind, two years of waiting was two years too late, she should have been upfront and honest from the start.
As the two walked up to the River Person to head back to the Dunes, Starlo couldn’t help but notice that Ceroba looked like she was going through something, she didn’t seem like her usual self. He wanted to help in the moment, but he knew that today was rough, and maybe now wasn’t the right time to do so. He wanted to wait until they were back home, where he could be 100% sure that they were safe.
As the group traveled along the river, Starlo couldn’t help but think about everything that had happened since Clover sacrificed themselves. He not only hung out with Ceroba more often than he did before, but he could tell that they were getting closer together as time went on, something that he never really picked up on until recently.
He kind of had a hunch all this time, but he wasn’t exactly sure that this was the case. Now he was significantly more confident that it was.
He also made some new friends. Martlet and Dalv, monsters who he never knew before, who he now considered to be some of his best friends. He got to rekindle things with the Feisty Four, and he felt like things have never been better with them.
And that was just scratching the surface, he could tell that his life was profoundly better as a result of Clover coming through the underground that one fateful day.
After arriving at the dunes, the two got out of the boat and make their way back home. It was getting late at this point, and Starlo didn’t know what Ceroba wanted to do. He didn’t know if she wanted to go home by herself, or if she wanted to stay by his side for the time being.
“So, I guess we’re back now. I’ve got nothing else to do tonight, so I’m probably going to head back home. You?” Starlo asked.
Ceroba thought for a moment. Part of her wanted to stay with Starlo for the night and tell him everything, no lies given, while another part of her just wanted to go home and wallow away, alone.
Both options sounded very enticing, and the second one didn’t risk her losing her best friend that she knew since childhood. But she knew that it was time to be honest, there was no weaseling her way out of it this time.
“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I wonder if it would be okay if I stayed with you for the night? I just don’t want to be by myself tonight, alone with my thoughts, today was a lot.”
Starlo listened, nodded in agreement.
“Sure, I don’t mind at all. But you do know that you’ve always been welcome at my house at anytime, right?”
Ceroba chuckled for a bit, she knew damn well that she was always welcome at his place, but she always wanted to check just to make sure. She never knew what could be going on in that house, last time she was there the Feisty Four pretty much owned the place.
“Yeah, I know. Just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”
The two kept on walking for a bit, eventually reaching the Wild East after a not so terribly long walk, and they eventually reached Starlo’s house.
As Ceroba took a good look at the place, she recognized that it was different than it was last time she was there. Something felt off, it looked clean and impeccable, which she never expected to be something that Starlo would do.
The last time she visited his place, there was always at least one window that was shattered, the paint on the outside was faded like crazy, and it always looked like it was in shambles.
But now, it didn’t have any of that. It still had the same profile as it did before, but with no faded paint, no broken windows, no damage to it whatsoever. It looked very clean, which wasn’t normal for Starlo. She didn’t think much of it, she didn’t want to think about anything too hard after today.
As the two walk inside, it becomes more evident to Ceroba that it wasn’t the outside that got patched up, but the inside got a whole ass makeover as well.
How though?
How did Starlo manage to keep the house this way when the Feisty Four didn’t help matters and were usually the ones who caused the mess to begin with, did he suddenly have a change of heart about cleanliness? Now she just had to know.
“So Star, I can’t help but notice that this place is a hell of a lot cleaner than it was last time I visited, any reason why?”
She noticed Starlo beam up, smiling wide. Almost like he was proud of himself. And he was.
“Heh, well for starters the Feisty Four have their own place now, they live in the house next door. That helped a ton with keeping the messes to a minimum. And then after they moved out, I hired Martlet to come and fix up the place. She’s gotten a lot better at woodworking and carpentry than she was two years ago.”
Damn. Her question was answered, but now all she has is even more questions. Did Starlo and the Feisty Four have another altercation again? How the hell did Martlet get that good at woodworking? Why did she pass up this guy when she had the chance?
The two sat down on the couch to relax, sitting fairly close to each other. Ceroba knew that it was now or never.
“Hey Star, with all that happened today, I need to get something important off of my chest.”
“I see, shoot it to me, what’s on your mind?”
Ceroba took a deep breath. Not knowing the outcome of this talk was scary to say the least. But she went ahead.
“I… To tell you the truth, I haven’t been completely honest with you for a while now. I’ve been trying to keep my promise about being open and I promise you that I have, but there’s just one last thing that I haven’t been completely honest with you about. It’s regarding Kanako.”
Kanako… Starlo thought about it for a second, he knew that she was in the hospital, right? Did something else happen to her? He just had to know more.
“go on…”
“I assume that you remember when I told you that Kanako was in the hospital, but I never told you the real reason why she went there. Not too long after Chujin’s passing, Kanako eventually found out about the basem*nt under the house. And somehow, without me knowing, managed to find the way in there, and found the tapes. Those same tapes that you guys saw, is what she saw as well. Right after she finished watching the tapes, that’s when I found out she was down there, so I went there to see what she was up to. It turns out that I was too late, she knew everything there was to know. And she wanted to help her father’s cause, she wanted to be the test subject.”
