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Chapter Text

The wind had picked up again, and little gusts of snow swirled around his feet. Asgore shivered again and drew his coat tighter around himself and the drowsy boy who huddled closer to him. He had told his son that they would wait until nightfall before returning home, but Asgore had decided to wait a little longer. He had two reasons for that. For one thing, he simply didn’t want this moment with his son to end.

This wasn’t what he had planned when he had come to the empty park alone a few hours earlier. He had intended to bring a long, painful journey to its end. To meet the father of a little girl, to confess terrible sins, to beg for forgiveness, and then to await whatever judgement the man gave, delivered in whatever way he chose. The arrival of Asriel had been entirely unexpected. The sudden torrent of confessions that had poured out of his boy a few minutes later had been both bewildering and horrifying. And now, despite the cold and discomfort, Asgore was grateful for a few more moments of quiet just to hug his son and try to make sense of the deeply disturbing things he had just been told.

His son… the little prince of monsters who bore a crushing burden of brokenness and guilt that no child should have to bear. His son who, in the quietness of that empty park, had finally unburdened himself in a way that Asgore had been hoping for, longing for for months. Asgore wanted so much to fix it – fix it all, take away all the sorrow, remove the burden of guilt, help his son heal somehow.

But where could he even begin? How could he even begin to comprehend the things his son had said? The atrocities that Asriel had witnessed - no, not just witnessed. Had committed. That casual, almost detached recitation of murder, slaughter, and genocide of his own people… and the horrific details of how, in a way Asgore could not comprehend, Asriel had killed his own father repeatedly, in progressively more barbaric ways, rewinding time so that he could invent some newly debauched way to rip him apart.  The ice that had run through Asgore's blood as he listened had had nothing to do the winter cold.

And yet, it wasn't as though he could even remember any of the events that Asriel had described.  Asgore had no doubt his son was telling the truth, but despite Frisk's best efforts at trying to explain how it was possible for certain people to go back and change the events of history, it still seemed like a dystopian fantasy.  Asgore could only listen to his son's description of his crimes as if it was a grisly horror story someone had forced Asriel to write.  It was a mercy, the king thought, that he didn't have any memory of those events.  Hearing Asriel's confessions was bad enough, but the massacre he had described still felt detached from the real world. The words were shocking to him, but with no memories of the attacks, the raw emotional pain was mercifully absent.

But that didn't mean his heart hadn't broken for his son.

Unburdened? No, that was the wrong word. Asriel hadn’t unburdened himself. The horrors had been acknowledged, confessed, and wept over, but not released. It hadn’t mattered that Asgore had told his son that he still loved him. That he didn’t judge him. That he was still his son. That it hadn’t really been him doing those things, but a twisted corruption of who he really was. That he was really back now and that other soulless creature was gone forever and he was Asriel again, gentle Asriel, Asriel whose heart was tender and compassionate and would never ever ever do those things, he was back now, and everything was OK and he and his mother loved him dearly, and his brother Frisk and all his other friends would be there for him and nobody was angry with him now and everything was OK now and...

His words had trailed off into helpless pity. It hadn’t helped. It hadn’t mattered.

Asriel had given him a sad smile and had eventually grown quiet again, as if the floodgates of anguish he had opened had drained him completely and left him empty. He had wordlessly snuggled back up against the king. But the pain had only been temporarily numbed. Asgore knew that better than anyone. How can you possibly atone for that level of wickedness? How do you beg forgiveness from people who don’t even know you hurt them? How do you forget their faces, their begging, their screams as you murd…

NO! thought Asgore. That wasn’t Asriel!

It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. His gentle, kindhearted son? His innocent boy with a beaming smile, who squealed in delight when you tickled him, who loved to make drawings for his parents, whose eyes shone with the light of the crystal stars he loved to watch in the rocky ceilings far above him, who had been the first one to welcome a human into the monster kingdom with excitement and delight, who laughed as he chased his brother through the golden flower beds, who would burst into tears if you looked at him funny? His Asriel… a sadistic murderer? The very thought was obscene.

No. It was Flowey. Flowey had done those things. Not Asriel.

Certainly there had been something of Asriel in Flowey. That much was clear to Asgore, even if the rest of the explanation was still incomprehensible to him. Flowey had held all of Asriel’s memories, and for a brief time the true character of Asriel had still been there – helpfulness, a desire to bond with his parents and befriend others, willingness to contribute to life in the Underground. But Asriel’s soul wasn’t in Flowey. And eventually, everything that was good about Asriel had drained away. If the only thing that had been left was Asriel’s memories - if the flower had no soul, no emotions other than sadistic pleasure, no morality, no conscience – could it really have been Asriel? Could his gentle, sweet son have really been a barbaric murderer? Was it really Asriel who had killed him? Had it really been Asriel who had gone to the Ruins and murdered his dear Tor…

“NO!”

The lump under Asgore’s coat jumped at the sudden outburst, and a flush of embarrassment washed over Asgore. A furry head burrowed its way out.

“Dad… are you OK?”

Asgore cleared his throat and gave a little cough.  “Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Asriel. I was just… thinking about something. I guess I accidentally stopped thinking and started talking there for a moment”.  The king gave an awkward little laugh.

From the slightly-worried look on Asriel’s face, it was clear he wasn’t buying it.  “Are you sure, Dad? You sounded kind of angry about something”.

Asgore sighed, and gently laid his massive paw on Asriel’s head.  “I’m fine son. There are just a lot of things to think about these days, aren’t there? A great deal has happened over the last few months. I suppose I’m still trying to figure it all out.”

The vague explanation clearly hadn’t answered Asriel’s question, but after looking at his father’s face for another moment or two, he took a deep breath and huddled back against him.

I’m still trying to figure out how you are even here, dear one. Unconsciously, Asgore wrapped his coat back around his son and pulled him tighter. And I know that whatever happened in the past, the REAL you is here now. My boy. My dear boy…

As his eyes drifted aimlessly over the park lake in front of him, another feeling began to rise up in him. A frequent, unwelcome visitor, as familiar as it was hated. Guilt filled his mind as it so often did in quiet moments when he was alone with his thoughts.

At least one of us has an excuse, he thought. How do I explain what I did? What excuse did I have?

A flood of memories washed over Asgore, even as he closed his eyes and fought in vain to not think the thoughts. The death of his adopted son for reasons that were never clear to him. The compounded grief of his other son dying in an attempt to grant his brother’s last wish. The wailing and wrenching agony when he and Toriel had discovered the two bodies in the throne room, one cold and lifeless, the other a pile of dust, the only thing left of his dear Asriel who had surely cried out as he had collapsed and disintegrated with nobody to help him, nobody to be with him in his last moments. And then…

Then, the beginning of Asgore’s downfall. The fist raised above the crowds below him. The angry oath sworn to his people. The horror as he realized what he had just done, even as the applause and cheers rose up to the palace balcony. The mixture of anger, grief, and revulsion in his wife’s eyes as she turned her back on him. The paralyzing feeling of not knowing how to escape the path he was on, or undo the vow he had made to all monsters. And then…

… And then, the first girl.

Asgore’s head dropped. All these years later, their faces were still clear in his mind. He remembered the look that every one of them gave him. Some hopeful. Some pleading. Some desperate. And then…

… And then his trident, stabbing downwards. The fireballs erupting from his hands.

How do you find forgiveness from children you murdered?

The other reason Asgore was still sitting on the park bench was because he simply wanted this to be over. Five families. Five painful conversations that, for better or worse, were at least concluded. His journey of atonement was almost complete, and he desperately just wished the father of the final child would come over the hill and say or do whatever he was going to do, so this could all be over with.

Atonement? No, that, too, was the wrong word. Nothing he could do would ever pay for what he had done. No amount of apologies, no amount of effort to show the goodwill of monsters towards humans, no amount of work to help his people integrate and grow and thrive on the surface world - none of that would atone for the souls of innocent children that Asgore had ripped out of their bodies. There was no undoing that.

“Dad?”

A sleepy voice came from underneath his arm, muffled in the layers of his coat.

“Yes, Asriel?”

“Do you think…maybe we should just go home, and try another time? I mean… I know it’s my fault I’m out here this late and all, but it looks like he’s not coming and I’ve gotta get up for school in the morning and… well… can we go soon?”

After a long moment, Asgore sighed. “You are right, son. It is getting quite late for you. Frisk has probably been asleep for some time, and you should really get to bed soon yourself. If he doesn't come in the next few minutes, I'll take you back to your mother's house and then go home myself.”

As much as he wanted to get the ordeal over with, Asgore was at least glad for his son's sake that the man might not show up. Asriel had worried that the meeting might go very poorly if he were present. If the dead girl's father saw Asriel sitting there - the very child whose death had caused Asgore to pronounce a death sentence on all humans in the first place - then it could be disastrous. Asgore had been able to ease his son's worry by telling him that no humans knew anything about that. But perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry.

Asgore reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It was a comically-sized brick of a device. Alphys had eagerly given it to him once they had reached the surface, and her enthusiasm had only been slightly dampened when she realized that his massive paw pushed every single button at once. With her usual unnecessary apologies, she had whisked the phone away and returned less than 30 minutes later with the massive one he now held. Asgore shook his head and smiled to himself. His former Royal Scientist was an amazing woman.

9:20 PM read the display on his clock. Then *BEEP*, a sharp chirp so sudden that he nearly dropped the phone. A text message appeared at the top of the screen:

From: Robert Edwards
Something has come up. Cannot meet you tonight. Let's meet tomorrow, same place. 7:30pm.

Asgore frowned.  The man was already forty-five minutes late.  Why was he telling him only now that he wouldn't be coming?  There could be any number of reasons, of course. Perhaps some emergency had kept him occupied till now. Perhaps his vehicle had broken down.  Maybe he was simply inconsiderate.  Or perhaps (unlikely as it seemed) he had forgotten about the meeting.  Asgore had become painfully familiar with schedule conflicts and sudden meeting cancellations especially now that he was dealing with the bewildering bureaucracy of human governments. A message like this would normally have just annoyed the king.  But given the context, the feeling that dominated Asgore was worry. 

The cryptic letter that the girl's father had sent him nine months ago still had him on edge.

“What was that, Dad?” His son’s inquisitive eyes looked up from under his arm.

Asgore sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It appears he will not be coming tonight after all. I am going to have to meet him here tomorrow evening instead.”

“Oh. Well… I’m kinda glad. If he had shown up now, we probably wouldn’t have gotten home till 10:30 or something, huh?”

“It would certainly be sometime far too late for you, son. Well…” Asgore stood up and stretched and brushed the snow off his coat and fur. “Let’s get you home.”

Asriel got up and stretched as well, and the two of them headed off. It was a lengthy walk if they took the park’s paths and city sidewalks, but Toriel’s house bordered the woods that ran along the southern edge of the park. A few minutes’ walk through the woods would bring them to her back yard and then into a cozy house, where a woman he still counted dear to him would have a hug for Asriel and perhaps (if he was lucky) a soft smile for him. A smile that would not fully mask the fear he knew she felt every time he met with one of the families.

Chapter Text

      Charlotte Edwards.  Daughter of Robert and Caroline Edwards.  Disappeared at age 7.

The next day passed uneventfully.  The stacks of paperwork on Asgore's table had not decreased noticeably.  It continued to astonish him how a community as small as Ebott Valley could have so many rules, regulations, codes, statutes, ordinances, and red tape that turned even the simplest decision into a multi-week process.  Even getting a license for Nice Cream carts to operate downtown had taken four months.  Asgore had treasured the first few gray hairs he had discovered in his beard as a joyful reminder of Asriel’s return, but he strongly suspected the town’s bureaucracy was now contributing a few of their own.

      Reported missing eight years ago during a hike with her Girl Scout troop.  Other girls had returned to the foot of the mountain
      before she was missed.  Search party covered likely area of disappearance, but no signs of her were found.

Asgore put down his cup of tea, pushed his dinner plate away and rubbed his eyes.  He really didn’t know why he was going through her dossier again.  It wasn’t going to change anything he planned to say that night.  And it wasn't as if he needed reminders about the girl.  Her face had haunted his dreams constantly for the last eight years, with other faces joining in silent accusation as the years went by.

It was ironic that this last meeting would be about the first child who had fallen into his kingdom.  Finding the families required knowing who the children were, and only a couple of the children had ever revealed their names to anyone Underground.  Even then they had only mentioned their first names.  Asgore had had to cast a wide net, pulling missing-child reports from miles around, guessing the ages of the children who had fallen, searching through reports that had been unsolved and dormant for years, looking at physical descriptions... then making those terrible phone calls. 

Charlotte’s parents were the closest ones, living here in Ebott Valley.  Asgore was glad to have found them quickly, because he wanted to meet them first.  He wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Of all the confrontations, he had dreaded this one the most. No memory of any of the children brought him more pain than Charlotte.

But things had not gone according to plan.  With help from a human counselor, Asgore had drafted letters for the families, light on individual details but acknowledging his role in the loss of their children.  The letters invited the parents to contact him, to pick a place where they would be comfortable meeting him, to bring people to support them, and so on.  The first letter had been sent to the Edwards family.  Eight days later, a return letter had arrived.

