MemoryTale --- Hopes and Dreams

In Which Asriel Becomes at Least 2x more Useful

"That was... Incredibly dumb," I muttered, attempting to get myself out of the bowl without limbs. I couldn't stay in Snowdin for long as it was obviously pretty cold, hence the name.

"You really should have sucked up your ego and just apologise," Asriel said. I grumbled and shook my roots.

"Yeah well a little too late for that now," I said, "ooo! I could make a mini igloo!"

"Chara, now is not the time," Asriel said, "I can't have you dying, what would happen to me then!"

"I dunno but I honestly don't want to find out," I agreed. Asriel tried pulling me out of the snow, but his small fluffy hands went right through me.

"Ugh, it's no use," he grumbled.

"It's fine, I'll just... Crawl around like a spider or something," I said. It was stupid and inefficient but much easier than learning magic. I grabbed some of the snow in my roots and tried to push back against them. I barely moved an inch.

"You'll take forever at this rate," Asriel muttered.

"Well, taking forever is better then not moving at all!" I said, unless, of course, you use the definition of forever literally. Then it is not moving at all. I pushed myself forward a few more inches, probably. I could only guess how far I moved, I didn't have a tape measure with me. Plus if I could move a tape measure I probably could get there a lot faster and not have to deal with this mess. I huffed and pushed myself forward again.

Asriel sighed and pinched the bridge of his snout.

"Chara, I am this close to actually listening to you just to end both of our suffering," Asriel muttered, almost inaudibly.

Wait.

Was that the sweet sound of someone realizing I am actually of intelligence and listening to me is a great decision all the time because I am just that cool?

"What did you say?" I asked politely.

"That I might actually listen to you so we can get out of this mess quicker?"

My quench for appreciation and brotherly admiration was filled and I decided to be helpful for once.

"Oh great! I would love to help as I am the greatest and best and coolest brother ever!" I said happily. Then I realized I honestly had no clue what I was doing. That is fine though, that's why improv was invented.

"Definitely the coolest if we get stuck out here much longer," Asriel sarcastically grumbled.

That was true, but we

were going to ignore that.

"Okay so picking up stuff! How do you do it," Asriel asked.

"To be fair, I just kinda wanted to so I did it." To be fair I didn't remember being human at that point, and everything was purely instinct. Any amount of hope immediately vanished off Asriel's face and he sighed.

"And the winner for most useful brother award goes to!" Asriel did a little drumroll with his fingers and then pointed at me.

As if he was someone to talk about being useful. Wait no that was mean brother thoughts; I'm not allowed to have mean brother thoughts anymore.

"So you want me to say the same thing but deeper and more philosophical sounding?" I asked politely, trying to ignore my mean brother thoughts. I couldn't be like that anymore, "so gather inside you your willpower and ima-"

"-Chara please-"

"-Or Will Save, you better freaking roll high to succeed it," I finished off. Asriel stared at me for a solid second before smirking slightly.

"Somehow, that makes more sense to me."

Of course, it did. Comparing things to D&D always made it make more sense. I think it's just a general rule or something that comparisons make sense. Asriel looked at his hands for a second then looked back down at me.

"This better work," Asriel grumbled. He tried grabbing some snow but it went right through his hand.

"Hey! I think it moved a bit..?" I said unsurely. Upon closer inspection, it was probably just the wind, but I couldn't deny there was a little bit of an impact where he reached.

"This is stupid, Chara. It's never gonna work," Asriel grumbled.

"It only isn't working because of your attitude~!" I completely and utterly lied because attitude had nothing to do with this. I just needed him to try again. And maybe not be as sarcastic about it Asriel looked at me in the eyes with an empty stare before looking back down.

He reached down and grabbed a bit of snow before it fell back through his hand.

"It's a start..?" I said, looking at him. He grumbled and buried his head in his arms.

"This is stupid," he said, "everything is stupid, this entire situation is stupid! Oh, if I had MY stupid magic I would choke Frisk until she RESET!"

I didn't think murder was the right response to team-building exercises but I was seriously considering it. Though, knowing us, we'd just have another fight and switch again. Asriel grabbed a snowball again, and this time only half of it fell out of his hands. He lightly chucked it at my face, which sadly I was currently unable to dodge.

That is fine, I will have my revenge later. At least he could pick something up!

"Finally, let's just get you inside before the rest of you is frozen too."

That explains why I wasn't minding the cold, I lost feeling in half my body since I was currently slowly becoming a chunk of ice! Hurray! I couldn't wait until I didn't have to worry about things like this again.

Asriel grabbed me roughly (to be fair it's probably been years, timeline-wise, since he had hands and had to grab anything living. I couldn't blame him), before promptly dropping me. This was the only time I have ever wished I was more frozen because going through him was weird. It still felt like him, soft fluffy baby brother feeling, but also more hollow? Like when you put your hand in front of one of your eyes and look and there's the hand but there's also the stuff behind it. He was there, but he wasn't really.

This is hard to explain; how about you just go find a ghost, give it a hug, then come back. Okay?

Have you hugged a ghost yet? If so, don't you have anything better to do? If not, that's fair, they're probably hard to find. I'm the only one I know. Back to the narration, the parts of me that I could still feel were now hurting. Yay. Luckily, I was always told to put an icepack on injuries and the ground was doing that quite well.

"Sorry?" He said, quite disappointed in his lack of ability to pick things up.

"It's... Fine. But we still need to hurry up, okay?" He tried again, this time he made sure to stay close enough to the ground so when he inevitably dropped me, it wouldn't hurt as much. At least he was trying to be considerate. I disliked whenever I face planted in the snow though anyways because no matter how far away the ground was, it always made me feel helpless again.

He stopped in the alcove in front of Sans and Papyrus' house. It didn't have much snow, which was pretty nice, but still wasn't that much warmer. Asriel peaked his head in, but I didn't know what he was looking for. He opened the door and I pushed myself in. Because he didn't need to do that again, I was independent and stuff.

"Great! Now we just need to set up a fire and we'll be cosy!" I chirped. He shook his head.

"We can't let them figure out we were here. It's best if we change as little as possible... I swear Sans has a spare flower pot here somewhere..."

Fine, whatever. Way to be a party pooper. I settled my roots into the floor, which I didn't understand how it logically worked but I was thankful for it. Asriel turned to me and sighed.

"Hey, Chara, at least we made it..."