Tiny Raven

“Why won’t this Greene guy answer his DAMN COMM!?”

Frisk jumped awake at the angry shout, heart pounding in her chest and magic flaring to life at her fingertips, anxiety molding it to form.

As the words echoed in the cargo hold her panic faded, smothered under a blanket of alert calm and awareness.

Some of the crew were on the ship, mere meters away from her.

Frisk crept to the hatch of her hiding place, peeking through the small gap she had left to keep the small compartment from being in complete darkness.

She didn’t dare hope for a glimpse of the crew from her vantage point, but she needed whatever information she could get.

“PERHAPS HE IS BUSY,” a second voice suggested. This one was louder than the first, but it lacked the vitriol.

Both were modulated, artificially masked and anonymized. Only tone and volume were preserved.

“Busy with what?!” the angry voice demanded. “Does he think we’re just some punks he can yank around?”

“prob’ly,” a third voice said, soft and much calmer than the others. It sounded almost bored. “he seemed real interested in gettin’ his hands on this stuff, but maybe he’s so rich that the half up front was pocket change. you know how these central planet folk are.”

“NGAAAAAH!” Angry shouted, the modulation crackling at the sheer volume of their rage. Frisk flinched away from the hatch, reflexively hiding further in the shadows, away from the primal fury Angry radiated. “SO WHAT!? You’re saying we’re just STUCK HERE until he decides to SHOW UP?!”

“pretty much,” the softer voice said, apparently unfazed. “we don’t got much’ve a choice. they ain’t gonna just let us leave. ‘specially not with all this.”

“Well this SUCKS!” A metallic thunk echoed through the hold, punctuating the words. “Fine. FINE! You two, keep trying to get a hold of Greene. Find him, whatever it takes.”

“y’got it, gills.”

“AYE AYE, CAPTAIN!”

Steps echoed through the hold, some going out of the ship, some going further into it. Frisk held herself perfectly still until silence fell again, broken only by the sounds of the active dock outside.

‘What did you notice?’ Chara asked. They appeared as Frisk returned to the corner of the smuggler’s hold, sitting cross-legged with datapad in hand to record every movement Frisk made.

‘I thought we were done with these tests,’ Frisk said.

The AI said nothing as they sat across from her, watching her with judgement in their eyes.

Frisk shuddered under the weight of their scrutiny.

‘Their speech was modulated,’ she said with a sigh, falling into familiar habit. She closed her eyes to block out what little visual distraction there was, focusing entirely on the brief conversation as she replayed it in her mind. ‘They’re either armored or they don’t speak baseline.’

The latter was possible, but highly unlikely. As far as shew as aware, baseline was the primary language spoken throughout the system. Someone would have had to live entirely off-grid, with no interaction with anyone from the larger system, in order to not learn it. A heretic, a survivalist, an individualist …

Not someone who would be traveling the system on a spaceship.

‘Assuming the former, as it’s the most likely: They don’t trust something about the docks. It could be the workers, the AI, Yggdrasil or AllFather … Honestly it could be Huginn itself. The softer voice mentioned the ‘central planets’. They’re probably from a more distant colonies. Might be heretics, but it’s impossible to know.’

Frisk paused, to gather her scattered thoughts and observations.

‘The soft voice mentioned being unable to leave with their cargo. It’s likely some sort of controlled substance. It could be agricultural, industrial, even some sort of pharmaceutical. The amounts are wholesale, if we assume that’s the only thing out there. There’s a possibility of other goods, but it didn’t sound like that was the case.’

It was a lot more conjecture and assumption than Frisk was comfortable with, but Chara simply nodded to encourage her to continue.

‘They were paid up front, which was significant for them but possibly not for their buyer. Whoever they were supposed to meet with never showed. I … missed the name.’

She flinched as she said the last words, but Chara simply supplied the name.

‘Greene.’

It sounded familiar, although Frisk couldn’t place it. It didn’t match any of the Cloister researchers. The number of employees within the sterile halls of the laboratory had never been more than a few hundred, and she had interacted with all of them at least once.

And Chara never let her forget a face.

‘Frisk?’ the AI prompted, bringing her wandering thoughts back to the task at hand.

Her report.

‘There were three distinct voices,’ Frisk said after a moment to remember where she had left off. ‘I’ll call them Angry, Loud, and Soft. Angry sounded like they were in charge – they gave orders to the other two at the end and Loud referred to them as ‘Captain’. They were annoyed because they’re currently stuck – ‘

Frisk’s thoughts hit a wall at the word.

Chara hadn’t been testing her out of habit.

The AI had been trying to lead her to a realization.

‘The ship can’t leave Huginn. They’re stuck here.’

Which meant she was trapped, too.

‘The way they talked about getting paid … ’ Frisk faltered, swallowing around a lump that had filled her throat. The small smuggler’s hold was suddenly suffocating, its walls closing in on her. She closed her eyes against it, trying to breathe through the oppressive claustrophobia.

It was only a matter of time before Allfather placed some sort of public reward for her return. She was too valuable to just … disappear.

Chara was too valuable.

It was only a matter of time before she was found and returned to the Cloister.

Her anxiety snapped as a wave of fatigue washed over her, overpowering the fear and loosening the tight ball she had curled into.

‘We’ll figure it out,’ Chara said as Frisk felt herself drifting to unconsciousness. ‘Conserve your energy, in case something happens.’

Frisk nodded, her head bobbing heavily under the weight of the bone-deep fatigue.

She curled around her stolen sweater, her back against the wall of the smuggler’s hold. She glanced at the thin stream of light from the hatch, watching it blur and vanish as her exhaustion swelled and she was dragged to unconsciousness.