Asgore,

I have received your letter.  Caroline and I understand that you are also reaching out to the other families whose children were lost due to your actions.

I request that you conclude your visits with the relatives of all the other children first.  After that, I will meet with you.

- Robert Edwards

Asgore had intended to tell Toriel about his plan to make amends to the families of the children once the replies to his letters had come in. This letter had changed his mind. He had kept his plans private, revealing them to Toriel only after most of the meetings had been concluded. And even then, he had not told her everything. Persuading her that this was the right course of action had been difficult enough without bringing up Robert Edward’s unnerving letter.

He looked at the clock on the wall.  6:30.  One hour left.  Time to get going.  Asgore cleared the dishes and remains of his supper to the kitchen and got his coat.  Returning to the kitchen, he reached on top of one of the many stacks of paperwork and retrieved a brown manila envelope.  He placed it carefully at the exact spot where he had been eating a few minutes earlier.  It was the same spot where he had placed it last night before leaving for the park.  The same spot he had put it every time he left the house to meet with relatives of one of the children.

Asgore flipped open the envelope.  He knew the instructions he had left were complete.  He had checked and rechecked all the papers within the envelope several times to reassure himself that everything had been accounted for.  Financial records, account numbers, passwords, locations of other important documents, vital contacts, attorneys, legal documents of delegation – they were all there.  But his eyes went to the letter that lay on top, reading it once again as he had each time before.

My dearest Toriel,

Since you are reading this, it is likely that my most recent meeting with the family of one of the human children has taken a dire turn.  I may be incapacitated and unable to carry out my duties or responsibilities.  Or it may be that the punishment for my deeds has been carried out in full. 

I am leaving you with all the details you will need in order to handle the disposition of my estate, should that be necessary.  The people I have listed in these documents will be able to help you with any of the legal matters that will need to be dealt with.  I trust your judgment in any matters that are not clearly spelled out.

And Tori, if it happens that I have paid the ultimate and heaviest price for my sins, please forgive me if I use this letter to say some final things that I could never bring myself to say to you in person.  It is a great sorrow to me that I will no longer be able to enjoy being a father to our two sons. But it cuts me even more deeply to know that the relationship you and I once had, which I ripped apart in my recklessness, can now never be mended.  Your kindness over the last months has been evident in your willingness to let me share in Asriel’s and Frisk's lives, and even to allow me to come into your home once again for meals and events with the children.  I was too inept to find a way to thank you sufficiently.  I was too slow and stupid to find a way to heal the damage I had done to you, or to find a way to break the barrier that I had erected between us.  Perhaps it was always beyond my ability.  Perhaps some barriers cannot be broken.

But please know that I leave this letter with nothing but love and admiration for you.  You have been the most loving wife and dearest friend that anyone could ever ask for, and if I may be so bold as to make one last request of you, I beg you not to hold yourself responsible, even in the smallest way, for those things that broke us apart. The grief that drove you to a life of solitude in the Ruins was my fault, and mine alone. And for that, Tori, I am truly sorry,

But it gives me unspeakable joy that Asriel has been restored to you, and that you have gained another dear son as well. It comforts me greatly to know you will be an excellent mother to Asriel and Frisk, and I commit them without reservation to your care.

I love you, dear one.

– Asgore 

It wasn’t sufficient.  It never would be.  But it would have to be enough.  Asgore closed the envelope, buttoned up his coat, and left the house.

He remembered the first meeting.  Oliver, the second child to fall, had been gone almost as long as Charlotte.  But the length of time he had been missing hadn’t made the meeting with his parents any less heart-wrenching.  It had been at a lawyer’s office, he remembered.  Things had gotten off to a poor start when Asgore, unsure of how to begin, had introduced himself and held out his paw to shake hands. The father had only stared at him coldly and turned away. The mother had wept quietly in a chair near the door of the small conference room, while the father had glowered at Asgore, at times standing up and yelling at him, and at one point actually going so far as to strike him on the chest.  It had only been with his open palm, and his intent to injure (mercifully) had been quite low, but Asgore had still been sore for a week.  Once again he was glad he had made the decision not to let Toriel know what he was doing.

As miserable as it had been, there had been one ameliorating factor for Asgore.  It was true Oscar had not known how fragile monsters were.  And his violence was almost certainly due to his fear and panic.  But he had killed several monster children.  Surely that had justified Asgore’s decision to take his soul.  At least partially?  Surely?

Charlotte, though…

The meeting with Bella’s parents had been far less dramatic, but just as emotional.  Both her father and mother questioned him relentlessly, choking back sobs and crying freely as he answered as honestly as he could, which had been difficult.  Without actually lying, Asgore had carefully avoided giving the more lurid details of his brief encounter with the whimsical dancing girl who had massacred more of his people than anyone since the war.  And if he stretched the meaning of “quick and painless” in describing the girl’s final moments, it was only to spare her parents the vision of her graceful figure engulfed in flames, embracing her own death just as incomprehensibly as everything else she had done in her cheerful slaughter.  Asgore and the girl’s parents had ended their meeting when exhaustion had finally worn the three of them down to a point beyond words.

The best meeting he had had (if there could ever be such a thing) was with Penelope’s parents.  Asgore had not had the courage to retrieve her notebook from Gerson after she had fallen, but he had seen and heard enough from the girl to recognize her keen mind, so it hadn’t surprised him when her parents had requested a meeting at a medical clinic a few miles from Ebott Valley.  Her father was a soft-spoken doctor and her mother had fixed Asgore with a perceptive, intelligent gaze the whole time he spoke.

It didn’t ultimately matter that Gerson, not Asgore, had delivered the killing blow and captured the soul of the girl.  The responsibility was still the king’s.  Gerson had stepped up when Asgore had wavered, and it had almost broken the old warrior.  Asgore could not pretend his own hands were clean.

The two parents had listened quietly as Asgore told them about Penelope, and how she had hoped to find some way to bring down the barrier.  They had asked their questions, as the parents always did, and they had clutched each other’s hands for strength as Asgore talked.  Their questions had been pointed but controlled.  Their comments had been measured.  In the end, the parting had been quiet and amicable. 

Amicable? No, that was the wrong word. It wasn’t as if they had left as friends.  Asgore mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the idea.  It's true, they hadn’t yelled at him, and the father had even thanked him for coming to speak with them.  But how could you befriend the monster who had killed your child?  Asgore’s hands may not have swung the hammer, but his violent oath before his people hadn’t just been a declaration.  It had been a command.  Humans were to be put to death by whoever found them.  Gerson had only been following the orders of the king.  Asgore's words had marked her for death the moment she entered his kingdom.  There was quiet acceptance from her parents, but there had been no forgiveness.  And of course, Asgore could see that he had no right to expect it.

If the children could never forgive him, why should their parents?

He had expected the meeting with Garrett’s family to go reasonably well.  By the time the 10-year-old had arrived in the Underground, Asgore’s will to carry out his oath had faltered.  If he had found the boy a few years earlier, as close to death as he was in Hotland, maybe it would have been easy for him to snuff out the life that was already fading and take the boy’s soul.  Instead, Asgore had carried the limp child back to New Home.  He had told himself that he just needed time to prepare for what he had to do.  Instead, he had found himself nursing the boy back to health and discovering how much he enjoyed the company of the pleasant and appreciative child.  When Garrett had asked the king if he could stay with him, it was all Asgore could do to keep from hugging him.

But it wasn’t to be.  The boy’s diseased lungs had worsened and finally failed him, and the king had wept when he had come to the boy’s bed one morning and found his cold body, finally silent, a soft green light pulsing on top of it.  There had been no joy whatsoever in collecting that fifth soul.

He had actually looked forward to his meeting with the boy’s family, to tell them about the boy’s selfless generosity and kindness to the monsters he had met.  He had been mildly surprised when he had found no living parents of the boy, only an uncle who took care of him.  But he had been badly shaken when he actually encountered the man in the booth of a cheap diner in a disreputable part of Ebott Valley.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious to Asgore that the man cared nothing at all for Garrett.  The boy had been very thin, almost emaciated, when Asgore had found him.  He had told Asgore how hungry he always was.  And his coughing and wet, rattling lungs… Asgore didn’t know much about human diseases, but he felt that there surely would have been treatments for the boy’s sickness if he had had proper medical care.

The man who had sat opposite him had shown no concern about any of that.  Before Asgore had spoken three sentences, the man had leaned forward on his elbows, leered at the king, and asked him how much he was willing to pay to “get this thing settled”. 

Asgore knew the shock must have shown on his face.  It wasn’t that he was opposed to financial reparations. In fact that was part of what he offered to each of the families, along with an offer to do whatever else he could to make amends.  No family had ever asked for gold within the first three minutes of their meeting, however.  But the greasy uncle of Garrett had persisted, and when Asgore had finally named an amount, then agreed to the much higher figure the uncle demanded, the man had pocketed the gold and then had stood up. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, monster.”  And with a sneer, he had left the diner.

Asgore had taken the folder in front of him, filled with details and a simple eulogy for Garrett that he had intended to read, and closed it.  None of his family would ever hear it now. There were no living relatives who would remember the kind young boy with any kind of fondness.  If nothing else, Asgore was grateful that at least the boy’s final few days had been spent with someone who cared about him. 

The meeting with Yosef’s father had been just over a week ago.  The father bore a striking resemblance to the young man who had died at the king’s hand in the barrier cavern. The similarity had been unnerving.  But what had tortured Asgore the most from that meeting was how it had ended.  To the king’s surprise, the man had asked no questions as Asgore went through his macabre and now familiar rehearsal of what he had done and why.  Even as Asgore described (with minimal detail) the final moments between Yosef and himself, the father listened with no comment.  It was only after Asgore finished that the man spoke up.

“He was right, you know”.

“…I’m sorry, what?”

“I taught him that.  That when you know something is wrong, and you do it anyway, then your punishment is going to be more horrible than you can imagine.”

Asgore stared at the man.  A shadow of uncertainty and fear must have crossed his face, because the man laughed, a harsh and unpleasant sound.

“Oh, don’t worry.  I’m not here to kill you.  ‘Course, you deserve it, you know." He leaned forward. "You deserve to be killed in the worst possible way that anyone can dream up because of what you did to my boy.”

Asgore remained speechless, rooted to his chair.  The man stood up.

“What do you want, monster? Why are you here? You think you can come here and tell me that you’re so very, very sorry that you murdered my boy, and that everything will be OK?”  Is that what you’re hoping?  That I’ll say “oh, that’s fine Mr. Asgore, no hard feelings, I forgive you, thanks for coming by”?

Asgore found his tongue.  “No, sir, that was not my intention in…”

“Because that’s not how it WORKS, monster!  Justice means you get what’s coming to you!  You think coming to confess your sins to me is going to make up for what you did?  You think a LIFETIME of being a nice monster king will make up for the death of my boy?"

The man was yelling now. Asgore was having difficulty thinking.  “Sir, no, I… I have not come because I deserve your forgiveness or…”

“AND YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT, MURDERER!"  The man's eyes were filled with hatred.  "My boy is dead because of you!  I don’t care what your kingdom needed.  I don’t care how you monsters got stuck under the mountain.  I don’t care that you were trying to get out.  I don’t care about ANY of that.”

Asgore still hadn’t moved.  The man stood over the king, leaned over him, and thrust a finger into his face.

“I care about justice for my boy.  And as much as I would like to see you die for what you did, that’s not going to bring him back, is it?  So the only satisfaction I have left to me is knowing that he can never forgive you. And that I'm not going to ever, ever forgive you either.  You’re not going to get anything you want out of this, monster.  Justice is coming for you.  The universe is going to make sure you pay for what you’ve done.”

The man straightened up.  His next words were through gritted teeth.

“Because no matter how good you are from now until the day you die, you’ll always be a child murderer.  You're never going to be able to undo what you've done.  Now you go and live the rest of your life knowing that!"

The man stormed away, and seconds later the door slammed behind him so hard it rattled the walls.  It was only in the silence that followed that Asgore realized how much he was shaking.

Chapter Text

      What do you want, monster?

The day had been unusually warm, and the snow on the sidewalks had mostly melted away.  His house was less than a mile from Toriel’s and it was nice to walk through the quiet neighborhoods of Ebott Valley.  He found that the act of walking, feeling the cool evening air on his face, and idly watching his shadow move under the glare of the streetlights helped him to think.  And he needed more time to think.

      What do you want, monster?

Asgore grimaced.  He couldn’t deny the relief he had felt, days ago, when Yosef’s father had stormed out the meeting room.  It wasn’t the conclusion Asgore had hoped for, but it was clear that he could offer the man nothing to ease his pain and that any further interaction would have only made the man angrier. Possibly violent.  Asgore knew the risk to his life he was taking with these meetings, but it was a risk he felt was right to take.  But another two minutes with Yosef’s father might have been disastrous.  He was glad to have escaped without injury.

And yet Asgore had not been able to shake off the memory of those piercing, accusing eyes, or the twisted face of the man as he bellowed, and the accusations that were made all the more terrible because they only repeated what the voices in Asgore’s head had been screaming to him for a long, long time.

