Chapter 22: Yeah, Frisk, Why Don't You Fly?

The sun was bright; not even the shadows were dark. If he could spread his leaves out... no, he didn't have leaves anymore. Asriel still sat outside on the ground because that felt right. He missed burrowing, that was a quick way to hide. Or just going insubstantial and quiet. He so much wanted to just hide away from everyone.

He could still die, this life couldn't be real. Maybe he should die, after all that he did. Having killed his parents, his friends, those he didn't know, having left his brother behind to a time that would be snuffed out, having destroyed the whole world... yeah, he shouldn't be here. He could have accepted death then because he didn't deserve to live. But no, Frisk had to waste that wish on him and, well, he couldn't hate her for it. No actually, he could hate her for it, but he immediately hated himself for hating her. She thought she was doing a good thing to let him cheat death. But was he really? Was he really Asriel Dreemurr, or was he a pale memory? Asriel was dead and here he was sitting outside in the sun.

Who was he? Why was he here? Why was he alive?! He put his head in his hands and just couldn't figure things out. There was too much that was just wrong with this situation. All the wrongs were knotted up into one huge bundle of wrongness and he had no clue where to start trying to untangle it all. And there was still that primal spirit somewhere inside him that wanted to tear all those thoughts up and lash out at the world again. But that was really wrong and...

"Asriel?" His mother came over, warm and gentle as always... I've seen you die, I killed you myself... he should really get away from her. Run away, far away to where nobody knew him. He wished he could burrow, that'd be better. "Did you want to go to Frisk's party? You should start getting ready for it if you want."

Right, that was later. He could not show up to spite Frisk for wasting her wish. Or not show up because there would be other kids there and he didn't think he could deal with anyone else right now. But, it was Frisk and he'd feel awful for disappointing her. Nodding, Asriel got up and went back inside to clean up, change clothes, make sure he had the present... he got confused partway through because of all the wrongness distracting him, but Toriel got him back on track.

It was already a noisy party when they arrived, a number of humans and monsters gathered in the backyard, both adults and kids present. Asriel glanced at the line of trees not far from the house and badly wanted to go run from them and watch from afar. But it was her seventh birthday and he really should try to stay for a little while.

Before long, Frisk ran over and hugged him. "Hi Asriel! Thanks for coming."

I told you, in this world, it's kill or be killed. And I've killed you. We should be dead.

He mouth felt dry, but the one thing he said that week was, "H-happy birthday Frisk."

One evening after Frisk got back home, she surprised her parents by asking, What's it take to go to the moon?"

Her mother smiled at her. "Aiming for the stars now that you've explored the underground?"

She smiled. "Yeah!"

"You need to be familiar with science and machines," her father said. "Also piloting; being accepted as an astronaut requires a lot of experience in flight."

"Well I knew I had to study a lot," Frisk said. "Can I take flying lessons?"

"My camera's okay," Asriel said after checking his bag another time. He'd been going through regular therapy sessions for four years now and early on, his psychologist suggested he try out a hobby to express himself with. Cameras seemed like a natural thing to pick up and it did help. Gave him other things to think about, other things to talk with others about. Although the first time he got up the nerve to ride with Frisk in an airplane, this happened.

"Come on then, let's make a video to assure them that we are all right," Frisk said, taking this really well. Once she decided this was another adventure, she had no trouble with it.

"All right, if you think that'll help," he said, setting his camera to video recording. His laptop was working too, so they should be able to email the video link out to their families and friends.

Once he had it recording, she smiled and waved. "Hi everybody! Sorry we couldn't come back home today, but that's out of our control. We're, uh, up here in the mountains in a huge downpour as you can see, and this," she knocked her hand into the broken lightweight plane giving them shelter, "is the remains of my plane, it's totally lost a wing and there's some big holes in the back."

It was a huge downpour, the rain streaming down in sheets across the cracked windows that had been hastily sealed so water didn't get in. From the looks of the clouds that had been around when they crashed, this storm could last some time. The ground was already soggy, so they had to take shelter inside. Thankfully, enough of their gear remained that they were able to attach a light to the roof and film decently. And current cameras were a lot better in low light settings than what he'd used a century ago.

"The park rangers said they couldn't get a rescue out to us tonight, so we're camping in here until they can get us tomorrow," Asriel added.

She nodded. "But we're fine, we've got enough supplies to be okay. Anyhow, it was a really awesome crash!"

