i have not done less than duty requires.

[lyseandpurge]

There is a song in the flagstones.



It resonates, high-pitched, nonverbal, and arrhythmic, between the walls of the corridors and along the lengths of the old pillars and in the hollows of the alcoves.

It comes from a windowless hallway, from a door no one has seen before whose cobweb drapery is so old it has begun to peel away.

And even then it comes: from a little outside the world, from no room, from no mouth.

From the gap in the door a light has begun to bleed, vivid and violet and pulsing like a heartbeat. The song rises with it, falls with it, and harmonises with the whistling of the wind—the smell of hot metal mingling with something sweet.

If you open the door, it is because you have heard the sound, seen the light, felt the pulse—you have traced it to its source. It hangs before you, an immortal crystal of pure light, suspended in a shining, sickly abyss with no visible beginning or end. It is wounded. It is bleeding. A steady torrent of syrupy liquid pours from roots and pipes that have been forced through the wounds in its surface, and then been severed; the ichor streams down its lower facets and falls endlessly into the emptiness.

Its voice pierces your ears, louder and more melodic than ever.

And something dark and gaseous shifts warily under the glassy skin of the cell, watching you with its single eye.

= <o> =

a change. The ancient door has been altered recently: some wary soul has carved a message deep into the ageless wood, blackening it with heat. It reads: "DANGER, POSSESSION MAY OCCUR BEYOND THIS DOOR".

ooc. || hey everyone! this is Judgement or Ammit, the all-consuming vengeance of the immortal cell! she just got here, she's just a little lost, and she would appreciate something horrible happening so she can get back into the swing of things. anything's fine, though!!

nota bene—you can only get to the cell through this door, and Judgement can't see, hear, or perceive anything that isn't close to the cell. there's a little more information on these limitations in its bio​. sorry for the restrictions!

Comments

=w=b

[dustless]

No. No, no, no, they're done with this, the rending is nothing compared to suddenly being gone even though they're still there, still watching, still feeling--

--and Toriel, Toriel melting, the Amalgamates were one of the only Underground things that still scared them and she should never, ever, ever remind Frisk of them.

They choke on nothing, and they've got better to do.

They're gone before they even remember getting up.



Later, long after they left the hall and collapsed in a patch of sunlight streaming through windows, they notice their hands are stinging. Their palms and fingers are scraped raw, like they'd dragged themselves out rather than just stood and ran. A kitchen's raided for its sink, not its food, leaving them to soak their hands and arms in a full basin until it gets cool and their hands' flexing assure them that they're not pretend.

What was that?

Guardian said something about a dog, a white-and-pink diamond too. Those things. They hadn't really told Frisk much about them. Now that both (all?) of those things are here, they're regretting not pursuing the subject.

They leave the kitchen.

...Not unexpectedly, their feet lead them back to the dark hallway, peering at the color pouring light and casting shadows. Curiosity killed the cat pops into their head, but there's something a lot worse about losing their own self than just being killed.

It's been a few hours.

Frisk creeps their way back. The Worn Dagger is held tight in their left hand--not for attacking reasons, for reassurance; it's very strange for a comfort object, but that doesn't make it less of one. The solidness of its form is better than just touching fabric.

They stand in the doorway, breathing heavy.

They call out in a whisper. "...Hello?"

<3

[lyseandpurge]

The cell is there, just where they left it. It is beating. It is bleeding. Its feverish breath washes over them.

For a split second, something obscures its light: a massive thing, whale-sized, swims in front of it, cast in silhouette.

It passes overhead with a sudden rush of air, and then a brief flash of pink is visible as it darts by in the void beneath Frisk's feet.

The cell beats with light.

Frisk's Judgement rises slowly from the depths. It is something aquatic, with skin like segmented plates of metal and a cavernous mouth, lined with intricate, interlocking teeth, behind which a single diamond-shaped eye glowers without expression. Its four enormous fins twist like propellor vanes as it spirals gradually to a halt, just beneath where Frisk is standing, and its four-fluked tail sweeps forward. The light of the cell glistens on the rivets and joints of its enormous head, dented and riddled with the blades of rusted swords.

It watches Frisk in perfect silence, and makes no response at all.