      What do you WANT, monster?

Asgore wanted to be free.  Oh, how he wanted to be free.

He wanted to be free of the weight of guilt he had steadily piled onto his own back, one soul at a time.  He wanted to be sorry and have that mean something.  He wanted to do something, anything that would make it OK for him not to hate himself.  And although he had told himself that it was the right thing to do to meet with each of the six families, that he was giving them closure, deep down he didn’t want to admit that there was another, more selfish reason.  He wanted the families to forgive him.  He wanted… he wanted…

      You think you can come here and tell me that you’re so very, very sorry that you murdered my boy, and that everything will be OK?”

No.  Of course not.  Why had he been so stupid to ever think that?  Why had he thought this would be the pathway to peace?  All the apologies in the world wouldn’t change what he had done.

      Because no matter how good you are from now until the day you die, you’ll always be a child murderer.
      You're never going to be able to undo what you've done. 

Asgore groaned and bowed his head, almost tripping over an uneven part of the sidewalk.  What he wouldn’t give to be able to rewind time the way Frisk had been able to!  It was an incomprehensible power, but whatever its origin or extent, Asgore knew that it wasn’t a power he could wield.  Even Frisk himself could only go back so far.  The wickedness Asgore had committed was beyond the reach of any power to unmake.  But that didn’t stop him from wishing that those events could be erased.  That he could have pulled himself away before striking down Yosef.  That he could have found a way to heal Garrett.  That he could have stopped Gerson’s hammer falling on Penelope.  That he could have found some way to reach Bella.  That he could have stopped himself from plunging his trident down on the helpless body of Oscar.

That he could have finished his little tea party with the trusting, innocent girl he had comforted in his arms just moments earlier, instead of raising his hands over her to…

Charlotte… oh, Charlotte…

With a crack and a jolt of pain, Asgore came to a sudden stop.  With his head down, his aimless feet had walked him right into a telephone pole.  He winced, rubbed his head, and more carefully resumed his journey to Toriel’s house.

Toriel.  And Asriel.  With a sudden burst of shame, the king remembered what had transpired between him and his son last night.  Of course – Asgore wasn’t the only one carrying a burden of guilt.  Maybe he wasn’t even carrying the biggest burden among the Dreemurrs.  Toriel’s anger at him was compounded by her own burden of regret she carried for not having tried harder to stop him, along with her failure to protect the children that had first come to her.  Asgore didn’t blame her for either, but that was no comfort to her.  And yet, the burden she carried was still nothing compared to Asriel’s…

The ability to rewind time wasn’t a solution after all, Asgore suddenly realized.  Whatever Frisk had done had so thoroughly purged the actions of Flowey from history that Asgore had not realized he himself had been dead.  None of the monsters were suffering from the massacre they had been put through in those buried timelines. But that had been no comfort to his son, who remembered every detail that he – no, that Flowey – had done.  Just because Asgore didn’t remember, nor Toriel, nor any of the other monsters, didn’t mean that Asriel considered himself pardoned.

Asgore had six souls to answer for.  But in Asriel’s mind, the boy had the dust of hundreds of monsters on his hands.  And no families to forgive him. 

Asgore and Asriel.  Father and son.  Kind and gentle, up to the moment when they murdered the innocent.  And no way to atone for any of it.

    You're never going to be able to undo what you've done.  Now you go and live the rest of your life knowing that!

Asgore had been glad to escape with his life after his meeting with Yosef’s father.  But since that day, he had wondered if having his guilt die with him there in that meeting room might not have been such a bad thing.

“Hey, Dad?”

Asriel's request to go with his father to the meeting again had been a surprise. Neither Toriel nor Asgore had felt comfortable with Asriel accompanying the king.  But as with the previous evening, Toriel’s fears had been overcome by Asriel’s earnest pleas.  His imploring green eyes, which she had thought she'd never see again, made it difficult to refuse him. Her worries were clearly still there, though.  Asgore could feel them lurking behind the steely gaze she pinned on him, after she had sweetly asked Asriel to clear the table while she and his father had a little talk. 

“Asgore, I do not like this at all.  It’s bad enough that you’re taking this risk!  I cannot stop worrying that a single misunderstanding, a sudden burst of emotion, or anything could suddenly set the child’s parent off, and something terrible could happen to… to, this fragile peace that we’re just now starting to make with the humans.”  To you, Toriel had just barely stopped herself from saying.  She hurried on quickly to distract herself from her suddenly-flushed face, and the realization from Asgore’s eyes that the unstated words had been communicated anyway.  “I know you are doing this for honorable reasons.  I cannot fault you for that.  But you must swear to me that you will send Asriel back here immediately if things become even the slightest bit… concerning.”

Asgore’s voice was gentle.  “Toriel, would you rather he not come?  I can insist that he stay home tonight, if that is your wish.  He and I had a chance to talk at length last night, and I can tell him that it would be best for him to stay here this evening.”

Toriel paused.  Then she sighed and lowered her head.  “No”, she said reluctantly.  “If it was up to me, I would certainly prefer that he not go.  But he very much wants to be with you tonight.  He has promised he will be good, and that he will stay out of the way of you and the parent.  And… perhaps it may be a good thing.”

Asgore knew exactly what she meant.  The first day following Asriel’s resurrection had been an impossibly wild swing of emotions for the entire family.  The unspeakable joy the king and queen had felt had been accompanied by shock and bewilderment as Asriel had disgorged detail after horrifying detail of what Flowey had done in an attempt to wrest the human souls away from Asgore.  And even then, the howling, tear-filled confession had just been a summary.  Asgore was grateful that Toriel had not been with him yesterday, when Asriel had finally plunged into the full depths of what the flower had done, in a version of history that no longer existed.  But even without having the full picture, perhaps Toriel had detected the hint of desperation that had accompanied Asriel’s request to go with his father to the final meeting.  Perhaps she realized that Asriel and Asgore were seeking something very similar.  And perhaps she had come to the unhappy realization that Asriel’s own dark memories would allow him to support his father in a way that no other monster could.

Now, as the two of them walked through the woods on their way to the park, Asgore wondered if he had allowed that strange, sympathetic bond between him and his son to influence his decision too much.  It had been one thing to invite Asriel to stay with him on the bench the previous night after his unexpected arrival.  It was another thing entirely to intentionally take him back to the park, where only tension and unpleasantness awaited.

How much unpleasantness?  The strange letter from Robert Edwards was in his pocket, and foremost in his mind.  Why had the man wanted him to carry out his business with the other families first?  Why had he insisted that he would only meet with Asgore at the end of his journey? 

There were no obvious answers.  But there were enough possible answers that made him think, for the third time during their walk together, that maybe he should change his mind and send Asriel back to Toriel’s house.  There might not be enough time to get him safely away if it turned out…

“Um… Dad?”

The king snapped out of his worried thoughts.  “Oh, sorry. Yes?”

“I was just wondering – we didn’t really get a chance to talk about what you were actually going to do at the park last night.  We kinda spent a lot of time talking about me and… you know, all that stuff.  Ha ha.”  Asriel was suddenly finding the ground very interesting.

“Asriel,” the king said gently, “I cannot tell you how glad I was that we had the night together yesterday.  I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it was for you to tell me what you did, and I only regret that I did not make it easier for you to tell me sooner.”

The ground continued to fascinate Asriel.  “Yeah. Um, well, thanks.  And you didn’t do anything wrong, Dad.  I just wasn’t ready.  I needed time before I could tell you…”  Asriel took a long, shuddering breath, and Asgore gently placed a hand on his son’s head and stroked his fur.  The boy composed himself.   “But anyway, what I was saying was, what do you actually do when you meet with the parents of the children?  Do you tell them things, or do they say anything, or… what happens?”  His questioning eyes turned back up to his father.

“Well,” Asgore sighed, “it all depends on the parents.  I usually introduce myself, and start with an apology.  I tell them a little bit about who monsters are, why we were living underground, why we needed human souls, that sort of thing.  Then I’ll tell them what I know about their child.  I try to make it as easy as I possibly can for them.  And in the end I usually apologize again and ask if there is anything I can do to make some kind of amends for what I did.

“Do they ask you any questions?”

“Yes, most of the time they will have questions.”

“Do you tell them… how their child died?”

Asgore was struck with the grotesqueness of their entire conversation.  A father answering questions about the murders he had committed, asked by his precious child who had committed atrocities of his own.  Yes, it had been Flowey, but the flower’s memories were imprinted on Asriel clearly enough to have given his son experiences that no child should have any awareness of. 

His own corruption was never far from his mind. The corruption of his son, however, was like a knife to his soul.

“Sometimes.  I do not explain all the details, unless they insist.  But they almost always want to know at least something of how their child met their end.”

“And do they ever get mad at you?”

“Some of the parents will occasionally become a little more emotional.  That is to be expected.

“Have any of them ever tried to… you know, hurt you?”

The kings hand absently strayed to his chest.  Careful, Asgore.  “I find that if I speak to them in a soft fashion and repeatedly offer my apologies and regrets to them, that the parents will… generally calm down if they have become more emotional.”   Please don’t ask for any more details! the king thought desperately.

Asriel’s eyes stayed on his father, but mercifully he dropped the subject.  The two of them walked on in silence.  The woods were a little thicker here, and Asgore was glad to let Asriel take the lead.  His son and Frisk had used this shortcut between Toriel’s house and the park many times, so there was no danger of them getting lost.  

“Dad, when you apologize to the parents… do they take it?”

Asgore looked over. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do they accept it?  You know, do they tell you it’s OK?  Do they say they’re not mad?  Do they... I don’t know…”

“Do they forgive me?” Asgore asked quietly.

“…Yeah.  I guess that’s what I meant.”

Such a simple question.  And yet a question that was unbearably sad to Asgore, coming from his wounded son. 

“I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that.  Most of the time the meetings end with some form of satisfaction.  The parents accept what I say to them, to some degree at least.  I have”, Asgore’s muzzle wrinkled in disgust, “even made a large monetary payment to a relative who demanded that for compensation.  So the families usually leave with some form of resolution.  But…” Asgore thought for a moment, replaying the five meetings in his head briefly. “…no, Asriel. I don’t think I could honestly say that any of them have forgiven me.”

Asriel said nothing, but his head drooped a little lower as they continued to walk.

“To be very honest with you, I had hoped that that might happen.  But I was unwise to wish for such a thing.  The pain that I caused…”

STOP!, shrieked the warning in Asgore’s mind.  Too late, he saw the obvious application of his words to Asriel. "Um, I mean," he hurriedly added, "their children are no longer here, and I, of course, had known full well what I was doing the whole time, because I wasn't... confused. So I was completely to blame, which is why I cannot expect forgiveness…” Asgore’s trailed off awkwardly, quite sure he had failed to adequately distinguish his actions from his son’s.

The unintentional message had gotten through.  “Dad, I know what you’re trying to say.  But the truth is, if anyone doesn’t deserve forgiveness, it’s me.”

“No, Asriel, that is not true!  I was only trying to…”

“Dad, really, I get it, and I know you’re trying to help.  Really, I know.  And thanks.”  Asriel’s face was hidden from the king, but he was beginning to sniffle audibly.   “But it’s true.  And the worst part of it is, I don’t have anybody who can forgive me.”

“Asriel, everyone forgives you!  It wasn’t really you who…”

“NO, Dad, that’s just it!  They don’t forgive me, because they can’t!  I mean, you and mom have said you forgive me, and I know you mean it, but you don’t even remember what I did to you!  How you can forgive me for something you didn’t even know happened to you before I told you?”

The sniffling was louder now.

“Nobody remembers!  I mean, I’m glad they don’t remember – that would be really awful.  But it just means that nobody can really forgive me.  Nobody can say ‘I know what you did Asriel, and I forgive you for it.’  So I just have to live with it.”

Asgore reached out and pulled his son closer to him.  Asriel let himself be wrapped in the king’s arm. 

“Forgiveness is a tricky thing, son.  I remember what you said last night to me.  Everything we do, good or bad, is never going away.  And you’re right.”  He sighed.  “Whether or not you or I are forgiven, or even can be forgiven, all we can do is say we’re sorry and try to live a better…”

      Because no matter how good you are from now until the day you die, you’ll always be a child murderer.
      You're never going to be able to undo what you've done.
      Now you go and live the rest of your life knowing that!

Asgore drew in a quick breath. “…live a better life going forward and try to make up for what we’ve done”.

Asriel had stopped his sniffling, but his upturned face was still sad.  And doubtful.

“Is that the best we can do?”

“It’s the only thing we can do, son.”

The two of them walked on in silence.

“So who are you meeting tonight?” Asriel asked

“The man’s name is Robert Edwards.  He has a wife, but I do not believe she will be coming.  They are the parents of Charlotte Edwards, the first child who fell into the underground eight years ago.  Her family lives right here in Ebott Valley.  They were the first ones I contacted when…”

Asgore cut the sentence off, stupidly realizing he had opened the door for a question he did not want to answer.  But it was too late.

“Really?  You wrote to them first?  Why has it taken so long for them to finally get in touch with you?”

