entranceway | Asgore Video: Awake, Arise, Lift Up Your Voice

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Asgore Video: Awake, Arise, Lift Up Your Voice

[Late on the 5th day, somewhere no-one can hear, a song starts playing in reverse. And the SOUL that was once a goat monster is called again to life.]

[The world's saddest boy is eased in sadness and also fur. Asgore Dreemurr awakes in his room and finds himself as whole and living as he has been of late, although perhaps more tired than usual.]

[A short video is posted to the network. It is a close up of Asgore's face; it is late, and he looks weary, but the weariness he feels is deeper than the hour alone would give.]

I have been dead, but for the second time in my experience, I find that I am no longer so. I apologize to anyone whom I may have worried or harmed with my death, especially my children. I apologize for laying such a heavy burden on Tim. I did not wish for my SOUL to be absorbed by one of the Ice Giants by accident, and perhaps making one of them even stronger, enabling the deaths of others.

If my choice was wrong, I take responsibility for it, and again apologize to anyone it has harmed.

[Asgore takes a deep breath and shuts the feed off.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tim, this is Asgore. I am sending this to you to make sure that you are okay, and to again apologize for the strain I put you under. It was a very heavy burden to lay upon you, and I regret putting you under such stress.

Please let me know that you have gotten this soon. I think it would be best if we speak.

[...inevitable. Right? Fucking. Inevitable.]

[He's alive. He's alive, and that's the important part. He's alive and not half-resurrected or mangled by whatever he had to do to get his soul back and Tim's just Tim again, no horns or branches or fur or anything of the sort. No doubled memory unfurling like a fractalized organism of its own making.]

[He has to force himself to speak. The words emerge slowly, though disarmingly level.]

I...guess it would be. Yeah.

[Goddamn. There's no avoiding this, is there?]

Would you like me to go to your room to speak with you in person? I can meet you there, if you would like. You may need more rest than I do.

I'm fine.

[He's not fine. But everything is fine, so it's - fine.]

[He's fine.]

I mean...where're you? I can just...I can find you. [Because he's fine!!!!]

I am in my own room, if you would like to meet me here.

I will get another chair out for you. And something to eat as well.

...

[Is that better?]

[Worse?]

[He can't say. He shouldn't have to. So he doesn't.]

Okay. I can...I'll be there soon.

[And sure enough, in about five minutes, there's a knock on the door. He didn't wait very long at all.]

::The door opens and Asgore is standing there. Alive. Here. Tired, but here. And he sees Tim. Alive. Here.::

Please, come in. I'm so very glad to see you safe.

::He moves as if he was going to hug you, but then rethinks the action, and steps aside to let you enter.::

::The event has ended. The closets have gone back to dispensing their typical goods. He has asked the closet for a variety of sandwiches, the sorts cut into triangles - ham and swiss, roast beef, egg salad, pimento cheese (Asgore had never seen that one before), turkey - and was going to have a customary pot of tea but at the last moment thought that perhaps if Tim had garnered his affinity for tea while in possession of his SOUL he might not want any so soon after, and instead has asked for some 'human-favorite beverages' and so there's a two-liter of brand-name soda in a shocking bright yellow color, six cans of something with a Blue Ribbon on the front that asserts its primacy since 1893, and a pot of coffee with coffee mugs, all sitting on an end table next to a large recliner, which has had a Louis XV sofa, from what you can tell, hastily dragged there as you can still trace the lines in the carpet from two of the legs leading from the closet to it's current home. The room is surprisingly otherwise spartan in its decoration. Over-sized chair, table, King-sized bed, world's most ornate sofa, a trash can... Little else.::

Edited (had to add the PBR) 2017-09-02 19:19 (UTC)

[He moves forward, as if to embrace him, and Tim's heart stutters in his chest for a moment, sputtering like a flame about to go out. And then - he stops. Apparently reconsiders the action. And backs away.]

[He releases a breath he didn't mean to hold.]

[The interior of the room isn't as surprising as it maybe could be. Some part of it still tingles with familiarity, like he's been here before - even if he knows he hasn't. Some faded mnemonic pathway lit up in orange and cyan, humming like burned-out circuitry, picking at the corners of his skull. The trappings, though, those are new. He can't claim he recognizes the name of any of these beverages with the exception of coffee, so he...goes with that. Sticks with what's familiar.]

[Pours himself a mug of the stuff, just to give himself something to do with his hands.]

So, uh.

[Now to initiate the world's most awkward conversation. What do you say to someone after you picked up their SOUL and carried it around for a good twenty-four hours?]

...how've you been?

[That. Apparently.]

Please, sit down. There's no need to stand. I'm tired. Very, very tired. Perhaps... less tired than you? I am unsure. We are likely both very tired.

::Asgore sits down, and pours himself a drink. He is trying the violently yellow-green beverage. It's fizzy and smells like nothing natural, nothing that any human creature should ever consume, and sweet, sweet beyond all knowing. He makes a face when drinking it.::

I asked the closet for human beverages. It's very... piquant.

::He picks up a sandwich instead because the pimento cheese will act as a palate cleanser, or so he hopes. He doesn't bite into it, through.::

It is hard to know where to begin. I am sorry for asking so much of you, and sorry for foolhardily thinking I could handle a situation beyond me. I am not asking for your forgiveness, but... I do wish you to know that I am sorry for my failings.

[Piquant. He doesn't know what piquant means, but he can take a wild guess, just based on the way Asgore's expression contorts after he sips at it. Why he's keeping up this front of courtesy is...well, all right, it's not beyond him. Maybe once it would've been, but now they're - ]

[They're different.]

[Things are...different.]

