Garamond was truly "big-boned" in every sense of the word. He wore large shoulder pads atop his thick, skeletal frame, a huge breastplate over his chest, which was puffed out and proud, his cape flowing down his back as he rested his immense, gauntlet-wearing hands upon the podium before him, and stood tall and resolute at the witness stand. The skeletal monster looked squarely at Gaster, who was quietly shivering, Frisk gently passing him a cup of tea which he nervously took in one holey hand, taking a small sip.

"Cookies?" The little human added as they lifted up a small plate of chocolate chip cookies to match. "Ms. Toriel passed them to me. She's waiting outside in the hall with Papyrus and Asgore and Alphys and...and everyone else. They're waiting to be called in as character witnesses. We're doing everything we can."

"...cookies and tea." Gaster spoke softly, looking over the small chocolate chip cookie in his hand, turning it over slightly. "...cookies and tea. Mothering really does come naturally to her, doesn't it?"

"Cookies and counseling are her specialty." Frisk remarked with a small smile, and Gaster was surprised to find himself smiling back.

"What do you see when you look at me?" He wanted to know. "I know what Christa sees. I can imagine what Sans sees. What do you see?"

"I see someone very, very sad." Frisk offered with a quiet look of contempation on his Asian-American face, the little brown haired child watching as Gaster slowly munched on the cookie in his hand with tiny little deliberate bites. "I see a very sad man who's had a very sad life and needs a hug. I'd let Paps in to do it, but he's saving a "Super Duper Papyrus Hug" for your acquittal."

"Of course he'd name the hug." Gaster remarked with a small, chuckling sigh before he turned to look back at Garamond, as Chara stood up, smirking slightly, and approached the witness stand, slightly pacing back and forth.

"Garamond, do tell us. What was it you remember whilst on the front lines of the Monster-Human War? Do you even remember how it started?"

"Yes. All of monsterkind does." Garamond intoned in a very deep, rich voice, one of culture and dignity as Chara smirked a bit and turned to Frisk.

"I believe the Defense AND Prosecution have some shared pieces of evidence, this being "Exhibit D"?" She inquired of him, raising an eyebrow up.

Frisk nodded softly and approached, bringing up a plaque from the large box of "Evidence" on Christa's table, swiftly crossing the floor as the Judge steepled his fingers, and the host within the courtroom softly murmured and whispered amongst each other. Frisk handed the plaque to Chara, who looked it over, holding it up. "So...this history plaque. On this...is a an illustration of a strange creature." Chara announced, handing the picture to Garamond. "What do you think of it?"

"...I find it rather beautiful, in a terrifying way. Like a thunderstorm." Garamond reasoned, as Gaster looked at the plaque as it was handed back to Chara, then brought over to the defense table as Chara put it down. Gaster shivered a little, seeinig the big, sunken eyes...the hole-filled hands, the gigantic heart emblazoned in the chest. Lines were rising up from the top and bottom of this creature's eyes, stretching over the face...deep, sunken, utterly black eyes with white pupils, clawed hands, taloned feet, impossibly strong and huge...

It was...an unsettling drawing.

"That history plaque, that's an artist's drawing. About as old as the barrier itself, made around the time of the war, correct?" Chara inquired.

"Correct." Garamond remarked.

"What, exactly, does it detail?"

"...a monster that has defeated humans...and taken their souls. The power to take their Souls is what humans feared."

"Did it happen?"

"Yes. Not...much, but...enough. King Asgore's father, in fact, took several. He almost got 7." Garamond confessed on the stand. "It had arisen out of continuously rising tensions in the kingdom. Every day was beginning to feel like the calm before the storm, for whispers and murmurs were growing about monsters who had presumably stolen human souls after several houses had been burnt down. The leader of the humans, Tobias, he demanded Asgore's father address this, he insisted that the Pyrope family no longer be allowed to live within city limits because they were too dangerous to humans. King Maecoal didn't like that."

Gaster flinched. He knew what was coming next. His father had died tragically of a bone disease that had hit him hard, making him waste away, and his mother had evidently contracted the same disease. She had been getting thinner and skinnier yet even so she'd stood by King Maecoal at the meeting of human and monster, out in the town square, as platoons of guards stood on either side of the two rulers. He remembered the searing heat of the sun, the clanking and clanging of armor on everyone's frame. He could see sweat slowly dribbling down the cheeks and foreheads of various human guards, all looking at the horned head of King Maecoal as he'd angrily yelled at the young boy king, at Tobias, who had looked over King Maecoal's shoulder...and squarely at the young Toriel as she stood alongside Asgore and Gaster, who clung tightly to his mother.

