video/action (forward-dated to 4/20); while collecting the stars, i connected the dots

[skelebro]

[The video wobbles a minute before it steadies, locking onto a grinning skull. It's your friendly neighborhood skeleton, Sans, looking undeniably pleased with himself as he comments to someone just off screen:]

'S lookin' great so far.

[There's a fumbling tapping as the feed gets jostled, and Sans is forced to set the thing onto the ground, face-down. At least the audio filters through, unimpeded if a bit muffled.]

All right. We ready?

[There's a distant sound of affirmation - two, actually, though one sounds a mite more stammered than the first. Kate, it seems, hadn't much wanted to take part in the announcement itself. So when the feed swings up again, there's two distinctively non-human shapes in the periphery - a yellow, lizardlike creature and a small black hedgehog that sharp-eyed cave-dwellers might recognize as Alphys and Shadow, respectively. The video jerks again, blurring the twin blazes of color into smeared linear streaks, and the cave gets a lovely shot of Sans's pink fuzzy slippers in preparation for the finale.

There's a click of fleshless fingers snapping; hundreds of tiny, glowing objects being displaced and then replaced, buried into the rock of the ceiling. Takes a lot out of a skeleton and leaves him a bit stooped from the effort, but it's worth it.

The camera swings up again to pan across the ceiling, now lit with a vast array of blue sparkling stones.]

It ain't Tranquility's illusions, but... [One last whip-pan back to Sans's face, and he winks at the camera, lookin' just a tiny bit more on the edge of exhaustion than usual. Just a hair.] You can consider it a good constellation prize.

[Enjoy the night sky, Hadriel. It'll last for quite a while. Sans, for his part, plans to be stargazing all night. Feel free to find him at the lake, if you're real interested.]

Comments

[Video]

[fadeling]

How did you get them up there?

[Video]

[skelebro]

Little magic, little ingenuity. Little help from a prickly misanthrope.

[Y'know, the usual.]

Re: [Video]

[fadeling]

Oh. [So don't ask questions about that then.]

A lot of little lights, but lovely. Maybe people will be happier. Is that why did you put them up there?

[Video]

[skelebro]

Figured the cave could use a little change of scenery. Ain't a real sky and they ain't real stars, but it's a little like what we monsters used to do back home.

Re: [Video]

[fadeling]

It doesn't have to be real.

Monsters?

[skelebro]

'S a species. Like yours truly.

[He sure ain't a human.]

[fadeling]

It's not mine. [Whatever it is. He's bad at things like that] Aren't you a person?

[skelebro]

What, I can't be both?

[fadeling]

I don't know. Monsters used to be easy because they weren't people. It's different if you're a person.

[skelebro]

Nothin' wrong with bein' a monster where I come from, pal. Just a species.

[fadeling]

It's different in different places. Signs and similarities, songs sung the same but separate.

[skelebro]

Somethin' like that.

[Either way, he might count as a "person" in addition to a monster. To most.]

The name's Sans.

[fadeling]

Hello. I used to be Cole.

[skelebro]

"Used to be"?

[That's a...strange choice of words.]

[fadeling]

I was Cole. And I wasn't, too. But you need something to call me and he won't mind if I'm still Cole for a while.

[skelebro]

[That don't make a whole lotta linear sense. But linearity is a pretty overrated concept. He'd know.]

Who's that make you when you ain't "Cole"?

[fadeling]

Me. People need names but I'm not a person.

[skelebro]

You do a good job passin' for one.

[Amiable as always, 'cause what people consider to be "people" ain't always universal.]

So what're you when you ain't a "person"?

[fadeling]

I'm me. Fading and faded, felled and fallen, a wisp and a whisper of Fade.

I help people. I hear the hurts and I help them heal.

[skelebro]

[Fade. Sounds a bit familiar. Weren't that the word people were tossin' around back when those demons started seepin' into the city?]

And an alliterative poet on top of it, huh?

[fadeling]

No. The words are harder here.

[skelebro]

How so?

[He's gettin' the idea that he's missin' a whole mess of context here. But that might just be him.]

[fadeling]

They were easier in the Fade. They only mean one thing. People make them complicated.

[skelebro]

People're good at that. Complicating things.

"Fade." Ain't that where those demon things were comin' from a few months back?

[fadeling]

Yes. But it's not just demons.