[Tim sits.]

It's fine.

[The answer is immediate. Maybe too immediate. He sips at his coffee, ignoring the way it scalds the roof of his mouth, just to give himself something to do.]

You didn't know what would happen.

I still don't know, I'm afraid.

Tim, I. I do not remember much, after my death. I'm... left with impressions. I wasn't... clearly myself.

I was aware more of... feelings. States of being... rather than distinct memories.

::He's dancing around a thing he wants to say but does not know how to say it, as it would be easier to wait it out and pretend that nothing was wrong.::

How was it for... you?

[Feelings. States of being.]

[That...]

[That's better than he'd hoped for, honestly. He can't breathe out in relief just yet, because there's not nothing left to worry about. But if he could remember fractions of Asgore's past, his hundreds of years of history, what could Asgore possibly remember himself?]

[Does he really not recall those pieces of him? Did he not bleed into someone else? Did he, for once, not infect Asgore with everything in his head?]

...complicated, I guess.

[That's not an answer. Not a sufficient answer. Deep breath; try again.]

I...I do remember...things.

Ah. Did you learn anything which you wish to... well perhaps you do not need to have it explained. If you remember things.

Although perhaps you may know things without knowing how you know them.

::Where is there a cup of tea when you really need one, instead of this yellow beverages.::

... Do you... have questions for me or... anything else?

[It's...]

[God. It's the worst feeling in the world, knowing someone else peeled apart the layers of your head and peered into your history without your consent. It's the worst goddamn feeling possible, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone.]

[Takes one to know one. Doesn't it?]

I'm sorry. I don't...

I didn't - I didn't have a right to know any of that.

And yet you do. I do not feel that I have been dishonest with you, although perhaps I have not told you the whole truth of who I am. Really, who ever could?

::he stares down at the fizzing liquid in his cup::

So I trust an obligation upon you and exposed myself in the doing.

::There's something approaching a bitter laugh.::

Familiar, is it not? A decision made in a moment with unforeseen consequences for both myself and for you.

You didn't know.

[That had been the mantra he'd clutched tight to his chest - to his heart - to his soul? - the entire time. He hadn't known. He wouldn't have done something like that if he'd known it would turn out that way. He wouldn't have.]

I won't...

[He sips at his coffee to give himself more time, and his tongue tingles as it burns.]

I won't tell anyone. It's not my life, and I won't - I won't do that to you.

Well, thank you for that... bit of Mercy.

::he puts the uneaten sandwich down, and stares into the bubbles::

Tell me, if you can... please remember that I... don't really have the same experience as you did... did... we hurt anyone? Other than the giants, I mean. I remember feeling... rage. At times.

No.

[Not, uh, physically, anyway. Can't exactly speak for the emotional trauma he no doubt inflicted on the poor guy's kids. Among others.]

I...the giants were...

[Was that him? Or Asgore?]

...'m sorry.

I was killing the Ice Giants, Tim. There's no... added... shame in just doing what I was doing.

I mean... if we hurt anyone from here, but we didn't. So, that's something of a relief.

::Asgore coughs in an attempt to give himself two seconds of extra time.::

Tim... can you tell me... this is very awkward to ask... Tim, how... the other emotion I felt more than anything else... how much of the sadness that we went through was mine, and how much was yours? If this is too personal for you to answer, you do not need to.

[Why's he letting him take all the blame like this? What kind of sickening person would allow something like that to happen? He'd raged once he was able, the fire igniting in the pads of his palms and blazing in a cold orange stripe down the center of each giant's mass until every last one of them was gone.]

[In retribution.]

[Is that what it feels like, to have the power to hit back?]

...I dunno.

[His grip tightens around the ceramic of the mug. He stares at the shining film of oil slick atop his coffee, the rainbow reflection of the ceiling.]

After a while, it - kinda bled together.

You have a surprising amount of sadness for one so young.

I... do not know what has happened in your past, but...

Should you ever wish to speak of it to anyone...

Well. You know I have had my share.

[A surprising amount.]

[Of course. He's anomalous, even in that regard. He's just had a shit time of it - but no more or less shit than anyone else, right His childhood sucked, but whose didn't? And Asgore, he knows, has got him beat where that's concerned anyway. So what's the fuss?]

[There are far more important questions to ask.]

Do you...remember anything? From me, from my - memories?

Very little. There's just... a void. An emptiness. I do not understand it. Perhaps the connection for me was empathetic more than... memorable. A... a Monster's SOUL has never been absorbed like this, since I have been alive. It is possible that your human will is more powerful than my own. You have determination. I do not. You may have willed me out of your memories. You... seem like a very private person, Tim. Perhaps you wished very much to keep me out and were so determined that you could.

I know what it is like to be so private. As... you already know.

[He has determination. For a moment, his heart thuds with sickening finality, until Asgore admits that he doesn't remember. He sectioned everything off so thoroughly that maybe there was no hope of it bleeding over.]

[~~Unless something else did it for him.~~]

I'm - sorry.

[It feels necessary to apologize, for that. His shoulders sag.]

Not really fair.

Very few things in the world are fair, I've found.

::Asgore pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts::

Tim, I saw, afterwards, the video you posted. There are some things I do not entirely understand. I do not wish to press you to reveal things you are not comfortable about, but... are you...

::He stops talking, frozen mid-sentence, not really sure how to say what he's trying to say. He finally gets it out.::

Not everything... was... me. Unless I... am mistaken in my understanding of myself.

[PRIVATE TEXT MESSAGE TO ONE (1) TIMOTHY WRONG]

[distant screaming]

[shocking jumpscare only it's not really scary it's just an Asgore meekly waving in the distance]

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