Aconitum

The Inexorable Truth

Ink was right. Nightmare had absolutely no one. He hadn't acknowledged it until about a week after Ink said it. Nightmare understood aus enough to travel between them but he didn't belong to any of them. None of them had room for him.

If they did have room Nightmare wasn't meant to be there. Whenever he was in au for to long he felt inherently wrong. That there was someone screaming at him to leave that he just can't hear. That internal compass went wild and he felt uneasy.

It left him with a overwhelming lonelyness. He spent most of his time at Dreamtale near his stone brother. Normally apologizing and asking for forgiveness he could not be given. The rest of him time was spent in the emptier aus. Where less people existented was his ideal.

His favorite was the Outertale au Ink took him to, the people there knew about aus and knew to leave the people visiting alone. The people of other aus had questions if he ran into them. He was good at being intimating now, and chose to scare them off rather than have to deal with them.

He was stronger after all and it was invigorating. Nightmare didn't have that in his world. Sometimes he didn't have that still, when he entered an overwhelmingly positive area he reverted back to how he was before. So he tended to avoid happy aus. Ending up in genocide aus or aus of similar despairity.

It didn't mean he fit in them. He was a piece from an entirely different puzzle. A puzzle that he burned to ash.

Ink was clearly in similar situation, and Nightmare knew that he bothered him for himself just as much as he did it for Nightmare. Which is why he allowed it to keep happening.

It still happened nearly every time Nightmare went to Outertale. Probably because he stayed for long periods of time and went often. Neither of them had any friends either. Leading Ink to search for Nightmare often.

It made Nightmare chuckle a bit to imagine Ink searching for him in Outertale and not finding him. Especially with his all knowing attitude. He found him often enough anyway, let Night have a small win. While speaking of being found, it had happened again.

"There you are!" Ink waved at Night and Night halfheartedly waved back, "how are you?"

"I'm doing well. Are you healthy?" He gestured to some bandages wrapped around Ink's arm.

"Oh this thing? I just got into a little fight is all!"

"Why don't you just heal it with magic?" Ink laughed.

"I don't have magic silly!" He put his uninjured hand on the hurt arm.

Nightmare didn't know that. He loved to pretend he was the one in the know, but that was Ink's place, not his. So he was rather surprised by it.

"None at all?"

"I don't have a soul. So nowhere to store magic in me. That's why I have to use Broomy to make portals." Nightmare hummed. A curious situation.

"Well I'd offer to help but I have no skill in healing." Dream always did that and Ink seemed to know. The words hung in the air with some sort of understanding.

It wasn't unpleasant for Nightmare. He found bliss in silence, for Ink though? He made it seem like some sort of torture. Like silence was a form of emptiness he couldn't escape.

"I was in a fight with my... worst enemy? I'm meant to hate him, we are kinda similar though. It feels like hating him would be like hating myself. Ha! Isn't that a little ridiculous? Anyway he has these like, strings. He uses them as a weapon, and they wrapped around my arm really tightly at some point and it cut me! I didn't even know strings could break skin!"