"...Toriel, would you, pray kindly, inform your father-in-law that-" Tobias had begun to say, his tone not that of a king, but more...pleading, as if asking something very personal and embarrassing. But King Maecoal had spoke angrily.

"HOW do you know of her so well that thou can speak to her thusly?!"

"Mistress Toriel happened to be a very good acquaintance of mine before she decided to take your son to be her husband!"

"You were making passes at her?"

Maecoal had a terrible, awful, temper. His fist was raised. Tobias reeled back, and another guard shot forward, spear held up. "Sir, stand back, we'll-"

Maecoal hit the young guard so hard in the face, Gaster would never, ever forget it. He would never forget the weight and power and agonizing CRUTCHA-KRAK sound that echoed through the air, as the man's helmeted head spun to the side forcibly, his body hitting the ground with such force, and everyone stared as Maecoal angrily glowered at Tobias...then at the faintly flickering orange soul wafting up from the body. It was only there for a few moments, like a candle about to be snuffed out in the wind, but...Maecoal ensnared it with one hand, the other pointing furiously at Tobias.

"This meeting is over, we've more right than you to this land, we were here first!"

"No you weren't, our family owned the lands east of the mountain for generations!"

"You did not!"

Yelling. Shouting. Tobias was getting mad as well, and then the guards decided to surge forward, trying to protect their kings. Arial grabbed Gaster, shielding him, trying to tug him away as the clangs of swords and spears began ringing through the air, and he could see ANOTHER soul being grabbed by Maecoal, as Asgore took hold of Toriel and ran. Gaster heard the screaming of the dying and the doomed, he heard his mother calling out, seeing her raising her spear.

And he realized he was shuddering as everyone in the courtroom turned to look at him.

"How many died that day?" Chara inquired of Garamond.

"81. There were 18 humans that died, and 63 monsters. And I saw that play out upon the field of battle...it seemed that every one human it seemed three or four monsters would die." Garamond intoned quietly, looking down at his lap. "Maecoal died by a spare arrow, it cut through his neck after the Souls began rebelling. The problem is that if you don't have 7 souls, complete control, it's...quite difficult to maintain your form and your power." The skeletal monster confessed.

"The court is aware of this." The Judge said calmly. "After all, "Flowey" had six human souls. Six souls of "mere" children, and even with all his power, he couldn't manage to hold onto it. They were able to rebel against him and reduce him to a wilted, helpless thing."

"THAT I know from personal experience." Christa remarked with a smirk. "He thought himself so powerful. It never once crossed his mind that the Souls might rebel. Then again, I've learned monsters like to gloss over that. The same way they like to gloss over how the war started, or how dangerous they can become when they claim human souls." She admitted with a quiet sigh. "Everyone wants to believe they're good, they never want to consider the mistakes they've made. It's too painful."

"Mr. Garamond, your dear brother Gaster was there at the front lines, and saw the inciting incident that led to the war between monsters and humans. But he was a civlian, wasn't he? He didn't have fighting abilities. Why did he come?"

"Well, everyone was there." Garamond reasoned. "Before our mother died, she insisted we stay together and with the army because it wouldn't be safe to be in the city. It was best for all of us to stay together. Monsters HAD to stick together."

"So the idea of getting to safety never entered your mind?"

"We thought we could win." Garamond remarked, looking slightly stubbornly at Chara's rather smug face. "After all, we had magic. Every monster can do magic. We were doing well at first! It took an entire year before they finally defeated us, but for the first three months we did well. We had high hopes, even though we were somewhat suffering from continuous, gradual attack. We didn't realize we were being worn down."

"Shortsightedness seems to run in the family." Chara chuckled.

"Your HONOR!" Christa called out.

"Withdrawn. I have a new witness to call. Gaster...would you be so kind as to replace your brother on the witness stand?"

Gaster took another little cookie, popping it into his mouth and swallowing it in a single gulp before he approached the stand, Garamond giving him a firm smile.

"Do not let her ruffle you. You're stronger than you think you are." Garamond insisted as Gaster watched his elder, taller, resolute brother head out the door, and he took his place at the podium, Christa watching with Frisk as Chara stood right in front of the glasses-wearing, labcoat-having scientist.