"Frisk, it was a crash, it can't be awesome," he said.

Leaning towards the camera, she said, "Aw come on, we're okay because of a really cool thing! Okay, so, we were coming back from the beach early cause of this storm brewing, only all the controls froze up on me and the plane started losing altitude. I'd trained for stalls in the virtual cockpit simulator, but nothing was working and we were getting awful close to crashing into this mountain. I'd already told Asriel to grab the parachutes, so I had to teach him real fast how to use them. By then, we were actually too low to use them, so I remember my lessons with Sans, grabbed Asriel, and teleported us both straight up into the air. That gave us plenty of time and distance to open up the parachutes and land safely."

"Though we did have to find each other and the plane," he said. "That was scary."

"A bit, but it was fun too, right?" Frisk said. After he shook his head, she leaned over and patted his knee. "Aw, I'm sorry Asriel. But we came out okay, so we'll be all right."

"All's well that ends well, huh?" he asked. Maybe if he wasn't suddenly falling through the air way over the earth and scrambling to save his own life with what he'd just learned, it might've been fun. A bit. He didn't want to parachute again.

On the other hand, Frisk was beaming. "Yeah! Oh, and did you guys know what happens when you use Mercy on a wild bear? You get the best bodygaurd you can get in a forest!"

"Please? Lots of people watched that video after the crash, even if they didn't know us before! We should make a thing of this." It took a lot more convincing, but mostly on that argument, Frisk got Asriel to accompany her on another jaunt in the airplane to deliberately look for some adventure. Hopefully not crashing an airplane again, but there had to be something.

And another, and another. It became a video series, the adventure girl off exploring the world in an airplane! Asriel didn't like showing up in the videos himself, sticking to behind the camera and talking her out of the riskier ventures. At first, it was simple: finding some interesting places in the wild areas around Mt. Ebott or convincing some farmers to let her try out driving their huge harvester, stuff like that. They learned a lot of cool things doing this, saw many wonderful places.

Eventually, one of Frisk's teachers agreed to give her school credit if she made reports out of her adventure videos. That was exciting, leading her to fly with Asriel further off to find a place that Asgore remembered. It was said to be a forbidden and dangerous area, like how people used to say Mt. Ebott was forbidden and dangerous. But, they could find no real reason to stop them from going.

It was a strange spot, in an open field where a surrounding forest kept its distance. Most of the field was lush and green, but there was a spot in the center where nothing grew. After making sure Asriel had the magic lens that Alphys had given him, they started the shoot. "See that dark magic there? It's eroding away, might even be gone eventually. But that and other evidence shows that this place was once where the Tower of Bones stood."

She didn't feel afraid here. In fact, not even Asriel felt much fear when he got scared easily. But there was a lingering sadness and regret to this place. Echoes of violence and war. Yet as she said, it was fading. Frisk walked over so the remaining magic would be behind her while she explained. Asriel gave her small hand signals until she got in a good spot.

"Now human legends say that the Tower of Bones was built by a very evil monster that terrorized the whole world. They say that he triggered the last big war between humans and monsters, leading the humans to fight back and eventually win. Some people say that the monsters were forced underground while others say that there was an agreement between the survivors and the humans around Mt. Ebott to seal them up to protect the last monsters. But since it happened so long ago, there's no humans who remain from the time.

"However, some monsters can live that long, and have. And what they say is that there was an agreement." She recalled the history that she'd learned in Waterfall, eventually in books when she got out of the underground. "They also say that it was eight years after the fall of the Tower of Bones that they were sealed underground, not soon after like humans believed. According to their records and memories, it seemed like there might be peace, but then the humans attacked again and lots of monsters died. Lots of them, and no humans died during the second part of that major war. And some very old books from humans suggest the same thing. So it was really our fault that that part of the war happened.

"But we're here to talk about the Tower of Bones and there is an amazing story behind it. Look, sometimes in the memory of magic that remains here, you can see just how tall this tower had been." She pointed up before Asriel went to pan up over the full height. While he did so, Frisk started telling the story that she'd gotten from Asgore and Gerson about this place. Not quite all of it, since the former king didn't want to be connected publicly to this place.

This kind of reporting got them even more viewers.

