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The seven suns, born of darkness, made that darkness exceptionally clear. There was a certain quality to the atmosphere of the Dark Worlds that made even its most mundane environs seem a trifle uncanny compared to the world above. A bleariness at the edges of everything, silhouettes stippled, the Darkners maneuvering through their newborn domains in an amniotic haze. Then there was this castle, bathed in the seven suns’ false light, a light that wavered from sweltering orange to radioactive green to a rich geodal purple, and all of these colors passed through that darkness and were made even richer by it, a sort of anti-prism that allowed sunbeams to seep beneath one’s eyelids. There was something about this light that set the soul blazing – an illusion, a terrific enigma.
Seth’s shadow was cast in these colors as they hustled through the west wing, notebook to their chest. They couldn’t get around quite as easily as their siblings and they huffed and puffed as they went, kicking up sand in the zen gardens, nearly faceplanting in the grand corridors where blue roses grew. The three heroes were blundering around elsewhere, but time was ambiguous in this place, and all Seth knew for sure was they didn’t have as much of it as they would have liked. If nothing else, Aqua was bound to track them down soon, and this was something they wanted to do alone.
Memory shaped the Dark Worlds, the Fountains allowing it to hatch into these landscapes and their inhabitants. This castle had only just been made, except that it had stood here for a long time. Seth was newly born, and still invested with history. They felt their curiosity, their dream of learning all that they could, so it was frustrating that they were so often confounded by themself. They sometimes felt like they’d come from somewhere else. They didn’t know why they would drum on the cover of their notebook with a fingertip when they were deep in thought – and always in the same pattern, like a coded message – or why they often thought about the ocean, something they had never seen. And there was another mystery that nagged at them even worse, until it had motivated them to foist off Aqua on Green for a little while and take off for this wing of the castle fast as their legs could move. Of all their siblings, there was only one who might be able to help them with this – or technically two, but Flowery had more important things to deal with.
They paused at one entryway. Here was a corner where the shadows pooled thick, and Seth stared hard into them, their glasses glinting. Then they shook their head and pressed on.
Past the grand windows where flower petals fluttered in a perpetual twilight, around the towering bamboo shoots and inexplicable cacti, the castle changed once again. Here was a theatre that the seven suns didn’t illuminate at all; the only light came from candles gently flickering on tabletops. Several Darkners were clustered around those tables, though thankfully none of Seth’s siblings were among the crowd. Not to say the other Darkners could be any easier to deal with; as Seth padded over to the seats in front of the stage, one Floradinn stuck out their tongue and dragged it over their sword with a long, leisurely slurp, staring directly into Seth’s eyes the whole time.
They shuddered, moved on, and took a center seat in the third row from the front. None of the other seats here were occupied, but they had a hunch that this was all the audience that would be needed.
On cue, music began to play – a whimsical plucking of strings from the air high above the stage. The spotlight snapped into life, and Blue stood in that beam as though he’d been summoned by the light itself. The strings trilled as he stretched out arabesque, and then began to dance.
Seth watched with their notebook on their lap. They’d wanted to take notes on this display but couldn’t find a convenient time to avert their eyes. Blue’s face was serene and he glided en pointe from one end of the stage to the other, seemingly weightless as the petals wafting outside the palace. Seth had once shut themself away in a distant, windowless room in the castle and, after ensuring the door was thoroughly locked and there weren’t any Netskies hiding anywhere, attempted to imitate Blue’s movements. They’d emerged with their glasses askew, several fresh bruises, and the conclusion that dancing was much, much harder than it looked. In fact, they hypothesized that most of the effort of dancing was devoted to making it appear effortless.
Blue’s routine had brought him to the far-left side of the stage. The strings held expectantly as he took a deep breath, cupped his hands beneath his heart, and unleashed a series of grands jetés that carried him to the opposite end, trailing silvery dust in his wake; he halted, pirouetted, and with his final leap the dust coalesced into fluttering wings that carried him all the way back to the center. The music slowed, the wings faded, and Blue took a bow.
The crowd might have been small but the applause was spirited, especially considering several of the theatregoers lacked hands. Blue gestured gratefully at them all, but the spotlight didn’t switch off – instead, it followed him as he turned back to Seth and stepped off the stage. Soft clouds appeared beneath his slippered feet, forming a path over the rows, and a small staircase down to the seat beside theirs. Then the light switched off, and Blue sat down, his tutu crinkling against the upholstery.
“Seth,” he said. “It’s always a joy to see you here. Has Aqua been behaving?”
“As much as one can expect,” they said. “It, um, was a good dance.”
“All the better for having you in the audience.” He delicately crossed his legs. “But judging by that look on your face, you didn’t just come here for the entertainment.”
They adjusted their glasses. “Insightful as ever.”
Logically, Seth should have been more irritated by Blue than they actually were. His syrupy-sweet outlook on the world was one thing, but Seth was supposed to be most curious member of the family, the one with all the answers – excepting Flowery, whom the siblings naturally accepted was the best at everything. Meanwhile, Blue always came across as if he knew something they didn’t and was patiently waiting for them to figure it out. Seth couldn't hold that against him, however, because syrupy or not, Blue was also one of their only siblings who could hold a decent conversation.
“I’ve been interested in studying music,” they said. Easing into the topic.
“I can hardly think of a finer subject,” Blue replied. “The immaculate union of artistry and formula. Rhythms and patterns, obscure in their forms and yet endlessly compelling. One could argue there is no art that comes nearer to the essence of love. It seems an emanation from the world itself. Transmitted through our hearts and hands, the movement of our bodies.”
Decent conversation, but Seth still had to suffer through him waxing poetic.
“Er, yes. And you’re certainly closer to it than the rest of us.” They gazed up into the darkness overhanging the theatre. “Where does the music here come from, anyway?”
“It is not a question of where, but when and why. The answer to both is the same: it comes when needed.” Blue smiled and twirled his wrist. “I’m satisfied with the arrangement.”
“Understandable. The point I wanted to make, about the music, is that, well…” They clutched their notebook. “None of us… no one here… seem like we can actually play it.”
“Oh?”
“I first noticed with Aqua. She didn’t seem too curious about it, and she’s curious about everything. Green had other interests, that’s fair, Orange’s options would be limited anyway since she never takes off those boxing gloves, and Yellow was… well, there was that time he tried the harmonica…”
“I am aware of the harmonica,” Blue said stiffly. It was clear that no more would be spoken regarding the harmonica.