"Speaking of shortsightedness, what in HEAVEN'S name did you think would happen when Asgore learned you'd been experimenting on children? Did you really think he would be alright with this? After what he'd endured with his own two children, myself included? Tell me, Dr. Gaster. Why did you not stop and think 'If my best friend finds out, he will never forgive me, maybe I should stop"?"

"I knew he wouldn't forgive me." Gaster said, trying to keep his voice level, reaching into his labcoat, getting out a cigarette, the need to burn, to take ash into his lack of lungs beginning to swell up in his frame as he began to feel an ugly tingling rising at the back of his neck. "I would have to...do what I had to quickly and accept the punishment."

"Meaning?"

Gaster took a long drag on the cigarette, his hand shaking slightly. "I...had...sort of p-planned it out. I'd...wait until the two were together, and...I'd inject Sans and Papyrus as they slept with a...chemical solution. It would end their lives swiftly and...and painlessly. I'd...have dreams about it. Constantly. Almost every night. Increasingly, as the weeks went on, ever since Sans had spoken to me about how cowardly he thought I was. How...how I was wasting my choices and my chances." Gaster murmured, his voice beginning to break. "I'd dream about...going into their cells."

His body was shaking now.

"I'd turn off the grid shield keeping them in, I'd-I'd approach their beds, the needle in my hand. I'd-I'd administer it to the-the back of their necks, I'd-I'd start with Sans first, and then Papyrus. I'd...I'd dream of him awakening, of seeing his face, and staring at me, staring as the light faded, staring as his body then turned still and to dust and-and I'd be holding it my hands all over again and-and-" Gaster's voice had grown increasingly higher in pitch, his body shaking and quivering as he finally held his head in his hands, and then took a long, deep, rattling breath.

"...the dreams...stopped. The dreams stopped after I had begun experiments with space and time. Trying to open portals, and-and this monstrous, blobby eldritch THING came out. And suddenly, I was there, I was on the battlefield, and for once, for ONCE, I was fighting, and I wasn't being a coward, and this time I wasn't going to fail my family, THIS time I wasn't going to just curl into a ball and cry, THIS time I wasn't going to let them die right in front of me and let my fear stick me to the ground!" He yelled out, as the felt the hot, burning stinging tears drizzling down his cheek.

Chara watched quietly, then stepped back, looking at Christa. "I've no further questions. You?"

Christa took a long, deep breath, and the frizzy, brown-haired girl adjusted her glasses. Then she spoke.

"This blobby, eldritch thing. Do you remember what happened next, after you fought it?"

"It told me that "You have such an interest in the future" but the future had little in me. That everything I'd made, created, none if it needed me, and nobody will remember me when I'm gone. And so I'd have to ask myself...if it was...if it was worth it." Gaster managed to murmur out, as he looked up, staring right into Christa's eyes, trying to take in deep, harsh breaths, his voice ragged and cracked.

"What happened?"

"I later asked Papyrus to heal me. He...he told me I had made so, so many awful decisions. But I could be better than I was. I told him I didn't think I could, and even if I tried...I asked him, "When you look Forward, can you see me"?"

"Looking forward, that means?"

"Sans and Papyrus had, at the lab, a gift. They could see into the future, down the timeline. But no matter what they saw, there seemed to be few definite commonalities. One thing they WERE sure of was...they didn't see me." Gaster managed to whisper out.

"So what did that tell you?"

"...it was all...pointless. And I was pointless." Gaster muttered. "I had been...studying the CORE and the data from the timelines. I had seen my presence didn't pop up, but I believed the data the studies gave me had a minor bug. What Papyrus told me made me realize how...useless I was. How useless everything I'd done had been. When Alphys went to speak to me that day I...fell in, I couldn't stop thinking about how...easy it would be. To just end it all." He whispered, his pupils in his dark sockets becoming tiny little pinpricks. "To take that solution I'd thought of using on them, on the brothers, on...on my sons, and-and use it on myself. All those times I'd been so close to death, and I'd never truly thought of what it would be like to die. Now I couldn't stop thinking about it. About not existing anymore. And..."

His voice trailed off. His body was quivering and shaking. And then, his voice turned dead, and stony, and solemn.

"I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve those cookies. I don't deserve that hug from Papyrus. I don't deserve a lawyer like you, Christa, who has to suffer every time she looks at me, to see a torturing, pathetic excuse of a man wearing her friend's face. I don't deserve a nice child like you, Frisk, showing me mercy. I don't even deserve disdain from Sans. No. No, that implies I'm worth thinking about, and I'm not. I'm not. I am..."

