PATCHWORK SOUL - NEW MEDIUM

THE SUN IS SHINING CHAPTER 1

It had never really been a realistic prospect for the underground to clear overnight. Monsters took a look at the surface. There were celebrations, jubilation, and then a realization that this might take a bit more planning than first thought. That was overwhelmingly okay with the two kids mostly responsible for the overhaul of existence, though. Settling down at home in a certain snowed in town in the meanwhile was the best possible outcome for the exhausted, fractured-souled pair and their family.

King Asgore was confident in his people and their sun-filled future, though, and the town layout designing began. Put up to a vote, the name Starhome—in honour of the beautiful view from the mountaintop— was chosen, resoundingly beating Newest Home and Mt. Mountain, just as it had a rewound year ago.

They made contact with the humans. At first, it was just via radio: a brief, friendly announcement that the mountain had been opened up. Then, Asgore talked to one of their leaders on the phone. Then, through a video chat. Finally, a week later, they organized a meeting in the mountain, at Asgore's home.

It was a lot like the first time. This round, however, he had an uncanny feeling that he knew how it should go. Frisk did, too, and this time she brought Papyrus with her as well. Though Asgore had been uncertain, Frisk was sure he would really point things in the right direction much more quickly than the first version.

As she expected, the human leader and the people he brought with him seemed only mildly startled by Asgore. They had seen images of him in their picture books forever, after all. A lady even brought one for him to sign, a short children's story called The King Under the Mountain that portrayed him in a surprisingly benevolent light. He read it with her, chuckled, and offered them all tea.

The humans, in fact, had come bearing an apology. The war had been so long ago, and things had changed so much over the centuries that the outside world wasn't even sure if the monsters were still alive or how to contact them. Magic had drained from the world up top. There were no longer any red-souled wizards. There was even a significant amount of the population that thought that the monsters may never have been real at all. The humans (for the most part) were happy, actually, to get to see them again.

The envoys had been surprised, though, to see the human child joining the King after introductions had been made and tea and cakes had been served, and downright alarmed by the tall skeleton that walked in holding her hand. But, as Frisk thought, her brother's enthusiasm and energy infected the humans like a cold. He offered them pasta, assuring them that magic food was delicious, and shared a couple of his graph-paper puzzles, essentially derailing the meeting and turning it into a game. The human leader couldn't keep up his stoic front as his advisors, in turn, couldn't help but try to solve the theoretical switch puzzles, "no flying or snow pants allowed". Papyrus wooed them in minutes.

Frisk, of course, received some questions as well, about living with monsters; how she had been treated. She explained that she was an orphan and had fallen, an "accident", and how she'd been adopted and cared for. That monsters would never hurt a human without cause. That soul-stealing was essentially a myth. Asgore got a little sweaty-looking and excused himself as she fibbed on his behalf. But, she explained, very honestly, that even the monsters with the biggest claws and the sharpest fangs really just wanted to be friends. That skeletons and ghosts weren't scary; didn't mean any harm. Papyrus was living proof of that. She did have to explain, though, that he wasn't made of a dead human— the thought of which absolutely horrified him— and that skeleton monsters were just born like that.