Have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?

[oceantier]

Who: Greg, then open to Agent Apartment residents
What: Lapis confronts Greg about the things she's learned from Steven; life with Agent Apartment residents
Where: Beach, then Agent Apartment
When: Early April
Warnings: Angry blue lady.


A. Closed to Greg - She's waiting there for Greg when he comes -- a blue wraith in the near-darkness, stepping out from behind the rocks when she's sure he's alone. The ocean is restless that night, with a smell of a storm rolling in from the sea; the waves fidget, lashing against the sands in fitful bursts like energy just barely contained.

There are things she needs to discuss with him. She's been waiting.

B. Open to Agent Apartment - With the combination of the city being so close to the sea and the wet season upon them, it's not infrequent that Lapis -- or rather, Luna -- comes to Agent Apartment damp . . . even dripping. Find her when she comes in the door, or when she's dryer (hair much fluffier) and herself again, curling up in a corner of the couch with a minute sigh of what could be pleasure/relief.

She never makes a big deal of her presence; she generally settles in to watch whatever action is currently going on, leaning on the couch arm with a half-smile, her legs tucked up underneath her.

C. Closed to Steven - She gets to see him almost regularly now -- generally later into the evening, when practices are complete and most of the rest of the dancers are packing up or in the showers. Unnoticed, Lapis separates from the others, heading off. (The others are already convinced that Luna is a little stuck up, never staying and talking or going out afterwards with them. Lapis herself has barely noticed.)

She heads off to the designated meeting spot -- a quiet corner in one of the empty practice rooms, readily out of sight of the door. Legs tucked up underneath her skirts, she sits waiting for him, rolling a bit of the fabric between her fingers.

Today there's a woven bag beside her. She's hoping what's inside will lift his spirits.

D. Closed to Frisk - I want to bring him back before Papyrus knows.

The words haven't quite left Lapis since Papyrus appeared in the apartment. At first it's merely something to tuck away -- something to check on with Frisk once they reappear, something to resolve and put aside.

The problem is that Frisk doesn't reappear.

Even that wouldn't completely be a worry; Frisk is often out and about the city, and between their intermittent stops in Agent Apartment and Lapis', missing each other is par for the course.

The bigger problem is that word comes through that Sans has been captured.

And Frisk doesn't return.

Those two facts are what prompt Lapis to move. Though she can't take time off practice, she takes time from the spa, using the extra hours to comb places they tend to be or that she thinks would attract them.

Maybe it's nothing.

But she can't get rid of the echo of the words in her own head.

The warehouse is one of the last places she checks. It doesn't rate high on the list of places she might expect them to be, abandoned long ago and used only for the briefest of intervals. But. She's checked so many other places, and this can't be left from the list.

Her feet are light, barely audible as she steps into the space. The vastness of it stretches over her, around her -- makes her wary. For a moment she lingers close to the door, one hand still on the knob.

Calling quietly: "Hello?"

Comments

[oceantier]

Frisk.

She catches the wave in the dim light, absolutely attuned to sudden movement (and actually looking rather startled and about to yank back before she recognizes who it is).

Her eyes soften, and she enters fully, tugging the door shut behind her until it clicks into place. "Hello." The word too is soft, as though she knows the possibility for alarming them might be just as strong as it is for her. She ventures farther into the large space, trailing footsteps one by one in their direction.

"I wanted . . . to find you."

And obviously, she has. But there are a lot of questions laced in those words -- a lot of concern.

"I've been looking."

[determinate]

"Oh.

There's a lot in those statements. Frisk doesn't know what to say to it. "Okay." It's not like people don't look for them back home. Mom used to get pretty worried at first, but after a while all their friends just learned that sometimes they went off to be alone. If they were gone too long, someone would always come get them, but they were mostly left to be by themself when they wanted.

Some of them think it's because they're stressed over their job - Mom fought with Dad a little bit about it. But that's not true at all.

They're quiet a moment longer, considering their options. They don't want Lapis to feel like she did something wrong. "Wanna sit with me?"

[oceantier]

In spite of the worries and concerns, she doesn't scold, doesn't blame. She only nods and comes forward, sliding onto the crate beside them, letting the quiet rest between them.

"I remembered what you said," she says softly at last. "About Papyrus. And Sans. And then what happened to Sans . . ."

Hesitation. "I . . . do this too. Go, I mean. Be alone . . . when things happen."

[determinate]

Frisk hums thoughtfully rather than responding. They can see that from her. Lapis returned to the apartment the one time, when she was upset about getting caught chasing people away from the beach, but it hadn't really seemed like she was used to talking to people about things.

"I used to be alone most of the time," they say after a while. They mean the Underground - their time in the Underground looms over everything else, more important that anything else that ever happened - but it goes for before as well. It was nice, sometimes. They liked sitting among the echo flowers in Waterfell, when they weren't being chased. "But I could call Papyrus."

He was always there. They'd wanted to keep it like that - him safe somewhere, and them doing what they needed to do.

"Him and Sans were my first friends." There was Toriel, of course, but she was a mom. And she'd scared them, too - made it sound like no one outside the Ruins would ever be kind to them. Sans and Papyrus were the first signs they had that Toriel wasn't the lone good monster.

