Chapter Text
Crashing waves and the calls of gulls gently pried through a muddle of naught in the echoes of a skull. A golden gleam over the glassy horizon leaked in through the dark of dreams and a blanket of sand.
Same as yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that, too.
Vera stared sleepily at the mirrored oval of molten gold sitting vertically in her vision, dividing a world of water and sky in half. Pale lines of seabirds soared across the purple and orange sky amongst fluffy daubs of clouds.
The morning sun sent a pleasant tingle across her bones. She heaved one arm out of the cool sand, letting its light peek in through her thin, white fingers. Gently rubbing at her eyes, she wondered if today was worth sitting up for. She was comfortable where she was, but the breeze above was nice, she thought. Maybe that was enough of a reason.
With slow, stiff movements, the skeleton got her arms under herself and raised up out of the heaps of sand that had blown over her. Streams of the stuff flowed down across her spine and through her ribcage, her turquoise-green soul glowing through the sparkling debris.
Vera let out a long, wide yawn as she stretched and languidly got to her feet. Her shirt, threadbare as it was, was still dangling, a limp, grey flag caught up in gnarled fingers of driftwood. She grabbed it, giving it a flap to shake out the sand before throwing it around her shoulders.
A dull nylon cord attached to a geometric chunk of plastic and metal protruded near a rock within arm’s reach. Vera hooked a digit through the loop and lifted up her companion, a device that had come carried with a boat that had run aground many years back. A radio, she had been told it was called. Though those who it had come with were long gone, she still treasured the little thing, no matter what maintenance it needed.
Cool wind blew in from over the ocean, carrying with it the scent of seaweed and brine. Vera brushed her knuckles lightly around her eyes and trudged off down the beach. Little crabs danced around her feet.
She’d walked the way to the dock so many times she hardly had to watch where she was going. Especially good this morning as, despite the ocean’s ruckus, it was hard for her to keep her heavy lids from blinking for long, slow seconds at a time.
The skeleton finally forced herself to look upon the world properly when the sound of the waves thunking against wood reached her. Near carved beams of scrap and the repurposed cabin of a long-sunk ship, the weathered old dock waited, salt water lapping across its bowed planks.
Vera’s palm found a worn wooden pole and hook where it rested against a chunk of salt-pocked stone. She casually spun the thing as she strolled out over the dock before plopping down heavily at the edge, dunking her legs in almost up to the knee. There was a little joy in the ritual of that in the morning. Reminded her of her dad. After so long, anything to help keep those old memories alive was welcome. It made her grateful that her refuge was so far out in the ocean, of all the places in the world she could have ended up.
After a few minutes watching the smooth flitting of fish in the water, the movement of something much larger caught her eyes. She leaned forward with a lazy grin on her face as a jubilant, dark form broke the surface. Mantas had come, gliding below just as the seabirds did above, an excitable few defying the ocean’s barrier and flapping into the air before splashing back down. Vera loved to see it. She waved at them— might have joined them if she wasn’t still so lethargic— and watched until they had gone off to deeper waters.
Finally, Vera readjusted herself to slump back on the dock. She set the battered old radio down at her side and flicked the stiff switch at the top. Through crackle and distortion, the hints of a melody warbled into the air. She twisted a knob that crunched through sand in its socket until the sound was as clear as it was going to get. It was an upbeat tune sung by a woman over some gitara, drumbeats of danbora, and otherworldly beeps and boops from an instrument Vera had yet to catch the name of. Sometimes she recognized the song, but it was a new one for her today.
Even after all this time listening in to fragments of the human world, she only understood snippets of whatever language usually came through the little box, often aided by some words that sounded similar to her own language. Without context, though, there was still a lot left up in the air, so she’d often make up a meaning herself. She caught what she recognized as a greeting in the lyrics and liked to imagine that this song was about meeting up with some friends for a pint.
