• Published 25th Nov 2015
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Underworld Frisk - Darkonshadows



Pinkie fell to these monsters, now she has to dance with her heart to save them and herself.

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20 - Farm Snails and Tortoise Tales

“Thank you again for letting us into your home and for helping Pinkie.” Toriel looked about the area outside the little corner the two houses sat in. “So this place is called The Quiet Area… sounds nice.”

“Hey since we’re leaving the cooler behind in Nappy’s house and it’s taking up quite a bit of space since it’s so big.” Pausing for dramatic effect Pinkie looked at the air and waggled her eyebrows at it. Goodness knows she was about to say something relatively close to beating a dead horse in the world of jokes and the air would like to apologize in advance, as a reminder air cannot talk or even groan about bad jokes and is not in fact sentient as Pinkie would have many believe it is. “Does that mean that his house is now at least twenty percent cooler?”

“Pinkie, you’re horrible.” The air wished it could thank Toriel for stating that, now if only she wasn’t giggling like a little school girl about it.

The air would like to remind everyone that it was not in fact an existing entity or an anthropomorphic representation thereof. The fact that the air itself was making wishes despite having no sentience or mind to do so whatsoever should not have bearing on what the protagonists are currently going to do.

“Moving on from the house being colder jokes that somehow got Toriel to laugh, we heard it from a reliable source that Undyne lives around here.” Rolling his eyes as the silliness of his friends, Gyftrot was thankfully trying to get the plot back on track.

“Oh… yeah, she’s my neighbor around the corner over here. She couldn’t keep her house in ‘New Home’ because she kept setting everything nearby on fire, alongside the many incidents. They had to invent new zoning laws specifically for her and her house. She can’t very well turn herself in for being a public disturbance when she’s the captain of the guard. Then there’s the fact that she’s almost been entirely responsible for destroying half of ‘New Home’ more than once, so zoning laws.” Leading the travelers to Undyne’s house, Napstablook saw that the house wasn’t on fire, halfway destroyed, forming a black hole, puking up dancing stone frogs and or flooding with risqué pictures of a yellow lizard on the cover of multiple magazines labeled ‘Hot Land Lizards Monthly’. The ghost figured Undyne had to be busy at her job for her house to be still standing like it currently was. “It seems she’s not home, it’s really easy to tell when she’s not. For one the lights would be on, another is something destructive would be happening around here or to her house.”

Looking at the house, it looked like a scrunched up house shaped like a large monster fish or serpent. It had two angry looking window eyes, a toothy mouth that didn’t even look like a door, two fins on what looked like its cheeks, a tail and scales all over. It was a tad intimidating for a house.

There was a large fishbone mat nearby with a dummy sitting on it and Toriel saw that Pinkie noticeably shied away from it, there was a smaller fishbone mat in front of the door to the house or what passed for one.

“That house almost looks like it’s alive.” Shuddering at its angry looking visage, Pinkie couldn’t help but think that the house was glaring right at her.

“It’s certainly a monster of a house.” This got Toriel a few wary giggles from Pinkie.

“Right then, there’s not much else to The Quiet Area except for a few things… oh hey, it’s Clam Girl.” It was a little strange that Napstablook seemed happy to be a tour guide to The Quiet Area, he floated over to the strange humanoid with the clam head and it opened to reveal a head shaped like a pearl inside with a face. “Hello, Clammy… I hope you aren’t clamming up still.”

“Hi Napstablook, I’ve been better. I see you’ve made some new friends. It’s nice to know you’re getting out more. Showing them around The Quiet Area? I’ll tell my neighbor’s daughter Suzy you said hello, I think your friends would like her.” The clam person smiled at them as they continued on their way.

The ghost pointed out the path beyond the clam person as they moved on.

“That way takes you towards a shop, lamp light swamp, a small village of Temmies and closer to the Hot Lands. Over here is a small farm owned and operated by the Blook family… which consists of just me running things at this time. It’s slow going most of the time and doesn’t even really need me around.” Despite the sad sounding situation of being the only one running a farm, Napstablook didn’t look the slightest bit depressed as he introduced them to what was his actual job. “Welcome to the Blook Family Snail Farm!”

A deafening squeal broke out and it wasn’t Pinkie Pie, it was kind of surprising that she wasn’t the one to make such a high pitched noise. Instead the pink pony and brown deer were wincing and had their ears folded back at the high pitched note.