Asgore, you fool!  The king might carefully avoid certain topics with Asriel, but he had never lied to his son.  There was no getting around it.  In as casual a tone as he could muster, the king answered, “Actually he did write back to me very soon after I sent my letter to him.  He asked if we could meet later.  He wanted me to first…" A slight pause. "Well, he just wanted to meet later.”

Asriel looked up at his father, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Really?  That seems kind of weird.  Did he say why?”

There was nothing for it now but the truth.  “He only said that he wanted me to meet with all the other families first, and then meet with him last.”

Asriel was silent for several seconds as the two of them crunched over the leaves.

“…why?”

“I don’t know.  That’s just what he asked.  Oh!  Look, here we are.”

Mercifully the woods came to an end, and they stepped out onto the grassy grounds of Ebott Valley Community Park.  The bench they had shared the night before faced away from them. Between it and the woods was a long stretch of grass still covered by a thin blanket of snow.  To Asgore’s immense relief, Asriel let the conversation drop and started jogging towards the bench.

Directly in front of the bench, leading to the left and right, was a paved pathway.  Asgore scanned the area around them.  There were no park visitors to be seen; the man they were expecting had not arrived.  Asgore checked his phone.  7:20.  Good - ten minutes early.  He had hoped he and his son would arrive first.

He reached the bench while Asriel began looking around for rocks.  There was a second empty bench facing him on the far side of the pathway. Beyond that, about 25 feet away, was the park lake.  Frisk had been teaching Asriel how to skip stones, and the rocky bank of the lake was sure to have some smooth ones.  The king settled himself onto the bench and once again rehearsed what he planned to say.  From time to time he glanced to his left.  He couldn’t see the park entrance from here, but he knew the father would be coming from the west over the hill when he arrived.  It was best to be seated while the man approached.  He did not think the specter of a nine-foot monster rising in front of the man would get their meeting off to a very good start.

Splash.  Kerplunk.

“Oh, come on, that should have worked.” Asriel looked disappointed as he pulled his arm back to fling another stone.

Splash.

“You have to throw it straight, Asriel.  Hold the flat side parallel to the ground and then try to flick it with your claw straight and flat.”

“I’m trying.”  With his tongue poking out in concentration, Asriel carefully positioned the stone in his claw, pulled his arm back, and snapped it forward.

Plunk.

“Boy, how does Frisk make this look so easy?”  He picked up another stone and flicked it almost casually.

Splish…splish…splish bounced the stone. Blorp.

“Oh, I did it!  I got three!”

“Well done!”  Asgore chuckled and leaned back on the bench.  For a few minutes he sat idly, watching his son continue to flick stones into the lake. Then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced back to his left.  Someone was just coming into view over the hill, still a good distance away.  He leaned forward to get a better look at the figure that was approaching. 

And then his heart leapt into his mouth.

The man had already spotted Asgore and was making his way towards the bench with a casual but purposeful stride.  He wore a long woolen winter coat, unbuttoned in the cool night air.  With every other stride, Asgore could make out a black object on the man’s right hip.  Memories flooded into Asgore’s mind: the last child standing before him in the sun-drenched corridor of the castle, wearing something dark and metallic on his hip.  The hysterical, incoherent account from a woman in Waterfall of the boy pulling out the object out and pointing it at a monster, followed by a loud crack and a hole expanding rapidly in the body of the wide-eyed monster as dust poured out.  The screams from the onlookers as the boy tossed the metal object onto the pile of dust and walked on without hurry.

Asgore still knew very little about guns.  But the sight of the pistol holstered on the man’s hip made one thing very clear to him.

The day of reckoning had finally come.

Chapter Text

For a horrifying moment, Asgore sat frozen in place, wide-eyed, unable to tear his attention off the gun.  Then:

Ker-splash!

“Ha ha, that was awesome!”

Asgore snapped his head back towards the lake.  Asriel had apparently gotten bored with skipping stones and was now entertaining himself by heaving the largest rocks he could find into the water.   He hadn't noticed the man coming up the path behind him.

The sound of approaching footsteps stopped, and Asgore turned back to his left.  The man had been staring directly at Asgore as he had come over the hill, but now his eyes were focused on Asriel whom he seemed to have noticed for the first time.  A flash of uncertainty crossed over the man’s face.  Then, reaching down quickly, he folded his coat around himself and fastened the two large buttons on the front.  With the gun hidden from view, the man turned his attention to Asgore once again and resumed his walking.

The king was thinking frantically.  “Asriel!” he called out, more shakily than he had intended.  What do I do?  Should he run and scoop up his son and race for the woods?  No, the tree line was too far away; the man would have plenty of time to pull his weapon and fire.  Should he make the first move himself?  His hands started tingling as he unconsciously began to focus on the magic needed to… no!  Attacking this man was certainly not the answer.  No, the best solution was to send Asriel away and distract the man as long as he could.  If Asriel could make it to the woods, he could run back to Toriel’s house and to safety.  Asgore just needed to keep the man occupied long enough…

“Oh!”

It was too late.  Asriel had turned and noticed the man coming, and was already trotting back over to the bench.  Before Asgore could think of what to say, his son climbed up beside him and huddled up close. 

There was nothing for it, then.  Asgore silently begged Toriel to forgive him for not getting Asriel away fast enough.  Instinctively he wrapped his arm around his son and pulled him closer.  All he could do now was to protect him as best he could. 

The man stopped in front of the two monsters.  For a moment he was silent.  Asgore cleared his throat.  He felt awkward not standing to greet the man, but Asriel was now pressing very tightly against him.  “Mr. Edwards?  Good evening, sir.  I am Asgore Dreemurr.  Thank you so much for your willingness to meet me tonight.”   Asgore did not extend his paw to shake the man’s hand; he had learned from his earlier mistake with Oliver’s parents.

The man made no attempt to extend his own hand.  “Asgore” he said simply.  “I've been looking forward to this meeting.  I would like to ask if you have met the families of the other children you intended to see.”

“Yes, I have had the opportunity to speak with the relatives of the other five families.” 

“Your business with them is concluded, then?”

“Yes, sir.  You are the last parent I have planned to meet with.”

“Good.”

The man stepped over to the opposite bench. As he sat down, he unbuttoned his coat, but held it tightly against him so the holster on his right hip remained hidden. For a moment he didn’t speak, but simply looked across the pathway at the king. He paid no attention to Asriel at all. It was an awkward arrangement, and it did nothing to diminish Asgore’s sense of unease. He was still trying to think of a way to get his son to safety.

“I expect that you have some things you wish to tell me, Asgore.  I will listen to what you have to say.”

The awkward setting notwithstanding, Asgore at least had an idea of where to begin now.  “Thank you, Mr. Edwards.  I do wish to speak with you about the events from years ago that have led to this meeting.  But if I may, before I begin to get into the details of what happened with your daughter Charlotte, please allow me to express how deeply and utterly ashamed I am of my role in her death.  I very much want you to understand that the responsibility and the blame for what happened to her falls entirely on me.  No other monster in my kingdom had anything to do with the events I will speak about.  The fault is mine and mine alone.”

Asgore paused and looked for some reaction from the man.  It was usually here in the meeting that he would get a sense of where the conversation would go.  A flash of anger in the other’s eyes would tell him to tread carefully. On the other hand, a small nod or simple acknowledgement would allow him to proceed more openly.  But the man across from him sat almost perfectly still, hands folded in his lap.  Another moment passed. 

“Please continue,” the man finally said.

Asgore took in a breath.  He briefly glanced down at Asriel, still huddled against him, then back to the far bench.  “Let me begin by describing who we monsters are, and why we lived beneath Mt. Ebott, and what the nature of our confinement was.  You may have heard about a war between humankind and monsters which took place a very long time ago.  Our people lost that war, and those who survived were rounded up by–”

“Excuse me."

Asgore stopped.

“I am already aware of those things.  Since the re-emergence of monsters from the caves of Mount Ebott, I have taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about you.  I know about the war.  I know about the Barrier.  I know that you were able to break it…” The man’s eyes flicked almost imperceptibly to Asgore’s side, “…and escape your long confinement.  I do not need additional explanations about your history.  What I would really like from you, Asgore…”

The man placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward.  His eyes bored into the king’s.

“…is for you to explain to me why my daughter deserved to die.”

Asgore gulped.  This was it, then.  There would be no opportunity to slowly bring Charlotte’s father into an understanding of monster history, of the oppressive presence of the barrier, of decades of imprisonment, of his people’s hopes and dreams of freedom.  No chance to perhaps elicit some sympathy from the man that might soften his anger.  No - they were going to immediately jump right to the heart of the matter.

“Mr. Edwards, I am responsible for issuing a terrible edict in our kingdom.  I will not speak of the tragedy that preceded that edict or make any excuse for my state of mind when I pronounced it”.  There – the man’s eyes had flicked to Asgore’s side again.  Was he looking at his son?  Could he possibly know about Asriel’s role in the story?  But how could he? Fear began to crawl down Asgore's spine. Asriel had been worried that the man would become enraged if he connected Asriel's death to his daughter's death, and then saw the prince sitting right beside the king, fully restored. Asgore had been sure that no humans knew anything about that. But what if he had been wrong? How much did the man know? Asgore tried to keep his voice calm as he continued.  “I will only say that I told our people that we would be able to destroy the barrier and escape our confinement only with the souls of seven humans.  And so I ordered that the souls be taken from any humans that fell into our kingdom.”

The man was still watching Asgore intently but said nothing.

“It was a thoughtless decree, a reckless error of the highest magnitude.  And it was compounded by my failure to anticipate that human children, and not adult warriors, might be the ones to fall into our kingdom.  Your daughter, Charlotte, was the first to enter the monster kingdom, eight years ago.  She was discovered by our royal…”

“She would have been 15.”

Asgore stopped.  "Excuse me, sir?”

“Her birthday was yesterday.  It would have been her 15^th birthday”.  The man spoke in an even, almost casual tone that deeply unnerved Asgore.  “I had hoped we might meet yesterday, on her birthday, but… well, that turned out not to be possible.” 

Asgore’s hands began to tremble.  “Mr. Edwards, what happened to your daughter was…”

“You haven’t answered my question, Asgore.”

Asgore blinked in confusion.  “I’m sorry?”

“I told you I know about the Barrier.  I understand that you needed seven human souls to undo the magic that held the barrier in place.  It is clear that Charlotte was one of your victims.  But I didn’t ask you what her death was meant to do for you.  I asked you why my daughter deserved to die.”

It was then that Asgore’s careful preparation suddenly fell to pieces.  The words acted like an incantation, summoning back the memories he had tried to suppress.  The vision of a small, trembling girl flooded into his mind.  He could see the ribbon clinging to her hair, the toy knife clutched in her quivering hand.  A terrified swing of the toy. The king recoiling from the sharp pain in his hand.  And then a moment later, the girl scooped up in his arms, crying helplessly as he tried to comfort her, weeping not because she was in pain or afraid, but because of what she had done.

She was crying because she had hurt me!  She was sorry because of what she had done to me!  Oh, dear girl, what have I done?

Asgore’s breath became ragged and hitched.  He could feel Asriel’s worried eyes locked onto him.  He looked up again and saw the man’s eyes still fastened on him, no change in the expression on his face.

“Mr. Edwards… your daughter…”

was sitting at the table with him, her cup of tea next to her.  Her fear of him was gone now, replaced with innocent, wholehearted trust that he would bring her home, just as he had promised.  All she had to do was count backwards from ten, and she would be home, he had told her.  Her head was bowed as if in prayer.  With her eyes closed, she didn’t see him raise his hands over her.  If she felt any heat from the massive orange fireball that suddenly hung suspended over her, she showed no sign of it.  Asgore felt the surging magic, saw the fireball swell until it was as big as the child herself.  “One… zero.”  As she began to lift her head, the king closed his eyes, flung his arms downward, and the fireball fell…

Asgore gasped and reared backwards on the bench.  Asriel, jolted by the sudden movement, pulled away from his father and looked up at him.  His green eyes were wide, filled with uncertainty and concern.  The man across the path continued to watch Asgore, his hands folded, his expression unreadable.

“… your daughter did not deserve to die.  She did not deserve what happened to her in the least.”

There was a momentary pause. The man leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. The deep breath he took was the only sign of emotion.

“It is my understanding that monsters and humans do not always understand how normal actions from one group might actually injure the other.  Did my daughter kill any of your people?”

“No sir, she did not.”

“Even in self-defense?  Or perhaps entirely unintentionally?”

“No sir.  She did not attempt to kill any monsters during the entire time she was in my kingdom.”

“And her death, Asgore.”  There was now an element of sharpness in his voice.  “Was she killed intentionally?”

“Sir, I regret to say that she was.”

“… By you?” A hint of raw emotion was beginning to seep into the man’s voice, though he appeared to be forcing himself to remain calm.

Asgore broke off eye contact with the man and lowered his head.  “Yes.  By me.” he said softly.

Again, there was a pause.

“Was her death… quick?”  The voice had cracked this time.

Asgore’s head came back up. “Yes, sir!  It was quick and entirely painless to her.  I did not want her… to suffer…”  As if you hoped that might count for something? Make the fact your murdered her not so bad?  Asgore was disgusted with the words as soon as they left his mouth.