Dipping the rod she’d grabbed down below the dock, she tapped around until there was a smooth, solid tink of metal against metal. Moving the tool upwards and to the side, she felt a weight drag on the hook, then pulled it back up. With it came a crystal in a lantern-like lattice of metal, the hook stuck through a hoop at the top. Magic-charged seaweed was tangled around the side; Vera munched it up before she checked on the crystal.
The magic was waning. Nothing new there. She hummed thoughtfully before she turned and clunked the crystal farther back on the dock. It needed some time in the sunlight to keep fulfilling its purpose of making the ocean vegetation edible. She scoffed quietly at herself. Maybe Zapf had been right: it really was time to turn in for a couple months. Give herself and everything else some time to recharge.
The music stopped for just a moment and the smooth, practiced voice of a woman popped in. Vera perked up. She listened to the words carefully— seemed like the lady was complimenting the song, but then began to speak at length and with such speed that the skeleton was left just enjoying the cadence and flow of the voice.
Radio was interesting. Vera had listened to what was probably hundreds of humans through it, some coming and going, some staying for long years, their voices changing slightly over time until there came a day they’d announce was their last one and not be heard from again. This particular human was new— she’d probably started up about two months prior. Vera liked her energy, but at the same time, it made her harder to even try to understand than some of the others had been.
The skeleton yawned loudly and stretched just as a familiar jingle began to play, one that heralded a changing of shows and hosts. As she considered whether to take a little swim or not, she lightly kicked her feet and hummed along with the tune.
Today, that short melody cut off a little sooner than she expected and a disorganized mess of voices cut through from wherever it was the humans recorded from. Odd, Vera thought. Things usually seemed at least a little orderly after that jingle. Normally, someone with a very rehearsed tone would show up and make some reports of the day, then vanish until hours later when they returned with yet more reports — sometimes the same ones, repeated in the same cadence.
Today, there were more people— five, maybe— and they were excited. The chatter was hard to parse, but even with her very, very limited knowledge of the language, Vera managed to catch a man emphatically expressing his disbelief in a tone that conveyed awe more than incredulity. It took a moment for the regular voice to get the others settled. She began to address the audience, explaining something with a strange urgency in her words.
Vera hummed thoughtfully to herself. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard the humans get like this before, especially not this early in the morning. In the midst of her musing over whether it could be something to do with a celebrity, or some sort of award, the quality of the audio changed. The tone of the white noise was different. A recording, or someone new from somewhere else. There was the sound of a throat being cleared, and then someone began to speak in a very deep, friendly voice, steeped in such magic that it sent a shiver like ice water up her spine.
“Howdy and greetings, humans of the above-ground, from the King of all monsters! I am sending a message to—”
The skeleton almost fell right off the dock and into the ocean. The involuntary squawk that spilled from her mouth drowned out the rest of the broadcast sentence and she blubbered out a laugh as she ripped the radio up and into her hands. She pressed the speaker right up against the side of her skull. She felt like she might simply crumble to bits and the hum of her soul buzzed so loud through her bones that it was hard to hear.
But hear she did. There was no mistaking it for anything else. The real-life voice of the King. Her King.
Centuries of panic and grieving; acceptance and loneliness; shock beyond comprehension shot through her mind faster than she could process. Tears poured down her face.
She struggled to her feet and took off as fast as her legs would carry her. She’d travelled every inch of the island so many times she could have done it in her sleep, which was especially good in the moment because she could hardly see a thing.
It wasn’t long before the trees and shapes of boatscrap buildings gave way to the massive, slanted structure embedded into the earth that was a key part of her home. The once flying fortress of the Divine Beings, long since crashed and subsumed by forest. Wiping her arm across her face, the excited, incomprehensible words of the humans buzzing in the radio were Vera’s company as her perception of sound came back to her. She rushed to the tilted entryway onto what had once been something of a balcony. She bounced on her feet, back and forth, as the stone door slid apart before her, squeezing herself into the gap the moment it was large enough.
