Fluffy Family Reunion
UNDERFELL: The Rock Pit.
(A/N: I decided that before things with Rose get TOO HEAVY, I'd introduce the idea of the rock pit. It doesn't seem scary at all right now but... well this is Underfell.)
Rose was becoming very well acquainted with Papyrus’ assortments of traps. As part of her ‘training’, he often dragged her along to help him test them out... But that evening, she had slacked off a little. The tall skeleton had ‘Guard business to handle’, so she had decided to give herself an afternoon off and lazily bantered back and forth with a rather rude snowman (snowmonster?).
Apparently he’d found out somehow.
Right in the middle of dinner, the only quiet moment in the skeleton household, Rose was suddenly sent flying. Neither her nor her magic had any time to react. One second she was inhaling a sandwich, and the next she was being tied up after having the wind knocked out of her, then thrown over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
After a few days, she’d found that doing things like kicking and screaming didn’t really seem to faze this particular brother, so instead she reasoned with him in a level voice.
“Boss.”
“HMM?”
“The fuck you doin’?”
“DOING. PROPER GRAMMAR HUMAN.”
“Fine. Boss. What the fuck ARE you DOIN-GAH.”
“SHOWING YOU JUST HOW BADLY THE ERROR YOU MADE WAS. YOU SLACKED OFF ON YOUR TRAINING TODAY. IF YOU HADN’T, MAYBE YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE PREPARED FOR MY ATTACK.”
“I couldn’t have been prepared for your attack because you slammed something into me IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING DINNER.”
“HUMAN, AN ATTACK CAN COME AT ANY TIME. NEVER PRESUME YOU ARE SAFE IN THE UNDERGROUND.”
“Papyrus- BOSS-, ain’t a monster in this godforsaken hole dumb enough to walk into your house without your permission.”
“THERE ISN’T, HUMAN. AND YOU HAVE NOT EVEN BEEN HALFWAY INTO WATERFALL YET. TRUST ME, THERE ARE A LOT OF STUPID MONSTERS.”
“That still doesn’t explain what you’re---”
“ROCK PIT.”
“Rock wha---”
For the second time in ten minutes, Rose found herself flying through the air, falling down, down... And landing painfully on a pile of rocks at the bottom of a very deep hole.
“Ooooooow....”
“SLACKING OFF, STRIKE ONE. THREE HOURS ON THE ROCK PIT.”
Rose’s eyes grew wide as she silently watched Papyrus leave. “You wouldn’t just leave me here?!”
“I ALREADY DID. SEE YOU IN THREE HOURS. IF I REMEMBER.”
“FUCK YOU!”
“YOU CAN’T AFFORD ME.”
She just growled, trying to roll upright, or at least into a more comfortable spot on the pile of rocks. This was one of the few times she was actually grateful she wore a fleece sweater all the time to cover her arms... it shielded her from some of the worst pokes and scrapes.
Eventually, she sighed and relaxed. For now, she was resigned to her fate, deciding to nap, just to spite the tall bastard...
“ya know, ya shouldn’t just fall asleep anywhere sweetheart. ya never know who’ll sneak up on ya.”
Rose groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. “Fuck you, Sans.”
He laughed, a sharp edge to his voice. “ya ain’t my type.”
She frowned, cracking an eye open as he settled down across the pit from her. “What are you doing?”
He scoffed. “nappin’. what’s it look like? and ya know you can just cut the ropes off with magic, right? don’t gotta roll around like a damned turtle.”
Rose blushed, in spite of herself. She hadn’t even thought of that. “He’ll start screaming again if I do that.” She supplied smoothly. “And I know what it looks like you’re doing, but why are you doing it HERE?”
“you kiddin’ me? this is the safest place to nap in the entire underground. paps never looks here.”
She snickered. “Paps? Aren’t we supposed to call him Boss?”
“only to his face.”
(A/N: Again, it doesn't seem bad now but uh... eventually the rock pit will get pretty bad. I wouldn't call it a 'trigger' exactly, but things will start getting rough for our Rose once Papyrus realizes a few things.)
Venting: A Dying Flame (1)
(A/N: As a bit of sadness venting and character development, I did a thing. Rose dies, but it isn't Canon... or is it?)
She thought she could handle it. Maybe she just came to take her power for granted. Maybe she thought herself to be a god, and not just a monster or a human. Maybe, in the end, after everything she had survived and suffered through, she was just ready for the long sleep.
Her body burned. Perseverance, anger, her greatest weapons, but now they were eating her alive. She was only barely aware of any pain. Behind her were her allies. Humans, monsters, Players, people she had grown to be loyal to. They stood behind her... but not with her, as they would have, if they had known the consequences. She was the failsafe. She said she could handle it. She should have known better.
One blast.
One hit.
Another.
And again.
She was burning. They were all used to that. When she got angry, she caught fire. It was normal for her. Until the flames got dimmer. Until her movements became erratic. Until the color bled from her soul.
