-__-__
The first child was ribbons, the half-forgotten blue of the sky. He'd come while the kingdom mourned, small and dark of eye and hair and skin, all of which was a contrast with his bright, waiting soul.
There wasn't a room waiting for him. But that was fine. He'd sleep in Toriel's for now. The couch apparently did wonders for her back.
He hadn't seen fit to tell her he knew she was lying. And the bed was warm. He'd just wait until she needed the bed again.
He'd painted the Ruins in his colour, somehow, not literally but enough that he was accepted. He'd brought the dance and song and sheer life of the surface with him.
The colour disappeared one day, when he found what he'd been waiting for. Somehow, when Toriel snuck out to that snail farm, she'd left the doors unlocked.
He left his ribbon there, a shock of sky-blue too bright and too hopeful to let the Ruins forget. He'd left his knife, the plastic worn and dull from using it on too many of Toriel's pies. And he left the Ruins themselves, free of the already crowding place that just couldn't compare to his friends and to his home.
It had been hours before she realized. By then, it'd been too late, the middle of the night when he'd snuck out when she fell asleep. She'd locked it, checked to see a lump buried under the blanket, and chocked it up to the Ruins being a little too cold as always. She'd waited too long to check properly.
He'd waited outside the inn, wrapped in his extra blankets, when the rabbit woman running it told him someone was to check out soon please just be patient. He'd fallen asleep soon, and after a while the blankets had fallen away.
He'd been taken to the king when the guards found him in Snowdin, shivering and unused to the snow already blanketing his unconscious body.
Asgore didn't wait for him to awaken before he took his soul. And the sky was sealed away, lost until someone else came.
(Someday, they'll get out. All of them. Not today, yeah, but someday. They'll just have to be patient.)
_-__-
The second child was the sun. She was bright, uninhibited, and a horrible reminder barely a month after the first child left. She'd been a friend who found him gone and fell trying to save him, bringing only a bandanna for her hair and thick leather gloves.
They'd all lied, of course. No-one named -__-__ had ever been there. But she found the proof. She found the ribbon. And she found the door.
The battle to get out was as blazing as she was, as blazing as the sunset-orange soul she wore for a heart. She'd dodged all the attacks, gunned straight for the lying, smothering monster who'd acted like her friend hadn't died. Because he had to have died, the others had told her the stories, they told her the only way they could be free. She was a smart girl. She could connect the dots.
But she connected enough fists that Toriel had slipped, just for a second, and then she'd made a break for it and slammed the stone door shut.
The monsters there were scared, yes. But so was she. And when they didn't hurt her, when they didn't lie and they told her the truth and so many cried because the child had friends, he had friends and she'd come looking and oh god were they sorry, she'd shoved down the feelings and told them to be brave.
And she'd gone forward to bargain for her friend's soul, or for his body at least, enough that she could bury it in the way humans did.
The castle had been warned. The king had been waiting, all alone in his garden, and asked if she'd like to join him for some tea. She'd said no. And she'd asked for her friend.
Asgore was grief, all grief, and he'd begged for her to see. It was a species, after all, that needed to be saved, and he had to save them. He'd promised.
So she ignored the fear, ignored the danger, and bargained. She won the fight, they bury the body. She lost, they take her soul and bury both.
There were two coffins made that day. And a blinking orange soul joined the sky's, a faint light in the basement it was enthroned in.
(If it has to be done, do it. And be brave. It'll be fine, you'll see.)
_-_
The third child was blue, cut gemstones, and a will that shone just like them. He wore his heart on his sleeve and memories on his form, a tutu and ballet shoes from a friend who'd laughed with him when he'd picked wearing them over studying for an hour more. There was nothing wrong with them but the fact he couldn't do ballet.
Toriel had been a breath of fresh air, motherly and kind and helpful, but he'd heard from a ghost he'd met on the path about the barrier problem. And he'd decided it needed fixing. He promised he'd try to fix it.
Snowdin was hard to get through. The Ruins were cold, yes, but this was freezing. He'd been caked in snow, and the rabbit lady filling in for her sick sister at the front desk gave him a room free of charge to warm up. He'd paid for it anyway, wrapped in a sweater and a coat from the gift shop and definitely not expecting the volcanic Hotlands for his travel.
He'd find out only after he'd been chased away, after dropping his shoes and his tutu, about the warmth. Thankfully, he'd been able to pawn off the coat and sweater in exchange for some gold, and off he went again, the thought that the monsters deserved to see the surface heavy in his mind.
It'd taken long, weeks of travelling barefoot after not being able to bear replacing them, but he'd finally reached the castle. There was a skeleton in black there, with a tiny child of the same species practically hanging off its leg.
The skeleton let him play with the child as he went to get the king. The kid seemed to like him, at least. He had magic as blue as his soul. The child hoped he'd live to see the barrier break.
He'd offered his soul up properly in the throne room as the king stared forward in shock, though he was quivering inwardly at the thought of being killed, and asked at least make it quick.
The blue soul entered the basement, shaking and breaking down. But they hadn't broken their promise.