Faded crystals lit a dim path down a lopsided spiral of hallways. Vera rushed past door after door, her speed punctuated by the hard clicking of her bare feet. Wiping her eyes for the umpteenth time, a warmer glow guided her to exactly where she needed to be.
She rushed into a large room where crystals grew up and into the sides of the walls, gently thrumming with energy siphoned from far above. Rows of large stone basins occupied most of the floor space, surrounding a towering pillar of gemstone, unevenly faceted from centuries of cautious, careful chipping.
Vera raced to the only basin that stood out from the others, partially covered by an old blanket as it was. She stumbled to yank that blanket away and tossed it onto the floor, using it as a cushion to drop the chattering radio from her hand as she leaned over the rim of the stone. Cozied up inside and snoozing peacefully, exactly as they had been for the last few months, were her long-horned cousin Zapf and his canine partner, Aileth, wrapped in each others’ arms.
“Oi.” Vera’s voice creaked. She gulped and tried again. “Oi! Cuz! Ai-Ai! W-Wake up, huh?”
The crystals in amongst the old, homemade pillows and blankets flickered. Aileth’s half-flopped ears twitched and she stretched, lightly elbowing Zapf as she did. The large skeleton’s dark eyes opened, his white irises flickering light within the sockets. He sat up a little too quickly, claws gripped tight into the stone sheltered them.
“What—?!”
“Listen!” Vera yanked the radio up, only to realize with a sinking feeling that, of course, the source of her excitement had long since passed. “I—! Ah, bleedin’ hell, I—!”
“What happened?” Aileth’s voice was soft and hoarse as she sat up, clinging to Zapf’s side.
“Damn it, y’ain’t gonna believe this but…! B-But I heard the King!” Vera’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she picked up the radio, which was exclusively the voices of humans rambling over each other. “Ah, come on!!” She grasped the device tightly and shook it as if she could somehow throttle it into playing what she wanted. “I-It was the King before, I swear!”
Zapf and Aileth looked at each other in utter bemusement. The dog’s ears quirked back and forth.
“The… King,” Zapf repeated.
“Yeah!! Yeah, the King! Our King!” the sharp-toothed skeleton insisted. “I-I dunno if it’s Asgore or maybe one of his kids— or grandkids? Or grown-up Fluffstuff? But it was definitely—”
“Wait, are you…? You’re positive?” Aileth asked, her golden eyes wide. She leaned forward, grasping Vera’s hand tightly.
“I could hear the magic in his voice from here,” Vera said, tapping the side of her skull sharply. “Y-You guys, you gotta believe me, I was wide awake, I promise! It was news or somethin’, it was happening all urgent-like!”
Zapf held out his hands and gently took the radio from his cousin, leaning his head towards the speakers. A thoughtful frown bent his spiny brows. Vera gulped.
“…Wait,” Zapf said after a moment.
He was right, Vera thought, a tiny spark of hope lightening her mind. She took a little breath and leaned closer. It had to be big news for the humans too, didn’t it? That meant they might play it again. If they’d do it for big sports games, they’d do it for monsters showing up for the first time in centuries, wouldn’t they?
So, statue-still and silent, they waited.
The disorganized voices inside the radio chattered on, oblivious, and time ran on and on with the urgency of cold honey.
U n t i l …
The stretch of hours— however many it was— shattered with a simple jingle, the same exact introduction Vera had caught before and an unmistakable, deep and world-breaking Howdy.
Zapf choked out loud as Aileth screamed, yanking Vera’s hand so hard she popped it from her wrist. If the skeleton noticed, one wouldn’t have known by the way relieved laughter spilled from her and made her shoulders heave.
The rest of the message was lost beneath their clamour, but it didn’t matter much. One word from the King of Monsters was enough.
In a frantic rush, the monsters heaved themselves from what had been their hibernation chamber and hurtled back through the slanted hallways. Aileth lead the way around corners and through open doorways as they rushed along an increasingly steep path— so steep, in fact, that keeping a grasp on the nearest wall was the easiest way to follow it.