Once again, the two of them were silent.  The man seemed to be working to get himself back under control, and Asriel remained a few inches away on the bench, still staring at his father with a look of… dismay? pity? Asgore had a sudden urge to stretch his arm back around Asriel, to pull him tight, to hug him close, to feel the comfort of not being alone in his misery.  But something told him that doing so would be a selfish action.  Asriel might be able to sympathize with what he had done, but he could not demand his son’s support.  It was not fair for him to dump his burdens on his son.  Asriel’s own burdens were heavy enough.

“So tell me then, Asgore.”  The momentary break in the man’s calm demeanor appeared to have passed.  “What are you prepared to do to resolve this injustice?”

“Mr. Edwards, in addition to my full acceptance of my guilt in this matter, I am prepared to offer you restitution in whatever form you may find appropriate.  You may know that the monster kingdom was quite rich in gold.  A compensation made with gold could be arranged very quickly.  Or if you preferred some other financial settlement or donation, I could make arrangements…”

"Will gold bring me justice?"

Asgore was brought up short.  There was a brief, fiery flash in the man’s eyes he hadn't seen up till now.  Without thinking, his arm went back around Asriel.

“Sir, it does not have to be gold.  There are a number of resources and means of service I can offer…”

“Will any of that bring justice, Asgore?  Will that undo what you have done?”

“Mr. Edwards…” Asgore was at a loss for words.  “No… no sir, it will not undo what I have done.  There is nothing I can do that will let me take back what I have done, but I am willing to work with you to find some way that I can express my remorse…”

“Oh, there is something you can do, Asgore.”

The words were flat, almost emotionless. But suddenly Asgore's blood ran cold. He had been hugging Asriel close to him before, but now his pull became even tighter.

The man stood up. His voice was calm and controlled.

“You just told me you were prepared to offer me compensation in whatever form I found appropriate.  I do not want your money, Asgore. I do not want your gifts or your services or your promises. But there is a way to bring this meeting to an end that I would find very satisfying.

With that, the man slowly moved his hand towards his right hip.

Chapter Text

I am about to die.

Asgore was surprised that the thought did not frighten him as much as he would have expected. This was a scenario that he had anticipated. The regrets and sorrow for those he would leave behind was real, but they were not new thoughts. He was prepared for this. He had even come to a certain measure of peace.

But he was completely unprepared for the second, inexpressibly horrifying thought that roared into his mind. Because suddenly, everything became terrifyingly clear to him. The way the man’s eyes had shifted to Asgore’s side several times – why had he not realized it then? How could he have been such a slow-witted fool? Robert Edwards didn’t want compensation. He didn’t even want his revenge to be carried out on his daughter’s murderer. He wanted an eye for an eye.

A dead daughter paid for by a dead son.

“Asriel!” he choked out. Desperately, he looked down at the furry boy beside him as nightmarish visions rushed into his mind. A small body wrapped in his arms crumbling to dust. A human child wailing over his newfound friend, now lost to him forever. The crumpled, broken form of a woman who had fallen down, never to rise again, unable to survive her son being ripped away from her a second time.

Could he throw himself between the man and his son? Would that be enough to protect him? Could he materialize his trident in time? Could a fireball be spun up before the man drew his weapon?

And yet, even in Asgore’s frenzied thinking, a small logical piece of his brain continued to operate. Wouldn’t attacking the man undo everything he had tried to do to make peace? If he attacked the man, his own people would pay for it a thousand times over. But he had to do something!

Asriel’s eyes were wide, but he looked more confused than terrified. Why was his son not panicking? Suddenly he understood: Asriel didn't realize the danger he was in. He hadn't not seen the gun, because the man had covered it up.

But… why had the man…?

His eyes snapped back to Robert Edwards, standing a few feet away. To his surprise the man had not drawn his weapon yet. His hand rested lightly on a lump beneath his coat on his right hip, but the weapon was still hidden from view. Why wasn’t he…?

“I believe it would be better for us to continue this discussion alone, Asgore." The man’s eyes remained fixed on the king. He didn’t look at Asriel at all. “Can we speak privately?”

The king stared uncomprehending for a minute. Then slowly, a wild hope began to rise in him. The man wanted him to send Asriel away…? Without taking his eyes off the man, he tilted his head down.

"Asriel, I would like you to return home now. I am going to stay with Mr. Edwards for a while longer. Take the path through the woods and go quickly.”

“What? Dad… I don’t understand. What do you and Mr. Edwards need to talk about that I can’t-”

“Son, please don’t ask questions right now. Mr. Edwards and I need to… speak about some matters in private. Go back to your mother’s house now. We will not be long.” Although Asgore’s eyes remained fixed on the man, he could feel the body next to him stiffen, the confusion in his son turning to fear as a dreadful realization began to dawn.

“Dad… what’s going on? Is something about to happen? I can’t just leave you here! I don’t wan-”

“ASRIEL!”

The boy recoiled at the sharp rebuke. Asgore turned to see his son’s wide eyes beginning to glisten and his lip quiver. Quickly he threw his other arm around his boy and embraced him. “Oh, I am sorry, son! I did not mean to snap at you. But Asriel,” the king fought to keep his voice calm, “I need to you to go home. I need you to go right now. Run to Toriel’s house and wait for me there.” The king managed a smile. “I will not be long. But go now. Please.”

For a moment Asriel didn’t move, still on the verge of tears, searching his father’s face for any sign of reassurance. Then he pulled himself away, stood up, and began slowly walking towards the woods, his worried eyes still on his father. Finally, after a few steps, he turned and began running towards the trees.

The night had grown darker. Asgore watched his son until he reached the tree line and disappeared into the woods. It was only then that he realized he had been holding his breath. He released it with relief and slowly turned back around.

The gun was in the man’s right hand, pointing at the ground. Asgore froze, his eyes traveling between the gun and the impassive face of the man standing in front of him. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then,

“Thank you,” Asgore said quietly. “For letting him go.”

The man did not acknowledge his words. When he spoke, it was with the same calm tone he had used before, but the words were pointed.

“Asgore, I cannot begrudge the freedom your people have now. Nor do I fault you for trying to free them. The fact that my daughter’s soul may have played a part in that is actually…” He seemed to search for the right word “…a small consolation to me. I have some measure of comfort knowing something good came out of her death. But that changes nothing when it comes to you. What you did to Charlotte was an evil and repulsive act. You understand that, don’t you?”

With his son safely away, Asgore found that his strange sense of peace and resignation had returned. His fears were gone, and he was ready to answer.

“I do, Mr. Edwards. It was an unforgivable act.”

“No matter how noble your goals may have been, you were willing to sacrifice my daughter - an innocent seven-year-old girl - in order to get what you wanted.”

“I…”

“You murdered her, Asgore. You murdered an innocent child. And then you killed another one. And another. And another. And so I ask you now…”

The man took a single step towards Asgore, his hand still at his side.

“Are you prepared to atone for your sins?”

And as Asgore sat there, the moment of full acceptance came. Finally - today, he would pay the price that somehow he had known all along would need to be paid.

Justice is coming for you. The universe is going to make sure you pay for what you’ve done.

“Mr. Edwards, I think we both are ready for this moment. I am prepared to accept the punishment for what I have done, and I…“ The king faltered for a moment “…I do not fault you for what you are about to do. Justice will finally be done here, tonight. And that is something that is good and right. If my death can atone for the evil I have brought upon your daughter, then I accept it.” Asgore stopped and took a deep breath. “I am ready now.” And with that, he folded his hands and bent his head towards the ground.

There was silence for a moment.

“Justice?”

The king’s eyes came back up. “…I’m sorry?”

“Do you think your death will bring justice to Caroline and me?”

The king blinked. “Sir, I hope that my death will at least bring some sense of satisfaction and closure to you and your wife.”

“But will it bring justice, Asgore? Will the great evil you have brought into the universe be reversed? Can you give me my daughter back?”

This was not going the way Asgore had expected. “Sir… no, I cannot do that. I can only hope that… that you will feel some measure of…“ His words trailed off in confusion.

Still the man stared at him coolly. He had not yet raised the gun.

“You need to understand, Asgore, that this is something you cannot fix. It was appropriate that you met with the other families. It is also fitting that you have come here tonight. But good deeds don’t erase evil deeds. Even your sacrifice tonight will not undo what you have done. That’s not how justice works.”

Asgore just stared. He didn’t know what to say.

“When we are finished here, Asgore, I will still leave this park without my daughter. What you have taken from me and my wife is beyond your ability to repay. Nothing you can do and no sacrifice you can offer will ever change that.”

The man’s words were still calm and steady. And no less devastating than the words that been screamed at him just days earlier.

Because no matter how good you are from now until the day you die, you’ll always be a child murderer.
You're never going to be able to undo what you've done.

It was too much. The tension of the past months, the weight of his burdens, his desperate hopes to find forgiveness, and his utter failure to escape his guilt crashed down on him. Asgore took in a ragged breath. And then his head dropped, and he buried his face in his paws.

“You are right,” he said. His voice began to crack. “You are right! There is nothing I can give you that will fully pay for what I have done. I would give anything to have not done what I did to your daughter. The cruelty of what I did… the suffering I have brought on so many people.” The king was having difficulty getting his words out. “I was so angry,” he almost whispered. “I was enraged over what had happened to my sons. I wanted humans to suffer for what they had done to my boys. And even when the consequences of my decision were literally right in front of me-

nestled in his arms, crying. drinking a cup of tea with him. counting slowly with her head bowed

“… I would not relent. I would not turn back from my decision even though I knew it was madness. It was unforgivable. What I have done is utterly unforgivable. And not a day goes by now that I do not see your daughter’s face in my mind, or the faces of the other children. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry!” The king’s breathing was hitched. “I am willing to give you what I can, sir, here and now, and I am only sorry that it will not be enough.”

The king broke off. For a moment the only sound was the king’s ragged breathing and the wind as it picked up, sweeping an icy gust over the bent figure on the bench and the man standing silently over him.

“Good.”

The bent figure still did not move.

“Good. I am glad to hear you say that, King Asgore”.

The king lifted his head up a bit. The man had pulled his coat back, and to Asgore’s astonishment, he placed the gun back into holster and buttoned his coat back up.

“Very glad, in fact. I wasn’t sure you would fully grasp this situation. I’m still relatively new in dealing with monsters, and I just wasn’t sure you would have a clear understanding of what you could and could not do about your sins.”

Asgore was completely bewildered. “I’m… sorry, I do not understand.”

Robert took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He blinked several times and appeared to relax significantly. “Oh my. I'm sorry, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. Yes, I need to explain myself a little better, don’t I? Let me go back to the beginning. Like I told you, I’ve done a good bit of research on monsters ever since you all came down from the mountain. I’ve even talked to some of them. They told me about being trapped underground by the Barrier, and some of them remembered a very fiery speech you gave, about what it would take to break the barrier. And then I got your letter. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

Robert stopped to stretch for a moment and began pacing a bit. The king continued to look at him in bewilderment. The sudden change in the man’s demeanor was still incomprehensible.

“I knew that you’d surely sent letters to the other families as well. I expected that you would be meeting…“ Robert suddenly broke off. His gaze had been wandering back and forth as he talked, but his eyes were now fixed on a distant point over the king’s shoulder. He stared for a moment, then the corner of his mouth turned up slightly.

“I’m sorry, Asgore – I just realized that the night is starting to get darker and quite a bit colder.”

The non-sequitur did nothing to help Asgore’s confusion.

“It’s not particularly warm here, but at least the area is well lit. I can’t imagine hiding in the woods in the dark is particularly safe or advisable. Might I suggest that you call your son and let him rejoin us?”

Asgore stared at the man in confusion. Suddenly, it clicked. “Asriel?” The king twisted around on the bench and looked behind him. “Asriel?”

The lamps along the pathway faintly lit up the tree line beyond the bench. Something white and indistinct was peeking out from behind a tree at the edge of the woods.

“Asriel!” the king called again with a mixture of dismay and relief. “What are you doing there? You were supposed to go home!”

Behind him, Robert chuckled softly. “I suppose I should have thought of that. That was foolish of me, to expect that he would just leave you. Please let him return. There’s no danger here.”

And to his surprise, despite everything, Asgore found that he believed him.

“Asriel, come back over here, son. It’s alright. It is fine for you to return.”

The white shape that came out from behind the tree resolved itself into a fuzzy head, as Asriel slowly trotted back over to the bench. Any words of reproof, even gentle ones, died on Asgore’s lips as he saw the tears that were still brimming in his son’s eyes.

“Dad, I’m sorry! I… I just couldn’t leave you!” The boy shot a fearful glance at Robert, who was still standing a few feet away. The man’s eyes were not unkind, and Asriel gulped and came around to the front of the bench. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I was… I was afraid that something was going to…” His voice began to break. “And I could hear w-w-what Mr. Edwards was saying, and… and it w-was hard to tell but it looked like he was h-h-holding a… a…”

“Oh my...” Robert’s face had turned ashen. “I hadn’t realized you would be watching while…” he trailed off.