No it wasn’t Pinkie that had made that noise; it had in fact been a starry eyed Toriel who did an almost perfect imitation of a Pinkie Pie super squeal. She looked immediately enamored with the idea of such a farm and ran up to the fence to look at all the snails there with what could be considered an insane level of excitement. She was at ‘Party Making Pinkie’ levels of enthusiasm.

“I’m not sure about this, but I think our queen really loves snails to an absurd level approaching insanity that goes all the way around again to being barely sane.” It was kind of ridiculous for Gyftrot to see his queen fawning over snails.

“Is that really what I sound like when I squeal loudly around others?” The memories of spooking a shy pony with her squeals entered Pinkie’s mind as she looked to the air in thought. She’d gently approach Fluttershy from the front the next time she saw her and pet her gently.

“Snails, phylum mollusk, class gastropod, they were known as univalves at one time. They are the most diversified class in the phylum with over seventy thousand unique species. They can be anywhere from microscopic to the size of my head or bigger. Slugs are also related to them despite lacking a defined shell which they can entirely hide in, usually having only partial shells. Snails move on a single foot by creating mucus so as to make a slippery track where they can expand and contract their foot in a rippling motion for locomotion. A lot of them even start off a reproductive process by stabbing a prospective partner with a hormone covered biological knife, usually referred to as a ‘love dart’ despite the fact that the snail just stabs with it and no actual throwing takes place.” The snail loving Toriel just couldn’t help but get excited in a deranged manner as she spouted off snail related facts. “I actually have a joke relative to this situation, why are snails stronger than elephants Pinkie?”

“I don’t know Tori, why are snails stronger than elephants?” This reminded Pinkie so much of how Twilight would go on about one thing or another in an adorably nerdy manner, except Toriel wasn’t trying to bore her to death intentionally.

-

“Twilight dear, I’m sorry for being unladylike by asking this, but are you actually trying to bore us to death?” Rarity yawned and couldn’t feel her body at all at the moment, she had been in this sitting one position for hours and she was trying to stay awake as to not appear rude.

“Yes, because the lecture on the hypothesis I’ve been going on about for the last ten hours as to where Pinkie could have possibly gone or disappeared to is just that boring on purpose!” A sarcastic Twilight responded, she didn’t like the fact that her friends were nodding off at her lecture. There were five chalkboards positively covered in equations behind the unicorn, all of them had depictions of Pinkie Pie connected to chaos theory.

“Well at least you admit to it sugar cube, and that’s a mighty fine first step to admitting that you might have a problem. We’ll forgive you for trying to kill us, isn’t that right girls.” Looking around Applejack noticed that Rainbow had flown the coop, likely hours ago, and Fluttershy actually looked dead or was she just playing possum? It was hard to tell at this point, she looked almost to be a pile of skin and bones. “I think it’s high time we got some vittles in us, then we’re going to go out and do something that’s not worrying about how Pinkie Pie is doing. If her sister Maud says that one of those choosing what-you-may-call-its’ is active, then that’s okay enough for me to know she’s alive wherever she is. Hopefully not in a coma from falling off a mountain and dreaming of a pony named Toriel. Pinkie’s weird and all, but an imaginary girlfriend is where I draw the line of being able to deal with her shenanigans.”

-

“Because a snail always carries its house, whereas an elephant only carries its trunk!” A smile that could light up the area was on Toriel’s face, she was just that happy to be at a snail farm. She had a large thing for snails that she thought were as cute as they were delectable. “They are omnivorous and a larger snail will actually break the shells of other snails and eat them. Snails use their radula which is a rasping organ that they use to wear down their food; it’s not exactly a tongue even if it does get referred to as such quite often.”

Pinkie was chuckling at the joke and she wished she could say she was as enthusiastic as Toriel sounded, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t about to ruin it for her goat friend though and the snails on display were actually kind of interesting.

The one on the far left was an ordinary looking garden snail. The one to the right of the previous snail looked surprising with a long nose, big eyes and it even had a mustache and the third thing behind the fence was what looked like a strange suited being with a shell sitting on top of them. Next to the strange guy was what was probably once a snail that was now a slug that looked like it was counting money it got from shelling out.

“If this is a farm, these can’t be all the snails you have!” You’ve really got to wonder how Toriel managed to physically start throttling the snail farm operator who was a ghost, then again Pinkie could touch him too so it made sense.

“Yes, there’s quite a lot more than that, these are display snails… well except for that guy in the suit. Usually the only visitor to the farm is some big hairy guy with horns. Want to see the thunder snails’ race?” As Napstablook was asking this, Pinkie and Gyftrot looked to each other before they covered their ears. Toriel was one happy goat lady already and if the two hadn’t seen what was coming they would probably be deaf now. “It’ll be thirty gold to watch them race, that’s ten gold per customer. While I might not have much personal use for money, I do use some of it to keep the farm going.”

