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

[journalname]

A few. I had thought they might be wary of monsters, knowing nothing of us, but most of them do not seem taken aback at all.

[Sans has been here for a while, of course, but Asgore knows he's generally more intimidating to meet, skeleton or no.]

Have you many friends here, Sans?

[skelebro]

A few.

[He's got a whole lotta acquaintances, people he's met and has learned to recognize at a glance, but some of the time it feels like there ain't much point in makin' friends. Not when there's a good chance they'll be gone soon enough.]

I guess I've just got one of those faces people remember.

[Can't imagine why.]

[journalname]

[He rumbles a chuckle.]

Golly, is that so?

[skelebro]

People don't always get that they're chattin' up monsters. Who'da thunk, right?

[journalname]

The Internet is useful for that. I never used it much before here, but it's very interesting!

[skelebro]

Oh man. [Sans looks, for a brief moment, like Gyftmas might'a just come early.] Alphys showed you how it all works, huh?

[journalname]

Yes, enough. I think I understand most of it.

[skelebro]

[That is amazing and he is so pleased to be here right now.]

Yeah? She show you the emojis and everything?

[journalname]

The little faces? Love showed me those, as a matter of fact.

[And then they just spammed them at each other for a bit, so that's happened.]

[skelebro]

Did they? That's nice of 'em.

[His thoughts on Love are of a generally indifferent sort, though hearin' someone get along with 'em is always nice to hear.]

Peppy sort, huh?

[journalname]

It seems so. I am glad they are up and about again.

[As much as he would be for anyone, really; it's a shame that the gods died, whatever happened to them. And however much he may take umbrage with some of their actions in the meantime. Sans probably knows how frustrated he got over the wall separating him from half his children, but at least now in calmer moments, it doesn't mean he'd like to see them dead.

It isn't their fault Asriel is gone. If it were, then it would also be theirs that he got to see him again at all.]

[skelebro]

[Either havin' all the gods back is gonna be a real walk in the park or it's gonna make everything that much more worse. For some reason, he's feelin' it's gonna be the latter. Inter-familial conflicts, an old war with a species they don't know the first thing about - yeah.

This'll go well.]

How's...how've you been? Since...y'know. Everything.

[Since Asriel.]

[journalname]

[Asgore is silent for a long moment, looking up at the "stars".]

I suppose...better than the first time.

[Which is a goddamn low bar, considering how he kinda ruined everything the last time this happened. But not incorrect.]

[skelebro]

Yeah.

[It doesn't get easier. You just kinda get better at living with it. It comes home to roost, and it sticks around for your whole life.]

...sorry.

Ain't easy.

[journalname]

...no. It is not.

[thanks for the brand new information sans]

But...Chara and Frisk are still here. And as long as they are, I must continue to be...alright. [It's obvious that this isn't the word he's searching for, but it's more or less what he means.]

[skelebro]

For...their sake?

[He'll continue to be a solid fucking rock of seemingly well-adjusted sensitivity and quiet grief, but anybody with a pair of decent eyes can see that he's only keepin' things together moment by moment.

As well as he can.]

[journalname]

Of course.

[It always is for someone else's sake, is it not?]

[skelebro]

And what about yours?

[That is the million dollar question, ain't it?]

[journalname]

[Sigh]

Do not worry about me, Sans.

[skelebro]

Well, I usually try not to. Make it kind of a policy, see.

[But that policy, like so many of his policies, had rapidly fallen apart upon contact with Hadriel for an extended period of time. Seems he really don't know what to do with himself when things go linear, huh?]

Not so easy these days, it turns out.

[journalname]

[Well, he doesn't...know how to feel about that....]

...Sans, it is my place to worry about you. Really, do not give it another thought.

[skelebro]

Just so long as you got someone to worry about you.

[If at all possible, he'd prefer for it not to be him, but if there's nothin' else for it - well. Then there's nothin' else for it.]

[journalname]

Leave it to Undyne, then.

[He smiles, as if it's a joke, but she would probably worry about him also. If she weren't apparently from some sunny future where everything went bizarrely perfectly?

Asgore puts quite a bit of effort into not letting Undyne worry about him anymore.]

[skelebro]

...heh. Yeah.

[A little hum of faint humor, and he lets the word settle there, lets it serve as the dismissal of the subject that Asgore plainly wants it to be. Hard to say if that'll be enough. Undyne, though, she's plenty capable of worrying for just about everyone without it bein' a strain on her.

So far, anyhow.]

Yeah. She's good at that kinda heavy-lifting.

[journalname]

She is, isn't she?

[well thank god we're off that other subject, damn. Asgore can talk about how great Undyne is for a while.]

I am happy for her and Alphys. She has been sweet on her for a long while. [And Alphys seemed flustered when she talked about Undyne too, but she seems flustered more often than not when Asgore speaks to her, so...?]