Chapter Text
The White Palace
There was a point in one's life when you must force yourself to look back, look at all the decisions you made, and ask yourself 'Did I do the right thing?'
'Did the end justify the means?'
'There wasn't another way? Or was it me who didn't look for better alternatives?'
'Was the suffering I caused worth it?'
...' Would I do it again if I had to?'
The King of Hallownest would like to say that no, that he would have done things differently if he had been given the chance before the Shade Lord stepped in and solved his problems. He would like to say that, knowing who out of all his children the 'Pure' Vessel was, he would have treated the rest of his children like that, as his. He would've fulfilled his beloved's dream of being a mother and being the best possible father for his babies that he could be.
But that would be a lie.
Ambrosia knows himself well enough to admit that nothing would have changed, his kingdom always came first, the children he threw into the void... no matter how many doubts there were before that, he didn't see them as the babies they were once they emerged, he saw them as failures, he saw their will as an error, he saw their innocence as a mistake, he let them down in more ways than one.
(The sound of their masks breaking as they fell back into the Abyss kept him awake for weeks after he pushed them down, and it wouldn't let him sleep again now that he understood his mistakes, he doubted it would ever let him sleep again, and he deserved nothing less).
A part of him wondered and feared if it would have been easier a second time, if he would have hesitated less if he would have been crueler, so many 'what ifs' but he never expected to get answers and he would never want to get answers to it, but it seemed that destiny had a way of giving answers to those kind of questions.
Initially, when he learned of the existence of other Vessels in his kingdom, ones not created by him, he had many questions and concerns, although he did not hesitate to provide his best knights to help in the recovery and safety of these Vessels, the mystery of their origin prevailed, one would need to be very foolish or very desperate to steal from the Void after all...
It only took a few hours for the Vessels to be safely in the Abyss, as Hallow and Ghost later told him, all of their past injuries and minor deformities had been repaired, whatever that meant. He also learned that they were gendered Vessels, similar to his little Hornet.
(The next day the leader of the Miners would come to report how one of those Vessels devoured and mutilated several other miners, knowing that not even the King himself could do anything against the God of Gods and his children, she only requested that said Vessel be kept away from Crystal Peak, many other miners did not have her common sense and would attack if they saw him there again).
It wasn't until these Vessels began exploring his kingdom, and Ghost informed him of where these children even came from that he got the whole picture of the situation. His two children sat him down and began to explain the impossible to him. The idea of different Universes wasn't that hard for him to accept, as a Wyrm, being able to see other futures -or maybe they were always other worlds- was as easy as breathing, or it was until he took a smaller form to rule Hallownest.
But accepting and understanding were two different things, he had seen and prevented horrible futures many times, knowing now that there was a universe where the opposite outcome came true out there was heartbreaking, so many 'what ifs' had become a reality from one moment to another.
The concepts of Multiverse, Creators, the knowledge that Shade Lord was the apparent creator of this Multiverse and had... given it away to another Goddess to run it and never looked back... that was harder to accept, much less understand, why would he do that?
At least he didn't have to worry about anyone from his world invoking the wrath of the God of Gods, and that was the only positive thing he could think of as he found out more and more about these Vessels' past living situation, even if it was clearly the abridged version approved by Shade Lord, it still painted a dire picture.
Ghost didn't try to sugarcoat the situation and he was grateful for that, though there was little he could do to help right now, but when -not if- the ones who hurt these Vessels so much came for them, he promised that his Knights would be on hand to fight them off if it comes down to it.
And that was all the interactions he had expected with these new Vessels, simple second-hand information and perhaps a few distant sightings if they used the Stag Station next to the palace. So, it came as a surprise when one of his servants informed him one day that a different Vessel was accompanying Hallow and was asking to see him.
And the answers to questions he never wanted an answer to were given to him.
.
.
.
If it wasn't for the feeling of Void surrounding him, the Vessel in front of him could have passed as a simple hybrid between a mantis and an ant; it was wearing a threadbare garment, to say the least, an old thing held together by sheer force of will, a stark contrast to Hallow's flawless garment and not something he ever believed the Shade Lord would let his children wear, so it must be something the child chooses to use for some reason.
For an indeterminate time, they just stared at each other, Ambrosia unable to decipher the Vessel's carefully blank expression, but he felt as if the Vessel were searching for something in him. Hallow had moved to a corner of the room as soon as he entered and seemed in no hurry to break the silence.
Ultimately, it seemed that he had found something, because the Vessel was the first to speak, or rather, to ask: "Is what I have been told about you true?"
He knew better than pretending not to understand what he meant by that question, there were very few things that could have been said to him that would give him reasons to want to see him in person. "Unfortunately, yes, it would all be true, I dare say that what they told you does not cover the totality of my sins."
He expected many reactions to his revelation, most of them involving the violence that Vessels seemed so prone to when outside of the Abyss.
What he got was worse, the Vessel looked at him with understanding, as if it knew perfectly well what he had done, as if it could see the sins that he dragged behind him, and a familiar ache began in his heart at what that implied.