“EEEEEEEEEE… Oh my goodness, would I ever! Of course I’ll pay!” Nothing could darken Toriel’s tone in this moment after that deafening squeal; she even brought her hands up to her face and was bleating with glee. She was positively bouncing on her feet as she paid the ghost.

Napstablook nodded and then floated onwards leading them to a straight racetrack at the end of which sat three snails near the three different lanes. They were yellow, red and blue snails and they just seemed to be idling around that area, aside from the colors they all looked the same.

“Guys to the starting lines, we actually have paying customers that want to see the Underworlds fastest snails.” The three athletic snails all quickly snapped their heads towards Napstablook and took up positions in their lanes; they were actually pretty quick to react to his command. The ghost turned to his new friends. “Now I want each of you to cheer for a snail, they need a confidence boost to really get them moving. I’m not really that good at it myself, maybe you’ll do better.”

“I’ll cheer for the yellow one.” Pinkie wondered just how fast these thunder snails could be, if they were twice as fast as a normal snail she wouldn’t be impressed. They were pretty fast to line up at the starting line and now she was actually looking forward to it.

“I pick the red one; oh the trained snails are so cute!” The red snail seemed to wiggle excitedly at the starting line to be picked by Toriel. If only it knew the horrors that the snail eating goat monster would enact upon it if she could, then it wouldn’t be as friendly with her as it was.

“I guess I’ll cheer for the blue one.” What Gyftrot really wanted to do was go back to Napstablook’s house and feel like garbage for a while. There were no words for what the ghost showed them and there still wasn’t any.

“Okay then, 3… 2… 1… go!” As soon as Napstablook said the word ‘go’, the snails set off at a pretty quick pace for snails.

“Come on yellow you can do it, don’t be afraid to go really, really absurdly dangerously turbo fast to the point that things get really bad where you start crashing and burning!” Pinkie cheered on and the yellow snail which was a bit slow starting off compared to the other two snails and it seemed rather anxious at hearing the pony’s words.

“Come on red, full throttle, get it in the zone, you can do it, come on and burn slime!” Being the most enthusiastic and loudest of the three, Toriel could see that the snails were slowly picking up speed as they went and was cheering them on to go even faster.

“Come on blue, don’t you dare be a depressive wimp as your color would imply, wiggle that foot, slime as hard you can and push it to the brink! You’re not just a snail, you’re the snail!” It was odd that Gyftrot was getting into the competitive spirit and even coaching his snail.

They continued to cheer for their snails harder and at some point the snails started getting faster and then they suddenly all started to burst into flames. The yellow one had stopped entirely a little more than a quarter into the track. There was a sudden silence as blue managed to continue sliding until he passed the finish line while on fire. The red one came to a halt before the finish line and like the other two, its shell was burning.

“Do you think we might have pushed them a little too hard?” A worried Pinkie asked of her friends, as Napstablook brought out a fire extinguisher in the background and started to spray the spontaneously combusting snails.

“Uh, maybe just a little, but way to go blue!” Stomping in applause, Gyftrot was smiling at his snail being victorious.

“Don’t worry, they’re alright guys. Okay back to the starting lines with you.” Napstablook picked up the three snails and then pulled a cabbage leaf from his ghostly form to feed the racers as he set them down back at the starting line.

“I’m enjoying this a lot, as much as I love this place we can’t stay here forever. Do you have any snails on sell as in eh-scar-to-go?” A chuckling Toriel licked her lips at the smell of slightly cooked snail on the air; she was almost entirely vegetarian except when it came to snails. “I’m kind of hungry and could use a few snails as a snack for the road.”

“I do have an entire box of snails. For some gold it’s five to a bag, your pick.” A few minutes later and Napstablook eventually came back with a large box. He dropped it on the ground and opened it for the goat to peruse at her leisure. There were hundreds upon hundreds of snails inside the box, Toriel pointed out five to the ghost. He swiftly bagged them and gave them to the goat lady once he received the proper compensation. “This kind of gives me a snail related idea for that cooler in my home.”

Watching the exchange Pinkie sighed, she could overlook the snail eating as long as it didn’t gross her out too much. Hearing a sharp crunch, Toriel had already gotten into her first snail. They were soon to be on their way after a quick bathroom break for Pinkie.