While their web show was mostly about the adventures, they liked to point out bits of ancient history that showed that humans and monsters once worked together in peace. Their audience that were monsters really enjoyed that. Their audience that were humans enjoyed it too, intrigued by these old signs being found by an eager young girl who was happy to share what she learned and what she thought. There were even people who wanted to chat with him in the comments, even though Asriel never showed up on camera and wasn't the star Frisk was becoming.

They were in Machu Picchu this week, after he'd commented that a picture of it looked interesting. Of course, she caught onto that and plotted a way to get them out here even though that required getting permission from their parents for passports and lots of flights on her part to earn the money. But even here, they found something. On a fragment of stone wall that remained standing, there was a familiar and significant marking.

Asriel gave her the signal that he was recording. Frisk was crouched by the fragment of wall. "Hey guys, look what we spotted," she said, pointing it out. "This is really special, it's called the Delta Rune. I've pointed it out a few times on past shows, but I don't think I've fully explained it. Here we are in an ancient city on top of a mountain, and the rune is here, so I'll talk about it in more detail.

"It has great meaning to monsters and a great many of them still treat this as a religious symbol. When I first learned about it, I was told that it predated written history. Well here's proof of that, here's a Delta Rune from way back when! It gets used as a sign for royalty for them, so this could be a sign that a monster monarch was once here. Or it could be a sign that this held some spiritual significance at the time." She went on the further describe the various meanings, including the prophecy of the angel that the monsters trapped underground believed in.

As they were walking around looking for a spot to talk about the Sphinx, Frisk asked, "How are you doing?"

"It's pretty hot, but I'm okay," Asriel said, wearing a hat with an enchantment that was trying to keep him cool. They knew it'd be tough on him to be out here in Egypt with his fur, but he still wanted to come out here to see various sites. Although, nobody around them would recognize him as a monster. They used another enchantment to make him look like a human, like a young man with long blond hair.

Frisk wasn't sure which form of him she thought was cuter, but kept that thought to herself with a smile. "That's good, although I meant more like how you're feeling. You've been braver lately."

"Oh, um, thanks," he said, looking away shyly. "I've been doing okay, I'm getting better. I mean, I'm not thinking that I should be dead most of the time, just on occasion. And, uh, I like this, getting out to see the world. There's so much out there, completely different places but you find some similarities here and there. Um, that's really interesting."

"Great, I'm glad you enjoy this," Frisk said, bouncing for a few steps. This was the best life! She hoped that she could keep going on adventures, exploring places, and finding things. If she hadn't fallen into the underground nearly ten years ago, she wouldn't have thought to try. Hey wait...

"I still feel strange when fragments of my old selves come out strongly," Asriel said, causing her to stop her wandering thoughts and pay attention to him. "I'm only here out of luck, and your wish, such a blessing that sometimes I don't know if I deserve it. But, I'm trying not to get lost in that again." He smiled, a soft brightness that she was starting to see come out of him more and more. "This life I have is a blessing and I have to make the most of it, do something great with it. I mean, even if I'm just your camera and tech guy, it's still great."

She grinned back. "Yeah, I couldn't be doing this without you! And don't you forget it!"

"Oh, F-Frisk!" he said, blushing at that.

That made her laugh. "Sorry. Oh, but I just had the best idea for our next series! Wanna hear it?"

Before they set off on their biggest project to date, they had to come back home to talk to various people about it. Not exactly getting permission, but some of their past videos that went heavily into what monsters believed got firestormed with criticism from those who believed monsters should not be a part of the modern world. Frisk had been all excited, but Asriel worried that this could cause the biggest firestorm of all. On the other hand, it might just open up the eyes of those who didn't know better, convince those humans who were still on the fence about if monsters should be accepted peacefully as equals again.

And before that... they had a wedding to attend.

There was other people with cameras, but Asriel had volunteered to take most of the official photos for Undyne and Alphys. It had been a unique ceremony given the two involved. In a good way, it had been a lot of fun and he got so many great shots that it'd be a chore to pick through the ones to focus on. He was at the reception now, catching more casual shots of people having fun while Mettaton's band played live music. He noticed that his mother and Sans were keeping close together today. Were they romantically involved or just hanging out as friends when they didn't see each other often? It was something that even he wasn't sure of.