"...What did you do little one?"
Instead of answering right away, he just turned his gaze to Hallow. "Could you leave us alone for a while? I really prefer to have this conversation in private." Ah, so his suspicion was unfortunately correct.
A bit of hesitation later, the room was only left with Ambrosia and the Vessel, they were silent for a moment after hearing the door close before the king invited the young Vessel to sit with him.
The silence stretched out as she poured tea, the Vessel (He really needed to ask for his name) had taken on a glazed look, lost in his memories for a few minutes until the teacup was in his hands. "How much did they tell you about where we came from?"
"I was briefed on you and your siblings being from a completely different Multiverse, that you were sent by a being similar to the Shade Lord to protect you, for obvious reasons I wasn't given any details about your pasts outside of the fact that all you were hurt by many in that place."
"My brothers were hurt; I was the one who hurt others." It was the closest his companion had come to shouting in their short conversation, and a part of Ambrosia told him that it wasn't normal for that to happen. "You want to know what I did? I murdered everyone, acquaintances, friends, the king I swore loyalty to, the first Monster I've called brother! I did it over and over, and then I dared to act like I was the victim when they started remembering what I did!"
The words were spoken with such certainty and hatred that Ambrosia didn't doubt that the young man beside him believed them true. As strange, and terrifying, as the idea of killing the same people over and over again sounded, he hoped he was exaggerating.
He wasn't.
What seemed like years of pent-up hatred and guilt were released, all directed at the young one beside him, confession after confession of crimes that any common bug would find reprehensible, and any void being would find a way to justify.
The Pale King made none, offered no comfort or excuses, but neither did he voice judgment and accusation, allowing the young Vessel to release all the self-hatred that had weighed on him more than his family realized.
No, what the young Vess —what Dust needed right now were not nice words to take the weight off his actions, nor reproaches for something he already knew, that what he did was unforgivable and undeniable. What he needed was to let it all out with someone who understood what it was like to do horrible things and wouldn't condemn nor pamper him. The reasons behind those actions didn't matter, not for now.
From one monster to another, the King of Hallownest sat in silence and learned about the Resets, while the Genocidal of hundreds of timelines broke his mask of indifference.
"I ignored it for a long time, Mama made it easy to forget all the bad I did and just focus on the bad they did to me, Papyrus wasn't like Cross' Chara, she couldn't just seal him and be done with it, but I could go months without hearing his voice or seeing him out of the corner of my eye, it was easy to pretend that... that I didn't enjoy killing them all by the end of my time there."
That day he got answers to his questions, he realized how easy it would have become to hurt his children if he had been given a second chance before understanding the futility of his actions; he heard about the hallucination of the first brother, always on his shoulder repeating how horrible Dust was for continuing his life among victims when he was nothing more than a victimized.
.
.
"Mama always said I only did what I had to do, what I thought was right, but what does it matter why I started doing that thing when in the end I was just doing it for the euphoria of having no consequences? How was I better than the very devil that started it all?"
If you repeat a bad but 'justified' action hundreds of times, you will eventually either forget why you felt bad about it or become the very thing you were trying to stop by doing it.
"I stopped being Sans the first time I pointed my Blasters at innocents and started a Genocide to 'stop' another one, but I didn't get the name Dust until everyone regained their memories..."
Actions that were so horrible that those who knew you needed to call you something else because it's too painful to think about who you used to be and who you are now.
"And I don't get it, why can't they see it? I'm not like them, Hunter and Chrome were betrayed by the ones they trusted, Night murdered his abusers, Eclipse never had a choice about who he killed, and not even Mellow, who I have the most in common with, is like me because they all turned against him was for things completely out of his control!"
All the time he talked, no tears were shed, but Dust's voice sounded awfully close to doing so as he ended his rant.
"And me? I decided to do the same as that damn human, I gave the action without consequences a try, and in the end, there were two demons in the Underground instead of one, how could they look at me, know what I did and still call me their brother when I'm no different from those who hurt them? How am I supposed to live with that? How do you live with what you did?"
And wasn't that the million-geo question? Most days Ambrosia also didn't know how he could continue living as if he hadn't sacrificed his children to try and save his kingdom, as if he hadn't taken one of them to try in vain to make them a vessel for a plan doomed to fail.
So, the Pale King could only answer with one question.
"Will you do it again, hurt everyone you love like you did before?"
"OF COURSE NOT!" Dust looked at him horrified at his words.
"Then that's all you can do now. To make up for what you did? There's nothing you can do in this life or the next except stay out of the lives of those you hurt, you can't do anything about the way others see you either, if your siblings have decided that despite the horrible things you did you are one of them, then you are."
He took a deep breath to find the right words for what he wanted to say. He felt like a hypocrite for basically telling Dust the equivalent of "get on with your life; there's nothing you can do about the horrors you've already done," so he tried to take another angle.
"You and I understand why our reasons don't justify all the damage we cause, we know that those affected by it have every right to hate us for the rest of their lives... but you seem to forget that your brothers are not your victims, to them your initial reasons are more important than the results. And maybe that doesn't sound right, maybe a part of you wants them to see you the way you want, but that's not how the world works."