“Would you like a gift shop item for free? They are kind of taking up space in my cousin’s house.” We’re not questioning why Napstablook even has a gift shop for a snail farm; we’re just going to go along with it. He was glad to make Toriel’s day.

-

The three travelers and snow jar were now at the pathway out of The Quiet Area. Toriel was now hugging a snail plush and after putting it away in her backpack, she pulled out a snail out of her snack bag and popped it in her mouth. There was a loud crunching noise that caused Pinkie to cringe and she cringed again when she heard the following slurp. Now Toriel had only three snails in her snack bag.

“They are crunchy and slimy, yet satisfying.” A smiling Toriel muttered, having just started on another helpless snail and it were two left now.

Pinkie still loved Toriel even if she was a snail masticating monster. If the teaching thing didn’t pan out for Toriel, then she’d be a very good gardener at very least because getting rid of snails and slugs wouldn’t be problematic.

They set off down the tunnel to the sound of a snail being crunched; now there was one left and Toriel was going through them pretty quickly. Given they still hadn’t left The Quiet Area or even reached lamp light swamp, a small swamp area where a village of Temmies was said to reside. Coming up on their left Pinkie saw a sign to a shop.

“Let’s check out the shop.” Pinkie turned and walked through the doorway to the shop and saw a very old bearded turtle with a magnifying glass studying a delta rune on the wall.

“Whoa there, didn’t see you come in… I’ve got some neat stuff to sell, unless you want to hear about my old glory days then I can talk your ears off.” Upon seeing the tortoise who was speaking to Pinkie, Toriel immediately scowled at him.

“Pinkie, this is Gerson, otherwise known as ‘The Hammer of Justice’. He fought in the war, well if you can consider hiding in his shell when things got too rough fighting. Though I will admit that he truly is a hero and has saved many lives, he also never killed anyone and that’s why I’m willing to talk to him.” Looking a bit upset with her arms crossed, it seemed as if Toriel had much more to say about this Gerson character and held her tongue.

“… hmm… oh it’s you! It’s been a long time Toriel; it’s nice to see that you’re doing well. Why you don’t look like you’ve aged a day since I last saw you!” Old guy Gerson was wearing an archaeologist outfit and was looking the travelers over. He cackled slightly, before gaining a serious look. “That war was entirely pointless I tell you, so many monsters gone and nothing to show for it except for all those broken hearts. Of course yours was the most broken out of all of us Lady Toriel, but as a boss monster I’m guess that’s healed over with time?”

“While he is a war hero, he is also a crackpot and I’m not over it. I would also like to reiterate to you that there is no such thing as boss monsters; I aged the same as any other monster until I appeared to have stopped aging altogether and that was even when my children were still…” Now Toriel was quite upset and had stopped herself from getting too angry by popping the last snail into her mouth, she crunched it noisily as the tortoise monster before them looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry for opening those old wounds miss. I guess I’m getting a bit dull about tact at my age, but I’m still mostly sharp as a tack where it counts.” The chuckling Gerson put a comforting hand on Toriel’s shoulder and she quickly shook him off in anger, he didn’t seem to take it personally.

Looking at the two a bit confused, Pinkie wondered what they were talking about when it came to age. She had never bothered to ask for Toriel’s age and never would, what mattered was that she was an adult that could make her own choices about who she dated.

“Um excuse me, but what are you talking about Tori? I know bad things happened to your children, but what does that have to do with your age?” A few question marks popped up around Pinkie’s head.

“Gerson here has a running theory that there are ‘boss monsters’ which are different from other monsters and run on a completely different set of biological rules. He just never explained how he came up with his ludicrous idea that monsters like me who have stopped aging entirely, will now only age when we have living children.” Pressing a hand to her head, Toriel sighed as she thought back on things that she thought she would have forgotten by now. The memories were still painful, but she was older now and more willing to handle the trauma of her past and move on with her life. “To start off if boss monsters do exist and only age when they have children and vice versa that children only age when they have parents, then I shouldn’t be like I am and I still grew up into what I am now. Another thing is, it would be completely impossible to keep a population of monsters going like that if it were true. While I will admit that some monsters do age at different rates, such as you still being alive from the time of that massacre Gerson. If we were to use the term boss monster for anything, then it would have to be for a monster that is far stronger than normal and only physically appears ageless.”

“Why is his idea wrong exactly?” Pinkie tilted her head and Toriel turned to her.