Ceroba sighed as she took a minute in-between to drink a bit of water.
“Now normally, I wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen. I would never want any of my children to deal with the problems that the adults in their life are facing. But silly old me at the time thought that it would be a great idea to allow Kanako to become the test subject. I honestly didn’t know what I was thinking at the time, but I went through with it. Things looked normal for a second, and then right after that was when everything took a turn for the worst. She lost her balance and fell down, she seemed unconscious. I tried to get her to say something, anything to me. And yet I failed. She still seemed to be intact though, she didn’t seem in danger of turning into dust, but it always felt like she was very close to doing so. She was in a fallen down state after all, at my hands. A few days after, I got a letter from the Royal Science Division who were looking for monsters who have fallen down, and they would use their expertise to stabilize them. At that point I was desperate, so I sent her off to the lab. After I did so, I got letters from the royal scientist updating me on their progress, but after a couple of weeks they just stopped. I didn’t hear anything back from them until I got that letter two years ago. And now we’re here today. Kanako is apparently still alive and well, but from what Alphys told me, she was still in some kind of fallen down state and wasn’t exactly ready to be sent back home. And that’s pretty much it. So now you know…”
Starlo thought about what he just heard, he definitely wasn’t expecting this to be what Ceroba would talk about. He knew that this must have been eating away at her mind for a while now, but he could kind of sympathize with her as to why she kept it hidden away, regardless of whether it was the right things to do.
He was conflicted. He didn’t know what exactly to think about this situation. About her. To think that his best friend that he knew from childhood would have this severe lapse in judgement, especially regarding her own child, especially after her husband passed not too long before that happened…
Ceroba didn’t like the silence, as it seemed to confirm her worst fear. She needed to get out of there, she needed to escape.
“well, I think I’ve had enough for today, I’m going to go home and deal with this myself, you probably hate me after what you just heard and want me out anyways so-“
As Ceroba got up and started to walk to the door, she was pulled back onto the couch, now facing Starlo.
“Ceroba… I honestly can’t imagine what you must have been going through knowing that you’ve held onto this secret for so long. To be honest, it sounds quite rough. I’ll admit, this is a lot to process at once. It’s difficult to find out that your best friend from childhood, who you care about so much, has an extremely dark past riddled with stupid decisions. But that doesn’t mean that I hate you because of it. I don’t want you to leave just because you think that your actions from a while ago are so heinous that nobody would want to associate with you after the fact. Sure you might have made some stupid decisions in the past, but so have I, as well as many other people that we both know. It’s just not right to throw away a friendship like this one when you’re in a time of need.”
Starlo put his hand on Cerobas shoulder, and as she turns her head to face him, he sees a few teardrops falling from her eyes.
“For what it’s worth, I still care about you the same way I did before, I still feel the same way about you that I did before. Regardless of your past actions, you still mean a lot to me.”
Starlo could tell that Ceroba was starting to cry for real now, as more tears streamed down her face. He was even getting a bit teary eyed too. He sits there for a second, and then goes in for a hug to comfort Ceroba.
“And nothing you do will change the fact that I love you for who you are Ceroba. And I will never let go, regardless of what happens.”
At this point, Ceroba was crying quite hard now, grabbing onto Starlo for dear life. He just kept holding onto her, comforting her as she let it all out. The two were stuck in their embrace for a long time, eventually winding down as Ceroba started to calm down a bit, her tears falling less and less as time went on.
She knew that everything was going to be okay.
She always knew in the back of her mind that Starlo wouldn’t leave her over this.
And today just might as well have confirmed that.
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As Dalv waved goodbye to Martlet as she went down the path to Lower Snowdin, he couldn’t help but feel some kind of pit in his stomach. And it wasn’t the first time that this happened, this consistently happened at the same time every year.
Always right after he and the gang went to Clover’s memorial, always right as he got back to Snowdin.
He knew that Clover was gone, but the memorial really solidified that thought. There was no beating around the bush here, Clover was gone for good.
Dalv had come around to accept that, he knew that good things in life always came and went, he just felt like that Clover went too soon.
He managed to make a name for himself lately, since his performing career took off in the area. Although he originally played at the Honeydew Resort, word eventually got around and he started picking up gigs around the Underground.
While he did get to play a gig at the new MTT Resort, he felt like it was too fancy for his style of playing, and he much rather preferred the more intimate performance settings that he would find in Snowdin.
And he liked it that way, especially ever since he transitioned away from classical pieces to jazzy arrangements of popular songs, with the occasional full blown bebop songs, band and everything.
Those were fun to play, albeit difficult enough to where he could only realistically have one, maybe two bebop tunes ready for a performance.
Dalv struck up a conversation with some of his bandmates who lived in the town, and after the usual “How was your day?” kind of talk, they eventually got to the good stuff. The latest that’s been going on in Snowdin.
Normally this would be pretty boring, but today was different.
“Hey Dalv, I’m assuming you’ve heard about the latest human that fell down here, correct?”
Dalv was taken aback for a second. Another Human? How could something like that happen? He knew that he shut the doors to the Dark Ruins a long time ago, and they could only be unlocked with a key that only he had.
Did they come through a different entrance?