Asgore pulled his son back onto the bench next to him. “It’s fine, Asriel. It’s completely fine. I am not angry with you. And you can remain here now. The… the private things that Mr. Edwards wanted to say are finish-”

“That was a rotten thing to do!” Asriel bawled at Robert. The anger that flashed in his eyes was clearly fueled by the fear and helplessness that had been there just a moment earlier. “Were you going to shoot my dad? Or was that just some kind of s-sick joke? It wasn’t funny! You should be ashamed of yourself, you… you jerk!”

“Asriel!” Asgore squeezed his arm. “Do not speak in that way!”

“But… but, it’s true, Dad!” The flash of anger disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. “I saw what he was doing and… I didn’t know what was going to happen to you and… and, it was… it was mean!” he finished helplessly.

Robert walked over to the bench and stood in front of the boy. And then to Asriel’s immense surprise, he knelt down in front of him.

“Prince Asriel,” he said, “you are absolutely right. It was a rotten trick to play.” The fear and dismay in the boy’s eyes were replaced with confusion, and his fuzzy brow crinkled slightly. “In fact, I’m feeling rather bad about it now. And I am definitely feeling bad that you saw all of that. I tried really hard to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”

“…um”, said Asriel.

Robert sighed, and looked over to the king. He patted the bulge on his hip with a rueful smile. “Don’t even have any bullets for it. Last time I used this thing was on the range maybe three years ago, and I haven’t bought any ammo since. Caroline thought this whole thing was a terrible idea. She didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She told me she’d come to some later meeting, but not to this one. Now that I think about it, I probably should have listened to her.”

He turned back to the boy.

“Please allow me to apologize to you, Prince Asriel. There was never any intention to hurt your father, and I had not even intended for you to see this bit of… play-acting. I hope you will forgive me for the distress I caused you.”

“…um,” said Asriel again. His roller-coaster of emotions was still lurching him around. His eyes went to his father, then back again. “…Well, OK. I… I guess so. If… if my dad does.”

“Thank you.” Robert stood up and stretched his back. “And to you, King Asgore,” he said, turning to the king, “I must also offer my apologies. I have to admit that I did intend this meeting to bring a certain amount of…“ he thought for a moment “…let’s say, confrontation. And self-reflection. But my method may have been a poor choice. I'm simply not sure.”

The king’s bewilderment was slowly beginning to fade. He still did not understand why the man who had been brandishing a gun scarcely five minutes earlier was now casually standing in front of him and apologizing. But Robert Edwards was clearly more relaxed now than he had been during the entire meeting. The tension was gone.

“Mr. Edwards, I confess that I cannot fully understand everything that has happened over the last few minutes, but I was sincere when I said that I do not fault you for anything that you might do. I am willing to accept your apology even though I am still puzzled by everything that has taken place.”

“Well, like I said, this may not have been the best way of doing thing,” Robert said. “But the truth is, I really did need to find out what kind of a person you really were. I knew that you’d be aware of the danger monsters would be in once the people in this town found out what you had done to their children. Were these meetings just a cynical way to buy-off the parents? Or a quick way to satisfy your conscience?” Robert spread out his hands. “Or… did you feel genuine remorse over what you had done? And were you indeed willing to do whatever it took to fix it? That seemed the most likely to me, given what you said in your letter. But that raised another question - had you come to the realization that you couldn’t fix the problem, no matter what sacrifice you made? That’s what I had to know.” Robert paused to take a deep breath. “Sorry, but do you mind if I join you there? I think all the adrenaline is wearing off and I need to sit down.”

Without waiting for an answer, Robert squeezed himself onto the small bench with a heavy sigh, right next to the surprised king. Mercifully the bench, already sagging under the weight of the two monsters, did not collapse under the three of them. Asriel, on the other side of his father, found himself squished against the metal armrest.

“Going back to what I said earlier, I knew you would be getting in touch with the other five families. I wanted you to deal with them first.” Robert turned towards the king. His voice was solemn. “Your letter to me told me something important. It told me you were serious about this. It told me that you’d been thinking about what you had done. Probably for a very long time. Am I right?”

Asgore nodded slowly. Images flashed into the king’s mind. His fist in the air as he spoke terrible words to his people from the balcony of the palace. The faces of the children. And a soft figure dressed in purple, anguish and revulsion in her face, turning and walking away. “The consequences of what I did have never been very far away”, he said quietly.

Robert nodded. “I understand. We couldn't be certain of your sincerity, but Caroline and I were hopeful that your letter meant you were honestly seeking a way of righting the wrong you had done. But you had never had to deal with the family of your victims directly before the Barrier came down. I wanted you to do that before we met. I wanted you to wrestle with the evil of what you had done to those children while their families were right in front of you.” He tilted his head. “I imagine it was hard, wasn’t it?”

“It was…” Asgore paused. “It was far more difficult than I ever thought it would be.”

“And you are to be commended for even making the attempt. That was an honorable thing to do. But let me ask you a question, King Asgore.” Robert leaned forward. “Did you find satisfaction in what you did? Was your burden lifted after those meetings concluded? And tonight - if you had received everything you hoped for after meeting with me, would you have gone home free and forgiven?”

The king stared at him. Asriel stared too, wide-eyed. The similarity of Robert Edward’s question to his own discussion with his son earlier that evening was uncanny. Which is perhaps why Asgore needed almost no time to answer.

“No,” he said. “No, if I have learned anything from this experience, it is that some things are unforgivable.” His eyes strayed over to Asriel, and he was quite sure the sadness he saw there was reflected in his own eyes. “I am grateful that, in most cases, I was able to give at least some form of satisfaction to the relatives I met with. I believe I have done everything I can to make amends. But I did not find freedom, and I see now that that was never going to be possible.”

He looked at the man beside him. Robert’s eyes were surprisingly sympathetic.

“You were correct in what you said earlier, Mr. Edwards. Doing good does not erase past evils. I cannot restore what I have taken from you or any of the other families. Indeed…” He paused, struck with the magnitude of the thought. “If there is any justice in the universe, then I have done something that not even the universe itself can forgive. It is impossible for me to atone what I have done.”

Robert nodded slowly. “Then you have grasped what I hoped you would understand when I came here tonight. My bit of play-acting with the gun was perhaps reckless and ill-advised, but I wanted to find out if you had come to the realization that even sacrificing yourself, as noble as that might seem, would not undo what you have done. You have said it well; you cannot atone for your actions. You cannot unbreak what you have broken. Not with all the gold from Mt. Ebott. Not even with your own death. It is beyond your power.”

The three of them were silent. Asgore turned away and stared at the ground. Asriel huddled closer to his father, his sad eyes staring vacantly out over the lake.

“So, what will you do now?”

The king turned back to Robert. “What do you mean?”

Robert spread out his hands. “This was the last meeting you had intended to have. You’ve now apologized to all the relatives of the children you can find. What are you going to do now about the burden you still carry?”

The king sighed, a deep heavy breath. “I suppose the only thing we can do now is try to move on.” His use of the word “we” was unconscious, but the boy next to him appeared to have noticed it and accepted it. If Asgore had been looking at Robert, he might have been surprised to see the man's eyes flick momentarily over to Asriel.

“There may be other things I can do in the future to make restitution”, the king continued, “but in the end, all we can do is try to live a better life going forward. Do what we can to assist others. Help monsters and humans learn how to live together in peace. Show kindness wherever we can.” He looked down at his son. “And do our best not to live with regrets. Put the past behind us. Eventually, in time, perhaps we can even forgive ourselves.” Asriel gave his father a sad smile.

“Oh, goodness no!”

Two heads turned in surprise. “I’m… I’m sorry?”, the king said.

“Forgive yourself? No, no, that’s not at all what you should be doing.”

“…I am not sure I understand.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong.” There was a sudden intensity in Robert’s eyes. “Those other things are excellent ideas. Living in a way to help others, help your people acclimate to life outside the mountain, being kind to people you meet – that’s wonderful. But “forgiving yourself” isn’t just something you should not be doing. It’s something you can’t do.

Robert looked from one set of eyes to the other. All he saw were blank expressions. He sighed and readjusted himself on the bench to look at his two listeners better.

“Look at it this way. ‘Forgiveness’ means that the one you have offended no longer holds your crime against you. They have a right to feel anger towards you, but they’ve willingly given that up. But you’re not the offended party, Asgore. You can’t ‘forgive yourself’, because you didn’t commit offenses against yourself.”

Asgore thought for a moment. “But that is not what I mean. When I speak about forgiving ourselv…”, Asgore flushed as he realized he had inadvertently brought Asriel into the conversation. “…er, forgiving myself, I only mean to convey that I must not let my guilt control the rest of my life. Having done what I can to see forgiveness and restitution, I must move on.”

“I understand”, Robert replied. “But that goes back to my earlier question. Do you feel like your guilt is any less now that you’ve gone through this?”

“No. But there is nothing left to be done.”

“But here’s the odd thing, Asgore. The fact that your mind is still telling you that you’re guilty is actually a good thing.”

Asgore stared. He couldn’t make sense of the words. “I do not see how that can be true. The guilt I have felt has been destructive and crippling. I suppose it has been ‘good’ in the sense that it has driven me to seek forgiveness from the children’s families, but with that concluded, what does further guilt accomplish?”

“It does the same thing for your mind that physical pain does for your body. It tells you that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.”

“But… then, how can…?” Asgore trailed off.

“That’s why I said you can’t forgive yourself. In fact, it’s dangerous to try, because one of two things will happen. You will either fail and continue to wallow in your guilt and carry your burden without relief. Or even worse, you will succeed – at least in the sense that you stop thinking about your guilt. You’ll begin to act like you’ve been freed from it when you haven’t. You will pretend that justice has been achieved when it hasn’t. And when you do that, either the guilt will eventually roar back into your mind and cripple you all over again, or else…”

Robert paused for a minute. His eyes drifted aimlessly over the lake. It appeared something had just occurred to him.

He turned back to the two monsters. “It’s a little bit like LV and EXP. Oh yes,” he said in response to the surprised looks, “I did a bit of studying about that too. If I understand it correctly, a monster who gains LV begins to find it easier to commit acts of cruelty. He loses the ability to empathize or care about others, which in turn makes it easier to hurt them. Is that correct?” Asgore nodded. “Well, denying and suppressing guilt that you rightfully carry can produce a similar effect in your mind. If you succeed, then you begin to grow more skilled at suppressing guilt. The screaming in your head that you hear when you do something wrong gets a little quieter next time, then quieter still, until eventually you can hardly hear it. And with that protection gone, your ability to commit deeper and more frequent acts of evil grows."

Robert leaned back. “And that is why ‘forgiving yourself’ is such a dangerous path to take. Just as ignoring an untreated injury on your body leads to greater injury, ignoring your own guilt can lead to a denial of justice, self-deception, and injury to your soul.

“But…“, the king digested this thought, “…but, life becomes intolerable otherwise! The magnitude of what has been done… it would be impossible to go through life bearing that burden without relief. And when the wrong cannot be righted, and when forgiveness cannot be found, what other choice is there?”

Robert nodded. “That is a great quandary. And I believe you are in a better position than most to grasp just how unbearable it is. Though truth be told, the difference between what you’ve done and, say, what I’ve done is only a matter of magnitude, nothing else.”

“Are you saying,” Asgore was having trouble picturing it, “that you have committed acts similar to what I have done?”

“Probably not in the way you’re thinking. I’ve never killed anyone, that’s for sure. But even though it’s been on a smaller scale, I’ve done stupid things when I was angry too. And I’ve violated the trust of those who depended on me. I’ve been unjust too, Asgore. I’ve done things I can’t undo…”

Robert trailed off. His eyes appeared to be vacant, and a look of pain crossed his face. “…and I’ve said things I can never unsay.” He was quiet for a moment, then blinked and refocused his eyes on Asgore. “And the result has been guilt. Guilt I have no way to undo, because it’s based on injustices I can’t undo.”

“Then…”

The despair that had built up over years of regret began to wash back over Asgore.

“Then there is no solution? I cannot repair what I have broken, and I cannot restore what I have destroyed. I will have that burden for the rest of my life?”

“No, I didn’t say that.” A small smile was beginning to tug at the corner of the man’s mouth. He leaned forward again and fixed his eyes on the king. “What a person can’t do for themselves can still be done for them.”

Unlike most monsters, Asgore had never been particularly good at puzzles. He tried to unravel the riddle of what Robert was saying, but eventually shook his head.

“I am afraid that makes no sense to me.”

The hint of a smile was still there. “Tell you what. Come with me for a moment.” He stood up, stretched himself, and began walking back up the path towards the entrance to the park. Mystified, the two monsters looked at each other, then stood up and followed the man. A moment later all three stood at the top of the hill a short distance from the bench. Robert pointed to something off in the distance. “Do you see that building down there with the steeple, maybe a mile from here?”

Asgore looked. Below him stretched the streets and buildings of Ebott Valley. The illuminated windows of houses in the distance twinkled, and the noise of the few remaining cars out for the evening rose up to them. To the right of the park entrance, some distance away, Asgore could make out a tall spire rising above the neighboring buildings.