She had thought she could handle the burning. She had thought she could be invincible for her friends. She had thought that the need to defend them could make her the strongest being in the universe.
She let herself go for too long. She let herself bleed. She let herself burn.
And then she fell down.
They were too shocked to move. No one reached out. No one thought it was serious. No one thought that their trump card would possibly fail. No one made a sound.
She reached, looking into blank, shocked eyes. She turned to ash, to dust, and blew away in the wind. She had failed. She had burned out.
She had thought she could handle it. She had thought she didn't need help. She thought she could spare the others from pain.
And now she was gone.
(A/N: NOW FOR SOME HAPPY I LIKE HAPPY LET'S DO THAT.)
ROLEPLAY: REUNION
(A/N: I wanted to write a short, introductory kind of piece for the RP version of Rian, who isn't quite the Rian that we all know and love from the universe of Future Bonefriend, but he had similar experiences. I decided to share it with you guys, cause it might be interesting to compare his mannerisms in the future. ALSO: That thar that may look like a couple of made up words to most of you is actually from an Algonquian dialect. Pyas = 'come over/come here', and Ehqutonahas basically means 'shut up'. I'm a little more than a third Algonquian from the Miami tribe in Indiana, and thought I'd toss that into their backstory too. I haven't actually spoken the dialect my great grandma was teaching me in about 7ever, so I'm really rusty :'D )
Rose was just leaving the Inn when a familiar tenor voice sent chills rolling down her spine.
“When someone told me that Rose Ivy could be found in town playing the role of a big sister, I almost didn’t believe them... Since when did MY Rose do anything close to settling down?”
She whirled around to stare at the speaker. He was marginally paler than her, with chocolate brown hair in a spikey crew-cut, jeans, a green t-shirt, and a warm jacket. Kindness glimmered in his bright green eyes as he smiled. His jaw was a bit too square, voice too deep, and he was taller than she remembered- taller than her- but she’d recognize that dumb, too-happy smile anywhere.
“...Rian?”
“Heya cuz, pyas! It’s been ages... Almost since high school for me but...” His smile twitched a bit, and he took on a wry tone. “By the looks of things... we aren’t quite on the same page are we?”
She snorted, turning and crossing her arms to cover up her shock. “Ehqutonahas. You try way too hard.”
He laughed. “I kinda do sometimes, huh? But... well, you can’t hide from me, you know. You might as well come clean. I just got here and don’t know a thing, so I need the classic tsundere Rose Ivy to show me the ropes.”
Rose sighed, looking at him for a second. “...Damn you look old.”
He laughed. “I’m only twenty-two!”
“Last time I saw you, we were fifteen.”
He winced, catching on to her implications. “Ah. The uh... fire at my dad’s?”
She nodded quietly, closing her eyes, memory flooding back. The devastation, the loneliness. Rian was the only other person in their generation of the family that showed any signs of having a strong enough SOUL to use magic. But after he had gotten away from his less-than-sane mother and began living with his dad, she only ever got to see him in secret. When she heard about the fire...
Suddenly, she was being hugged.
“It’ll be alright, you know?”
“Rian oh my god we’re in public.”
“Nah, cuz. We’re hugging this out.”
“Rian people are going to stare.”
“Since when do I care? Rose, I’m sorry. Things must have been hard for you... Did you get through high school okay?”
She sighed, losing the energy to be irritated. She hugged Rian back. “I had a tutor.”
“Good.”
“But only made it about half way. They discovered my magic right before I turned seventeen and they tossed me into the Underground.”
He stiffened a bit. “But... weren’t the monsters free?”
She leaned back, looking at him curiously. “...No?”
He gave another wry smile. “Where I’m from, they popped out of the ground a few weeks after I turned fifteen.”
She nodded. It made sense. A world that could let someone like Rian live was a kind world. “That’s good at least.”
He nodded, looking a little far away... but then again, he always tended to look like a cross between high and daydreaming. After a few seconds, he spoke. “How old are you?”
She shrugged. “Just turned eighteen.”
His grin perked up. “So I’m the oldest now!”
“Rian oh my god I hate you so much let go of me.”
“Nah, huggin’ it out.”
“Fuck right the off.”
“Is that really any way to speak to your older cousin?”
“Get back out of my life.”
He picked her up, holding her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “You’ll never get rid of me again. Now where are these kids of yours? I wanna meet’em!”
She playfully smacked him, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was laughing too hard to pretend to be annoyed anymore. Rian wasn’t always ‘Rian’, but Rian always knew how to make someone feel better.
(A/N: Some super sweet cousin time for ya. I left a few half-nods to OUR Rian in the RP version, but he's mostly his own man. This Rian never started living with the monsters. He was on good terms with them and they were all friends, but they didn't bond like our Rian and co. did. Is he worse off? Not necessarily... but he definitely isn't as happy, or have as many friends. I'll try to treat him gently but... well you guys know how I am. He'll be a sobbing mess in a corner somewhere by the end of the month.)