Over at a table across the way, the two bridal parties were chatting with each other, laughing often. Asriel couldn't help but smile when he glanced over their way, occasionally sneaking shots at them. Alphys had asked for some of her old friends to be with her, Mettaton and a pair Asriel didn't know well named Catty and Bratty. The two ladies had gone for pink dresses with rosettes while Mettaton had to be talked into dressing down so as to not outdo the couple. But for Undyne's party, she had put Papyrus in a seafoam green suit and Frisk in a matching scale dress that had spikes coming off the shoulders.

She didn't seem much like a bridesmaid in that, but Asriel thought she was still pretty. Although, he hadn't said anything to her about that. He really shouldn't. He and his father had talked about that for a long while recently. In spite of all the strange things that had occurred to him, he was still considered by his own magic to be a monster of royalty, thus his lifespan was indefinite. But humans had very definite lifespans, so he should really keep his tongue and keep her as a friend. Although, that wasn't what his father had said. He had to think over if the risk of loss was worth the happiness he might get.

"Turning into a wallflower again?" Sans asked abruptly.

Asriel tensed at that, barely keeping himself from yelping in surprise. Nearby, Toriel put a hand to her mouth, seeming to hold back a chuckle with great effort. "Oh Sans, that was tasteless. He's being more of a shuttershy."

"You two," Asriel said, putting his hand on his head. Of course, that just made them laugh.

Toriel patted his shoulder before sitting down by him. "Why don't you take a break and go chat with some of the others? I can handle your camera for a little while."

"Thanks Mom, there should be plenty of room left on the card," he said, handing it off to her. He was wary of letting his camera out of his sight ever since he'd had one stolen from him on one trip; this one was even more expensive than that one. But, it was in good hands here, at least as long as Sans didn't get a hold of it and took a photo of something silly.

"You could go as Frisk for a dance," Sans added.

"I can't do that," Asriel said, trying not to show how nervous that made him.

"I'm sure she'd be happy to," Toriel said, smiling warmly at him.

"Yeah, and it's so obvious between you two that you might as well stop pretending to not be a couple," Sans said, winking at him.

"We aren't, really," Asriel said.

Sans snapped his fingers. "In that case, you'd better get her before anybody else does. She's pretty, clever, and popular so this might be your best chance."

"I don't know about that, we're good friends as it is," he said. And that'd be the hardest part if it didn't work out; he really didn't want to lose his friendship with Frisk. He did love her, but should he tell her?

"Don't be afraid of what may come in the future, my child," his mother said. "Follow what your heart says is true."

"Mom," he said, touched by her encouragement but not sure what to say.

Then there was a familiar call, "Asriel!" Frisk came over, smiling energetically and grabbing his arm. "Come on, let's go dance."

"Wha, hey, what?" Asriel stammered as he got pulled to his feet. Sans was chuckling behind him.

"We're at a wedding reception, so we've got to dance a bit," she insisted. "And I'd rather dance with you than anyone else." That made Toriel laugh while Asriel got flustered enough that he didn't know what to say but didn't fight it either.

Of course, his mother took several shots of the two of them. Thankfully, he could erase the really embarrassing ones before she got prints of them. He did keep a couple of those pictures to himself, though.

There were many stories told during the wedding reception, including the one about how she had inadvertently brought Undyne and Alphys together when she had no clue she was being a matchmaker. Frisk had never realized that, but she was happy to learn about it. In fact, there were many other thigns that she hadn't realized at the time, about how she affected the monsters and how they'd affected her. Leaning those things was getting her more excited for the upcoming laws that would recognize monsters as equal the humans, a peace treaty between the two races to live together once again. It meant that other people would get to learn such things and be changed.

Another thing she was excited for was something she pulled Asriel aside for. A crescent moon was showing up. "We're gonna go there!" she said, pointing it out.

"To the moon?" he asked in surprise.

"Someday, hopefully soon," Frisk said. "I sent in a few questions about possibly taping an episode or two there at the moon base. And one of the astronauts there replied back saying that she was a big fan of our show and she'd be happy to let us, but we have to go through a long process of medical checks and legal stuff before they'll let us. She's gonna work with us, though, maybe even get us permission to go out in a moon buggy. It'll still be months at the earliest."

Asriel never got as openly excited or emotional as she did, but she could tell from his eyes that he was eager to go on that adventure. "Wow, but we'll really get there? That's amazing. Heh, but, you promised me that a long time ago."

"I know, that's why I was bugging them," she said.

"Really, you remember that?" he said, rubbing at his ears as if not believing he heard that right.

