what use is a present if you just leave it to look pretty

[dustless]

For all the time they've been at the castle, Frisk's never really hung around the Edge.

What would the point be? There's a lot more inside, where the rooms are ever-shifting, and the gardens are always full of sunlight and only a few clouds high above. If they really wanted to watch clouds moving, they could just go into one of the towers or higher halls and watch out the windows.

...and the Edge was a reminder that the castle's all there really is, and they don't...like thinking about that all the time.

But now that they've been guiding newcomers there to prove yes, this is all real, they've realized...it's not bad out there. It's beautiful, seeing the clouds close up like that, and the grass is comfortable, and the wind is nice against their face, even if it's kind of cold. And that last bit is helpful in another way, too--

High above the Edge, maybe even visible from the castle's other towers and the gardens, a red kite flies--after several attempts, almost staying in the air before falling out of sight again, once, twice, three time, four...eighth time's the charm.  It's Frisk's gift from Serif and S-4, with its kitty face, though that's impossible to see from so far below. 

Frisk themselves is just sitting cross-legged in the grass, holding onto the kite's spool tightly, watching it disappear and reappear with the clouds' movements. 

They hadn't thought about how that would telegraph exactly where they are, but that's fine. They won't mind if people come to keep them company.

Comments

[dustless]

"I'm..." Pause. They were nine when they got here, and then ten not long after, but...no, no, it hasn't actually been a year since. "Ten."

Frisk leans forward. Yes, they did catch that. "Other ones?"

Then--he said Japanese. They lift a finger, sifting through memories. Meeting Ryoji. What was that polite thing...? "Kotetsu-san!" they say triumphantly.

They glance over their shoulder at the castle wall. Croc wants to get them... but they shouldn't say that. "Yeah. Still, must be...mad for a reason."

[oldmantiger]

Kotetsu opens his mouth...and then closes it again. Ten. That is...that is the same age as Kaede. Frisk is so much shorter than her, though. He never would have guessed. Then again, it probably doesn't help that they're almost certainly not eating right, here in this place. He'll need to see if he can do something about that, and deep down, he knows he's only thinking these thoughts to avoid the fact that he misses her so much all over again. Kaede is ten, and he still isn't there for her.

Not to mention that it's just a little bit alarming that Frisk obviously had to think before they answered.

No, try not to think about that. There's no point in dwelling on that. He'll be home, soon. He has to be.

Fortunately, Frisk provides another distraction. "Other ones," he says casually. It's not that it matters now, right? They can still talk in English just fine.

And maybe Japanese, too! He laughs happily at their success. "That's right. But seriously, you don't have to worry about that around me." He waves a hand dismissively, though he's still smiling. "I'm out of the habit of using honorifics anyway, when I'm not visiting family." But he makes it work to get the same points across in English, when he has to. No wonder Bunny hates being called lil' Bunny when he says it in the same tone he might say Bunny-chan.

"Everyone's always got a reason for being mad. Doesn't give them the right to eat people."

[dustless]

Frisk tilts their head, grinning back at his laugh. That doesn't stop them from asking-- "What other ones?" Kids are curious, Kotetsu. "And okay. Honorifics. I forgot that word. It's polite though, right?"

The grin fades a little. "No. But...still. 'S usually good to know why people are doing bad stuff."

[oldmantiger]

Kids are remarkably curious, about the most unexpected things. But Kotetsu can realize when he's been caught.

"Oh, y'know. Italian, French, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian..." He immediately waves a hand dismissively. "You've got to know how to talk to people, right? And sure, they're polite. Well, that one's polite. By rights, I should be calling you Frisk..." And then he gives them a second look, and hastily discards the first two possibilities that come to mind as not fitting. So he corrects himself, changing tact. "Well. There's 'honorifics' just for adults to use towards kids, weird as it sounds when I say it out loud." Though really, given how helpful they've been, would 'Frisk-san' really be so weird? Hell, he could probably go as high as 'Frisk-sensei'. It'd mostly just sound more formal than he wants to be.

...his grin fades a little. "And we can ask. When he's secured." Kotetsu is not remotely above talking to his enemies. But most of them weren't actively trying to kill or eat him at the time.

[dustless]

...Frisk is pretty sure at least one of those is a sort of food. They nod anyway. "Yeah. 'Portant thing for a hero to know."

The sudden shift is unexpected. Maybe it's weird 'cause they're friends and not family, or he's not their teacher, or something like that. (They've heard of '-sensei', though they don't actually know how it applies to language.)

"Secure him where? Don't think a tower's gonna be good enough to keep him in," they say matter-of-factly.