[dustless]

Something so huge, moving so fast--Frisk probably won't be able to dodge that, and they're tense enough to ache already.

...That doesn't mean they can't see. The creature is terrifying, but as soon as it stills, Frisk sees that it--they? she?--is actually sort of pretty. To them, at the very least.

Except...

There's a chapel somewhere in the castle. They've only found it once. There's an image in the stained-glass windows of a dragon being impaled with a sword. They felt uncomfortable just seeing that, and seeing it real and up close is quite a bit worse.

In spite of blood roaring in their ears, they make a decision.

With slow, jerky movements, Frisk draws their dagger back and slips it into a belt loop, like a certain Chara does with their stick.

(It's not a big thing--they're not a big thing, they probably couldn't do much damage if they tried wholeheartedly, but they're used to seeing themselves as the most powerful thing around in most ways.)

"Please don't...eat me again?"

[judgement voice] did you say something about not eating you because i'm gonna quickly open my mouth

[lyseandpurge]

vmmmm

vmmm

vmm goes the cell, three heartbeats passing, each a little slower and gentler.

Judgement's eye stares at Frisk, fixed. Then its mouth opens, the teeth parting and retracting like a complex portcullis, slowly, slowly.

And the rhombus eye widens, slowly, slowly, growing in all four directions until it is no longer an eye any more—until the inner light of the immortal cell is clearly visible, shimmering and roiling within it.

This pink light flows out from the portal of the eye in liquid form, filling the mouth of the beast up, and up, and up, as it rises, rises, rises until its teeth just barely break the invisible floor of the room within. And the fountain of pink fills it all the way up until it dribbles down Judgement's sides, and then stops. It levels out just below Judgement's teeth, bubbling, then rippling, then stilling, a pool of sickness and strange energy.

Something white and crystalline leaps out of the middle of it, and lands, and bobs for a little bit before settling. It is a cube, almost too large to fit in Frisk's hand, with a tiny pink light flickering in its centre.

It feels exactly like a SOUL.

[frisk voice] why is my life this

[dustless]

Frisk rocks back immediately, a scream strangled into a moan in their throat.

Panic leaves everything a pink-black blur, and it takes a moment for them to really see what's going on--is it...

...is it crying?

It really looks like that eye is either spilling tears or bleeding all over itself. Neither which is good, though one far less horrible than the other. And they're not being swallowed, which is...nice, although they still need to spend time to regulate airflow and steel their own reserve to stay.

Frisk watches the cube bob as it appears, the feeling from it striking something deep and strange in a way the worse energy didn't, a way even the music hadn't managed.

They don't know what to do with it. They're certainly not going to attack it, and they don't think they should touch it, because who knows what that might do?

They probably need to do...something, though. That's not just turning around and leaving.

Careful, they crouch, trying to look at it closer and ignore the massive jaws in the meantime. "I don't know what that is."

frisk i am sorry

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement's radiating fins twitch just barely as Frisk approaches, their footsteps sending pale ripples across the invisible floor. The floating cube stills, motionless, in the pool of liquid, and then rings with resonance as the cell begins to sing again, doubling its amelodic voice.

Then this tiny fragment of the immortal cell lifts, vertex first, out of the liquid and into the air. The fragile little pink light inside it mimics the pulse of the cell, flaring with its beat and vibrating with the same bone-heating hum.

Then it desynchronises, just a little: it comes a little fast—and then a little faster—and the little pulse speeds up until it exactly matches Frisk's own, a synthetic echo of their heart hovering just centimetres from their face, vm-vmmm, vm-vmmm.

It sings wordlessly with the cell, and wordlessly, Judgement waits.

[dustless]

The world is made of so many, many sounds.

Their blood is roaring through their veins, the sound of it is echoing in front of them. It shouldn't be doing that. They shouldn't be hearing that.

The creature is beautiful, the cell is beautiful, the music is beautiful, the light is beautiful.

Distantly, they're still aware they can leave. They walked over the nothingness without a thought, and they can walk back with some; they don't think they're locked up, and staying is their choice. Even if it's terrifying, even if half of them is still trembling with every beat run, run, run. But they don't always do the smart thing. (There's a reason Undyne's one of the monsters that killed them the most.)

They shouldn't touch it.

