Torch of Will

Chapter Three - The Savior

"Welp!" Bonnie said a little too cheerfully. "You're screwed!"

"We're so screwed..." Asriel said, confirming her opinion. I rolled my eyes.

"It's been a day, Asriel. We'll be fine!"

"Writing isn't my strong suit, Ry..." he groaned. "Haven't you seen my paper?

"No...?"

"Exactly."

I denied laughing right there, but he had a good point. "Then you're lucky that I can write. Don't worry. I'll take care of the writing."

He looked to me with wide unbelieving eyes. "Really? But I don't want to push all the work on you!"

I shrugged. "Well, you're a Monster, right? You have to know something about the Great War that Humans don't know."

"But the teachers won't know about it either!"

Good point...but hey, it isn't false knowledge. Maybe we can pass it off as...a rare text. Yeah, one that only a separate species and a random Human kid wrote about. "We'll be fine. We're not lying, are we?"

He opened his mouth but shut it again. I smirked in satisfaction. "Do you have any information?"

He scratched his head. "I mean...I guess? But I'll have to ask Mom..."

"You mean Toriel?" He perked up at the mention of the Queen.

"Yeah? How do you know her?"

The way he said it told me that I wasn't supposed to know that. "Uh,..." I sweat. "Some kid with no arms told me."

In retrospect, I could have phrased that a bit better. Sure, it was specific, but kind of unbelievable. Luckily, Asriel seemed to relax at that.

"You met MK?"

"...who?"

"Monster Kid, you know him?"

I raised my hands as he got uncomfortably close. "Yeah! Dragon kid with a yellow sweater, right?" He visibly sighed and nodded. "Is there anything I should know about?"

Asriel paused, then answered, "Please don't reference my mom as the queen. If word got out, I don't know what the Humans would do if they met her..."

I blanched. "They're royalty. Wouldn't it be easy to tell?"

He looked at me blankly. "Mom's a teacher here, and Dad's a gardener. So far, no one seems to be the wiser."

"So, why tell me? Especially if you want to keep this a secret?"

He tilted his head as if it was obvious. "Because you're my friend...?"

Seriously? It's the first day! How could he trust me that much already? "Asriel, it's been an hour. Don't you have any other trustworthy friends?"

He shrugged. "None that are Human. Any human that I walked up to either ignored me or was an asshole. You, on the other hand," He pat my head. "You helped me! So I declare you worthy of that trust!"

Never has something that sounded so egotistical sounded so comforting. I almost felt better about myself. Anyway, if he's trusting me this much, why would I break it? I mean, it's just keeping a secret that could set the lives of a family at the mercy of racists. No pressure...

"Hey," I asked. "What do the Monsters think of the Humans now?"

Asriel thought about it for a while. "You saw the news, right? The one about the two Humans that came out of the Underground?"