“That’s where I work. It’s not the biggest church in town, but we have a lot of people who care about our community there. The things we talk about there have become the most important things in life to me now.” Robert turned to Asgore. “And eight years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me dead in a place like that.”

Asgore’s eyebrows went up. “I must admit, I know very little about such things. Was there something you disliked about the church?”

“No, I wouldn’t really say that. Just didn’t feel like it was important. Didn’t see the point of wasting my Sundays there. But everything changed eight years ago, in more ways than one.”

The king, who had begun to relax a bit, stiffened again. But the look in Robert’s eye wasn’t threatening, or even accusatory. If anything, his eyes appeared somewhat vacant, like he was lost in thought. He blinked and came back to himself. “Would the two of you mind walking with me a bit? I’d like to tell you a story. I haven’t told this to many people, but I have a feeling that you both might appreciate it.”

Asgore looked beside him. From the look on Asriel’s face, it was clear he was surprised that he was about to be included in whatever Robert had to say. And yet, it appeared that Robert was waiting for an answer from both of them. “Of course, we would be happy to,” the king said.

“Yeah, that sounds fine,” his son added.

The three of them walked down the path to where it split, turning to follow the fork that went around the west side of the lake. Both monsters waited expectantly as Robert gazed over the lake, water shimmering under the moonlight, as he appeared to gather his thoughts.

“Back when Caroline and I were first married, I didn’t really care about churches or religion or any of that stuff. She always wanted me to go with her to church, but it sounded a waste of time to me. I was pretty sure I was good enough without all that. Sure, I wasn’t perfect, but who was? There were a lot of people much worse than me. I did the best I could, and I was doing fine. At least that’s what I told myself.”

“The truth is, I wasn’t that great a person. Oh, I probably looked OK. Caroline and I looked like a happy couple, we had cute kids, Everything looked fine. But frankly, I was a pretty rotten husband. And not much of a dad either.”

“I was angry.” He turned back to Asgore. His demeanor had grown despondent. “I would get angry all the time. Over the stupidest things. Caroline would say something that irritated me, or one of the kids would do something childish, and I would fly into this rage.” He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. For a moment there was silence as the three of them walked.

“And sometimes I’d come to my senses and say I was sorry, and Caroline and the kids would say it was OK, but you could tell it was affecting them. And sometimes I was too stupid to even do that. I would get mad and stomp off, and then just come back later and pretend nothing had happened. And everyone would just sort of act like everything was fine. But you could tell it was hurting them. And then, there was that day eight years ago…”

Silence again. Robert appeared to be lost in his thoughts.

“Charlotte was going on a hike that morning. Her Girl Scout leader was going to come by and pick her up. She had everything ready, and we had just finished breakfast. And I… “

The tone of Robert’s voice had changed. His breath was becoming hitched. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said “…I was so angry with her.”

He turned to Asgore, the bitter smile on his lips contrasting heavily with the anguish in his eyes. “Do you know why? Do you know what she did to make me furious?”

The king could only mutely shake his head.

“She broke a bowl. That’s all she did. She dropped her cereal bowl as she was taking to the dishwasher, and it shattered, and the pieces went everywhere and the milk splattered on everything and… and I lost it.”

“I yelled at her for making a mess. I told her she ought to have been more careful. I told her she was going to have to pay for it out of her allowance. I told her to get a broom and rag and clean it up and…” Robert’s voice broke. He took several sharp breaths.

Under any other circumstances, Asgore would have put an arm around his shoulder in an attempt to help the distraught father. His own deep sense of guilt made that impossible. When Robert spoke again, his voice was dull and shaky.

“…and I told her that I’d be glad when she left because maybe we’d finally have some peace and quiet. Then I went upstairs, and left Charlotte crying and Caroline to comfort her and take care of the mess that I had made yet again with my stupid temper. A little while later I heard the Girl Scout leader come. I heard her come inside to get Charlotte. And then I heard her drive away. I didn’t even watch my daughter go. And I never saw her again. I never got the chance…”

Again, he broke off. The three of them stopped walking, as Robert shook in quiet agony, breathing raggedly, one hand to his face. Asgore could hardly bear it. The moment was grotesque – how could he possibly console the anguished father beside him when he was the very one who had caused him so much pain? He desperately wanted to offer some words of comfort, but once again his own guilt caused the words to die on his lips. For him to offer any comfort would be obscene. Asgore watched the man next to him in quiet desperation, with no way to help him.

Then, unexpectedly, Asriel came around his father and stepped next the shaking man. Robert, still sniffing, uncovered his face and looked down in surprise as a furry paw took hold of his free hand. Asriel’s green eyes were sympathetic.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Edwards. I know she loved you and would have forgiven you if you had gotten a chance to talk to her again. She would have known that you weren’t always like that, and you had just made a mistake that morning.”

Robert continued to sniff and breathe heavily, but a smile came to his face. “Thank you, Asriel. That is very kind of you to say. When there were times that I got angry but then came to my senses and apologized later, she always did forgive me. She was always so patient and understanding, even as a young girl…”

Robert squeezed Asriel’s paw, and the boy let go. He finished pulling himself together, and the three of them continued around the lake.

“I’m sorry, Asgore, I didn’t tell you that story to bring up your own involvement in it. I don’t need to go into the details of everything that happened after that – the search parties, the posters, the TV interviews. The reason I’m telling you this story is that I want you to understand the guilt that I had afterwards, for years.

He looked at the king. “There was the guilt over my own anger, certainly. The guilt the came with knowing that she would never be able to forgive me. But there was also the guilt of wondering whether maybe, just maybe, she had disappeared because of what I had done. Mt. Ebott is a dangerous place to get lost on. More than one hiker has disappeared up there. Was it possible she wandered off from her troop because she was upset and wanted to be alone? Was is possibly that my actions had ultimately led to her death?”

Robert fell silent again. Awkward or not, Asgore felt that he had to say something.

“Mr. Edwards, I beg you, please do not blame yourself for what happened to Charlotte. You may have become angry with her, but your anger had no bearing on her fate. You and I both know that it was I, not you, who was to blame for what happened after she disappeared.”

He was taking a risk, turning the focus back on himself and his own actions. But Robert did not appear to mind Asgore’s words.

“But you see, Asgore, this is what I was telling you earlier. The difference between your guilt and my guilt is really just one of magnitude. You have your sins to answer for, and I have mine. And in both of our cases, the one who we hurt could not forgive us. I lived with that for about a year. The depression and blackness of that first year almost tore our family apart. But finally, I did something I never expected I would do.” The three of them were on the far side of the lake, with a clear view of the twinkling town beyond. Robert paused and gestured towards the spire in the distance. “I said ‘yes’ to Caroline when she asked me one day if I would come to church with her and the kids. That was the start of something big for me. It took me a long time to accept it, but I slowly started to realize there was a way I could be forgiven after all. A way to get rid of all my guilt.”

There was a change in the tenor of Robert’s voice. It was softer now. Asgore glanced at him. Robert was looking off into the distance towards the town, his eyes still moist and thoughtful, as if reliving that first experience of hopefulness after months of despair.

He turned and resumed walking, with the monsters beside him. He half-turned to Asgore. “You said something interesting earlier. You said you felt like the universe itself couldn’t forgive you for what you’ve done. I would probably put it a little differently. It turns out the important question is not whether the universe can forgive you, but whether the one who made the universe in the first place will forgive you.”

That was an unexpected thought for Asgore. He turned towards Robert, but the man’s eyes had gone back over the cityscape beyond the lake. “It’s his rules that dictate justice, after all. And if he’s really committed to justice, he can’t just ignore what I’ve done. Or what you’ve done for that matter. That’s why you still feel guilty. That’s why you’d still feel guilty even if every one of these meetings of yours had gone perfectly. Justice still has to be served. My debt has to be paid, and so does yours. Completely and in full. No way around it.”

He turned back to Asgore and smiled again. “The good news is, there’s a solution. One he came up with himself. A way to make sure that every evil deed gets the punishment it deserves, while still making it possible for you and me to be forgiven.”

The circuit around the lake was almost complete. The path led away from the lake and turned a corner through a more heavily treed portion of the park. The benches they had occupied were just up ahead.

“Like I say, Asgore, it took me a while to understand what I was hearing there. But I came to realize it was the best news I had ever heard. When the one with the right to judge and punish makes a way for the unforgivable to be forgiven… well, I can’t think of anything kinder that could ever be done for me than that.”

Asgore didn’t know what to say. Robert’s little speech had raised more questions in his mind than answers. As the three of them walked, the wind began to pick up. The unseasonable warmness of the day was gone. Neither Asgore nor Asriel felt the drop in temperature that much, but Robert shivered and tried to pull his coat tighter around him.

“Sorry, do you mind if we go back over to the bench? It’s really starting to get nippy out here.”

“Oh! Certainly”, the king replied. The three of them picked up the pace back to their starting point and squished themselves back into the bench. Earlier in the evening Asgore had wanted to be careful not to do anything that might startle the parent he’d be meeting with, but he sensed that he no longer had to be so cautious.

“Here, please allow me to make you more comfortable,” he said. Without waiting for a reply, the king bent forward and stretched out his arms. His hands began to glow, and suddenly a fireball burst into existence on the path several feet in front of them. Robert yelped and jerked backwards before recovering a moment later.

“Goodness! I knew monsters had magical powers, but I had no idea you could do that.” His eyes were wide as the orange ball of flame danced lazily in front of the bench. The area around the bench began to feel much warmer. “I certainly appreciate it, though.” He looked up and down the pathway. “I just hope nobody else happens to be out for a late-night park stroll tonight. We’d have a bit of explaining to do.”

“How did he solve the problem?” said the king.

It was Robert’s turn to look confused. “Sorry, what?”

“You said the one who made the universe had a way to forgive without punishing and without violating justice. How did he do it?”

“Oh!” Robert shook his head. “No, the punishment still has to come. It just doesn’t come to you.”

“Then… who is punished?”

“He takes the punishment on himself.”

“He… what?”

The intense look was back in Robert’s eyes. “He can do that, you know. I certainly can’t take the punishment for you, and you can’t do that for me. But he can do it.”

Asgore still couldn’t make sense of what he was hearing? “But… but why he do such a thing?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I told you it’s the kindest thing that could ever be done for someone. And that’s the sort of thing that Love does for people.”

Asgore had so many more questions. But before he could ask another, the conversation was interrupted by a poorly-stifled yawn. Asgore looked over. Asriel had been following the conversation closely, but it was clear that being up late two late nights in a row were catching up to him. He looked up at Asgore sheepishly. “Sorry, Dad.”

“No, that’s quite understandable.” Robert stood up from the bench and stretched his back with a sigh. “It’s getting pretty late. But this is a subject I love talking about, and I’d be very happy to speak with you again about it. Oh! I think I might have a card here-“ Robert fumbled with the outer pockets of his coat, didn’t find anything, then reached into one of the inner pockets. “Ah, here’s one! Sorry it’s a little bent up.” He held it out to the king. Asgore took the card in his massive paw and looked at it.

Ebott Valley Community Church
1689 Northampton Rd., Ebott Valley
Pastor Robert Edwards
[email protected]
Sunday services at 11:00AM and 5:30PM
Nursery care provided for children (human and monster) age 4 and under.

“That’s been an interesting challenge,” Robert said, pointing to the last line. “We have to remind some of little Vulkins not to hug the other children, and keep the Pyropes away from the thermostat, and we’ve had to get creative coming up with activities for our armless attenders, but we’re learning as we go. Although I have to say, nothing in my research about monsters prepared me for a visit by, um… well, I hope it’s not impolite to ask, but-” Robert lowered his voice. “Is she actually an airplane?”

There was a muffled snort from the other side of Asgore. Asriel quickly covered his mouth and coughed a few times innocently. Both adults couldn’t help but grin. “Ah, I know whom you are speaking of!” Asgore said. “A pleasant girl once she gets to know you, though perhaps a bit standoffish until then. And… yes, I can understand your dilemma.”

Robert shrugged good-naturedly. “Well, these are good problems to have, and we’re committed to doing what we can to accommodate everyone. Anyway, I do hope you’ll give me a call or e-mail me. I’d be happy to speak with you about this more.”

“Thank you, Mr. Edwards.” Asgore carefully put the card in his coat pocket. “I am not sure I have fully understood what you have said, but… it has given me something to think about.”

“Wonderful! But before we leave tonight,” Robert’s grin was gone, replaced with a more serious expression, “I have one more thing I want to say to you. If you will allow me a bit of formality…”

Robert stood up and stepped over to face the king directly.

“King Asgore Dreemurr,” he said slowly. “I forgive you completely and without reservation for what you did to my daughter Charlotte.”

The king’s eyes widened. He stared at the man and opened his mouth, but no words would come out.

“It’s taken me a long time to get to this point,” Robert continued. “I’ve told you a little of my story, and it hasn’t been easy for Caroline either, or for Charlotte’s brother and sisters.” Robert’s voice was solemn. But there was no trace of anger in his eyes. “We held out hope for a long time that she would be found. That she might show up again one day. We even began to hope that they might find her bo…” He checked himself. “…find something that would give us an answer. Instead, we lived for eight years with nothing.”