Frisk lifts their hands.

They shouldn't touch it.

Their fingers curl.

They shouldn't touch it.

They press their palms against the bottom, cupping it, as if they're afraid it'll tumble back down if they don't.

i'm finally doing this!!

[lyseandpurge]

The cube,

she,

is heavy, surprisingly so—but weightless. It slides against Frisk's fingers, then settles into their grip, not as if falling, but as if drawn to their touch like a magnet.

It is smooth as glass and its edges, though sharp, have no tangible sensation against their skin.

It beats, beats, beats, every pulse a vibration radiating through the phalanges of Frisk's fingers.

Then, as if certain of its security, it pulls gently towards the centre of their torso, towards the heartbeat that it echoes; not with any real force, but as if letting go would cause it to float slowly towards them. The light within seems to shift in place, pushing against the crystalline walls of its enclosure.

With a loud gurgle, the pool of pink liquid begins to drain into Judgement's mouth, a gentle vortex disturbing its descending surface.

here we go!

[dustless]

It comes nearer and nearer, and they shouldn't have touched it.

Maybe. Maybe. It doesn't hurt, it's just...there. Its noise, its music, it's resonating, reaching.

They think of Toriel's face on the bird's head, they notice the abyss beneath their feet, and they just listen and wait for their fate.

...No. Not fate. They're doing something. They're doing something, them and--and--(her?), together.

The squirming light, their own hands, they both guide the thing against their chest. The noise gets louder and louder and louder, through their skin, through their bones, through their everything, through something

(that reaches back)

red.






Frisk falls.

A shape wraps around their SOUL.

it is yours it is you

[lyseandpurge]

It is the shape of a diamond.

The fragment embeds itself as if sinking into liquid, through cloth, through skin, through muscle and cartilage and bone. Flesh warps around it as it seeks its resting place, and it occupies Frisk's chest without breaking the skin at all, its shell melding and conforming to the surface contour of their ribs until it sits seamlessly in their centre.

Then the little light within suddenly bursts, filling the cube with its glow, filling Frisk, coursing through blood and singing through bone and running along nerves and muscles until—

(sun colliding with sun, fingers interlacing with fingers)

—it makes contact.

A sudden warmth (breaks through no reaches through the impenetrable surface of the cube and makes its home inside, and makes it home.

Red.

The fragment, fading into the whole, thinks its last thought: Life. Life. Life. We are alive.



The last of the pink fluid sinks into Judgement's eye. She sinks down into the floor and turns just a few degrees, to look at Frisk's prone form.

Then she dissipates, black metal turning into thick fog and then into a cloud of slightly acrid air. Her eye winks out of view.

Her intangible presence wanders back into the heart of the immortal cell and seems to gather there, like a forgotten worry hovering beneath the surface of a troubled mind.

A thought that is not Frisk's builds itself within their new heart, slowly, hesitantly.

Falling down, it says, and then vanishes.

it is me, it is mine.

[dustless]

We are alive.

Frisk breathes.

That's a choice, a thought, once they feel their chest is too still for too long. They're alone in that the creature is gone, no mouth or eye hovering close.

Falling down, it says, and Frisk is all too aware of the abyss again, more, still, like they just dragged their way out of it. They scramble to their feet and slip to the shelter of the hallway, fingers clutching at their chest. There's new warmth there--not of their SOUL, not even of anger, but something...feverish. Something there like when they were sick. But they're not sick.

...What did they just do?

That felt like a SOUL. That looked like--no, that reminded them of Flowey, those vivid memories of Asgore's death and the absorption of the other dead kids into his face. But that wasn't a SOUL, it wasn't the right shape. It wasn't...

Falling down, something said.

Frisk's back presses against the wall, and their voice presses inside their skull. I don't want to fall again.

[lyseandpurge]

Something flickers, like static.

The doors slowly swing shut, as if pushed by a wind. They close against the frame without so much as a sound. Behind them, somehow, the cell is still visible, a neon pink afterimage on Frisk's retinas.

Her thought comes to Frisk like sudden memories, like reading without words.

In the past: falling down; meaning stillness, the swift approach of death. A tower. A tower crumbling into a great depthless sea. A tower, inverted. Falling down—like a tower crumbling into a great depthless sea—horrible pain, half-remembered—the cell, the tower.