After pulling themselves around a corner so angled from the list of the tower that the wall almost became floor, Aileth slid through a doorway they had left ajar over a hundred years ago. She skidded down across the dark floor until she lightly bonked into the side of a counter of stone. She leapt to her paws and slammed her hands onto the top of it, where a wide, polished orb pulsed at the impact.
“Light!” she barked.
Her voice chimed in the dark and the resonance of crystals warbled back at her. A glitter of gold sparked across the top of the counter, illuminating its wide, round top that took up a good chunk of the room. Little crystals that dotted its surface tentatively flickered to life next to built-in devices of ancient stone and gears and, as Vera grasped the wall and edged in to join the dog, the roughly hewn but highly polished pillars at each corner of the room brightened with soft, white light, tinted by blobs of purple and gold bobbing and swirling like oil in water.
Zapf effortlessly slid down to stop at Aileth’s side, putting a steadying arm around her waist. “It’s been a while,” he said. “Are you sure—?”
“Mainland’s east, right?!” Vera asked. “Pretty sure it was!”
“Wherever it is, we should be able to see it from above,” the canine said.
“We aren’t planning on dropping in right on top of the humans, are we?” Zapf asked.
“No, but if we could at least get to the coast…!” Aileth sucked in a deep, chest-shaking breath. She leaned forward and placed her hand above the clear crystal orb farther onto the table, her magic sparking through her fur and along her fingers. A golden paw print gleamed within it in reply.
A hum of magic swirled around the chamber, a soft melody accompanied by the mournful cadence of a howling beast. Aileth matched her paw with the mark on the crystal and grasped onto it tightly.
“Hang on,” she warned the others.
The whole room shook and rumbled deep to its core, stone groaning and growling. Vera’s soul began to buzz like a hornet and she grasped tight to her sister-in-law. Zapf grimaced and a called long, blunt bone up from the floor and stuck it solid, using it to brace against as something about the gravity within the chamber shifted. The skeletons both felt a sudden daze in their skulls, an unusual light-headedness, but Aileth’s half-flopped ears perked right up. Golden light shone from her eyes.
The rock wheezed. It tilted, slowly levelling out the floor as the entire structure pulled upwards, undoubtedly right from the earth.
Crystals flickered. The hum weakened. The dog gritted her teeth and clamped her other paw down onto the orb. Fur up the back of her neck bristled and stuck up, and she braced her body against the counter of controls.
It wasn’t enough. Far faster than it had raised, their home crashed back down with a resounding boom, knocking all three monsters from their feet. Zapf’s magic yanked the others to him as they skid across the swiftly shifting floor and he held them tight in his arms until he smacked into the wall.
The place groaned, levelled a little, and finally, settled, at least at not so steep an angle as it had been before.
“…Ack… Damn it,” the dog whimpered.
“It’s alright.” Zapf pressed his face into Aileth’s neck for just a moment and sighed. “It was worth a try.”
“Wh-What happened?” Vera asked, stumbling to her feet. “Ah, man, I’m sorry, maybe if I’dda let ya nap—!”
“No. No.” Aileth shook her head. “It’s, ah… It’s the whole place. It’s been too long. Not enough magic. It c-can’t fly anymore. Not without help.”
“So…” Vera’s eyes widened with worry. She plopped back down onto the floor. “So what do we do? We gotta get to ‘em, right? We gotta. Somehow.”
“Well…” Zapf voiced cautiously. “We… do have a lot of pieces of things outside. Does anyone remember how to build a boat?”
The others looked at him, wide-eyed, in silence for just an instant before all three of them were scrambling to their feet again.
“A boat! Of course! Build a BOAT!” Vera cheered. She wasn’t usually a very superstitious sort, but she suddenly had a feeling that there must’ve been a reason the ocean was calling to her so strongly this morning. She sprinted for the door. “Oh, we got this— ‘course we do.” She stopped at the threshold and grinned at them, jabbing her thumb into her chest. “Half-seadrake, at your service! Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”