“If you were to follow his ideas of boss monsters Pinkie, then you’d just have us as normal as any other monster who have children. Children don’t steal our energy, they are a lot work to take care of which uses energy and it’s not siphoned off from the parent in a ludicrous manner of which he says it does. In any case his highly flawed theory doesn’t account for the fact that I still age because my fur and horns still grow out.” A bit self conscious about her thickening fur, Toriel rubbed at the back of her head fluffing it up slightly. “If my fur and horns couldn’t grow back then that would imply that I’m not aging at all because I currently don’t have a child. His hypothesis is quite wrong because my fur still gets rather thick, also being entirely incapable of aging would also cause muscle entropy so there’s that. I might have eternally youthful appearance, but as for being ageless… that’s hardly the truth.”

“Maybe you’re just a special case of boss monster that became completely immortal after reaching an age at which you hit a peak where you’re body will sustain itself at that age forever without actually aging forwards into a wrinkly old goat, figure of speech of course madam, like I am. Such a thing still allows you to grow your muscle, hair and horns where entropy wouldn’t be a problem; did you ever think of that?” Gerson the bearded wrinkly tortoise seemed a bit smug about his explanation. “You know that I consider you a boss monster and one of the sweetest ones to ever exist right?”

“Yes, but your hypothesis still fails on the fact that my parents would have to have been boss monsters by your logic, which would mean that if you were right I would still be at ten years in age without their energy to feed off of. My body’s physical age is still actually around twenty three to twenty five at the moment, I’ve been alive for so long it’s hard to remember when my bodies overall aging stopped and how old I really am.” Toriel’s slightly sad tirade was about to continue when she felt Pinkie rubbing up against her while looking up to her with sad eyes, she smiled softly at the pony.

“Tori… it’s really sad that your parents died when you were ten. This is kind of like the debate about Celestia’s age and whether or not she actually does age. She still gets trims for her hooves and hair, so I guess that answers whether or not if she still ages in a way that there isn’t degradation or entropy while appearing ageless.” Many surely haven’t forgotten that Pinkie isn’t dumb. While she’s not dumb, the pink pony was very much a lover of being silly and now was a time when she wasn’t, as she was worried about her goat friend's emotional state.

“Who is Celestia? I’ve never heard of her.” The ancient Gerson asked as he looked at the delta rune on the wall with his magnifying glass.

“Where Pinkie comes from, there’s a supposedly immortal creature called an alicorn that looks like her only bigger with a fluted horn and wings.” At some point Toriel would like to meet with this Celestia and discuss whether or not she was truly immortal. She considered herself quite old and dating Pinkie made her feel young, despite feeling like a cougar she wasn’t going to complain as she needed some love after so long.

“Plus Celestia is well over a thousand years old and she’s still beautiful like Tori! She’s a many times great aunt to so many ponies.” Pinkie didn’t need to tell Gerson that she once had a crush on Celestia and had a crayon drawing of a plan involving a trapped cake to capture her. She already told Toriel that almost every young teenage pony in existence has had a crush on Celestia at some point in their life or at the very least looked up to her.

“This Celestia isn’t a monster I take it?” Nobody could possibly know what was wandering through Gerson’s mind at this moment. He looked to the delta rune. “So she has wings and a horn along with some similar traits to you Toriel?”

“Haven’t met her yet, but I really want to.”As Toriel watched him inspect the wall, she gave off a grunt. “Oh please don’t tell me you have a new prophecy or another hypothesis which blatantly disregards all existing evidence again.”

“Prophecy, what prophecy are you talking about?” Pinkie was interested in a story and prophecies usually led to some interesting times, such as when nightmare moon was defeated a short while ago.

“It’s about the delta rune, which is a long time symbol of the monsters. The prophecy is basically that we’re all stuck down here and a falling angel will be our doom or salvation. You fell down here didn’t you? Been hearing a lot from Undyne about a pink creature that had the power of a human soul without actually being human. You better watch your back girl, because Undyne is definitely gunning for you!” Hacking up a bit of his lungs, Gerson turned to Pinkie Pie with smile. “Undyne looked up to me a lot when she was little and she’s a strong one, I think she’s even close to being a boss monster. I don’t know whether or not she’ll stop aging at some point, but it would be interesting if she did and it would prove me partially wrong. One more thing, I think that legend was talking about you as you seem innocent and perky sort for a young whippersnapper that could be a fallen angel. I wish you the best of luck whatever you do, because you don’t seem to have a lick o’ real mean in you and that might be just what we need down here.”

“Well at least you are able to admit that your boss monster theory isn’t viable.” Toriel deadpanned at the tortoise. Behind them Gyftrot just sat silently staring at a living legend as old as dirt itself.

