//------------------------------// // S1 E3.5: A Skeleton's Regret // Story: My Little Ponytales // by Rainbow Sparkle //------------------------------// Underneath the home of the skelebro’s, the sound of tinkering and machinery filled the air. Occasionally, it was interrupted by the movement of hooves or by some small talk or discussion on how best to proceed with a part of the very special project that was being worked upon. Right now, however, there was only the sound of tools working away at metal. And the snores of Sans as he took one of his mandatory breaks to catch some zzz’s as Pinkie fiddled with some of the smaller parts to fine tune them.  It wasn’t stuff that was necessary, but it would make the racing car better for Papyrus. And both she and Sans wanted this thing to be perfect.  Of course, as she worked to make sure the headlights could go through a kaleidoscope of colors, her stomach rumbled. Loud enough to rouse Sans a bit as the Skeleton cracked an eye socket open and his smile widened just a bit more. “i’d say you sound hungry enough to eat a horse, but that seems a bit foalish if you ask me.” Pinkie Pie giggled at that as she set her tools down and made for the mini-fridge Sans had down here. She grabbed a new bottle of ketchup and tossed it his way, not needing to look to see him grab it with his magic as she grabbed a few cupcakes she’d brought over. Joining Sans over by his work table, she sat down and downed half of the cherry cupcake she’d brought over as Sans drank some of his most preferred condiment. The only other sound in the room was the soft hum of the magical power generator in the back corner. The near silence gave Pinkie Pie’s mind a chance to wander, and after a moment, it drifted back to something she’d noticed the prior day when Sans and Papyrus had come by. Something she’d wanted to ask about, but hadn’t come up with a good way to bring it up. Now seemed like as good a time as any. “Hey Sans, can I ask something a bit personal?” Pinkie Pie inquired as she finished her first cupcake and looked to the skelebro. Sans gave Pinkie Pie a curious look, but after a moment said “sure pinks, fire away.” He started to drink from his ketchup bottle, but regretted it when Pinkie asked “What happened with Papyrus and your shortcuts?” Technically, by any normal law of biology as most people understood it, it would be reasonably concluded that to choke and cough, one needed a trachea and a set of lungs at the very least. But, being a skeleton, and more importantly, a monster made primarily of magic, he didn’t need such. Thus he easily managed an impressive spit take that sent some ketchup onto the wall on the opposite end of his lab. “you should go easier on an old bonehead like me you know. i’m rather fragile.” Sans said once he managed to regain his breath and composed himself… or well, composed himself as best as he could. That was NOT what he had expected the pink party pony to ask. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to Sans.” Pinkie replied, her tone softer, but not losing any of the warmth she seemed to almost always carry with her. “It’s just, I noticed your eyes go hollow for a moment when Papyrus mentioned something with your shortcuts and him when you were both kiddy bones.” “i prefer the term baby bones, since i’m rather sure i don’t have an actual tail or whispers.” Sans said with a weak chuckle, soon sighing as he closed his eyes. He set his ketchup bottle aside, and used his magic to open the fridge and pull over a beer infused mustard bottle. “i should probably tell someone… figure it’s one of the many mysteries with me that papyrus will want answered someday.” He sighed, shaking his head a bit as he sat down on the floor. His eyes went hollow again and he was quiet for a full minute before he said anything. “it’s not a very long story, really, when you get down to it. but the devil is always in the details, isn’t it?” Pinkie gave Sans a nod of understanding at his words, and he lifted his gaze up to the ceiling as the lights in his eyes returned. “we were both young… only about six or seven… i was still getting the hang of the shortcuts that i somehow had a knack for using. it was a kind of magic that was rare amongst any of the tribes of monsters.” “back then… i was a lot more… well, durable is as good a word as any.” He said, wincing a bit as he looked down at himself. Sans did manage to crack a smile and wink at Pinkie as he said “and no, that doesn’t mean i was big boned.” Pinkie snickered softly, but her smile wasn’t as exuberant as it would normally be. Sans took that as a sign she wished for him to continue. Drat. “using the shortcuts properly takes… skill. and to learn that, you have to practice. and a side effect of practicing using the shortcuts, which involves cutting through space and time itself… is that it can hurt. it’s like learning to ride a bike or a scooter- you get banged up a bit.” “only here… there was a bit more… volatility to it. sometimes it was easy, and at most i might have a few loose fibers in my clothes. there was twice where i came out and was covered in cracks and my clothes were nearly torn to shreds. there was no pattern really to it, other than that it was sometimes getting easier and that more often than not, i made it through without much damage.” He shook his head. “i was young, and stupid, and should have thought it through more.” Pinkie didn’t need to prompt him, as he quickly explained “one day, while doing some practice with it to go get some nice cream before the stall closed, papyrus saw me opening the shortcut and getting ready to walk through. he begged me to let me go through with him… i hadn’t tried taking anyone else through, but i figured that it couldn’t hurt to try.” San’s eyes were hollow again. “what a bonehead i was.” Pinkie let him be silent for a moment, before reaching out and taking hold of his hand with a hoof. She had a funny feeling she wasn’t going to like what came next. That would be a bit of an understatement. “i was used to using the shortcuts and how twisty and warpy everything looked. i also knew that moving through it quickly was better than lingering, in case the shortcut was unstable. i knew this intrinsically. paps… paps didn’t. first… he got distracted, then the shortcut started to eat at his body… sapping at his health bit by bit…” “at that time, papyrus wasn’t as big into athletics as he is now, he was a bit more… carefree and relaxed. so trying to run quickly to get to the other side wasn’t something he could do. and while i left the shortcut open for him, i had started heading over to the nice cream stand.” His hand gripped Pinkie’s hoof tightly, enough that Pinkie Pie winced a bit even as she kept her own grip on his bony