He hung his head.

"I am nothing."

Absolute silence seemed to reign within the courtroom, the doors in the back opening very, very slowly, as, one after the other, Toriel, Asgore, Papyrus and Sans entered the room, Garamond, Arial, Gaster's skeletal family and Alphys bringing up the rear, looking from Gaster to Christa, then from Frisk to Chara, then, at last, at the Judge.

"Sir...is it time?"

"Yes." The Judge said, as he turned to Chara, who gave a calm, firm bow as even MORE people began to enter the room, and all stood up, tall, heads held high, Gaster seeing the children of the Underground, seeing dear old Gothic. He could see the two kings, standing by each other, even see Hazel, the boy who would have been his brother, looking deep into his eyes. All of them stared right at him, then, at last...

All smiled.

"You chose...wisely." The Judge said. With that, he rose up, bowing, as everyone else nodded all at once, and Gaster felt absolute confusion settling over him.

"Wh...what do you mean?" He inquired, staring in confusion, looking around, mouth slightly agape. "What's going on?"

"The thing is, Gaster...at the end of the day, the person who really needed to forgive you wasn't Sans or Papyrus or Asgore or Toriel or even God. You were the one who needed to forgive himself." Frisk admitted. "You needed to look back at everything you've done, everything that happened to you."

"You had to confront the worst you did. You had to look back at all the awful things you inflicted on Sans and Papyrus, and had to reckon with yourself. We had to make sure you really, truly understood what you did. We needed an honest, genuine reaction, and we wouldn't have gotten that from you, gotten you to reach this point if we hadn't been through EVERYTHING in your life. What made you what you were today, the first time you saw violence and how it shaped you, how your loss and pain dug deep into your Soul and gave you cracks you felt you couldn't heal." Chara added with a chuckle. "You had to be put through, in essence, Hell."

"If we had just asked you outright whether you felt you deserved forgiveness and a second chance, you wouldn't have truly been honest with yourself. Not informed honesty, anyway. You had to really look at everything you'd done and own up to it, and then you had to look at yourself and see what you were. You think you don't deserve mercy? Well, you made bad mistakes. Awful ones. TERRIBLE ones. But that doesn't mean you can't be forgiven and given a second chance. The biggest road block isn't anything we've set up, it's what YOU'VE said up, and now...now it's time for you to recognize it." Christa admitted.

"ya think ya can't start over? ya think you can't endure all the guilt and shame? everyone lookin' at you in disgust over your past? well...tough. get over it. cuz guess what? everyone here's done things we ain't proud of, myself included. i'm just as much of a dirty coward as you are." Sans admitted with a shrug. "guess i kinda got that from you. but so often, i didn't acknowledge that. didn't improve. i just coasted by on doin' nothing. and it took me a while to realize that i was falling into the same rut you were. i had choices every day. and i was making bad ones because i thought they were the only choices."

"You are not the only one who's been hurt here. But feeling sorry for yourself, feeling you're pathetic and weak and helpless isn't going to do anything. You think you don't deserve mercy? Well...Gaster...that's the whole POINT!" Papyrus proclaimed. "MERCY IS FOR THOSE WHO DON'T DESERVE IT. Every single saint was once a sinner. Everyone needs some mercy and sympathy now and then, because everyone makes mistakes. Even I, the great Papyrus, have made bad choices. And not just with my cooking!" He added nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was often blind to how Sans was truly feeling, and I just ASSUMED he was alright too often. And it kept hurting him, and building up, and making him so cynical and nihilistic. He was barely holding on, he had almost no hope except for the hope he had in me. I've failed too. But that's alright. Because the thing is...it is never, ever too late to change. Not if you really want to."

Gaster stared at all of them, his face paler than normal, his body slightly shaking as he covered his face with one arm, and his voice slightly quivered. "...no matter what I can say now, I know, Papyrus. I know NOTHING good I could ever do would be enough to make me deserve someone as kind as you." He whispered. "To...to have you saying that...to have ALL of you saying that..."

"You're going to get another chance." The Judge said, as the CLANG of the gavel rang through the air, and everything began to turn bright white, and to fade into an abyss of light and warmth around Gaster, leaving only Christa remaining, a soft portal twirling and swirling behind her, a faint afterimage glistening just beyond the horizon. Gaster could faintly see himself standing there, Papyrus tied down to a steely table, with brown straps around his neck, his torso, his legs...

The doctor knew that moment in time well. The moment he had decided to drill the plates into them...