(I swore I'd at least try to break the barrier. I meant it. I don't think any of us like breaking promises or- or losing our integrity. Right, S-?)
_-_-
The fourth soul was the scratch of pen on paper, with a purple soul they called hex code b300fa but knew for a fact wasn't. They had glasses that barely did a thing and at least eight notebooks and the wish to see the world.
They wanted to keep looking through the Underground, no matter if Toriel disapproved. They knew about the barrier. They knew about the human hunt. But no, they didn't care. They were suffocated. They didn't want to be trapped, no matter how many monsters they had to dust to get out. So they'd keep going on and see where that led them.
They disappeared the minute they found the key to the door.
Snowdin was great. They stayed for three whole days, practically buzzing with excitement under their stoic facade and taking notes enough to fill two notebooks. They didn't dust anyone here. They stole water-resistant pens for Waterfall notes and moved on.
Gerson, the Hammer of Justice, who told stories about the war. They loved him. He wasn't smothering, he was helpful. He told them where to hide when monsters approached. He taught them how to make sea tea. They'd taken enough sea tea and spider doughnuts later on that they had to backtrack and offer him all their filled notebooks and even their glasses, impishly telling him about filling their backpack with enough food that they couldn't fit their books in anymore.
The glasses were a remembrance.
Muffet, they'd bought all the food they could, backtracking once more to make her some sea tea and share it over dinner. Which they'd made, proud that nothing had burnt so far. They liked her. They left with a purple and gold dress spun by her spiders and a significantly lighter makeshift wallet. Not like that mattered. Their next stop would probably be the end.
It was.
They'd asked the king if they could have some tea with him before they died. They'd seen the whole Underground, after all, just like they'd tried to do. Teatime was nice. The second proper teatime they'd had.
A purple soul found its way to the basement, its body sleeping contentedly in its coffin and its memory scattered.
(I said I'd do it. And I'm going to. Might as well help save a world I love while I'm at it, right? So I'll persevere.)
__-_-_
The fifth child was green, green as the beaded, seed-strewn bracelet she wore. For a friend, she said when asked, a friend with glasses and notebooks when she fell.
Toriel didn't have the heart to tell her there was anything past the door this time. Not after the the first four left. And the fourth had left for the Underground, not for unknown reasons or for friends or for a promise unbroken. So she'd gone on without knowing.
She didn't mind too much afterwards. Toriel had been doing it to keep her from getting hurt. That, at least, was plain. Oh, she was angry, but... it was for the best. So no hard feelings.
She'd learned only due to a new monster, a flower that'd awakened at around her fall and that'd said it liked the colour of her soul. It'd told her everything, and promised it'd let her through provided she not tell Toriel about its existence.
She didn't. And it opened the door.
She left because of a ghost following her, a ghost she could barely see, of a child that'd fallen some time before that called themself Chara. They'd liked the colour green, they said, only gold and red were better. They'd asked to see their father again, just once, before they flickered out of existence like they seemed to be closer to doing whenever she looked away from them for too long.
She set off straight for the castle.
There weren't too many problems with Chara guiding her. Until the Hotlands, brimming with lava that cracked stone and burned the frying pan and apron she'd forgotten to give back to Toriel. She'd been forced to drop them, carrying on as far as she could.
She died in the Hotlands. And Chara refused that.
She woke up a few steps away from her deathbed of coals, unknowing, and Chara was flickering more than ever, but that was fine because they were close. She was so close to helping her friend see the king like they'd wanted.
She entered unknowing of the determination she shared with the flickering, weak soul. She died in her sleep, the king struck by how she spoke easily of a child who looked so much like his own. She died more mercifully than the rest.
A green soul that shimmered faintly and quietly made its appearance in the basement.
(I'm going to help you, then. The world needs a little more kindness, right, Chara?)
___-__-__-
The sixth soul was music, smooth and sharp and as enthralling as its human was. She was playing, she said, pretending to be an explorer, and she'd fallen through the hole and found herself with a soul that was bright yellow and a flower that wanted her dead.
It deserved the punch to the face it got.
Toriel had taught her to fight peacefully, of course, but if she was attacked, hell if she was just going to let herself die. So she fought when she needed to, and soon there was a voice in her head.
Chara was quiet. Worryingly quiet. But they were helpful, and they helped her when she had to fight, and they tried to dance with her when she asked them to no matter if they were incorporeal and all they both got out of that was the still-living one getting a tree to the face on an overspin. Chara started off pretty damn nice.
Then a monster finally noticed them, she was attacked, and she wasn't in control anymore.
There was a rampage. Murder through all the sections they hadn't desecrated yet. Chara fought and fought, patience hair-thin and snapped, and dust collected on her body, on her toy gun's bullets, on her hat's brim, on everything everything everything.
This wasn't fun anymore. This was horrible. She didn't want to hurt without being hurt, the dead hadn't deserved this, they hadn't-!
She overtook Chara with all the strength she could muster and marched their shared-stolen body straight to the castle.
A yellow soul joined the others, roiling in its own punishment.
(This... is justice for what I've done. Do it.)
_-___-_
__-__
The seventh soul...
Well, that was your problem.