“I’m admitting to nothing you highly educated nag; maybe I just got some parts of my theory wrong! I still say boss monsters are a real thing.” Doing the old huffy man routine, Gerson did what Pinkie always saw Applejack doing in these situations and that was getting ludicrously stubborn.

“How did the war start? Were you there for it from the beginning?” Pinkie had wanted to know, but she didn’t think Toriel would answer it.

“Indeed I was and those were dark times. Now that I look back on it, it was a horrible misunderstanding of the largest sorts. If Toriel is okay with me telling the story, her and King Fluffybuns didn’t mean for things to happen the way they did.” Hearing the goat lady groan caused Gerson to smile wickedly. “What can’t handle the nickname of your ex? I can understand why you left him though; he’s not exactly the brightest guy ever and he stomped on your heart quite hard he did.”

“Go ahead… I can’t exactly bring myself to tell the whole story.” Toriel sat down and immediately found herself being hugged and nuzzled by Pinkie. The pony also pulled out the snail plush and put it between them and started snuggling with all she was worth.

“Well, the war started over many things, but what was it that set off the whole powder keg of monster resentment that led to a mostly one sided war you may ask? It was the adoption of an orphaned human by a monster with a loving heart; it’s sad but true. The humans didn’t seem to really care about the orphan after they supposedly ‘rescued’ them from us, heck they even accused us of kidnapping their children to enslave them after that. I will say that I know that not all humans are bad or are born that way, but when they start getting a collective idea in mind, they are really quite dangerous easily riled bastards.” There was a grim look on Gerson’s face as he took a seat himself while putting away his magnifying glass.

“This tale isn’t for the faint of heart young one, but you wanted to know. It starts when a baby was found crying out in the cold by a beautiful white maiden in the wilderness, not a mother or father to be seen for miles around. There were splatters of blood covering the small amount of cloth the baby was wrapped in as it cried for help out in the cold, it was completely helpless. The white maiden took that child in, regardless of any consequences it would bring out of the goodness of her heart. Within the same year the white maiden gave birth to a son that she cherished as much as her adopted child that she took in. It was a few years later when the humans found out about the adopted child and then ‘LIBERATED’ the kid from us and it wasn’t long before we were all stuffed into this hole you now find yourself in. The human child still managed to find their way back to the white maiden and their brother, the humans didn’t even really care for them at all after the war was all said and done. The child was never the same after that long fall to the underground which caused them a lot of injuries; they had nothing but hatred for their own kind and were filled with a grand love for monsters. The white maiden saddened by the war was at least happy to have her other child back again. I don’t rightly know what happened next, but it was only a year or maybe two of peace before both of the children ended up dead. One from unknown causes and the other being the white maiden’s innocent child that managed to venture up to the surface to bring back some flowers as a last request for his human sibling; he died from the injuries a pack of humans dealt to him. It taught us the barrier wasn’t perfect and could actually be surmounted. The son of the white maiden had his essence spread all over what became New Home’s flower gardens. Now, we’re becoming just as bad as the humans by hating them and we’re slowly turning on each other out of desperation.” Gerson looked to Toriel with sorrow; he felt horribly guilty now and he was usually such a jolly fellow.

“Asriel… Chara… my children… all of the sudden they were just... gone. I’ve caused so much pain and suffering, I don’t even know why monsters are still willing to call me a queen.” Toriel muttered as tears spilled from her eyes, she should have been more watchful and careful. Why was she such a horrible mother, why did monsters continue to mock her with the name ‘goat mom’? All the extra happiness from the snail farm left her body, but Pinkie’s warmth was still there as was the plush snail. She snuggled them both to her chest and hiccupped slightly. Even the stoic Gyftrot and old Gerson joined in seconds later. It still hurt even now, but she had friends to help her feel better. She also had someone to live and die for; she was ‘determined’ to not fail Pinkie.

Author's Note:

Being constantly reminded that your children are gone is never a good thing, just ask Samus Aran about her baby metroid.

Yep, this is mood whiplash for Toriel. As previously stated, all the darkness is in the past and it still haunts Toriel that she was the main cause of it all. She's hasn't exactly had the easiest life and she wants a family, so yeah these things are going to wreck her ability to stay positive. She can't get angry at Pinkie for asking about it and the only other direction for her emotions to go is to sadness and depression.

If you don't like this chapter, then the long editing process for it was probably not worth the effort put into it. If I'm to be honest, it could still use quite a bit of editing no less and is the longest chapter I've made yet.