Laughing, Frisk twirled around. "Of course I do! I always meant to, that's why I learned to fly an airplane and all sorts of other stuff. But if we don't have to become full on astronauts to go, that's even better because then I can focus more on all the adventures we have here."

Asriel laughed a bit. "Yeah. Actually, um, I didn't really believe you were being serious back then. That was when I was falling apart from everything going on, though, and that was one of the hopes that led me to start pulling together again, that we would see the moon someday."

"It all worked out well, hasn't it?" she asked, feeling bright with happiness. "I mean, I saw the end of the world, but now every day that I wake up, I feel happy that it wasn't the end and we get to go around and see how awesome the world is. And then share it all with other people, it's really the best."

"Yeah," he said with a nod. Then he summoned a red rose into his hand, still adept in magic involving flowers and planets. "Um, I was thinking, about how you keep offering to swear the oath of friendship with me."

"Do you want to?" she asked, trying to think of where to find a red string right now. Or maybe he was prepared.

"Not really," he said oddly, then pressed the flower into her hand. "You're very important to me, there's no doubt in that, but I..."

After making sure that they were going to be taped right, Asriel sat down by Frisk. "Okay, whenever."

She smiled at him, then turned to the camera with her usual wave. "Hi friends, it's your adventure girl Frisk here with a long adventure planned out for this summer. And yes, these are really huge flowers here, but first of all, I've got to introduce you to somebody important here."

"They already know me," he said as part of what they'd planned.

"Well yeah, but they've never seen you except when you're pretending to be human," she said. "As you might've already noticed, this here is my camera buddy Asriel. Actually, Prince Asriel, the son of the current queen of the monsters." Then she gripped his shoulder and grinned, "Isn't he a cutie pie?"

"Frisk!" he said, hoping he wasn't blushing too much.

"Well you are and now they'll believe me," she said. "And we're here among these huge flowers because we are actually in the underground realm where all the monsters used to live behind the barrier that kept us separate. Why don't you explain why?"

"The flowers or the adventure this time?" he asked, partly to calm down.

"Adventure first, we'll get to the flowers," Frisk said, letting him go.

"Well given the recent treaty and bill of rights between monsters and humans, we felt like we should explain about how this all got started," Asriel said. It was better going off of what the plan was, at least for him. "And a little over ten years ago happens to be when the two of us met. Frisk got lured up Mt. Ebott when she was just six years old and fell down right here in this spot with these giant flowers, as her very first adventure. I met her here, sort of, I mean, I was a flower at the time."

Frisk leaned towards the camera and whispered loudly, "Don't worry guys, he got better!"

That made him smile. "Right. So our next adventure will be following in the footsteps of our first adventure, traveling through the underground and letting you all see some of what life was like down here. There's still a good number of monsters who remain down here, plus we've invited some of our best friends to come back to tell more of the story with us."

"And I'm making him spend time on camera since this is his old homeland," she said. "So if our quality goes down, sorry guys, it's probably me on the camera because he's a whiz with them and I couldn't match his leet camera skills no matter how hard I tried."

"You won't be that bad," Asriel said. Then they got around to explaining about how this area was a mana spring that caused these sacred flowers to wildly increase in size.

(You find a tiny clip of the Adventure Girl web series that has never been posted before.)

Asriel: Actually, I gotta say... the moon is boring compared to Earth.

Frisk: (laughs) At least we get a really pretty view of the world from here.

Asriel: That's true. Um, Frisk? Thank you, for everything. You saved me and proved to me that life is worth enjoying. It's taken me a long time before I could feel grateful for that, but I finally feel like I can leave my past behind me now.

Frisk: Hey guys, glad you're enjoying the underground series! Now I know we've been ignoring a lot of those questions about if we'd sworn the oath of friendship or if we're something more than that. I'm only going to say this once, so you'd better pay attention.

Ready?

It's between us and you're better off finding your own adventures in life now. :D Tootles!

A/N: And that's the end, hope you liked it! I loved writing it, but I had a thought a little while back. One of the fun thing with Frisk is that they're intentionally vague even with gender. So here I made Frisk a young chatty innocent girl who's pacifist because she gets scared of fighting and can't actually battle. But if I were to flip things around and make Frisk a quiet boy who's older than he seems due to time travel and is pacifist because he's seeking redemption from genocide's reset method, that's still Frisk. It makes the resulting story different, of course... see you in Rewinding Ways.