The tower, and therefore, the cell. Defend the cell. Free the cell. Destroy the cell. The cell, the cell, the cell, an urge that built and built until it burst.

Then, more clearly: Frisk. You. Frisk coming to the cell. Frisk looking at the cell. Frisk leaving the cell. Frisk returning to the cell.

I don't want to fall again.

Frisk's thought echoes back at them, with these last images, almost like a question. Desperate, fearful, a question.

[dustless]

She's following them. No, she's with them. Look at what you've done.

Destroy the cell, an already-familiar thought--they tore it apart, were supposed to, to drink up what's inside, that's what she wanted.

Falling down. What monsters do. Falling down, death, and now Frisk's here too.

"You're not--you're not gonna die," they say. They could just think it, they know it would work, but that's only for Chara and they're long gone. So's that tower. Despite wanting to speak with and not project to, the hall around them rises into thoughts. Look, it's something completely different.

She's afraid? They're afraid. Maybe they're both afraid. Frisk sinks until they're sitting on the floor, little plumes of dust rising around their legs.

[lyseandpurge]

A sense of attention—the fragment brightens as something comes close to it, as Judgement rushes to their side.

An eye scans the hall, the image of the hall, the idea of the hall. It searches for the barrel of a rifle glinting in the sunlight, listens for the whisper of stealthy motion, waits for the cool air to be stirred by the rush of violence.

Its anticipation is as intense as a headache, as the roar of blood, as the tightening of muscles.

There is nothing in the hallway.

But there must be. There will be. Judgement says this almost out loud, in its non-words, its wild constructs of splintered images: the flash of a railgun discharging from behind that pillar, the indescribable crack of a flashbang detonating as it slides past those tiles, the scream of a giant's hands crashing through that window and pulverising the stone as it tears the building down.

There must be death here, Judgement insists to Frisk, and her fear intensifies until it is almost like pain.

[dustless]

Something in their chest is weird, and their throat convulses in a rumbling cough before they can clamp down on it.

"No! There's not, isn't!" Frisk insists, even while the vivid images leave them pressing back into the wall. "There's nothing like that!"

Instead, there are knives. Single simple blades that sink in deep deep deeper into their chest and back and throat, everything turning to fuzzy colors, Frisk sinking and fading and dying--and waking up again.

"Nothing'll kill you, nothing'll get you."

(Of course, they don't know Drifter's here, or what Anubis is, or if Guardian might...try something.)

Frisk keeps staring at the hall. Nothing, still. Nothing but them and grime. They could go, try to show her the rest, but they don't know if they can move, or who might find them even if they do. Their friends might be scared if they see her...

"Please. Don't be scared," they whisper to Judgement.

[lyseandpurge]

Knives. The flash of sun on metal, the smell of blood, and in between, the pain.

The monster jerks in shock behind Frisk's eyes and the edges of the world go fuzzy; from the edges she reaches out, hundreds of shapeless arms—

She stops.

It is as if she has recognised something.

Slowly, more hesitantly, a new message fades in, not images, not visions, but words, like bits of sound and meaning spliced together. Thousands of conflicting contexts and meanings convulse and rattle behind them, but she clamps down on them like a bear trap (fierce, painful, clumsy, all at once) and the tension is trapped, like a length of wire in a tangled knot.

The words, clashing and dissonant, say:

F r i s k
i am A— i eat nothing into heaps of fire and am judgement but hide from me

And again, even more muted yet too loud and splintered to be words:

F r i s k
i am everything scared and eaten but hide from me nothing for nothing will kill me

[dustless]

They reach out to block her, they reach out to touch her; both, trying to keep from being crushed, trying to keep their own boundaries while allowing her to be there at the same time.

She says their name. It makes something pulse in their chest, something that's not the thing she put there. Names are important.

"Nothing'll kill you," they repeat, affirm? Words are hard. Frisk knows words are hard, just like feelings, and words for feelings are some of the hardest in the world. That's what they think she's talking about, anyway. They're not in the best state to solve puzzles.

"Can't hide from you, you're with me now. You...don't...need to eat everything? I can eat food, if...you can...taste it through me, if you want," they offer uncertainly. They don't know if that would do anything, but it might be some kind of distraction. They have hiding places all through the castle, so Frisk's sure they can get food without being found.