[oldmantiger]

Kotetsu replies adamantly. "This place has got to have a dungeon somewhere, right? What kind of a castle doesn't have a dungeon." This one, possibly, because he's been looking and hasn't found one. "I mean, getting him down there could be a problem. And it's not like we could just let him starve. But it'd be something, right? He could tell us all about why he's going around hurting people when he's behind bars."

He has a certain understanding of the way the world works, and is not remotely ready to give it up even in the face of this much provocation.

[dustless]

It's good to know, though with the size of Croc, they don't think he'd be easy to feed. "...maybe. Dunno if there's dungeons, the only stuff under the castle's a lake. Plus it'd be hard to do and might just make him...madder...if he gets out again."

When he gets out again, they think.

[oldmantiger]

"...a lake, huh?"

That's news to Kotetsu. He frowns in renewed consideration.

"Maybe that's where he hides out when he's not rampaging through libraries. I mean, crocodiles like water, right? Or am I thinking of alligators?"

He frowns, trying to recall the difference between them. Or if there even is a difference. "But there's probably, like, fish down there! Or birds. He could eat those."

...either way, even if he were capable of coming up with a plan right now, it's not a plan he would want Frisk involved in. So Kotetsu waves a hand to dismiss the subject. "Anyway. Not like I'm running off after him right this second, or anything."

[dustless]

They shrug, knocking the tips of their shoes together. "I dunno. It's hard to get back up from there, usually, so it might be a good...trap. 'Cept I think there's a bunch of ways down there, and there's a trap door in the garden that's easy for anybody to fall in to get down there, so there might be...other ones."

The mention of birds is enough to distract them, and Frisk gives him a small glare. "Don't think there's birds there. I don't want him to eat the birds, I like them."

[oldmantiger]

Yikes. Frisk has a surprisingly scary glare for such a small child. Or maybe Kotetsu is just especially susceptible. Either way, he draws back a little, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace.

"You've got it. No eating birds." Fortunately, his mind is already ticking over to other possibilities. "There's, like, a lot of meat under the kitchens? No idea where it comes from. But I'm pretty sure it's chicken. Maybe he can have some of that until we figure out a better plan."

[dustless]

They immediately relax, smoothing their expression out a bit. "Good. They're nice, too. Mostly. Peacocks are kinda rude, but shouldn't get ate."

Frisk nods, lightly frowning. They still have a tight feeling in the pit of their stomach that trying to lock him anywhere will just make things worse in the long run.

"And maybe he can eat other stuff. I dunno. He's not just a crocodile, he's a crocodile monster." Can't ever guess all of what a monster might eat.

[oldmantiger]

And now it's Kotetsu's turn to frown just a little, although for entirely different reasons. He finds himself feeling curious, more than anything, and turns a little where he sits to properly face Frisk.

"I'm...not really seeing what the difference is. You say 'monster' like it...means something?" No, that's not right, of course it means something. What does he really mean? It's just that...

"I kind of think we might be working off of different ideas of what a monster is. Since I'm not running around trying to find my partner right now, mind filling me in?"

[dustless]

Frisk blinks. They...forgot they hadn't talked to him much about it. They just said not to fight most, right?

"Um...monsters...I know a lot of them where I'm from. They're people, like humans, they're just made of mostly magic and look really different. Does your world have stuff like that?"

[oldmantiger]

"Kind of? I mean, my mom used to tell me a lot of stories about monsters that were magic and not human. Like kitsune, and tengu, and bake-neko." He ticks off three fingers, knowing that he could go on for hours, before shrugging helplessly. "But I never saw any. And they all had different names. And some of them were really scary. Even worse than crocodile monsters."

[dustless]

Kitsune. That word sounds familiar--they might've read that word in Alphys' lab, actually.

They nod. "I dunno how many names there are for monsters, even though there's lot of different kinds. I just know Boss Monsters--they're big and look like goats in a human sorta shape. Toriel an' Asriel are those, you might meet them around here. Nobody saw any for a long time--humans got scared of them 'cause of their magic and locked them under a mountain. So everyone home thought they were just made up."

[oldmantiger]

"Hm...sounds like they could be the same, maybe. I mean, no one ever locked monsters up under a mountain where I'm from. We probably couldn't have even if we'd thought of it." Kotetsu's idea of "monsters", of course, also includes such creatures as the Gashadokuro and the Wanyudo. Memories of stories about the Starving Skeleton had made it especially alarming to encounter Sans in the kitchen. But they'd got to chatting anyway.

"Maybe they just know more about that kind of thing, where you're from. Sternbild still barely has any idea about what to do with NEXT."

[dustless]

"...hope they're not. Actually there an' locked up, I mean. It was for a really long time, I think--least a thousand years. Humans used to be able to use magic, but that got forgot too."

They seem to make themselves a little smaller, somehow, hunching. Frisk's wondering how things might be going back where they came from. Hopefully everyone's safe, even without them being the ambassador.