"This is it." Christa said softly, jabbing a thumb back at the afterimage off in the distance. "One of the easiest chances for the timelines to diverge. I hope this time, you make a good choice." She said, Gaster walking towards her, looking down at her as she smiled warmly up at him, and he felt over his face, and he gasped.

For the first time in a long time, he could feel...feel his glasses were gone. Feel the lines that ran across his face, and...feel how much...softer he seemed to be.

For the first time, he now realized, he now felt exactly how he looked to Christa. For the first time, he really had become the great friend she had known.

"You won't remember me. But you don't need me anymore, Gaster. You've got you." She said with a smile. "You always had it in you to be better. You just had to remind yourself of it. We just had to give you a little nudge in the right direction." Christa confessed as she adjusted her glasses, and Gaster felt his smile fade slightly.

"But..." He struggled to find the answer. "I...I don't want to forget you." He managed to say. "I've never really had human friends. You're probably the closest thing I've ever had to one."

"I hear that a lot, Gaster." Christa said, Gaster blinking in confusion, now seeing the tears welling in her eyes. "I've done this many times, Gaster. There's a lot of you out there. So many of you that needed help. And I've tried, again and again, to be that help. The one I knew, the one I loved...he's gone on. But I can't. There's too many of you that needs help. I can't ever go back home, Gaster. My family's gone on too. So I help Gasters like you."

"...how many times?" He whispered out.

"I've lost count." She said, sniffling a bit, wiping her nose on her arm and smiling. "It's okay. I...I'll keep moving forward. I'll keep persevering. Because when I'm helping my friends, I feel I'm at home. That's enough for me."

Gaster felt a tear come to his eye, and he wiped it away, slightly looking to the side as Christa smiled, and took his hand. Human hands could be so...WARM. So soft...yet so firm. She led him towards the faint horizon, towards the image of himself, at the table. Leading him back...back to that moment.

"It's not such a bad thing, Gaster. There's so much good out here. It's like...lanterns lighting up the forest path. And it makes the leaves colors pop and dance, and it's like a beautiful harvest feast. Every little possibility of time, every world, it's like a lantern. And sometimes they need people to shut the door that someone left open, or they need some more oil, or just to be moved a bit so that their light shines more clearly. And sometimes the light's even gone out, and you need to put it back on. It's not so bad, tending to the path. It all looks so beautiful, if you do it just right."

"You truly are old for one so young." Gaster whispered. "...to have to do this for so long. So often."

"It's hard. But everything worth doing is hard." Christa said with a final little sad laugh. "Your lantern's been lit again, Wing Ding Gaster. Now go out there...and make sure it stays lit."

With that, she gave him a big, almost bone-crushing hug. Gaster silently held her there, Christa's soft sniffling echoing through the near-infinite whiteness around her until, at last...she stepped back...

And was gone, Gaster now in that room, alone, with Papyrus.

"Can you move?" Gaster quietly asked the tied-down Papyrus, who was looking up at him fearfully, his chest aglow with soft blue magic.

"N-No. It...it's hard to breathe." Young Papyrus whispered, his voice slightly hoarse. "I...I'm scared."

A shudder rippled through Gaster's body. He looked at the drill in his hands. And then...

"...I want you to understand something." Gaster spoke quietly, somberly, hanging his head. "...it is dangerous out there. The Underground where we live in is dangerous, and the Surface even more so. There are monsters who might try and hurt you, and humans who may try and kill you. I will not allow that to happen." He intoned, tossing the drill onto the table, going over towards a large cupboard, getting out large brown cloth stripes, and walking back to Papyrus, who stared, wide-eyed, at the scientist.

Gaster held the brown cloth up, and began to wrap it squarely and tightly around Papyrus's hand, sealing it firmly shut onto the top of the little skeleton's frame. "Understand this. You are my...my son. I will do WHATEVER I have to if it means taking care of you, and keeping you safe. I will do what I must to make sure you are safe, and happy, and alive. If you grow up to hate me for what the measures I'll take to ensure you grow up strong...strong enough to endure whatever the Surface or the Future holds, then so be it. But understand this. I...will do just about ANYTHING...to make sure you stay alive. That...is how much I love you."

With that, he harshly tied off the cloth around Papyrus's hand, and then began to undo the straps. "Do you understand, Subj-I mean..." A hesitancy, and then...

"Do you understand...Papyrus?"

"Is that my name?"

"Yes. It is your name now."