“Flowery might be the exception, but I haven’t talked to him. So I tried it myself. That is to say, I wanted to try. But as marvelous as this place is, there don’t seem to be many instruments, and I have this feeling that even if I did get my hands on one, I wouldn’t be very adept with it. What about you, Blue?”
Blue had looked away from Seth, started picking at the folds of his tutu. For someone so composed, this was a significant tic.
“I let the music flow through me,” he said. “But producing it… no, I can’t say I feel particularly compelled.”
“There you go. Whether it’s lack of interest, or lack of skill, don’t you think this is a notable omission?” They flipped open their notebook and rifled through the pages until they came across the notes on their siblings – disorganized scrawl, marked by several doodles from when Aqua had managed to sneak the book away from them. The theatre lights had all gone off and the rest of the Darkners had shuffled away to other amusements; it was just the two of them, Seth squinting down at the murky pages.
“I believe that, between the seven of us, we have very nearly encompassed the entirety of what it means to be human,” they said. “But not this. If music is as important as you say it is, and I don’t see any reason to dispute your claim, then why hasn’t it been passed down to any of us? Especially considering…” They looked around, lowered their voice. “Considering who opened the Fountain?”
Blue’s smile had gone. He looked pensive. Seth felt a stab of guilt for putting him on the spot like this, but the guilt was mixed with triumph – if he was pondering this question so deeply, then it must have been a good one.
“I’m sure you can feel it too,” they said. “The darkness here is colored by them. It’s all around us. After everything Asgore told us about them, why shouldn’t we be able to play music as well?”
Blue had curled his fingers against his chin, brow furrowed in thought. For a time the only sound was Seth’s finger nervously tap-tap-tapping against the cover of their notebook. Then Blue’s hand lowered, and he looked back at them and smiled again. It was genuine, even if melancholy had wilted its edges.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it’s because part of us knows that is someone else’s dream.”
* * *
Asgore was working in the flowerbeds when he first heard the noise.
It was a beautiful day, spring turning to summer, with a light breeze and the occasional cottony cloud to give him some relief from the sun beating down on his back. He’d managed to get the flowers in the ground last month in spite of all his other responsibilities, and they were looking pretty good – Asgore’s hobbies were varied, but gardening had always been one of his greatest passions, and it showed in his house’s paradisiac front lawn. The neighbors would still take pictures of it from time to time.
Still, it needed maintenance. Toriel was out running errands for the afternoon, so Asgore had been watching over Asriel and the newest addition to his family, and shortly after lunch he’d asked Asriel if it would be all right if he popped out for a bit to take care of the weeds. If the kids needed him, they just had to shout – rather, Asriel could, because the words Asgore had heard from Kris so far could probably be counted on two hands with fingers left over, and all of them barely above a whisper. The flowerbeds had been planted just before the adoption. One was progressing more smoothly than the other.
Asriel had said they’d be fine, so Asgore had gone out front with his gardening gloves and a bucket for the weeds and gotten to work, head down in the mulch, pulling and tossing. Despite the size of his hands he could yank up weeds with the delicacy of tweezers, and lost himself in the work, the sound of birdsong and the wind through the trees. Then those sounds were interrupted by another from within the house. Someone was playing piano, mashing the keys at random.
Asgore straightened up, head cocked as he listened to the sounds. With no great urgency he stood and stretched and ambled to the front door.
“You kids having fun?” he said brightly, peeking his head inside.
Sure enough, the house’s modest upright piano was getting some use. His children were on the piano bench across from the kitchen table, Asriel’s hands in his lap, Kris with one hand reaching out to the keys. They turned to Asgore, Asriel looking ready to answer, but Kris’s eye was saucer sized under their bangs and an instant later they half-climbed half-lunged off the bench and scrambled upstairs so fast they were little more than a greenish streak.
“Kris, wait!” Asriel cried. “You’re not in— trouble,” he finished glumly, because they’d already disappeared.
Asgore stood there in the doorway, nonplussed. If he’d blinked at the wrong moment then it would’ve seemed like Kris had never been there. He sighed and shut the door behind him, pulling off his gloves. The living room floor was littered with toys that hadn’t been there when he’d first stepped out; he tried to take some solace in that. At first Kris wouldn’t even touch Asriel’s things no matter how much he offered.
“They kept looking at it,” Asriel said. “I thought it would be okay to let them try it out. Please don’t be mad.”
“Mad at what? You were playing the piano. That’s what a piano is for.” He glanced fretfully at the stairs. “I’ll take care of this, Asriel. Just need a second to wash my hands.”
He went to the kitchen table where Asriel’s homework was still laid out, draped his gloves over one of the chairs, cleaned up at the sink. When he turned back, Asriel had swiveled on the bench to face him, clutching his knees. He looked far too haggard for his age.
“I’m trying really hard, Dad,” he said.
The Dreemurrs had prepared as much as they could for Kris’s adoption. Toriel could recite every book on humans the library had to offer at this point, and Asgore, who’d thought his son had been almost unreasonably well-behaved at Kris’s age, was ready to accept whatever challenges they might bring to his home. But none of them had expected this, the mute and furtive terror that hung around the child like a stormcloud, and he suspected Asriel was adjusting the hardest of all. He liked to please people, and Kris’s constant distress troubled him deeply. There had been improvement. Kris appeared to relax more if Asriel was in arm’s reach. But incidents like these were still common.
Asgore walked over and patted his son on the head, mindful of the nubs of his horns – one more issue Asriel was dealing with. Asgore remembered how tender those things were when his own had come in.
“You’re doing a great job,” he said. “Let’s see if I can pick up some of the slack, hm? I’d been meaning to get around to this anyway.”
He went upstairs and to the children’s room. The door was wide open and Asgore stood in the entrance for a minute with hands on hips, surveying the room, divided by a strip of afternoon sunlight. Kris’s side was still under-decorated, save for a tacked-up drawing that Asriel had made of the two of them (much like his photography, it had been produced with care, if not necessarily skill), the bedcovers rumpled. He stepped inside and peeked over Kris’s bedframe into the room’s far corner. The day they’d been brought home, they had retreated into this nook and stayed there, knees pulled up and hands over their head, even as Asgore and Toriel frantically searched the house for where they’d gone. It wasn’t until Toriel had located them and gently touched their shoulder that they’d come downstairs for dinner.
