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

[skelebro]

[Amazing, how many people fail to succeed at even that very basic ideology.]

'S good of ya.

[fadeling]

[He knows that. All too well.]

It shouldn't be. It should be everyone.

[skelebro]

Yeah, well, you'd be surprised at how many people don't have that as a priority.

[fadeling]

No. I wouldn't.

[skelebro]

So. Cole, or not-Cole, or whichever you are right now - you been here long?

[fadeling]

I don't remember. Maybe.

[skelebro]

Maybe? Y'don't remember, say...the first event you lived through down here?

[fadeling]

I forget sometimes. When it hurts too much.

[skelebro]

What? Remembering?

[fadeling]

Yes. It keeps me clean so I can help again. I could make you forget too.

[skelebro]

[...yeah, this conversation just went from "vaguely bizarre" to straight-up "NOPE."]

What, y'mean like wipin' people's memories?

[fadeling]

Yes. If it hurts too much to remember.

[skelebro]

Yeah, okay. Just so we're clear here. You ever think of doin' that?

[His eyesockets don't go hollow, but his stare's a little more on the flinted side than is typical.]

Don't.

[fadeling]

[No one likes that he can do that, never mind that he doesn't just go about the place wiping memories as he pleases. Maybe one day he'll learn just to not mention it.]

Why? It could help.

[skelebro]

'Cause I've just about had it to here with people fiddlin' around in my head whenever they feel like it.

[His tone's pleasant, but the words are far from it.]

Capiche?

[fadeling]

It's not that. I don't hurt people.

[skelebro]

Maybe you don't mean to. Big difference, there.

[fadeling]

I don't. I help.

[skelebro]

Do you? 'Cause wipin' out people's memories tends to be the opposite of that.

[fadeling]

It isn't always. Only if it hurts. Only if it's stuck. I don't make them less and I don't make me more. And I forget later. I'm not a demon, I don't hurt people!

[skelebro]

[That ain't a good sign. Shouting never is. Don't mean Sans is about to compromise, but he holds up a bony hand, palm out.]

Maybe you don't mean to. But the thing about memories - even the ones that hurt - those're important to people. They make us us. Y'know?

[fadeling]

But it doesn't have to hurt forever.

[skelebro]

'Cept that, yeah, it kinda does.

Only way we learn not to make the same damn mistakes over and over is if we remember gettin' burned for 'em the first time around.

[fadeling]

No it doesn't. You don't have to forget it happened. Only that it hurt. If it's stuck it isn't helping. You aren't learning. It just hurts.

[skelebro]

And you'd know what's best for everyone. Is that it?