let it snow, here we go! [age event: begin]

[dustless]

//Everyone seemed down for it! Any thoughts or questions can go here~

The air sharpens and chills, frost crawling from the top of the tallest towers and branches to creep along the castle grounds. The trees with leaves quickly fall bare; the sky bubbles with clouds not long before they start sprinkling snowflakes over it all. Winter has finally settled in.

It's not all iciness and faded colors--in fact, it's quite the opposite. While outside is snowy, sparkling winter, inside changed to match. Most of the rooms alone can't keep out the cold, but fireplace after fireplace spring up to crackle merrily and invitingly. Someone (or something) set a mood for celebration, decking the halls with evergreen branches and baubles, glimmering ribbons and candles, color and cheer! And the kitchens have feasts to match, any sort of roast and pie one could hope for, paired with mashed potatoes and puddings and cookies and drinks.

Even the halls ring with celebration. In the distance, voices are caroling their hearts out. It's a pity they always seem to be moving too far away to meet.

All this will greet the castle denizens when they wake up in the morning...as well as changes to themselves.

Not that they'll always know. The child who will one day be Frisk certainly doesn't.

All they know is that it's cold, and Mama--who just cut their hair for reasons they don't understand--is nowhere to be seen.



...There's doorways inside, but they make themselves heard long before they get all the way to the big walls. They've got a toy firetruck in their hands with tons of buttons, and they slam their fingers on them to make the siren go off.

WEE-OO WEE-OO WEEE-OOO! Mama's gonna hear that no matter where she is, and they don't even need to open their mouth.
 

Comments

[mettaton_rex]

Sorry, Frisk, but here's another spooky stranger.

He's also been looking for family, or friends, or anyone who can explain where he is and how he got here. He was just at the dump, hoping to find something new for the next fanclub meeting, and now he's - wherever this is. The decorations look familiar, but it can't be Snowdin, there aren't any buildings this big in Snowdin, and it's not the right time of year for anyone else to -

- what the heck is that noise?

He heads toward the sound, passing through the nearest doorway and not the wall so his - companion, he guesses, the little blue boxy machine that's been hovering after him since he got here - can follow. He doesn't know why it's following him, but it seems harmless enough, and he wonders whether it's one of Alphys' inventions. If she's here too... well, that would really only raise more questions, but at least he'd have a friend to ask them with.

And then he sees where the shrieking is coming from, and freezes in mid-air, eyes going wide.

ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod IS THAT -?

Traditionally, ghosts are supposed to go 'ooooooooo...'

Frisk might be surprised to find that this particular ghost goes 'eeeeeeeee!' instead.

[dustless]

It's a ghost! A real one!

...Not as scary as the skeleton monster thing, as it turns out. Just a big sorta-white blob like the ones they cut out on Halloween.

Still, he's a lot bigger than them right now. And making freaky noises, not too far from some of their truck's settings. They don't try to fling it, and they don't quite run, but they definitely back away a few steps.

[mettaton_rex]

It's a human! A real one! And they're tiny!

...oh, and - backing away nervously. Oops. He might have come on a little strong.

He stays where he is, giving them a warm, hopefully reassuring smile. "Hi there, sweetie! Sorry, I didn't mean to spook you!"

[dustless]

Less toothy. Less dead-thing-looking in general, and with a voice that's less...less...something. Doesn't have an...accident? No. Accent? They don't know what it is, just something weird that this ghost doesn't have as strong of to bother them, now that they're not being screeched at.

...They're not sure what to do, so they just hide their face behind the truck, mostly. They can still see through it, one door-window-space and out the other. After a long few seconds, they shyly wave.

[mettaton_rex]

It's an effort to not start squealing again at that. So. Adorable. He could just melt.

He waves back, beaming. The little robot thing floats up behind him and makes a chirping sound. It's hard to tell whether that's directed at the human or not.

[dustless]

They jump and make a funny noise. A ghost who is with a robot. Toy. Robot toy.

...Maybe they're in a museum. Old stuff, fancy stuff, big place.

They push a button in response. WOOO-WHOOP, goes their truck, answering the robot. It's saying hello for them. Of course another toy would understand that.

[mettaton_rex]

The robot might or might not understand anything. The ghost is finding this human's behaviour quite familiar. (Poor Shyren. He ought to go visit her, once he finds his way back to Waterfall. Maybe she and the human would even get along!)

He knows better than to say anything about how quiet they are. Instead, he goes with, "I love your truck, darling! It's so vivid." He means it. Red is a close favourite colour, after pink.

faceplants back into this thread

[dustless]

A pause as Frisk absorbs this.

Sounds...nice enough. Enough that they show their face again and let their toy get admired. IT is one of their favorites (though it's pretty chipped up.)