That corner was empty now. Asgore backed away and faced the window. By now they’d all become acquainted with how good Kris was at staying hidden, so he tried a different tactic.
“Kris,” he said. “If you feel like coming out, there’s something I want to show you.”
He listened hard. A moment later, the floor behind him creaked, and he turned to see Kris standing in front of Asriel’s desk, head bowed, fists clenched. Toriel had carefully trimmed their hair not long ago, but it was still a brownish tangle that mostly devoured their head from the nose up. When Asgore knelt down in front of them, he could see them shivering.
He recalled when Toriel had told him about the first time she’d tried taking them out to see the lake. She had been stopped short by the look on their face as they prepared to leave – not fear, but a sort of desolate resignation. It was as if they’d been certain that she was about to push them outside and then shut and lock the door behind them.
Asgore kept smiling. He offered one arm, half-flexed.
“Want to hitch a ride?” he asked.
Kris hesitated, but eventually clambered onto Asgore’s bicep. He put his other hand on their back and stood, Kris’s fingertips digging into his muscles.
“Upsy-daisy,” he said, and left the room and returned downstairs. Asriel had closed the piano key cover and was doing his homework, or at least staring at it intently. Asgore carefully set Kris down on the bench, sat beside them, and raised the cover. Kris was stock-still. From under that thatch of hair, they watched the keyboard as if expecting it to bite them.
Asgore’s hands, which remained suitably deft for gardening, had developed into something of a burden when it came to this instrument; he’d been good at it when he was younger, but now he had to play with an awkward hooked-finger stance so that only his claw-tips would touch the keys, lest he strike two or three of them when he wanted to play just one. That wouldn’t be a problem for this demonstration, however. He plinked a few keys at random.
“These are named after the letters of the alphabet, did you know that?” Asgore asked. “Not all of the letters, though. Just a few of them, repeated over and over. Do you remember the ones that you played, Kris?”
He’d expected silence, or at best a shake of the head. Instead, after a moment, Kris reached over and pressed down on three keys at once. The chord this produced might not have been the exact one Asgore had heard before he’d come inside – it had been muffled by the front door, and his days of perfect pitch were long behind him – but he thought it was remarkably close.
“That’s very good,” he said, and meant it. “The one I know best is here, middle C. Right in the middle, see?” He chuckled and pressed that key. “I like to think of it as the seed that all the rest of the music grows from.” He played an octave in each direction, first with the right hand, then with the left. “No matter where the song takes you…” Now he banged out a few chords in the low bass and high treble. “…you can always find your way back here.”
Asgore ran a quick glissando, sweeping his index finger across the keys, and finally struck the middle key again. That got Kris’s attention, as he had hoped – glissandos might have been a party trick, but it was one that his hands made easy.
“Why don’t you try?” he said. “Middle C, just like before.”
Kris glanced up at him suspiciously, but they complied. They pressed the key, and its note stretched out and dwindled into silence. Then he leaned back, so that Kris could see him place his foot on the sustain pedal.
“Try it again,” he said.
Kris did, and the note rang out, deeper and richer than before. Their mouth opened slightly.
“Nifty, isn’t it? That’s what I love most about piano. So many keys, and so many sounds you can get out of just one…” He played C again rapid-fire, pianissimo to fortissimo, its reverberations bouncing about the room. “Plenty of instruments are like this, of course. But when I sit here, I feel like I can do anything. Were you having fun, too?”
That might have been a nod just now. Maybe he’d imagined it.
“Well, you can play this whenever you like. But if you want to learn more, I’d be happy to teach you. I still have the old books that I learned from, even. Never felt like tossing them out. I bet they’d be eager to get used again.” He grinned. “I’m probably not that great a teacher compared to your mother, but that just means we can learn together. All you have to do is ask.”
Kris didn’t ask, but they didn’t move either, and that vibrating tension they’d shown when Asgore had first sat them down had abated. He decided to be satisfied with that for now, and theatrically cracked his knuckles.
“Alrighty,” he said. “While we’re here, why don’t I see how much of this stuff I can still play by heart?”
He didn’t play very often anymore – sometimes he’d volunteer on the church organ for opening hymns, or bang out a few tunes at Rudy’s urging when the Holidays came to visit – and it showed in the way he played now. The melody stumbled, he repeated bars over and over as he forgot how the songs went next, and his fingering was a mess as usual. But he kept going nevertheless, amused by his own clumsiness, and after a little while he felt a subtle pressure on his side as Kris leaned over and rested their head against him. Behind the two of them, Asriel stared from over his homework, and then got out his phone and took aim with the camera.
* * *
Hometown existed at the mercy of Carol Holiday’s schedule. The mayor was infamously difficult to get along with – any luckless aides who found themselves in her office usually left feeling like they’d emerged from a deep freeze – but had such an ironclad grip on municipal matters that the townspeople were content to let her guide their sleepy little community in whatever direction she saw fit. Her influence was felt most keenly in the colder months; there was Christmas, obviously, during which her house’s decorations could probably be seen from the moon, but also the annual harvest festival, which had every detail set down in the uncompromising grid of her calendar long before the festivities started. She usually began laying the groundwork in midsummer, and there was only one other person in town whose input she trusted.
For Toriel, this had also become a sort of tradition. Carol would delicately raise the matter of festival planning during one of their TV nights, and a week or so later, after dinner, she would stop by the manor to share drinks and thoughts on how the event should proceed. The two of them were now seated at the Holiday estate’s sizable kitchen table, Carol at its head, near the pine tree, with Toriel in the adjacent corner just beside the Holidays’ snow-white grand piano. Both of them sipped their wine as Carol clattered away on her laptop. Meanwhile, Rudy busied himself with the oven, which piped out a distinct cinnamonny aroma. His food stall at the festival had always been a distant second place to Toriel’s and apparently he’d decided to take this opportunity to challenge her directly.
Carol had removed her blazer, which was the closest she came to casual wear. She had not looked up from her laptop screen in the past ten minutes.
“Inspections on the Ferris wheel should be complete by the week after next,” she said. “I swear, these fairground rides break down if you so much as look at them cross-eyed. And I’ve been entertaining the idea of moving the dunk tank into that empty lot by that old antique store near the lake.”
