Royal Blue

A Misty Memory (Chapter Forty One)

Frisk remembers lying in bed, healing from what they'd been calling 'the faint'. From... whatever happened, after they freed Monster-kind where they sort of... passed out for several days.

They remembered doing a lot of reading, afterwards. As they were trapped under the sweltering maternal shackles of rest —Even when they argued that, if anything, being in a short coma had given them more than enough bedrest— that Toriel had set for them.

So... they sat. They allowed their mother to take care of them, to tuck them under the warm sheets, and to bring them things even when Frisk could get it themselves, and they let Toriel hover over them as much as she wanted, such as to fully and totally prove that they were alright.

Eventually, Toriel allowed others to come as well, which made it a bit less boring. But still, —Frisk thought with a huff, but a fondness nonetheless— to go from freely exploring the entire underground, to being basically stuck in one room, was a large fall for their personal freedom.

But this was how Toriel cared, and they loved their mother.

—Their mind flashes back to a scene, of red slash marks and dust. The glint of a knife's edge and then... nothing.

Their stomach churns, and, for a second, it feels like something is crawling up their back.—

They owed it to her anyways; and, of the ways to pay penance, enjoying hot soup and a soft bed was by far the easiest judgement they'd faced.

So... they rested. And, when they didn't have the company of their friends, they read.

There wasn't much else to do, anyway.

Somewhere between the stories, they realized just many started... just afterwards. Begin just after the world falls apart.

They start with an estranged father locking his house up under the weary shelter of the porch, kicking a child's toys out from underfoot.

They start in the car, as the mother drives away from her old life, a storm fading with the smear of droplets, and into the grey daylight that swallows her whole. Ignoring the empty car seat in the back.

They start with the last dregs of a search effort as everyone gives up hope.

They start as a child, suddenly and seemingly without reason, wanders away from their home; into the rain.

Into the woods.
Toward the mountain.

They used to wonder why. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the story covered it in the first place? Wouldn't it be better if it began, at least in the middle?

But now... standing here, a hand wrapped inside Toriel's larger, fuzzy warm one, watching Zero... they understand.

The moments just after, are the first time the character really gets to think.

They are the first time they get to go over it all in their heads. To breathe on their own after the adrenaline and the panic fades. To go over it all, after everything is mostly over with.

And then, they're left with their decisions.

And that's quite a dangerous thing, isn't it?
To be left alone with your mind.

And that, Frisk supposes, is where they realized just how little they remember. From before their fall.

It really is a blur. Motion. The woods, and the rain. Feeling cold and lost... but determined. Impossibly determined, but toward a goal that they could not name.