Not quite enough to offer the truck, though, and they don't know if the ghost has hands or anything anyways.

They hum a thank you?

don't worry about it! i have so many old tags orz

[mettaton_rex]

Not exactly what you'd call 'hands', though he can pick up solid objects with some effort. He wouldn't take the truck from them, though, any more than he'd pull off Blooky's headphones.

Hmm. The human seems to be warming up to him. That's good news, and not just for the obvious selfish reasons. Also because - well. They're lucky they ran into him, and not, say, a certain rather overzealous fish monster.

"It's confusing here, isn't it? I'm a little turned around myself," he offers in a lower tone, still smiling pleasantly, as if he's sharing a secret and not massively understating how bizarre this situation is. (And he hasn't realised the half of it yet.) "Why don't we help each other find our way?"

There's mist curling through a window further along the hallway, and his immediate thought on noticing it is that maybe he's somewhere in Snowdin after all. He'll take a look, once he's persuaded the human to come with him. That way he should be able to get his bearings.

time is fake

[dustless]

Frisk nods. Slow, first, then a bit more vigorously. They'd rather find their way alone, but Mama's brave, and she'd probably notice a floating ghost from far away.

(And maybe it's okay not to be totally by themselves in a new place.)

Their steps forward are hesitant, but it's not long before they're standing right in front of him. Face-to-face.

...Maybe a little too literally face-to-face. From extreme personal space to almost none at all, they're trying to see if they can look through him.

[mettaton_rex]

He's only slightly translucent, at the moment. They might be able to make out the vague outlines of things behind him, but that's all. He can fade out if he wants, of course, like any other ghost, but he doesn't like to.

He backs away a little. Not because he minds the human's curiosity, not at all. He's as new and strange and fascinating to them as they are to him, and isn't that thrilling to realise -

- but he has an idea of what they might try next, and it's something he'd very much like to avoid.

"I wouldn't get too close if I were you, sweetheart." Still as bright and friendly as ever, just a little note of caution. "You wouldn't want to go through me by accident! That wouldn't be pleasant for either of us."

...it's possible he's only tempting fate here.

[dustless]

'Don't touch,' he says to a child. He says nicely to a child. This child.

He looks like a bedsheet ghost, so he must be soft, right? Like...cotton candy. (Right, 'cause that makes a whole lot of sense.)

He's not far enough away to escape their hands and so, after a moment of contemplation, the kid tries poking him right through the middle with their pointer finger.

h/c for why you can't just walk through Blooky here (other than it'd be rude)

[mettaton_rex]

He realises his mistake just a little too late.

"No don't - eyuuggh!"

It's not harmful, having someone else's body pass through him, but it's highly unpleasant, a jarring, sickening, buzzing sensation that sends a shudder through his whole body as he recoils from it. He flickers, photo-negative bluish black to white to black, back and forth, eyes and mouth round and gaping.

After a long couple of seconds, he manages to compose himself again. One small poking finger isn't as bad as that time he accidentally interrupted a game of garbage tag and had a Temmie run quite literally into him, but it's bad enough. And it couldn't have felt much better for the human. Ugh. So much for not spooking them...

rifp

[dustless]

Not soft at all!

Frisk makes a noise close to their firetruck and skitters back. The touch hurt their finger, the ghost flashing hurt their eyes, and they saw some red thing in front of their chest and now the space in their chest around their heart and lungs hurts too!

(19/20)

And they crack into pathetic tears. It didn't hurt that much, but the scare was terrible!

[mettaton_rex]

Well, this is just going from bad to worse. His one - his first big chance to impress a human, and now they're terrified of him!

"Shhh, shshsh..." He looks around quickly, hoping no one's coming to investigate. Most monsters aren't clear on what a human even looks like, but if they run into someone who does know... well. He'd rather not dwell on it.

How to calm them down, though...?

Hm. Well, there's one way. He takes a breath - not strictly necessary, but it helps to set the tone - and starts to sing, improvising new lyrics to that one soft romantic tune he's been working on. This isn't how he expected his first performance for a human audience to go, but if it helps -

"Human child,
please don't you cry.
You'll be fine,
so dry those eyes.

Though you're scared
and all alone,
I will help
to guide you home..."

...not that he has any idea how to do that, but he'll figure something out.

[dustless]

The words aren't as important--truth is, they barely hear them.

The singing, though. From kid's show intros to advertising jingles to lullabies mama used to do, they love music (and always will).

Their face is buried behind their arms, the firetruck is pressed against their forehead so hard it hurts a tiny bit, but by the end of the second verse their little hiccuping sobs are quiet again.

Still going to keep hiding, though.