Robert’s eyes had been fixed on the king, but now they drifted downwards. “I told you that Charlotte wasn’t the first to disappear on the mountain without a trace. The most obvious explanation was that she had fallen somewhere and died. We hoped her death had been quick and painless. And while that explanation never gave us comfort, it at least gave us some measure of closure. It was a wound that never fully healed, but at least grew to be familiar and manageable.”

“All that changed when the monsters walked out of Mt. Ebott.”

His eyes came back up. “Your people were excited – why shouldn’t they be? They were free from their prison. It didn’t take long for stories to begin to spread about a barrier that had been destroyed with the power of captured human souls.”

Asgore could feel the small body next to him stiffening. Without taking his eyes off the man, he wrapped his arm around Asriel.

“It didn’t seem too far-fetched to deduce where at least one of those souls had come from. So, when your letter arrived, Asgore, it wasn’t as big a shock as it might have been.”

“Mr. Edwards…” Asgore began, but Robert put his hand up.

“No, let me finish, please. As unlikely as it seemed, we had always known it was a possibility that Charlotte may have been intentionally killed. Caroline and I even talked about what would happen if that turned out to be true and if we found the man who had done it. Those conversations weren’t always… pleasant, I have to admit. In fact,” Robert looked uncomfortable, “I put this meeting off for months not just so you would meet the other families first, but because I needed time to prepare myself. Everything we thought we knew about Charlotte’s disappearance had been turned upside down. And once I knew what had really happened to her… well, some of that old anger came back. I started thinking about revenge, I'm ashamed to say.”

“But we’ve talked a lot about forgiveness tonight, haven’t we? I’ve thought about that a lot over the last few months. And when I remembered that every cruel and wicked thing I’ve ever done has been forgiven, even though I didn’t deserve it… well, how could I refuse to do the same for those who had hurt me, especially when they’ve confessed what they had done like you have?”

With that, Robert offered his hand to the king. After a moment, a giant paw gently reached out to grasp it.

“So, I forgive you completely and fully for what you have done, Asgore. I release you from any claims I may have on you. And I will never again hold this against you.”

Asgore stared at the solemn and yet kind eyes looking him. “Thank you, Mr. Edwards”, he said. And then, because he wanted to say more but could think of nothing else to say, “…thank you”, he whispered.

Robert smiled. The man and monster released their hands. “But don’t forget, the forgiveness you get from me and my wife won’t release you from your guilt. You need someone with far more authority than I have to give you that. And I don’t want you to think all your painful memories will go away overnight either. I imagine that will be something you’ll struggle with for the rest of your life. But the actual guilt itself can go away overnight. In fact,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “it can really happen much faster than that.”

And then Robert turned and fixed his gaze on Asriel. He stepped over and once again knelt down to be at eye level with him.

“Prince Asriel,” he said, “have you been able to understand the things that your father and I have talked about tonight?”

“Well…um…” Asriel fidgeted with his sweater as looked up to his father, then back to the man in front of him. “I’m not sure I quite followed everything, and I’m still not totally clear on how that forgiveness you talked about actually works or how you get it… but…” Another glance back to his father. “I think I mostly understood it?”

“I’m glad.” The look on Robert’s face was not what either monster expected. It looked like… pity? sympathy? “Because I have a feeling that what I told your father is something you very much needed to hear as well. It’s possible you might even need it more than your father.”

Asriel’s gasped as his eyes widened. The shock on his face was reflected in Asgore’s expression. “How… how did you…?”

“I have another confession to make to you, Asriel. And to you too, Asgore”. Robert straightened back up. “This is not the first night the three of us have been together. I was actually here in the park last night. I mentioned that yesterday was Charlotte’s birthday, and I had fully intended to use that day to settle this matter between us. I arrived here early and walked around the park a bit to prepare myself for what I would say and… er… do.” His face flushed as his eyes flicked towards his right hip.

“What I hadn’t planned on was your son being with you, Asgore. I saw the two of you as I approached your bench from that direction.” Robert nodded towards the pathway that stretched off to the right, winding through the trees. “I thought that perhaps the prince might eventually say goodbye and leave you alone, so I waited by the trees there, out of sight but still within earshot. And… I’m ashamed to admit, I started eavesdropping.”

Asriel’s discomfort grew visibly worse. As the boy hugged himself, Asgore gently pulled his son closer to himself. Robert sighed and lowered his head.

“I’m certainly not proud of that. I intruded into a very private part of your family history that I had no right to. I sincerely apologize to both of you for that.” He sighed again. “At any rate, what you inadvertently told me last night about yourself, Asriel – about your brother’s death, your own unjust death, your nightmarish life afterwards…” Robert stopped, his eyes unfocused for a moment, as if he was seeing the years of suffering and violence Asriel had described unfold in his mind.

“…I have to admit, I didn’t know what to think. And then you told your father that you were worried that your own presence would anger me. That I would not be able to handle seeing the resurrected son of the one who killed my Charlotte. And when I heard you tell your father that you hoped I would understand… well...”

Robert spread out his hands. “I simply could not continue. It was too much. I needed time to think about everything I had just heard. So, I turned around, walked the long way back around the lake to the entrance so you wouldn’t notice me, and went back home. And then I sent you that text, Asgore. I assumed that if we moved our meeting back a night, we would be able to meet privately.” He smiled ruefully at Asriel. “I guess I was wrong about that.”

“I… I didn’t want my dad to be alone," Asriel said in a small voice.

“You have a kind heart, Prince Asriel. I apologize again for the scare that I put you through. I would not have done it if I’d realized you were right over there by the trees.”

Robert went back down on his knee and fixed Asriel with an intense gaze.

“But in the end, I am very glad you got to hear what I told your father. The forgiveness you are seeking is even more unreachable than what your father wanted, isn’t it?” Asriel’s lip was quivering ever so slightly, but he merely nodded a bit. “I cannot even begin to fathom what magic is involved in the timelines you experienced, or how the effects of what you did can be reversed so completely, but I can at least understand that you feel a tremendous debt of guilt over things that very few people know about and nobody at all remembers. But that forgiveness I spoke about is available to you too, Asriel.”

“But Mr. Edwards, how can that be possible?” With a quick look at his father, Asriel continued “If… if you heard what my dad and I were talking about yesterday, then you know that nobody remembers anything that I did.” He gave his father another worried glance. “Dad doesn’t remember anything. None of the monsters know what I did to them. I can’t really tell them I’m sorry for something they don’t even know about. How can they forgive me?”

Robert didn’t answer right away. “I have to admit, Asriel, that that is a very hard question. I really don’t understand how the events you described could take place and then somehow be erased. I think I’d have to agree with you. None of those monsters can forgive you, because as far as they know, you never did anything to them. But wait, I’m not finished!” Robert said, noticing the discouragement clouding Asriel’s face again. “They’re not the only ones who matter. In fact they’re not even the most important ones to consider. The things that you did, Asriel, haven’t been forgotten by the one who made you and who made the timelines. He sees everything, he judges everything, and he holds you accountable. But he takes special pleasure in forgiving people like you and me. Now it’s true that your memories, like your father’s memories, will not simply be erased. There will still be pain in days to come as you think over what you have done. But it is possible to have that burden of guilt removed from your shoulders. You can be free. Both of you.”

Robert stood back up. Asriel’s lip had stopped quivering, and although his arms were still wrapped around himself, there was something new in his eyes. The look of someone trying to wrap his mind around an entirely new thought and new possibilities.

“I’d love to talk with both of you about this some more. But as grateful as I am for the portable heater you’ve provided,” Robert threw a look at the fireball dancing behind him, “I should be getting back to Caroline and the children. Oh… and I should probably text her first, just to let her know that everything’s done here and that I'm OK. She was rather nervous about me meeting with you, Asgore.”

Asgore blinked in surprise. It had never occurred to him that any of the families he met with would be afraid for their own safety. Robert pulled out his phone, tapped it for a few moments, then replaced it.

“I’m very glad to have met you, your majesty.” Robert stuck his hand out again, and the two monsters stood up. Asgore shook Robert’s hand, then Robert offered his hand to Asriel. “And you too, Prince Asriel. Though I regret the way I learned about your past, it does make me all the more glad that you are yourself once more and with your family again.”

Asriel shook the man’s hand, but the words stirred up a measure of unease in Asgore once again. The miracle of Asriel’s restoration only highlighted how the Edwards family had received no such gift. Robert seemed to sense Asgore’s discomfort however, as he turned back to the king.

“I believe that I will see my daughter again one day, Asgore. And although the pain of her loss may never completely be healed in this life, I meant it when I said I will not hold it against you. That’s a promise.”

He stuck his hands in his coat pocket. “I told you earlier that there was a way to end this meeting that I would find very satisfying. And it would be for me to find out that you Asgore, and you, Asriel, have learned what I learned long ago. Freedom from guilt and evil doesn’t come cheap. But if someone else pays the price, you can have it free of charge. There is a way you can be free. And I would be very happy if you tell me that you’ll at least just think about it.”

Asgore opened his mouth, then stopped. He turned and looked down. And as his eyes met the soft green eyes of his dear son, he saw something in them he had not seen since his Asriel had been reborn. The first inklings of hope, rising from the ashes of brokenhearted guilt and despair.

“I can promise you that we will, Mr. Edwards. I… we would like to hear more about this.”

“Wonderful! Then I look forward to hearing from you soon. Perhaps you can come and meet Caroline and the children sometime. The kids get so excited meeting monster children.”

“We would greatly enjoy that.”

The two adults shook hands once again, and with a wave to Asriel, Robert Edwards began walking back down the path that led out of the park. The two monsters watched him as he left. He turned as he passed through the main gate and, with a final wave, he was gone. Asgore extinguished the fireball on the path with a gesture, then ruffled the fur on his son’s head. “Well, Asriel, let’s get you home”, he said with a smile.

His son was in noticeably better spirits, Asgore noticed, as they walked towards the tree line. The dejected boy who had trudged through the woods earlier, head down and sniffling, was gone. In his place was a boy with a lighter step, head up, eyes thoughtful and bright.

“You seem to be in a much better mood, Asriel. Are you glad it’s finally over?”

“Oh!” Asriel turned to look at his father. “Well… yeah, I guess that’s part of it. I was worried what was going to happen at the beginning, but Mr. Edwards seemed to take it pretty well. But…” His words drifted off.

Asgore waited.

“I guess what he said to me made me feel… I don’t know, hopeful or something. Like, maybe I won’t always have to…” Again he trailed off.

“Like you won’t always have to feel bad because of what Flowey did?”

“Yeah – well, no, not exactly – I mean…” Asriel tried again. “When I was Flowey, Dad, and I was doing all those things to hurt you and everyone else, I knew I shouldn’t have been doing it. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I just didn’t care. But when I became me again, and when I got my soul back, the memory of everything I had done, and all the pain I had caused, just about killed me again. You remember that first day, right? And you saw what I was like last night. And I couldn’t tell anybody but Frisk and Mom and you, because nobody would have any idea what I was talking about. I was just going to have to live with the guilt forever.”

“But…” Asriel continued “…but if I understand what Mr. Edwards said, maybe I don't have to. I won’t have to pretend what I did wasn't awful, but… maybe I won’t have to have the guilt hanging over me. Maybe I’ll be able to move on. I don’t really quite get it yet, but…” Asriel turned his eyes to Asgore again. “Do you think he’s right, Dad? Do you think that stuff about forgiveness is true?”

Asgore was quiet for a moment. There was so much he still didn’t know. So much of what he had heard that evening was completely new to him. But if Robert himself could forgive the one who had hurt his family so much… maybe that pointed to the possibility of a forgiveness even greater than that.

“To be honest, I don’t know for sure, son. I certainly hope so.”

“Well… do you think we might get to talk to him again sometime?”

“I think so. It sounded like he would enjoy that as well”.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Asgore was amazed how much lighter his own heart felt. It wasn’t just because he had finished his confessions to the six families. It wasn’t even that he had actually received forgiveness from one of them. The same hopefulness he had recognized in his son’s eyes had begun to beat in his own heart. Maybe there was still something that could be done.

The twinkling lights of Toriel’s house appeared through the branches, a soft glow that invited both of them. It was evident someone had been keeping vigil at the window, because the back door was thrown open even before the two of them stepped out of the woods. Asriel broke into a run towards the motherly figure standing there, arms open wide, while Asgore smiled and continued his unhurried pace. There would be time on his walk back home to think over the events of the evening again. But this was a moment he been anticipating for months - the day he could tell Toriel that it was finally over. The relief he could give her now that the danger of retribution was gone at last. The sad farewell letter sitting on his kitchen table that he could finally destroy, knowing Toriel would never have to read it. And now… perhaps a chance to move on from the greatest mistake of his life. To see if another barrier could be torn down. To see if what was broken could be mended. To see if the eyes now looking up from Asriel towards him, gentle and no longer filled with anger or revulsion, might one day reflect the type of forgiving spirit he had thought he would never experience until that evening.

Was it really possible? Could there really be a way to move on free and unhindered by the past?

He had no idea whether what had been offered to him and Asriel that night was really true. But he desperately hoped that it was. For both of their sakes.

And he was determined to find out.