[FGOD Error Sans] - Nature vs Nurture

The Tragedy of Dreamtale

If there was one thing that Ink, even if reluctantly, could acknowledge it was how much Erimos loved his 'helpers', creations that grew beyond their universe, gods in their own right who swore allegiance to the Creator and the Destroyer, with the way he talked about them Ink was sure he saw them almost as his children.

But therein lay the problem, talking about it went from something that made Erimos happy to something more... hurtful for himself, it's like he was trying to remind himself that he had people waiting for him back in his Multiverse, but that also reminded him that he has left his helpers, his family, on their own for centuries now, the stories had turn bitter and sometimes he could swear the it physically hurt him even to utter their names.

Umbra was the name repeated the most, the first, the strongest, and the most beloved among the five of them. Seeing the pain in his friend's eyes made him want to fill the void that pain caused him, and what better way to do it than by creating an AU like the one Umbra came from?

But Dreamtale was a special AU for Ink for another reason, it was the most original universe he had made, and it didn't have any of the foundations that his other universes had had until now. No Human-Monster war, no Underground, technically without any of his usual creations inhabiting it except for 'Sans'.

Two 'Sans', to be more precise.

Dream and Nightmare, Guardians of the Positive and Negative Apples.

Thanks to Erimos he knew well what the story of the 'original' Dreamtale was, but he had only taken the base elements for his own, the look Erimos had given him the first time Ink talked about creating his own Dreamtale made him wary of making the story too similar to the one created by Chróma.

(And he stupidly decided not to mention that Dreamtale had not been the only Universe he created based on the ones his helpers came from).

So, he decided that not interfering was the way to go, he had created some villages with Monsters and humans alike near the Tree of Feelings so that the twins wouldn't grow too dependent on each other and only returned from time to time to check the process of the AU.

Then Erimos had his breakdown and Ink found himself putting aside all of his Universes in favor of finding a way to keep the other from losing his mind (and for the first, but not last, time he cursed Chróma for the way he created Erimos).

It was at least 50 years before he looked at any of his Universes again beyond checking that they still existed, so it was a surprise when he finally looked at Dreamtale again and saw that everything had gone wrong.

Terribly wrong.

What was once a hill full of life surrounded by a lush forest was now a desolate passage, the Tree of Feelings was destroyed, the apples were nowhere to be found, and dust and corpses surrounded the fallen tree.

And the Guardians of it...

It took him a full minute to find them among all the mess, and he almost wished he hadn't, not when Dream was now a stone, his worried expression frozen, perhaps forever, his hand stretched reaching for something.

Or someone.

Because in front of him, a black mass of pure Negativity was just as still, Nightmare could well have been turned into stone too seeing how the only thing that moved were the tears falling from his eyes, there were even some roots growing from his legs from how much he hasn't moved.