“That would be smart,” said Toriel. “There have not been many opportunities to use the space. Has no one else shown interest in that shop? It has been empty for ages.”
“I’m putting out feelers, but nothing as of yet. We’d have to clean up the façade if we expect the festival-goers to head over there, of course, it’s in a dismal state. But that should be easily done.” A machinegun clatter of keys. “Thoughts on what we might set up near the school? Last year’s face-painting booth didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”
“No, we had that difficulty with fur-friendly paint. I have considered asking the children to prepare some art projects they could display in the parking lot. Their parents would want to see, and that would require them to walk past quite a few attractions to get there. More reasons to spend their money.”
“That is diabolical.” Carol’s stern expression didn’t change a jot, but her tone was approving. “You won’t mind if Rudy’s stall is on that path, I’m sure.”
“Of course not. He will need all the help he can get.”
With that, Rudy materialized with a bottle of claret in his hands. His candycane-patterned sweater had been accentuated tonight with an apron bearing the legend “KISS THE KRINGLE.” Toriel wasn’t sure where any of the Holidays bought these clothes. It was entirely possible Carol had them made to order.
“Pride goes before a fall, madame,” he said. “Freshen you ladies up?”
Carol covered her wineglass with one hand, still typing with the other. “We’re preparing for battle here, Rudolph. Need to keep our wits about us.”
“I am fine for now, thank you,” said Toriel.
“Suit yourselves.” Behind him, the oven beeped. “Oh, it’s about time!”
“Be honest with me,” Toriel said to Carol, as Rudy rushed to open the oven door. “Was tonight’s culinary demonstration his idea, or yours?”
“A collaborative effort,” Carol crisply replied.
“We’re determined to teach Hometown’s premiere baker a lesson this year,” Rudy agreed. He put the baking sheet on the stovetop and tossed off his oven mitts. “Speaking of lessons, Tori, how’s that little piano prodigy coming along?”
“We’ve talked about using that word,” said Carol.
“Whoops, sorry. Toriel, you know she doesn’t like the word ‘prodigy.’ Sets unfair expectations, or something.”
“It’s not just that. It implies that expertise can come without effort. But the truth is that if you want results for anything, you have to work for them.” She grimaced, massaged out a kink in her neck, and finally looked up from her computer screen. “That said, I assume they are still taking lessons?”
“They are.” Toriel folded her hands, struggled to keep the pride out of her voice. “If they continue like this much longer, it may become difficult to tell who is teaching whom. Asgore’s old primers are very nearly finished. Though I do not think he minds.”
Rudy leaned over on the countertop. “He was about that age when he started learning, right?”
“I believe so. Certainly younger than Asriel is now.”
“And then his mitts got too damn big for the instrument. He used to gripe about that to me in college every now and then. Must be pretty nice for him, seeing Kris take to it like they have.”
This was an understatement. It had been slightly over two years since Asgore’s tutelage with Kris formally began. He’d pulled his primers out of storage, still with the original penciled-in completion dates at the margins for each song, and patiently guided Kris through those initial pages. The pattern was a week’s practice followed by a proper sit-down where Kris played the selected pieces to Asgore in full, and for that first evaluation, he’d asked Toriel and Asriel if they could stay out of the house entirely – he’d said it was to keep Kris from feeling too much pressure, but Toriel believed that he’d also wanted that moment to be just for the two of them. Once everyone was together again, Asgore had proudly announced over dinner that Kris had passed with flying colors as Kris hunched over their food, pale cheeks flushed. He had tried to give Toriel a more detailed recounting later that night, after the children had gone to bed. Key word being “tried” – it didn’t take long before he’d started to bawl his eyes out.
Toriel had cautioned him against setting expectations too high. Kris was still young, after all, and there was no guarantee they would hold onto any of their current interests. But they had doggedly kept practicing even as they’d started to change in other ways. No longer did they sequester themself in the house’s hidden spaces; now their red horn headband was a familiar, endearing, slightly dreadful sight to the town at large, and especially to Noelle Holiday, who apparently couldn’t stand to be without them for more than a few days at a stretch even as they brought a new helping of holy terror to her life with every other visit.
Carol and Noelle’s big sister Dess were two people less enamored with Kris’s rambunctiousness, but recently they’d played a few of their latest pieces for Carol after some gentle encouragement from their family, and while she hadn’t shown much of a reaction, Rudy later let slip she’d approved in her own way. That just left Dess, who was hard to read at the best of times; even Asriel had confessed he couldn’t usually tell what she was thinking. Regardless, no matter where they went or who they saw, eventually Kris would find their way back to the piano bench, where the Dreemurrs had long become used to them fumbling through each new song until it strengthened and took shape under their fingers.
“Stroke of genius on his part, really.” Rudy ducked beneath the counter, started to rummage through the kitchen drawers. “The way I heard you tell it, that poor kid went the first couple months feeling like a trespasser in their own home. He basically turned that piano into a safe space for them. No wonder they kept going back to it.”
“If that was the only reason then they would have moved on by now,” said Carol. “Rudolph, if you’re looking for the icing syringe then it’s in the third drawer from the right, second row down.”
“Aha, so it is. Thanks, dear!”
“I don’t suppose they’ve told you anything about their own feelings for this?” Carol asked Toriel. “In my experience, children’s hobbies tend to wander. Look at December, for heaven’s sake. But they’ve committed to that instrument quite intently, considering how they behave otherwise.”
Toriel let that last comment pass. “Kris is… they have their own ways of communicating. No, they have not said anything, as such. Perhaps they want to make their father proud, though Asgore has made it clear that they have nothing to prove to him.”
“Could be that they just like hearing the music,” Rudy said. Now he was bent over the baking sheet, icing syringe in hand.
Carol sighed. “Don’t be silly.”
“Oh no.” He shot Toriel a scandalized look. “I’m being silly.”
“We cannot abide silliness,” Toriel said gravely.
“If they wanted to listen to music, they would listen to music," Carol said. "Producing it is another matter entirely. Effort, not leisure. It requires motivation.”
“Pretty grim way to talk about this,” said Rudy. “Playing music ought to be fun. That’s why it’s called play, don’t you think? Especially for kids.”
“We’ve discussed this, Rudolph. Children grow older. Play becomes performance.”
“We have not really considered asking them to play for crowds,” said Toriel. “Family and friends excluded, of course. Don’t you think that would be pushing them too much?”
