*Smells familiar.

[dustless]

[warning for child death, gore, general trauma]

Chara's dead. Chara-and-Frisk.

Slice across the throat. Just the one. Still bad. It makes their own hurt like their scar's peeling open.

But they've got a job to do now, because--Frisk just can't leave them there. To rot. For other people to find.

So they don't.

Takes a lot of work, figuring out how to move their body. Dragging's horrible, even when they thought about using a blanket or something. Carrying them fails, because they're literal dead weight, even if they're pretty scrawny.

In the end, they manage to shift them around until they've got the corpse on their back. The most disgusting and macabre piggyback ride, and Frisk needs to keep being hunched over uncomfortably for it to work, but. It does.

It also leaves them completely covered in blood, especially the half where Chara's head ends up lolling, sending rivulets of red down that side and makes a trail all the way from the bottom of the stairs to the garden. Frisk's not really aware of that. Frisk's not really aware of anything except the steps they need to take.

Bring the body outside, to the garden. Not far from where their body and the first Chara's were buried, actually, though a little more concealed behind a stand of trees. Go get a shovel. Dig.

They won't be able to dig as deep as six feet alone, and they can't build a coffin. Doesn't matter. Frisk just needs to make it big enough for them to fit under the dirt.

Chara-and-Frisk will be back soon enough.






Addendum: one more body, one more burial.

Comments

[oldmantiger]

For a moment, Kotetsu kneels beside them. He stares down at the bloody bundle without really seeing it, his gaze distant and grim. He suddenly feels so, so old. He just buried a child who's name he doesn't even know.

He misses Kaede so, so much.

He turns away when Frisk does, but Kotetsu carries on to get up and pick up the shovel again. He's finishing the job. But it's only now that he's moving again that he realizes that Frisk spoke again. An what they said is...curious. The former hero tilts his head, staring at them thoughtfully as he leans on the shovel. "Ah...who do you need to apologize to?" Especially later on? Even if they mean the dead child's friends, it sounds like there are a lot of other things to express sympathy for besides the lack of a coffin.

Maybe it doesn't matter, but he doesn't actually want to "finish the job" that much, and so any distraction is a welcome one.

[dustless]

"That kid. I mean, 's not like it'll...matter, 'cause there's nothing to--feel there, but that's just...what you do, and stuff."

They decide to help, using their hands as a scoop this time. It's easy with the earth already loose.

[oldmantiger]

That is...not a helpful answer. Frisk seems to think it's a helpful answer, but it's not, not at all. It really only sinks in for Kotetsu then, as he tries to avoid dumping too much dirt on Frisk's head, that they're not on the same page on multiple levels. There's something he's missing. There's probably a lot of things he's missing - that's nothing new in his life - but it seems especially inescapable now. And especially relevant.

So he pauses for a break earlier than he might otherwise do, sticking the shovel back in the ground and looking over at the child.

"Frisk...do me a favor. Remember I haven't been here all that long. Is there something I'm missing about all of this?"

[dustless]

They pause in covering the blanket with dirt. Their hands are filthy with it, brown grains stuck to their fingers by the blood, but it looks less disgusting. Dirt gloves, not blood gloves.

Frisk's staring at him, blank, rewinding what they'd just been saying. "About the...coffin--?

...He was really upset, wasn't he?

He hasn't...been here. He hasn't seen this before.

A plethora of expressions fly across their face, too fast for even them to tell what they are, but it settles on a wide-eyed grimace they immediately smother.

But somebody must've said so. Somebody must've told him, it's important. And he'd been a ghost from the castle magic.

But then why'd he breathe like that? He didn't know this kid's name, so they probably weren't friends--just a kid. Just a dead kid, in front of a hero, from a place where people don't die a lot, and where there's no way to be used to it.

"This...this happened before, once," Frisk starts carefully. "A couple kids died--they were okay. Later. A few days later. And it'll happen again. There's...nobody told you about that?" they ask in a too-calm voice, waving at the graves nearby, fresh and not.

[oldmantiger]

Just a dead kid, though of course no kid is "just" a kid to Kotetsu. A dead kid in front of a hero from a place where the last time someone died in front of him, his friends were genuinely concerned about letting him go home on his own. He doesn't like to ever think about the possibility of getting used to the idea of death.

No one ever explained it to him. It never came up. He was a ghost during the time when they were all transformed, but he never left behind a body to be found, let alone buried.

His breathing goes strange again as Frisk tries to explain - his breaths coming in tight, shallow, quick. This news brings with it too many emotions, even when he fully processes just what's being said at all. That takes a few seconds, and what does it say about his time in the castle that it only takes a few seconds before Kotetsu realizes that he's being told that death isn't permanent in this place.

"People...people don't die forever, here?" He says it like a question, even if that's really the only way to interpret what they're saying. He's feeling too many things. Relief is still first and foremost, because that means that the child they're burying isn't going to stay dead. Shock is close behind, coupled with a fresh wave of old grief, because wouldn't it be nice if that were the case back home...

He actually sways on his feet a little beneath the enormity of this revelation, and has to support himself on the shovel again.

"Should we...should we..." He swallows, looking from the grave to Frisk. "Should we even be burying them at all, if they're just going to be...back?" It's clear by the look on his face that he's entirely at a loss.

[dustless]

Frisk takes a full step closer, in case--what, they need to catch him? They're tough but he's big, and there's enough churned-up dirt around he'd be okay.

"Nobody told you," they confirm, mostly to themselves, because--nobody told him. Not like it's important or anything, and their lips pull back again even as their eyes blur with tears and their breathing gets harsh. "No, they don't. It's bad and they remember it, but they'll be mostly okay."

Oh, there's a horrible thought--Frisk outright shudders. "No! No, 's not a--they're not gonna be zombies, they'll just wake up somewhere else, and the body'll be gone, but leaving anybody to rot felt really really bad and I'm really really sorry!" They jerk their head down, half hiding behind their hair. "I--I didn't, I didn't know nobody ever said!"

[oldmantiger]

Oh god. Oh god, Kotetsu feels like he's about to cry but Frisk actually is crying and oh god, he's not helping at all anymore, is he? He hastily tries to pull himself together...but winds up looking even more like he's about to fall apart.

"Frisk, h-hey, it's okay..." It's not, not at all. It should be okay, but it doesn't feel that way at all. He kneels down to their level and reaches out to rest a shaking hand on their shoulder. "You told me. That's what matters. And...and this is good news, right? They'll be okay." Physically, at least. He can't imagine that anyone who's actually...died...will be otherwise okay for a while.

He'll have to keep an eye out for Kubo. And whoever else is buried in that other grave.

"Leaving anybody to...to rot is a really bad thing to do. So this is a good thing you're doing, Frisk. It's okay."

[dustless]

A part of them wants to lunge forward and hold him, but they can still see the dirt on their hands and the blood crawling up their sleeves. Frisk resists it, along with the urge to scrub their eyes clean. It won't work.

"...good news. Yeah. It is. 'M still sorry. Didn't...notice, even though you were all...you were really...really...sad. Mad. 'Pset."

He's still upset, though they're able to understand it better now. Their shoulder twitches, and their voice steadies. "...let's get this done. And then clean us up. 'Kay?" Frisk's not good at being a kid, but that's okay, that's good. They don't want to be a kid right now.