[lyseandpurge]

There is a silence, strained, like a knife trapped between ribs. Judgement withdraws into itself, writhing in a fit of something like indecision, but more vicious. The fragment's pulse wavers, sometimes more frantic, sometimes less.

Eventually, new words wrench out of the fog of consciousness and present themselves clumsily to Frisk's mind.

Frisk—i'm an infection of you
everything scared and eaten inside you
hide from me "nothing" for "nothing" will kill me
nothing—
nothing—

And the words shatter like breaking glass, revealing for a moment the flurry of images behind them. The Drifter, red-caped, rushing, a sword of light, agony. The Guardian, rose-helmed, on guard, terrified. Emotion like a mouthful of pain, hot, prickly, and acidic.

The impressions are swept up and crushed back into shape. And with that fear again, building in Frisk's chest:

Frisk—
you should not have

[dustless]

Fear and pain and horror and they curl inward.

Oh.

Everything's scared but nothing, nothing's eaten, they're still all Frisk. Still just you. They're not going to lose themselves so easy, not again, not again. They refuse in the face of a scared friend (of course that's what Guardian is now) and a someone who thinks they need to FIGHT, and them. Frisk's here too. Frisk's here too. It's a pulse in their head, their own. I'm here too.

"I can't hide from you," they repeat, a bubble of indignant determination rising. They can be strong, they need to be now, and their body trembling is irrelevant. "You're in me, so, so you're with me, right? You gave me this, you gave me yourself."

They accepted her, but she offered in the first place. "I 'shouldn't have'. But you--if you knew it was gonna be bad--!" she shouldn't have done it in the first place. But she did, it's too late.

Isn't it?

Frisk puts their palms over their face, skin heating and grounding with every rapid breath. "...we've...we're...we can make this work anyway." They have to."...'Less you're gonna just...leave, an' take it out."

[lyseandpurge]

A silence, strained, like a knife trapped between ribs: pulling, pulling, and trying to come free.

Slowly:

F r i s k
i am fire spilled on you
i am your burning until consumed and ashes
i am irreversible

The fragment inside their chest shifts, ever so slightly, ever so gingerly: a twang of sudden and unnatural motion. It stops.

should not have
everything scared and eaten everything hot and ashes except—
frisk
i should not have and i'm sorry

Judgement's eye approaches, and the heat of its gaze blossoms in the fragment.

DRIFTER;
GUARDIAN;
coming.
substrate; extinguisher
hide from me
and do not fight, and show not mercy
do nothing to them so that nothing will kill me.

[dustless]

They jolt, whipping their hands from their face to their chest, waiting, tensing. Relaxing again, once nothing ejects itself. The piece of her is still inside, but so's their SOUL.

Her more-than-mere-sound words are terrifying, big and layering meaning after meaning, and Frisk can't tell what's going to happen, what might happen, what happened once and what might not happen at all.

The finger of one hand dig into their chest, hard enough to sting, never hard enough to crack. The other hovers in the air, wondering if they should touch again, if they can dare, if they can. "It's...it's gonna be okay. We're...gonna make stuff work," they breathe again, watching her with a gaze that can never truly be as strong--but they can meet it still, despite the heat. The sensation of something burning inside is something a little more familiar.

As is the subject of death.

They remember Guardian. They don't know exactly what she can see...everything, they guess, if she could reach inside even before she was there and show them Toriel. She can probably see the memory inside their head right now, Guardian in their full armor, Frisk lying on the grass beside them, both of them watching the clouds tear by on the calling winds. So, against their first instincts, Frisk doesn't try to hide that they're already here. "Dunno if I can do that," they say, voice a little louder, a little less shaky. "The castle doesn't...it's hard to hide from somebody forever. I don't really want to. And. They can't kill you, even if they want to."

Drifter's an unknown for now, so they don't bother mentioning him. That person might never show up.

"And if you're gonna...kill me...if...this," they pat the skin and shirt over the fragment, not digging in anymore, "is going to kill me, um, it's not gonna forever. I died. People died. Here. And they come back. So...I'm gonna again. And you will, if something happens. Death's not here."