“I’m not explaining myself very well.” She pinched the skin between her eyes. “Talent is something that shows itself when novelty runs out. Again, look at December. The instruments she’s been going through… and even then, she won’t practice, she only plays. It’s still a game to her. That’s not the case for Kris, from how you describe it. This isn’t new to them anymore, but they still keep at it, so something else must be driving them. I would recommend you try and figure out what that is, Toriel. You don’t have to be forceful about it. But talent has an appetite, and it needs to be fed if you want it to grow.” She closed her laptop screen and looked Toriel in the eye. “They’re very good, in case that wasn’t clear. A bit stiff, but that might have been my fault. I’ll admit I’m not the most encouraging audience.”
A compliment this direct from Carol was rare as a blizzard in August. Toriel looked to Rudy for aid, but he was still busy decorating, smiling contentedly. She recalled that he was the one who’d directed their conversation onto this topic.
“And I don’t know if they’re waiting for permission,” Carol went on, “but they’re welcome to amuse themself with that thing whenever the mood strikes them.” She nodded at the grand piano. “I believe it’s in tune. Rudolph, has this been tuned?”
“Twice a year, every year, when the leaves fall off and when they grow back.”
“There you have it. It’s not as though this piano gets any use otherwise, December barely touches it. Probably a blessing, considering what she’s done to some of her other instruments.” She drained the rest of her wineglass. “That guitar we bought her has survived so far, at least. Though I’m not getting her an electric one no matter how much she begs.”
“She and Kris might find some common ground over all this,” said Toriel. “Kris could use someone else to talk to about music. We have been trying to find more advanced pieces for them, but classical songs do not seem to interest them very much.”
“Not much of a ska fan either, I bet,” Rudy quipped. “Poor Azzy.”
“That would be their business,” said Carol. She leaned closer to Toriel, lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “You know, that girl really thinks she’s getting under my skin with this ‘Blood Crushers’ phase, but the truth is that I couldn’t care less. I don’t see the need to correct her on this, however. If it’ll help her actually commit to something, then she can act as rebellious as she likes.”
“Reverse psychology, hm.” Toriel sipped the last of her own drink. “It makes me think that we have been very fortunate with Asriel.”
“I’m being unfair to her, honestly. Underneath it all, she has a great deal of focus. I just wish I could tell what it is she’s focusing on.”
That was when Rudy approached, bearing an extra-sized plate laden with cookies and an ear-to-ear grin. The cookies were of middling thickness and glittered with a light dusting of sea salt, each one iced with a series of looping shapes that somewhat resembled an antlered face, complete with red dots for the nose.
“Gingersnaps à la Holiday,” he said, setting down the plate beside Carol. “And if you want a heart-to-heart with Dess so bad, dear, then it wouldn’t kill you to open up a little more yourself. Tori, did you know she was interested in piano too when she was younger? Never found the time for it, though. I wouldn’t mind hearing her try and practice ag— ow ow ow.”
Carol had primly reached out and pinched Rudy’s ear. “I’m sure our guest doesn’t need to know all this.”
“Fair enough, fair enough. Snowflake, if you yank my ear off then how will I hear your beautiful voice?”
She snorted and let him go. “I suppose it can wait until we’ve judged this recipe of yours.”
Toriel watched as she picked a cookie from the assortment, took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. Then she swallowed and looked back at her, smirking. Toriel narrowed her eyes and grabbed one for herself, and at first taste she had to mightily resist the urge to grab more. Rudy was best-known for his fruitcake, which tasted fine enough, but stuck to the teeth like fresh-poured cement and sat in the stomach like a hardened block of same. These practically dissolved on the tongue despite their crisp texture. With reluctance, she looked up and met Rudy’s smug expression.
“Have you been holding back this whole time?” Toriel asked.
“Holidays are full of surprises,” said Rudy.
“We should bring down the girls and receive their verdict.” Carol stood up. “But first, do you know what would go well with these?”
“Oh, I can hazard a guess,” he said.
Toriel waited until both their backs were turned and quickly scarfed down another cookie, then got up as well, brushing crumbs off her blouse. Rather than following the Holidays, she turned to the piano, its spotless ivory surface almost bright enough to hurt in the dining room’s hard lighting. This had been little more than a conversation piece for a long time; Asgore had played it once or twice, but it carried enough of Carol’s forbidding personality so that he didn’t come back to it afterward. She wondered how Kris might take to it. At the very least, it might give Noelle some relief from their pranks.
She glanced back to the kitchen, where Rudy had triumphantly produced a packet of hot cocoa mix. Carol grinned and pulled him in close. Toriel turned away again.
The reason for their music. She had been contemplating this before today – it was hard not to, when Kris’s practicing had effectively become the background music of their lives – but never very closely. Kris was improving, they seemed satisfied, and that had been enough for her. But Carol had cut to the heart of things as usual, and now Toriel lightly ran her fingers over the piano cover and forced herself to confront the answer. Because it was obvious enough, and it had little to do with entertaining themself or pleasing their family. She’d first gleaned it when Kris had asked when their horns might come in, their voice toneless and low as if they already knew the answer; they’d been gifted that headband and run amok over the neighborhood, so people had come to know them for that, and then returned home to develop their music, until they were known for that, too. That was the reason Toriel suspected they still played, and it made her heart ache – that it was part of an ongoing effort, using whatever means Kris had available, to become someone else.
* * *
They made it to the church just as the wind picked up, and it produced a piercing whistle like it was announcing their arrival. Asriel shouldered his way into the vestibule with Kris close behind and hastily shut the door again, pulling his scarf away from his face. They’d barely been outside any time at all and he already couldn’t feel his nose.
Winter was supposed to be near its end, but it had decided to go out swinging. Today had brought insultingly cloudless skies and a gale fierce enough to almost lift them off their feet. He’d needed to do some fast talking with his mother to let her and Kris keep their appointment today without an escort – it was important that this be just the two of them – and she’d only relented after commanding them to encase themselves in all the winter wear they owned. By the time they’d made it past the diner, its windows sparkling in the light of the setting sun, Asriel had been forced to conclude she’d maybe had the right idea.
“Good grief, it’s blustery out there,” he observed. “You alright?”