A nod, as Papyrus rose up, and he held his arms out wide. "AH. No hugging!" Gaster said quickly, Papyrus giving a loud laugh, embracing Gaster anyway, making the scientist deeply blush, a blush that filled his cheeks as Papyrus rubbed his head up against his "daddy's" chest. "Q-Quit it!"

"You know you want iiiiit!" Papyrus insisted.

"C-Cut it out!"

"Nooo, you need a Papyrus Hug." Papyrus insisted, Gaster letting out a long, deep sigh. He had no idea if he'd ever get used to it, but then he saw Subject 1-S...no, Sans now. Yes. Sans was a nice, good, skeleton name. Sans was standing in the doorway, and he was staring at Gaster, his eyes wide.

"...you're glowing." He murmured, Gaster feeling a shuddering shock rising up in his body, Papyrus stepping back, letting go of the doctor as Sans stared into Gaster's face. "Your eyes. Your eyes are glowing like...like a fire."

Gaster looked across the room at the mirror on the wall over the toolbox, seeing himself. Seeing his eyes, all lit up, like his head was a big lantern that had just been relit. He reached up to his cheek, his body quaking. Why was he crying? Why did he feel so happy, and yet...feeling as though he had lost someone? Someone of infinite value? What was this strange sensation of joy and regret that was slowly filling him like a rising fire?

"...why am I...crying..." He whispered. "I don't...I don't understand..."

From far, far away, Christa Solomon Lewis watched, hands in her pockets, head bowed as she let her own tears fall. Someone had to tend to these lanterns. She couldn't linger long. There were other Gasters to try and save.

"Goodbye, G." She whispered as she turned and walked away, as the handplates that would be placed on Sans and Papyrus would turn to "Mercyplates", as a single good choice would have a ripple effect that spread out, wide and far, across the timestream of this Gaster's existence. She turned and walked away, trying to take comfort in the fact that now, at last, he'd be happy.

And that was good enough for her. "Course, it never really is goodbye, is it? Just...see you...soon..." she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word.

There were many other lanterns to tend to, after all. The woods were lonely, dark and deep, but she had promises to keep...and miles to go before she'd sleep.

Author's Note

"The essential act of mercy was to pardon; and pardon in its very essence involves the recognition of guilt and ill-desert in the recipient. If crime is only a disease which needs cure, not sin which deserves punishment, it cannot be pardoned. How can you pardon a man for having a gumboil or a club foot? But the Humanitarian theory wants simply to abolish Justice and substitute Mercy for it. This means that you start being 'kind' to people before you have considered their rights, and then force upon them supposed kindnesses which no on but you will recognize as kindnesses and which the recipient will feel as abominable cruelties. You have overshot the mark. Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice; transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety."C.S Lewis, "God in the Dock: /spanEssays on Theology and Ethics".

The idea of course is indeed simple. Mercy should be given in conjunction with justice. And that means that those are to have it have to confront what they've done. Gaster, in this story, had to really come to grips with what had happened, what he did, and what he felt he deserved. If he didn't struggle with all that, him being given mercy would have meant basically nothing. Your success doesn't matter if you don't struggle for it. It's like saying you've been clean and drug free for a hundred days...when you never had an addiction problem.

By acknowledging his problems, confronting them, and passing judgment on himself, Gaster is thus, able, to find the forgiveness he needs, and to make the right choice. Or at least...a better choice. Choice, in the end, is what the "Handplates" and "Mercyplates" stories by Zarla-S on Tumblr are all about. And I wanted to emphasize that not merely with what Gaster does, but with Christa.

Christa is much like Sisyphus. She has to keep pushing boulders up a hill, only for it to fall to the other side and she has to roll another boulder up again. But she's happy doing it. Happy because in the end, it means helping a friend...even if it's only someone wearing her friend's face. That alone is enough for her to feel at home. The choice to keep moving forward, to PERSEVERE, to keep going on...to continue to live, this is a choice. Even in the face of great sadness and despair, even if the path seems unending, to keep moving forth, that, to me, is a noble choice.

I had said in my stories that Perseverance is "sister" to Determination, because it too means going on, soldiering forth. When Frisk keeps moving forward and doing what they think is right, they're happy. I like to think that Christa, even though it hurts to say goodbye so many times...is happy too. Happy because she's able to give others the chance to make good choices. Good choices that, in turn, allow OTHERS to live happy lives.

Someone has to tend to the lanterns lighting the path. It's not so bad being the caretaker.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this little experimental tale.