"...However, Hallow seems to have forgiven you, even when they're your victim." Was the reply, but it sounded more like a last futile attempt to continue drowning in his self-hatred. It was understandable, and in his opinion, even respectable, but Ambrosia also knew that leaving it like that would only make the problem grow until it exploded at the worst moment.
"And there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thankful for the chance to still have them in my life alongside Ghost, but I also wouldn't have blamed them if they had never forgiven me or wanted me in their lives, you mentioned a couple of times during your rant that the inhabitants of your world took your actions worse than those of this 'human', am I right?"
The silence was all the answer he needed.
"Hallow forgave me, because they know me, in their own 'words' they saw firsthand how much my decisions and sacrifices weighed on me, I was the first father they knew and loved to the point that they raised their sword against the God of Gods to protect me, they knew me and that's why they found in themselves the power to forgive me."
"..."
"The people you hurt knew you, not the human, when they got all the alternate timeline memories, they didn't see your reasons, they saw your actions, they saw their neighbor, their friend, their brother killing them, they saw you breaking their trust over and over again with less and less remorse, so they couldn't find in them to hear you, much less forgive you."
And finally, the tears did appear, there was no great outburst of sobs, they just fell silently from the now exhausted face of his guest, and feeling it was appropriate, Ambrosia took his arm and led him back to the armchair where the conversation began.
"Tell me what's on your mind young one."
"...It feels unfair, that they were left behind in a Multiverse destined to die, while I have gained a new chance at happiness, a new family, and only this cursed jacket as a reminder of what I've done." He said grabbing the torn garment. "I feel like if I take it off, if I change it and leave it behind like my brothers have already done with their old outfits I would be spitting on their suffering."
"Mmm, I can't speak for them or what would they think, but I don't believe what you're doing is helping anyone, you moving forward doesn't lessen or increase their suffering, you're now an entire Multiverse away from everything you knew... Tell me Dust, what can you do now except live?"
There was no answer to that and Ambrosia didn't expect there to be, these doubts and guilt weren't going to go away in a conversation, but he hoped they were a start to diminish them, forgetting wasn't an option but blinding oneself to a past that couldn't be changed was just as bad in his experience.
"For now, start small. You don't have to leave the jacket; you don't have to pretend that nothing happened. For now, let's just start with your name." Shade Lord would not let him keep a name with as many bad memories behind it as his own. "Who are you?"
"...Ash, my name is Ash now but... can I still be Dust with you?"
"Of course you can. You may not be my son, but my doors are as open to you as they are to Hallow and Ghost. Whenever you need advice or just someone to listen to what you don't think the Abyss can understand, I will be here."
"...Thank you".
And that was the last thing that was said that day, their attentions returned to the forgotten cups of tea, a comfortable silence was shared until Hallow returned, and after a brief farewell, they both returned to the Abyss.
Someday Ambrosia would look back on that day and realize that it was the beginning of a very unexpected but wonderful friendship, but for now, his being felt a little lighter than that morning even with the devastating answers he had gotten to his questions.
The day seemed a bit brighter too.
Voidverse, Undertale (A few months after Ink and Sans's first "meeting")
As had become customary ever since his Mother had let them know of her plans, Sans stood at the Underground Exit, waiting for Ink.
It had only taken that pest a month before he tried to enter his home again, contaminating everything with his voidless being, he hadn't even had to pretend his reluctance to let him come near him, and he would have gladly attacked him until he understood the point, but his feelings weren't more important than the plan.
Though he could reluctantly admit as well that it had become easier and easier to ignore the lack of void and at least Ink seemed halfway competent at respecting boundaries when given them, small victories.
Or maybe what made it easier was that Ink only seemed interested in learning more about his Mother at the moment, and like everyone else in Undertale, Sans was happy to talk about his Creator non-stop, barely having to censor himself from letting slip something Ink wasn't supposed to know yet.
Sometimes it was even easy to forget who he was talking to, and what the other skeleton represented, on one specific occasion he even found herself comforting him after he told him about the "Destroyer" and all the creations he had "corrupted" just because of how shattered he had sounded for a being with almost no soul.
If it weren't for the constant reminders that Ink was still the son of the one who stole his Mother's Multiverse and had harmed his step-siblings for years, he would have almost felt bad for playing with his feelings like this.
"Sans! Sorry I'm late, but some Universes disappeared before I went in here, which reminded me that there's something very important I need to ask you about your Creator that can't wait any longer."
But he had promised to do this, to kill two birds with one stone, to force Ink to open his eyes and pave the way for his Mother to the Thief Goddess' hideout.
That other God of the Void and his world could take care of what was left of Ink and his minions.
For now, Sans prepared himself for the show of his life, taking every good moment he had in the past few months with this Creator and burying them deep within himself, instead holding onto every negative feeling and embracing them waiting for what was to come.
It was time to tie up the last few loose ends in his Mother's plan.