Kris nodded, with difficulty, and managed to work their mittened hands up high enough to pull back their parka’s hood. Their headband sat askew underneath it, mashing a trench into their hair. They’d definitely gotten lankier since Toriel had first given them those plastic horns (Asriel had retired their piggyback rides not long ago) but the headband itself still fit well enough, and they weren’t in any hurry to get rid of it. They’d only stopped wearing it to bed out of concern it might get bent from their tossing and turning.
Asriel unzipped his own coat, worked his horns out of the hood, peeled off his gloves. He went to the holy water station and went through the appropriate gestures, dipping pointer and middle fingers into the water and tracing a quick inverse triangle over his chest, followed by a final tap on the heart.
“Hang tight, Kris. I’m just going to take a minute with the candles.”
The hope candles sat in ranks as they always did, their wicks unlit, and Asriel stood before them and bowed his head and closed his eyes and put his palms together. He prayed for his family, with a little extra for Kris, the Holidays, with a little extra for Dess, Father Alvin for indulging him like this, and finally Gerson Boom, who’d begun to worry Asriel in recent weeks, his step seeming heavier and his voice rustier than usual. When he opened his eyes again he saw Kris standing beside him in the same pose, fingers clasped, mittens sticking out of their coat pockets. They lowered their arms as soon as he did, so that he couldn’t be sure if they’d actually been praying or just trying to look like they were making an effort. He appreciated it, either way.
“Should I get my robe, or do you think that’d be too much?” he asked. Kris grimaced and made a seesaw gesture. “Yeah, probably too much.”
The two of them stood before the entrance to Alvin’s office. Moment of truth. He raised his fist and knocked.
“Father?” he called. “It’s Asriel.”
“Goodness, you’re punctual,” Alvin said from the other side. “Be right with you!”
There were shuffling and scraping sounds as the pastor approached. Asriel felt small fingers tentatively brush against his own, and obligingly reached out and took Kris’s hand. Their grip tightened as the door swung open, revealing Alvin’s beaked and beaming face.
“Look at you two, all bundled up,” he said. “Frightful weather, isn’t it? I wasn’t sure if you were going to show.”
“We had to talk our mom into it. On the bright side, that means no one should interrupt us, right?”
“That’s a safe assumption. Small blessings, I suppose. Come, I’ll get the doors for you.”
Asriel and Kris walked behind the pastor, still hand-in-hand as he unlocked and opened the chapel doors. The chapel itself looked odd at this time of day. The Dreemurrs attended morning service, and Asriel wasn’t used to this kind of sunlight straining through the windows, rusty, bruising, transfigured further by the stained glass. Kris’s shoulders were also hunched in, but that wasn’t surprising. Their misbehavior in church was limited to guzzling down as much of the fruit juice as they could get their hands on and occasionally dozing through sermons; otherwise, they were uncharacteristically subdued, as if one wrong step of theirs would break something.
“Kind of spooky when it’s empty like this,” he murmured to Kris.
“You should see it after I light the candles,” said Alvin. “One of these years I’ll be daring enough to decorate the whole place for the harvest festival, instead of just the vestibule.”
“Where should we hang our coats?”
“You can leave them on the pews. No one will mind.”
They complied, piling up their outerwear on the seats. At the back of the chapel, the pipe organ loomed, waiting for them.
It had been Asriel’s idea.
While Hometown had long since come to accept that Asriel and Kris were joined at the hip, his devotion to his little sibling was a fair bit stronger than most of them knew. As his parents had guessed, Kris had not been what he’d anticipated at all – any expectations he’d built up regarding the new arrival to his family had been doused the first night he’d heard them weeping in their sleep – but the way Kris stayed close to him during those turbulent initial months, and the way they always returned to him after they’d broken out of their shell, had engendered a sense of responsibility in Asriel so fierce that it frightened him sometimes.
He was the champion of Hometown, a welcome sight everywhere he went, successful at just about anything he tried to do even when he wasn't very good at it, as his photography could attest. Everyone liked him, and he liked pretty much everyone in return, but his childhood reputation as a crybaby had been well-deserved. Asriel had an anxious, introspective streak that persisted even as his accomplishments piled up (and this was in fact part of why he’d been attracted to Dess Holiday, who by all appearances was totally unafraid of anything); it kept him humble, and kept him awake nights. He didn’t see the point in all this good fortune if it couldn’t be used for something, and decided early on that the best he could do was ensure that Kris’s faith in him was well-placed.
So he let Kris stay in his orbit, the town getting to know them through him, and if any of his classmates ever tried making wisecracks about the new human kid then Asriel didn’t even have to rebuke them – he’d just smile, and stay quiet, and let their little jokes and jabs fall and die gasping on the floor. Kris gave him his share of grief, especially when they played games together, and he had to engage in several rounds of exhausting diplomacy smoothing over their numerous incidents with Noelle, but he came to value those challenges even more as everything else in his life came easily. And there was the music, one field in which Kris indisputably surpassed him. Asriel’s singing voice was good, but he’d only attempted piano long enough to indulge in a couple of fumbling duets with Kris, and he still didn’t quite understand why no one else shared his taste in CD’s. The one time he’d gotten Dess to listen to one of his mixes, she’d made it halfway through the second song before throwing him out of her room.
It was also Dess who’d let slip the details about Kris’s increasingly frequent use of the Holidays’ piano. Kris had gotten old enough to be trusted around Noelle without their parents’ or older siblings’ constant supervision (and Dess had been spending more time away from home anyway as she kept butting heads with Carol, one conflict that was beyond his ability to fix), and Noelle had told her about their occasional closed-door concerts, her listening by the kitchen entrance as they played. That piece of news percolated through the families until the proposal had been raised, tentatively, about letting them play for the church. Kris’s talent was a known factor at this point, and their parents seemed to believe that it should be shared.
Kris was mischievous, but not disobedient. Asriel knew they would give in eventually if Asgore and Toriel put up a united front. At the same time, he could see they were uneasy with the idea, so he’d come up with this visit. A dry run of sorts – Kris could perform the opening hymn to an empty church, just to see what it was like, with Asriel there to sing along. If they enjoyed it, great. If not, it would give him sufficient cause to convince his parents they should go on playing for themself, however much longer they wanted. He’d brought it up to Father Alvin last week and, as with all of Asriel’s requests, Alvin had agreed at once.
That anxious side of him whispered that maybe Alvin’s eagerness and his own concerns over Gerson’s health were connected somehow. As though the pastor had been grateful for the distraction. Asriel took that voice and tamped it down.