Technically, this is wrong. Death, the act of effectively ceasing to exist, that's still here, just not forever; DEATH, the Reaper himself, walks the castle halls sometimes, only he isn't on the job. Frisk doesn't count either.

They can't imagine something happening to her, either. She's...she's just so much. Too much for anybody to end.

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement wavers on the other end of the fragment's connection before that certain gaze. A wave of confusion rushes out from the heart like a cold shiver.

Frisk
death
ends.
it must: because nothing else has

Something is wrong.

where are no ends and no atonements
where are broken castles; barren battlements; dying and no relief
where am i?

Her voice, harmonious, calls out through the fragment, a single screeching chord that stirs hot winds and makes shadows flicker and dance.

Faintly she echoes herself—

where am i where are you where am i

—with each repetition fading further into the glowing darkness behind Frisk's eyes.

please
must see

[dustless]

Death's not supposed to be relief. Death shouldn't be atonement. That's not what they want to start talking about now. They're sure she heard the thought, but they push it back, more immediate and simpler concerns zeroed in on instead.

"You're in the castle. It's...really different, and far from where you used to be. Wherever that was. Um. Whenever, too."

Gingerly, Frisk unfolds. Shadows on the edge of their eyes move for her. They stop to breathe, wondering if they're going to pass out, what might happen if they do. Will she take their body, move it like the Frisk within Chara does? They hope not. They don't want to make anyone worry.

They're staying awake, but their hands are aching, scrapes making themselves known again.

(Still a peppering of the usual red. Judgement is there, but her roots haven't dug in deep enough, the disease still getting accustomed to its new home.)

They ball their hands into fists, pressing the bottom of their hands and the edge of their wrists against the stone, crawling up backwards until they're standing, swaying. Too much time spent tense, their legs and feet are tingling and need to be shaken out.

Frisk presses their fingers to their temples. "I'll...I'll show you now? If--are you...in? Can you see stuff I see?" They're staring down the hall, the door they'd entered from still hanging wide open, now-weak sunlight filtering onto the floor.

[lyseandpurge]

i can see says Judgement, after a while. my hole my opening and light it says, the ends of its sentences no longer bursting with guttural force.

The heart cautiously shines. The pulse is still ragged, the song of the cell soft, dissonant, unending.

not locked and not watched but stones? struck with chisel not melted: old. too large. shadows move within

Judgement's focus shifts. Frisk—broken Frisk—broken skin and something radiates from the cell, a heat in their veins, a pit in their stomach as if it had opened up and become the outlet of an internal spring. Their blood warms with strange life. It is not healing—it is only energy, only strength, revitalising and sustaining. It makes the wounds bleed faster and more freely, bright blood spilling out as if there is too much of it inside them.

shadows moving, i see light beyond Judgement tries to say. far from where i used to be but the sun whole and the wellspring open. i'll show you now?

[dustless]

She's--not quieter, now, but not so much all at once. There's some uncertainty, too, words and meanings odd, not matching what Frisk knows, but they...think they can understand.

"There's not a lot of locked places. People go wherever they want. 'Cept other peoples' rooms, I guess." They certainly don't go into Frisk's; theirs is too hidden for that. Now that she's with them, they guess they're sharing anyway. "It's old. It looks old and smells old and a lot of stuff's broken, like doors, 'cause of that old."

The blood wells into beads, and then start coalescing, and they hold their hands out to watch until they've got little puddles in the dips of their palms. They're going to have to find another sink. Or fountain. Almost any water'll be fine, they think, tilting until the rivulets spill over the floor and they can wipe the rest off under the bottom edge of their shirt. No reason to make people, if they're found any time soon, worry even more than they already might. "Broken skin. It'll get better soon, always does," they say, voice going up--staying that way for the rest.

"You'll...show me? Um, in--in a minute, okay?" they say hastily. For now, Frisk's legs feel better, and they pace down the hall at a fast walk.

They go to stand in that sunlight first, where they can see out the window and watch the clouds going by at eye-level and the thinner ones up high, hiding the sun's face. As a bonus, this one only has half of its glass, so there's a breeze. Helpful to ground their thoughts into something closer to reality if they're shown something...too much, again.

"So...what is it?"