“No… I have not, I haven’t even seen any signs of a human in a while now, are they dangerous?”
“Fortunately no, from what we’ve heard they came out of the Ruins, and some of the monsters who came out of the ruins told us that the human was nothing but kind, polite, and respectful to the monsters. They seemed to have no intention of killing anybody, which is good. It’s a shame that they just so happen to be the 7th soul that we need to break the barrier.”
Dalv remembered that they only needed one more soul to break the barrier, and that Asgore was hell bent on finding any meaningful way to capture this 7th soul as quickly as possible.
He knew he had some work to do, he needed to make sure that this non-violent human was safe.
He didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes that he made with Clover.
After finishing his conversation with his musician friends, he immediately opened up his phone and called Martlet to let her know.
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*click*
She couldn’t believe it.
Martlet had somewhat of a hunch that another human would fall around this time, since they’ve always averaged about 4-6 years between humans falling into the underground.
She just wondered why she didn’t encounter them like she did with Clover, she didn’t see any signs of a human at her guard post. And as far as she knew, every path in Lower Snowdin eventually led you to that area, there was no feasible way to bypass it.
Surely there has to be some kind of explanation as to why she hasn’t seen the human at all.
And then it hit her.
Upper Snowdin.
She knew from her time spent as a Royal Guard member that there was another entrance to the Ruins besides the one that led to Lower Snowdin. So if the human went through the regular Ruins and not the Dark Ruins, that would explain why she never saw this new human.
She immediately took off from the ground, and flew to Snowdin Town as fast as she could. She needed to intercept this human so that they wouldn’t end up losing their life to Asgore. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes that she made when Clover went through the Underground.
As she was approaching Snowdin Town, she heard a familiar sound, and saw three figures on the ground. She had to figure out what was happening here, for all she knew this could be the Human. They could be in trouble.
As Martlet landed, she took cover immediately behind a bush and poked her head out so she could see what was going on.
She saw three people total.
Sans the Skeleton, who she got to know fairly well by this point.
A taller skeleton that she could only assume was Papyrus, thanks to Sans’s description of the guy.
And the 7th human.
“SANS!! OH MY GOD!! IS THAT… A HUMAN!?!?!!”
“uhhhh… actually i think that’s a rock”
“OH.”
Martlet chuckles a little. Seems like this Sans guy isn’t going after the human like she thought he would. And it also seems like he’s helping the human as well.
Interesting.
Maybe she wouldn’t need to step in and help the human, seems like everything is under control here.
“hey, what’s that in front of the rock?”
“OH MY GOD!!! IS… IS THAT A HUMAN?”
“yes”
Martlet sighs, reminding herself that she shouldn’t come to conclusions this quickly. Seems like everything is not under control here.
“OH MY GOD!! SANS! I FINALLY DID IT!!! UNDYNE WILL… I’M GONNA… I’LL BE SO… POPULAR!!! POPULAR!!! POPULAR!!!”
She couldn’t help but laugh at the situation, seems like this Papyrus fellow isn’t really up to the task of capturing a human. Maybe things were actually under control here.
“HUMAN! YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL STOP YOU!!! I WILL THEN CAPTURE YOU! YOU WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE CAPITAL! THEN… THEN!!! I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S NEXT.”
Martlet’s heart sinks a bit, she knew exactly what would happen when a human gets delivered to the Capital. And it wasn’t pleasant whatsoever. Maybe it was for the best that Papyrus didn’t know what happens next.
“IN ANY CASE! CONTINUE… ONLY IF YOU DARE! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!!”
She sees Papyrus run off in the distance, leaving Sans and the human alone.
“well, that went well. don’t sweat it kid, i’ll keep an eyesocket out for ya”
Martlet now was confident that everything was under control.
As she flew back home at a much more reasonable speed, she couldn’t help but think about what would happen next.
She knew that Waterfall was much easier to get to through when going through Snowdin Town, so it’s possible that the human wouldn’t end up close to the Dunes, or even the Steamworks for that matter.
Maybe it was for the best, since the Steamworks was in complete disarray at this point. It got so bad that Axis ended up building their own place to live right outside the entrance to the Steamworks while the crews inside were fixing everything up after they got some funding to rebuild the place to provide a backup in case the CORE ever goes offline for an extended period of time, which did happen a few times this year.
She went back inside her house and decided to rest for the rest of the day. And as she sat down on the couch, she ends up thinking about how much work there is left to be done. So she gets up, puts on her work gear, and goes outside to finish working on the new window she was adding to the addition to her house
It was livable after only half a year’s worth of work, but there was still a lot more to do on the outside, and most of it was trying to make the addition blend in with the rest of the house. She got pretty close after a year into the project, but there were little things that kept bothering her.
She eventually came to realize that this project wouldn’t really have an end date, and Dalv didn’t mind the construction work. He enjoyed the new additions that Martlet would make to the house.
As she finishes sealing up the new window, she takes a look at it, admiring her work. She settled down for the rest of the day, eventually heading off to bed as it got late. She felt satisfied about everything. The new window, her improved cooking skills, even the 7th human.
If only she knew that everything was about to change very soon.