Asgore was an on-again off-again contributor to morning prayers, and when Kris was younger he had spent one morning enthusiastically pointing out all the ways the pipe organ differed from a regular piano. That piece of education had come back to haunt them, judging by Kris’s doubtful look as they approached the instrument, its multiple keyboards. They gently pressed one key and winced.
“Doesn’t sound like what you’re used to, does it?” Alvin asked.
“I think it’s more because of the feeling. Right, Kris?” Asriel said, and Kris nodded. “Our dad told us the keys don’t really press down the same.”
“He’s correct. Take away the strings and everything else changes, too. But don’t be intimidated. I’ve set up the stops and you won’t even have to worry about the pedals. The sheet music’s right here. From what I’ve been told, Kris could play the opening hymn with their eyes closed.”
Kris nodded again, and Asriel wasn’t sure if that meant they agreed they could play it with their eyes closed or that they had already done so. Both seemed possible; they’d been practicing that brief piece a lot recently.
“It’s kind of like the piano they’ve got at the hospital, now that I think about it,” Asriel said. “Thanks again, Father. We’d like to try this alone, but if you need to stick around…”
“Oh no, giving you privacy is the least I can do. It’s wonderful to see someone taking an interest in this old thing, audience or no audience. And if you ever feel like trying it again, the church’s doors are always open.” He traced the Delta Rune over his heart. “May the Angel watch over you both.”
He shuffled out of the chapel and eased the doors shut. Asriel watched him go, and behind him the bench scraped as Kris pulled it out and sat down. They ran off several quick arpeggios and chords, testing the resonance. Even this sounded markedly different from any other time he’d heard the organ, which had only known their father’s careful, clumsy musicianship.
Asriel stood where he always had when he sang for choir, listening to the wind blow outside. He smoothed out his shirt. He hummed notes from low to high to test his voice. His heart had started to thump and he had no idea why at first; he’d sung in this church every week for years, staring out at the faces of people he saw every day, and it seemed ridiculous he’d be nervous in front of an empty room. Then he realized it was because he had an audience after all, sitting behind him, their hands poised over the keys.
“Whenever you’re ready, Kris,” he said. “Start us off.”
The hymn’s opening measures knifed through the chapel with a suddenness that almost made him jump. But he breathed deep, and let his memory take care of the rest.
“Heaven knows… the story that we’ve born from our hearts… of the shadows cutting deep, and the heroes that save us…”
His voice had been changing, enough so that he had to back off from the highest notes lest they splinter in his throat, and he hadn’t sung alone like this before; it made the echoes of his singing into a stranger’s, as if the church itself was repeating his own words back to him, drowning him out. But what he heard sounded acceptable enough, and there wasn’t so much as a wobble in the organ’s accompaniment. When they reached the end, he detected Kris subtly slowing down and adjusted his singing to match, dragging out the final note’s vibrato until at last it shuddered into silence and left only the sound of the winter wind.
“That wasn’t too bad,” he said, and turned back to Kris, grinning. “Right? You were great!”
Back still turned, Kris angled their head in what might have been a conciliatory gesture.
“It’s still up to you if you want to play during service, but I’m pretty sure you’d knock them out. It’s not like anyone will even see you. All of us singing up here would block the view.” Another idea occurred to him. “Actually, um, Dess keeps going on about starting a band, too. Not seriously, I think she just likes to make up posters. But we could definitely get you a keyboard or something if you’re interested. Sounds cool, don’t you think? An excuse to hang out with the big kids?”
Kris still didn’t turn around. Asriel’s smile faded.
“Kris, you okay?”
They raised one hand from the keyboard and wiped their sleeve across their face.
“Can we try again?” they asked.
Just as Asriel couldn’t match Kris’s piano skills, Kris never had the best command of their voice. When they spoke, which was still an uncommon occurrence, it was usually in a colorless, halting mumble like they weren’t sure how to fit the words together. But the acoustics here were good enough for Asriel to pick up on how their voice trembled now, and had to make a mighty effort to keep his own from doing the same, though he felt his chest tighten. His crybaby days apparently weren’t completely done.
“Sure thing,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
If they stayed much longer, they might get to see the chapel at dark after all. Dusk was falling fast, velvety shadows nestling beneath the stained-glass windows. Dinner was waiting. Their mother would doubtless call soon. But Asriel didn’t think of any of that right now, and he paid the growing darkness no heed. He just took another steadying breath, and waited for the music to begin.
* * *
“But that’s wrong,” said Seth.
Blue’s answer came in the slow arching of an eyebrow. Seth quailed for a moment, but they were confident enough in their assertion to hold their ground.
“It’s wrong,” they said again. “Isn’t it?”
“How so?” Blue asked.
They took a minute to formulate the answer to this, drumming their notebook all the while. Seth had known that if they pursued this avenue of inquiry, it would eventually lead them here – treacherous territory with no evidence to guide their way, only intuition. Aqua would have accepted it without issue, but acceptance and understanding weren’t the same thing. Blue might prove more skeptical.
“As I said, the Fountain’s darkness takes on aspects of the one who opened it,” said Seth. “That’s simple enough. But there’s something else I noticed. If I look into the deepest dark, where none of the suns’ light can reach, if I focus in just the right way, then I can see something. A shape, a shade… it’s hard for me to describe.”
“What might it be?” No skepticism, only curiosity.
“I can only speculate. Something they want to keep secret?”
“Or something that they hold close to their heart,” Blue mused. “Perhaps that is the shape of their dream.”
“But that’s the problem,” said Seth. “You claim that music is intermingled with their dream. And all of us are trying to find satisfaction in our dreams. When I observe the way you dance, your expression, I feel… tingly. For lack of a better term.” They flushed as Blue smiled. “But that’s not the sensation I get from whatever is in these shadows. All I know is that I can’t look at it for long. Not long enough to see it clearly.”
“Could you see it here?” Blue asked.
Seth hadn’t tried, but they thought again of the music, those strings emerging from the recesses high above the stage. They looked up there now and focused, barely noticing how Blue followed their gaze.