[oceantier]

"They're important." Her nod is faint, but certain. There's a sense of -- not necessarily obligation, though it's something like that. Duty? -- Again, not quite right either.

Honor, maybe -- for the wonder that comes of having that empty spot filled, for completing what you didn't know was broken. Gratitude. Trust. Belief.

Love. The desire to fill them back in turn, to protect. To shield.

"It's hard," she murmurs. "When . . . you can't do enough. For the ones that mean everything."

[determinate]

Frisk nods, laying their cheek on their arm so that they're looking away from Lapis.

"I got them free back home. But...it wasn't all like they think it was." All the monsters think they're some great person. And they guess they did good things - but they also did a lot of really bad things. They've never really had to face any consequences for it either. It makes them feel like they got away with something, which only makes their guilt worse.

How many of their friends would even still like them if they knew how many monsters they killed the first time? What would Mom and Dad think about them just leaving Asriel all alone down there?

"They think it was enough, but it wasn't really."

[oceantier]

She goes gently -- as gently as she knows how. Frisk is here in this place because it weighs on them, and they must trust her enough to bring up the subject in the first place. This means that the subject is heavy, and she needs not to disrupt that trust.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

If they don't, that's understandable. But she hopes that they will.

[determinate]

Frisk shrugs. "It's kinda secret." Most of it, at least. Their friends know that they went through a lot already - falling, making it through the Underground, getting nearly killed by basically everyone. But that's only a fraction of all the things that really happened.

But does it matter with Lapis? They doubt she'd tell. The only reason it's secret is to keep people from getting hurt.

...well, maybe not. Asriel had the right idea for himself, but Frisk isn't sure if people would believe them enough about their own resets to feel hurt. Even if they did, what's the point? They'd only forgive them, because to the others, it's not real. It didn't happen. Frisk and Flowey are the only ones who know. And that would be too easy. They're afraid people would be angry at them for lying, but they're almost as afraid of no one being angry at all.

"A lot of things happened no one else knows about," they say after a while. "Mostly bad things."

[oceantier]

Should she say something more? Take all of it as that they don't want to talk about it? They did say it was a secret . . . and yet they're still brushing on it.

She's not sure what to do. She pulls her legs up too, pulling her knees up towards her, watching the small frame next to her.

Then she does much what she did at the beginning, when they first showed her Papyrus . . . She reaches out and rests a hand against their hair.

It's acceptance, no matter which way they choose. Either way, it seems as though they might need that touch.

[determinate]

Frisk leans into the touch. The truth is, they haven't entirely made up their mind what to say themself. They're accustomed to not speaking about these matters...but it's only Lapis. She's even less likely to think differently of them than the others; she never knew any of the monsters involved to begin with. And she could keep a secret, they're sure.

"Have you ever done anything really bad?" they ask after a moment.

[oceantier]

Silence at that question. It's startled her.

Lapis hasn't exactly been forthcoming about her time before this place. Primarily -- or at least as she's always told herself -- it's because it hasn't been important. With a mission in front of them where something could go wrong at any moment, stories about the past haven't seemed to matter.

But when she manages to be honest with herself . . . it might be about more.

At the beginning Steven was always her goal and her mission. No one else mattered, and if she was alone, what of it? That was no change different than the last few thousand years. She'd survived those.

Somewhere in the last few months, that had changed. Somewhere along the line, so impossibly somehow, she'd come to mean something to others -- and somehow, some way, that meant that they had come to mean something to her. Their good opinions of her mattered -- something that she'd come to want to protect.

And then sudden lightning darting across her brain: Maybe that's what Frisk is feeling now.

Suddenly, with absolute certainty, she knows she has to answer. She needs to find a way to be honest with this question.

Her fingers hesitate on their hair.

"Yes." Her fingers shift, comb through some of the strands, and she's glad they're not looking her way at the moment. It makes it easier. ". . . A lot of things. Even now."

No. She can't stop there. She needs to get more specific.

"I'm angry," she murmurs. "I've . . . been angry so long, I don't remember when I wasn't. I stole the Earth's ocean to try to get home. And then when I was forced to come back here, I tricked one of the people who brought me so I could capture her, keep her prisoner. I told myself it was for Steven, but . . . part of it was for me -- so she could feel it. Know what it was like. Here . . . I attacked the Virgo tower. I killed people who turned out to be robots who were trying to take Steven -- I just didn't know they were robots until I'd already hurt them.

A breath. "I'm still . . . so angry. I don't know how to stop."

It's then that she realizes she may have said too much, pulling to a halt as though she's realized she's about to tip over the edge of a cliff. Her hand goes still again.

But one last thing escapes: "Sometimes . . . it would be easier to be alone."

[determinate]

Frisk is silent and patient until it seems like the story has concluded.

"It's hard..." they say after a moment, slow as if the words are difficult to summon. "To be with people after. Sometimes." They're not really sure how similar their story is to Lapis's; they quit being angry about things a long time ago. But they definitely understand that part. "Especially when they don't know."

It's guilt, mostly. They fixed what they did, but they can't ever really apologize for it. Or if they did, it wouldn't mean anything - they're the only person for whom any of it is real now. But sometimes it's just plain hard keeping secrets. No one can help them work through everything that happened. They just have to take it all on their own. "It's like they think they know you, but they don't."