Heir

The ghosts that haunt them

Asriel felt like he hadn't slept in years. His entire life seemed to be made up of meetings and training sometimes, mostly meetings. Yesterday it was safety concerns on the Waterfall/Hotland border, today it was a meeting with the royal scientist. Asriel had spent more time in the study than anywhere else. He barely had time to stop and make food anymore. After the staff had been... thinned, Asriel had noticed his eating habits beginning to falter. Both his appetite and his time had been seemingly cut in half, both a direct result of his sister's need for "justice".

He had never liked what Chara had done, slowly executing the staff, rooting out the ones who had betrayed them. He thought it was disgusting. He understood that she was angry, but he couldn't justify all those monsters being killed. Innocent monsters with families were slain out in their parent's ransacked garden like it was nothing. It made him sick. He wound up staying with Undyne for a while after that. 

They had talked a lot at that time about how he was feeling. He couldn't put it into words, just a horrible feeling in his stomach and some miserable form of nostalgia. He spent days sinking deeper and deeper into his memories, recounting his childhood, remembering his parents. Undyne listened quietly every time, rubbing his head when he began to cry, right between his horns. It reminded him of his family, of feeling loved.

For a while, he thought of his big sister. Not the monster at the castle, but his real big sister, the thirteen-year-old from the surface with her arm bent out of place. He wanted so badly to remember that girl, but the more he thought of her, the more dred he felt. He went further instead, back before he knew Chara. 

There wasn't much before Chara, only four years of which he could only remember one. He remembered the Ruins, already old and falling to pieces by the time he had been born, and fallen even further by his fourth birthday. The monsters had been here for a long time before his birth, establishing their civilization. He remembered people passing through his house all day long. He could just barely make out their faces sometimes, but their names eluded him completely. 

The thing that stood out most in Asriel's mind was the lessons. Back when his parents had time to make for him, when everyone still thought there was hope, they would take him aside for a few hours at a time and teach him how to be a prince.

 First, his mother would sit down with him at the table, teaching him to read and write, doing mathematics, what she called "the basics". "Being a good prince is like baking a pie, just like Mommy does," his mother would say, "You must have your recipe, correct? As well as your tools- your spoons and pans- so that you may make the batter and cook it safely,". Asriel loved his mother's pies, they were the only thing keeping him engaged in these conversations. He'd nod happily, and she'd smile warmly at him. "One day," she'd continue, "If Papa and I must go away, you will have to be a very good prince and take care of the pie we are baking. That is why we teach you. I will give you all of the tools you need, and Papa will give you the recipe. With those, you will be a good prince and an even better monster, do you understand?" 

Asriel learned later that, perhaps, that truth would be too much for a child, it was too much for him now, but at the time it made him happy. He liked learning with his mother by his side, he liked it when she told the other monsters to leave her to her son, even if it was only for a few hours. He liked to read and he liked to do math. He wouldn't have given it up for the world. 

The other half of his time was spent with his father in his study. He's set him on the desk, pouring over fascinating books with tattered covers and torn pages. The text was faint and the paper was yellowed by age. Some of them were even in languages that he couldn't understand. His father read them sometimes, sitting before him in his desk chair, breaking apart the books into little lessons. Sometimes, though, there was another person, a friend maybe. He was incredibly intelligent, easily translating the books, and softly explaining the phrases that he couldn't directly translate. His voice would often put Asriel to sleep, perhaps because the man himself sounded so tired. That was all he could remember of the figure, quietly looming behind his father.