No light up there. The suns were smothered and whatever pale remnant still strained through the windows couldn’t make it this far. At first Seth only saw a flat plane of black, but as they stared it wavered and bloomed, that blackness breaking into a spectrum of its own, oily and seething, colors that could be found nowhere the colors of the seven suns might touch. Those colors rippled and lapped against shadows that were deeper still. An outline of something, visible only by the darkness it interrupted. Seth leaned forward in their seat, eyes watering, notebook creased in their hands, even though witnessing this shape made them feel as though the center of them was being carved out; a nausea that drained away whatever they might have been, swirling into the center of that dark. They came closer than ever to making out the shape, perhaps enough to commit it to memory and scrawl it in their notes before it dripped back out again, but in the end they surrendered and let their gaze drop. They rubbed their eyes behind their glasses and kept them shut until the room felt like it was no longer revolving around them.
“Still no luck,” they huffed. “Maybe this is a waste of time after all.”
No answer from Blue. They looked over and saw him still staring up.
“Blue? Do you see something?”
That seemed to rouse him. He turned to face Seth, and his smile was still there but altered somehow – the rest of the face no longer fit, rendering the smile abstract, little more than curvature. His eyes glimmered and spilled over, and in the theatre’s faint light the tears painted two clean parallels over his cheeks, gleaming like scar tissue. Blue blinked, and reached up to touch that wet.
“Oh,” Blue said.
Seth stood up, notebook sliding off their lap and to the floor. They wiped Blue’s face with their sleeve. Whatever their memories were worth, in all of their ambiguous history, Seth could not recall ever seeing Blue cry.
“Forget what I said,” they babbled. “What I asked. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Shh.” He clasped Seth’s hand in his own. “It’s a question the rest of us would have never thought to ask. That’s who you are. That’s what you do.”
“Nevertheless. You don't have to answer. We should keep this between each other. With everything we have to do already...”
“I agree. The suns have not set.” He let Seth go. “Let’s play our part, Seth, and find joy in it while we can. For joy keeps tragedy at bay.”
“Yes. All right. I should find Aqua before she gets herself into trouble.”
“Go on ahead. I’ll join you all before long.”
They recovered their notebook and slipped past Blue, out to the tables, towards the exit. The theatre sat uneasily in this silence. Once Seth left, it would be without purpose until someone else arrived. It was possible for someone to play all by themselves, but a performance required a witness.
Still, they paused before leaving and looked back, to see Blue still there amongst those plush seats, watching the empty stage. Seth wondered what he could be looking at, and realized that whatever it was, they were watching Blue watching it, themself the audience to this spectacle, and again came that sense of disorientation – the world spinning around them, everything all mixed up, performer and audience and stage, so they could no longer tell which was which, where was where.
* * *
Every song reminded Kris of every other. When they played a piece of music, they would remember when they had first played it, those slow and disconnected notes tripping over each other, how they would resonate with the instrument and the surrounding room. Their father’s upright competing with the sounds of the television and their mother’s bustling through the kitchen, the hospital’s truncated keyboard ringing off the waiting room linoleum, or here, in the Holiday estate, where the grand piano with its open top lent it an unmistakable sound that was never lost no matter how long it had gone between tunings.
There wasn't any sheet music for what they were playing now, but that was all right. Once Kris had figured out how all the different keys sounded in relation to each other, they’d more or less been able to find their own way. Writing the music down locked it in place; without that to guide them, the notes would shudder and stumble under their hands, variations on variations, even if the overall song remained intact. They played and hoped that in playing the stiffness in their hands would leave them.
Dess Holiday sat on the edge of the bench to their left. Her back was turned and she was bent low over the neck of her guitar, a shaggy, disheveled apostrophe, intermittently plucking the guitar's strings. The notes slid into the gaps between Kris’s playing, almost complementary but not quite. Her forest camo jacket draped loose on her frame. She smelled like peppermint and a little like woodsmoke and her low and smoky voice curled out of her underneath the sound of her strings, the sharp squeak of changing chords.
“I can’t keep up,” she said. “Too bad.”
She went on playing anyway, and Kris played as well, even though Dess’s music made it harder to concentrate. This was how she’d often been, idly strumming the guitar through the hours, slow and disconnected notes that, unlike theirs, never quite hooked up – they rose and burst like bubbles, so that it was hard to tell if the melody was even intentional or existed in the mind of the listener only.
“This is another one you came up with, isn’t it, Kris? Does it have a name yet? Probably not. Can’t really give something a name ‘til it’s finished.”
This music wasn’t written down anywhere. It remained undefined.
“I told your brother once that I was always half-done. Remember, Kris? He didn’t understand what I meant. Why I didn’t practice the way you did. He thought that I was still figuring things out. Except that had already happened. I’d figured it out. You understood.”
Their fingers slipped. A sour chord. Kris breathed, flexed their hands, ran one hand back through their hair. They tried to play something different but their arms felt too heavy. They were mostly hearing the mistakes.
“Once you get good enough at something, you become known for it. It’s what you do, so it’s who you are. And everyone around you is so happy to see it, because they were the ones who made you do it in the first place. Tying you down. Eyes watching you. Hands guiding you. You think you’ve found a place to be yourself and too late you realize that you’ve been led out of one cage and into another. It was never your choice to make.”
Variations on variations. The keys always different, the memories never certain, slow erosion, a collapse into a history that may have never been. They could almost lose themself in the music but it still didn’t sound right and those guitar strings kept stabbing, stabbing.
“Most people are fine with that. But for the ones who aren’t, there’s still a way out. You remember what that is, right, Kris? Give those eyes something else to look at. Give those hands someone else to hold. Write yourself out of the world line by line, loosen those strings until they’ll fall off all on their own. You can get up and leave without anyone to say for sure who you were or where you’ve gone. With a little time, it’ll be like you never existed.”
Their hands stopped over the keys. The guitar, too, had gone silent.
“Kris. Do you remember?”
They looked over then, past the empty bench. The Holidays’ kitchen door was still shut tight, the house’s perpetual air conditioning a gentle mutter from the vents. They saw the empty glass on the counter with its thin scum of chocolate milk, their phone a blackened mark beside it.
Kris turned back to the piano, but the moment had passed and the music was done; try as they might to begin again, they could only stay in that pose, until their hands began to shake. Finally they sighed and slumped on the bench, and after another moment, they held out their pointer finger and struck down on middle C. That single note rang out though the sterile, pine-scented kitchen, and they held onto it for as long as they could, until it dwindled away and Kris raised their hands and closed the piano’s cover.