appendage. “i’d gone around the corner, bought my nice cream, and was just coming back and wondering where paps was when he finally stumbled out. dust was flaking and bleeding away from just about every part of his body.” Sans looked up at Pinkie Pie, and for the first time, truly understood just how much pain an empty set of eye sockets could manage to express. “he was dying pinks.” There were tears starting to form at the corner of his sockets, Pinkie’s own eyes unable to look away from those dark hollows as he continued. “i didn’t really know much healing magic… it’d always been a bit hit and miss for me. i was able to check his stats like any other monster, to see how he was doing… there wasn’t any time to get help. he tried to say something to me… but he was in so much pain, he could barely cry… he… he reached out to me and…” Gently, Pinkie Pie pulled Sans into a tight hug, holding onto the Skeleton and softly patting his back. She didn’t say anything… there wasn’t anything she could say, especially given that there was no way that was the end of the story. Papyrus was still around after all, right? It took about a minute and a half before Sans let go, wiping the tears off his face. “huh… haven’t cried in a while… wasn’t even sure i could anymore after all we’d been through.” “It shows how much you care about your brother.” Pinkie murmured softly, earning a hollow laugh that nearly quaked the very essence of her soul. “if you asked some monster’s, they might say i don’t care about much of anything other than napping and being lazy. and in a way… t h e y w e r e n ‘ t w r o n g.” Something about the way Sans said thost last three words… unnerved Pinkie Pie. But she did her best to brush it aside as the skeleton sighed. “as you guessed, the story doesn’t end there. in my grief, i felt something… powerful well up within me. something that gave me a strength unlike anything i’d ever felt before. it urged me to do something, anything, to reverse what had just happened. i felt… determined.” He lifted his hands, gazing at them as he said “determination, in high concentrations, usually makes most monsters melt and turn into… well, you’ve met the amalgamates. but it doesn’t seem to affect skeleton’s quite the same way though. instead, our bodies become more brittle, weaker. it becomes easier for us to… well, die.” “but like any other monster… it gives us great power. and i used that power… to open a different kind of shortcut. i didn’t simply move from one space to another… i went backwards in time. and it was the most excruciating thing i’d ever felt, walking through that particular shortcut. even though my body itself didn’t seem to be taking damage… i could feel my health dropping with each step i took. each second of time i crossed back felt like something was draining or being eaten up within me… the only thing keeping me going was my determination.” “i probably would have died, had i not… i guess merged with my past self as they were walking into the shortcut. it gave me a chance to turn around and push papyrus on the floor. i guess i still had some determination in me, because there was a bit more oomph in my shove then i intended… he fell on the floor and smacked his head. gave him a big crack for a while… but that was better than being dust. not that i’ll ever be able to get that image out of my thick skull…” “more importantly, it made him forget that i’d been about to let him in through the shortcut.” Sans said, his the lights finally returning to his eyes a bit as he chuckled darkly. “used that as a way of telling him that we’d already gone and gotten nice cream, and that the trip back through had knocked him out and hurt him. told him it wasn’t safe enough yet for anyone but me to go through… it was also when i gave him the idea of being the great papyrus. told him if he could become the greatest member of the royal guard that i’d let him use the shortcuts, maybe even see if i could find a way to teach him.” Pinkie Pie smiled at that, giggling a bit as she said “Well, he has indeed become a great Royal Guard. He’s even doing a great job following the orders King Asgore gave them- be the best friends with the Ponies of Equestria you can be.” Sans laughed and his smile widened a bit at that. “that he has, and he’s gotten better at making friends since meeting frisk.” The moment of mirth dwindled as Sans looked at the race car they were making. “there was once or twice where he’d ask about using a shortcut again, but he gave me his word he’d become the greatest royal guard first, and i reminded him great people don’t go back on their word.” His lights hollowed out for a brief moment at that, and Pinkie saw him looking at his left hand before they returned. “and eventually, he forgot about it as he became focused on his dream job. i did keep my word and try to show him how to use shortcuts, but it doesn’t seem like he can use them, and he sort of decided that since he was the great papyrus, he didn’t need shortcuts.” Pinkie nodded. “And then we reach yesterday… where you wanted to help see if we could pull this off as soon as possible. And it explains why the Dreemurr kids have said to be real careful around you when it comes to rough housing.” “yup, that’s the whole story… of why i never let papyrus go through a shortcut until now… and of why i have only 1 hit-point.” He reached over and ruffled Pinkie’s mane though as he said “and hey, you can be a bit rough with me. my body knows the difference between rough housing and someone trying to kill me.” boy does it know the difference. “I know. And I’d never try to hurt any of my friends, so there’s nothing to worry about there!” Pinkie said, standing back up and resting a hoof on his shoulder. “And don’t you worry, I won’t tell Papyrus, or anyone else, if you don’t want me to. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She proceeded to do just that, putting one with the icing in the shape of Papyrus’s nyehehing face on it into her right eye. “didn’t think you would pinks… but the pinkie promise does make me feel better.” Sans said with a smile, patting her back before turning his attention to the car as well. “now, enough sad and dark stuff. my break is over, which means it’s time for the two of us jokers to finish this thing. ready pinks?” His eyes twinkled with mirth as he saw that Pinkie Pie had gained a welding mask and a blow torch out of nowhere. She lifted the mask and beamed as she said “Ready as the party supplies I load my cannon with!” Sans chortled at that, walking over to the nearly finished car, thinking all the while as he worked that Papyrus really was the Greatest brother a skeleton could ask for…  And that maybe someday, he could follow his example… and forgive himself for that fatal mistake.