Or is this...no. They can't take that much credit. They know it's not just them. It's not just the person who tried to press away the blame onto a voice in their head, confessing sins that were not theirs to a skeleton they barely knew, whom they trusted compulsively as they trusted everyone they met. Walking and wandering, open-palmed, into every sword in the vicinity and trusting that it would be enough.
It's something they learned a long time ago. It's the thing they learned that meant they...they would look at a fistful of flowers and think that this would repay a family's kindness. A world where everything's exactly the same, except this sacrifice would mean something for monsters. For them all to go free.
It's something they learned before they hit the ground in a rush of wind and leaves.
But it isn't something Frisk exactly helped them contest, either, is it? It doesn't matter how many pretty words, how many formless adages, how many quiet declarations they layer over everything; those balms are window dressing compared to whatever their actions say. Someone who leaps forward to tackle a child away from a skeleton with 1 HP, because they didn't trust them to make the choice. Someone who doesn't ask for someone else to stop. Someone who gets up and leaves the room, when they hear something they don't like, instead of asking after it. Someone who shuts up and doesn't say anything at all, when it suits them, and lets the conclusions pool in the desolation that follows.
Maybe they didn't teach them that. But they didn't help, either.
They can't lie. And the pressing of words against their throat, the soft compression of phantom fingertips around their airways, forces everything out.
"I don't see you like that. I don't see you as some...demon. I don't know what that meant, but I don't care, and I never...I never thought to care. Because it wasn't you."
Can they say anything other than - than stupid not-apologies, words that Chara hates?
"I don't want you to be a scapegoat, or some...something tragic that happened to someone a really long time ago." A sad and mournful footnote in the story of Prince Asriel Dreemurr, like it was inevitable, like there was no escaping their fate. "You don't own every bad thing I've ever done. You don't. Just like...how I can't own anything good that you've done. And I know you don't think it, but you have. You have done good things."
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Or is this...no. They can't take that much credit. They know it's not just them. It's not just the person who tried to press away the blame onto a voice in their head, confessing sins that were not theirs to a skeleton they barely knew, whom they trusted compulsively as they trusted everyone they met. Walking and wandering, open-palmed, into every sword in the vicinity and trusting that it would be enough.
It's something they learned a long time ago. It's the thing they learned that meant they...they would look at a fistful of flowers and think that this would repay a family's kindness. A world where everything's exactly the same, except this sacrifice would mean something for monsters. For them all to go free.
It's something they learned before they hit the ground in a rush of wind and leaves.
But it isn't something Frisk exactly helped them contest, either, is it? It doesn't matter how many pretty words, how many formless adages, how many quiet declarations they layer over everything; those balms are window dressing compared to whatever their actions say. Someone who leaps forward to tackle a child away from a skeleton with 1 HP, because they didn't trust them to make the choice. Someone who doesn't ask for someone else to stop. Someone who gets up and leaves the room, when they hear something they don't like, instead of asking after it. Someone who shuts up and doesn't say anything at all, when it suits them, and lets the conclusions pool in the desolation that follows.
Maybe they didn't teach them that. But they didn't help, either.
They can't lie. And the pressing of words against their throat, the soft compression of phantom fingertips around their airways, forces everything out.
"I don't see you like that. I don't see you as some...demon. I don't know what that meant, but I don't care, and I never...I never thought to care. Because it wasn't you."
Can they say anything other than - than stupid not-apologies, words that Chara hates?
"I don't want you to be a scapegoat, or some...something tragic that happened to someone a really long time ago." A sad and mournful footnote in the story of Prince Asriel Dreemurr, like it was inevitable, like there was no escaping their fate. "You don't own every bad thing I've ever done. You don't. Just like...how I can't own anything good that you've done. And I know you don't think it, but you have. You have done good things."