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[mettatonvevo]

[The video feed opens to a pair of robotic hands pinning a sign to a pillar in the Entrance Hall. This isn’t terribly peculiar since Mettaton has done this quite a lot in the past for his concerts but the subject of this flyer is of a different affair than anyone is accustomed to seeing. It is rather bare in comparison to the almost gaudy things he’s put up before but this one is straight and to the point: a picture of a ghost that some of Wonderland may recognize and the words on the top and bottom of the flyer say in big bold, eye-catching print HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GHOST? Anyone who happens to explore the mansion today will run into a lot of them hung up all over Wonderland.

There’s a couple of seconds as Mettaton adjusts the flyer so it sits perfectly on it and, satisfied, he reaches a hand back to the camera and turns it to face him.]

Hello Wonderland! It’s been awhile since I have posted here, I know, it’s a tragedy that I need to remedy more often, but that’s a problem for later. For now, dear Wonderland, I need your help. You see, in that last event or perhaps a little before it, someone important went missing. And I know some of you knew them, so I will need your help in finding them!

[He says this with a confidence that does not betray the anxiety that has been building in his soul that he has been fervently denying.]

Now I know one of the first questions some of you may ask me is “Is their room empty?” Well. Their room being empty, whether or not it is, doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that they are missing and that I will find them. Any information you have as to where they may be would be incredibly helpful!

[Now Mettaton looks almost imploringly to the camera, but of course he’d never come off as desperate, no, he’s Mettaton! He’d never potentially lose his cool like this.]

So! If any of you have information about the whereabouts of the dear and lovely Napstablook, I am all ears! I will be all over Wonderland and if you have anything at all, respond to this and let me know.

[With a decisive nod he ends the feed.]

((ooc: If you’re feeling an action thread, Mettaton can be found almost all over Wonderland feverishly looking for his dear friend, so feel free to run into his rather desperate search as he denies that Napstablook is gone. Places of note are The Music Room, the Library and probably the entirety of the Second Floor but he can absolutely be found anywhere you wish other than the Forest, which is a closed prompt.))

Comments

[determinedest]

[Maybe.]

[There's always a next life. There's always a next one. Impossibly, there will be, until the world stops turning. Until it all grates to a halt, or a SAVE file goes untouched forevermore.]

[But they could never guarantee that it would. Even in the happiest ending possible, the potential for that one final threat to everyone's happiness is still there. Always and forever unable to simply let things lay where they should.]

[But it's better than watching everyone crumble and fade.]

I think so.

[...]


[If it makes him feel better to say so.]

[mettatonvevo]

[The grief in his soul is still encompassing everything and yet their words give him pause, a stillness settling over his emotions. It's a kind thing to say, a way to bolster him but he wonders if they believe it. He knows from past conversations they don't seem to.

Napstablook has gone home to a desolate world, ravaged and scarred by a human who took their pain and made it external. It's a tragedy of many acts, with many scenes in between that lead to its awful conclusion. Just as this is a tragedy of forces greater than all of its players, leaving Mettaton sitting helpless in the middle of a forest on some far off world whose machinations are entirely unknown.

But if this place has done one thing for him, it's helped him see other people in pain. He's not used to noticing anyone else when he falls into despair but he looks to Frisk now, gently trying to comfort him, and he wonders what those three months on the surface was like for them. He knows what RESETs feel like now. He knows in his time, from his place, they haven't RESET once. What is it like? What kind of fear must they hold in their heart? How often do they look upon themselves as a weapon that with one wrong move could destroy all their lives all over again? Will they ever rest? Will they ever find peace?

Three months is so long. Three months is so short. The few hours that Napstablook has been gone feels like an eternity but it is nothing at all.]

Frisk... thank you.

[The tears are filling his eyes again and he wants nothing more than to reach out and hug them. He sets himself to sit properly and gently reaches out a hand to theirs. He doesn't take it, not without permission, but he offers it.]

Wonderland is going to be awfully dark without them here.

[determinedest]

[It's dark without stars to light the way. Even when you're standing right in front of one, knelt in the grass. If you touch too many stars, you get burned with that cold fire flaring out from the icy, trailing edges. Perpetually suspended.]

[They've held an awful lot of them in the palms of their hands. One more won't hurt.]

[They take his hand, willing, and offer a squeeze.]

They could always come back.

[They might even come back happier. From a...better time.]

[From a better Frisk.]

[mettatonvevo]

[They take his hand and Mettaton visibly relaxes, the touch grounding. He smiles weakly as he feels himself settling into a haze of grief that is, at the very least, not as explosive as what he was feeling not ten minutes before.]

They could. But they won't remember me as I am here. All they will have is who I was before. They won't remember their fish. They won't remember the caroling. They won't remember your music or their creations or... anything that happened here.

[They won't remember why this place that he sits in now is significant.]

[determinedest]

[They won't remember.]

[Just for a moment, they entertain the thought of...of what if Chara really is gone? What if they never come back? What if every last trace of them dissipates into nothing, and all that's left is a handful of memories? And even more devastating - what if they come back, as someone entirely new?]

[What does it mean to lose someone that important, that dearest SOUL you hold close to your heart?]

[They can hardly bear to follow that thought to its conclusion before they wrench it painfully aside.]



[The question they finally think to ask, when they ask it, is mundanely childish.]

...

Did you take pictures?

[mettatonvevo]

[Mettaton laughs, low and shaky.]

I don't think so. Even if I did, there would never be enough.

[He can't remember. Gracious, how could he have not taken pictures? Did he really take them for granted that much? He squeezes their hand. He doesn't know what they're thinking but the re-affirmation of their presence is important.]

I'll need to change that going forward. I hope you're ready for dozens of pictures of you and everyone we know.

[determinedest]

[Pictures are powerful.]

[An ending where everyone's happy, everyone's smiling. A picture on a dresser where everyone is smiling, even the child whose face is buried in the golden blooms they hold. They're smiling behind those sepia-toned flowers. They know. And that's enough.]

[Asgore takes a polaroid of two children perched atop his shoulders. He loses it months later. Sans holds a picture of three clumsily-drawn figures and holds it close as he holds anything; not very close at all. Kept hidden, sealed, pinned away.]

[They smile, a faint little peaking of the corners of their lips.]

Okay.

I think I can be.