☆ ☆ ☆

Sans lay on his bunk, datapad hovering above his head in a cloud of blue magic as he scrolled through the information Dings had sent.

“you sure this ain’t some runaway kid?” Sans asked as he read through the search queries the human had made. “we ain’t gonna get in trouble for soul traffickin’ or anything?”

“I am not familiar enough with human biology to rule it out entirely,” Wing Dings said. “But the grammar and spelling indicate someone with some education. And they appear to be at least an adolescent.” More information appeared on the datapad with a soft beep. He scrolled through the models of standard biometrics for humans on Huginn, which the AI had helpfully compared to his own guess from the few moments he’d had the human on camera. “My estimation of their age places them between sixteen and twenty.”

Still a kid, but one old enough to make their own decisions. Old enough to understand what an identification check was. Old enough to know what credits were, and how to both earn and use them.

The search queries made no sense.

“There is a notable lack of missing person reports that match this human’s description. Those are usually released quickly, especially when a young child is missing.”

Which meant no one was looking for this kid.

That was good enough for Sans. Aside from the ability to sneak through Wing Ding’s defenses, Sans saw no danger from the human, and everything else painted a picture of something being very wrong.

They seemed to want the same thing – to get off of Huginn.

“keep an eye on them,” Sans said. “keep me posted.”

“Agreed,” Wing Dings said. “It appears we have a guest approaching. I believe Aleister Greene has finally made his appearance. Papyrus is on his way to greet him.”

“we’d best be goin’ to meet up with him, too,” Sans said as he opened a book on his datapad and shifted to get more comfortable on his bunk. “would be a damn shame to keep him waiting.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Frisk walked behind the researcher, eyes cast down and two steps behind. The white hallway of the Cloister stretched on for an eternity, marked only by a series of endless white doors.

“Chara?” she called out, confused.

There was no answer, and the realization that she was in a dream settled on Frisk like a physical weight.

The knowledge held no comfort in it.

Lucid or not, a nightmare was still a nightmare.

The AI wouldn’t be able to hear her. It was a strange quirk, that Frisk’s dreams were the one thing inaccessible to her mental companion.

She was alone.

The researcher walked, a dark shifting shadow in a crisp white lab coat. In one hand they held a datapad covered in indecipherable text. Their features were an ever shifting, indistinguishable mess.

They didn’t react to her shout.

Frisk was dragged along behind them, unable to stop her feet from taking one obedient step after another. Unable to do anything but continue forward.

Frisk clenched her fists and closed her eyes.

The white tile gave way to sharp, uneven gravel, and Frisk opened her eyes to find herself in a new location.

The Arena.

In reality the room was thirty-five meters by twenty, with walls six meters tall, which never failed to make Frisk feel small and isolated.

Here, in her dream, the room expanded into the shadows, leaving her standing in front of the two stories of observation windows, tiny and insignificant. Thick glass obscured the researchers in the rooms beyond. Silhouettes lined the windows, human-shaped but blurred beyond recognition. She could feel their eyes on her, could imagine the datapads in their hands.

Drones hummed around her, unseen but audible, filming every movement she made, documenting it for further research.

She shrank under the scrutiny.

Then movement on the second floor caught her attention, and Frisk’s stomach twisted in dread.

A figure stood, towering over his coworkers. Frisk knew he wouldn’t have a datapad like the others, his gloved hands held neatly behind his back instead as he watched her impassively.

All nightmares needed a boogeyman.

Frisk’s vision turned until Doctor Calibri’s silhouette was the only thing she could see. She feared if she looked away, if she dared to even blink, that he would disappear.

And the only thing worse than looking him dead in the eye was knowing he was around and not knowing where.

Frisk’s heart pounded in her chest as she tried to take small, deep breaths, as she tried to control the way her body trembled. She fought the urge to run, to scream, to hide.

Defiance only made things worse.

There was nowhere for her to run to, anyway.

Not with him watching her.

He remained where he was, looming and still.

“1215,” he said, voice mechanical and robotic through his modulator. “Begin test.”

Frisk’s heart pounded painfully in her chest as her blood ran cold. She tried to steel herself against whatever was to come. Above her the drones hummed louder, the unseen cameras focusing in on her as she stood frozen in the Arena’s center.

The ground began to shake.

Frisk stumbled, losing her balance as she tore her eyes from the doctor to the gravel floor.

The room was … changing.

Frisk jumped, dodging sharp rock spears as they shot from the ground, stumbling to keep her feet under her as the room restructured itself.

She tried to steady herself as the rock formations grew taller and more perilous. Spires and points burst from the ground, threatening to impale her. Huge cracks split the floor, threatening to plunge her into their depths.

Frisk jumped and scrambled, desperately trying to calculate her next move, but without Chara she was left to her own slow reaction time.

As suddenly as the destruction had begun it stopped, and the air settled around her like a heavy blanket. She looked up, only to see him walking toward her. He seemed to float over the uneven ground, each step sure and steady as though he walked across the smoothest tile.

A crushing tightness bloomed in the center of her chest, a physical weight that dragged her to the ground. Her knees scraped against the sharp rocks, bruising and scraping. She  threw her hands out to stop herself from completely collapsing, wincing as the gravel tore into the flesh.

“Test failed,” he said as he loomed over her.

The simple words stopped Frisk’s struggle, freezing her to her very core. She closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up.

Finger – too many fingers – twined through her hair, dragging her upward to meet the doctor’s eyes behind his mask. Then fingers wound around her neck, lifting her until he was holding her by her throat.

Frisk struggled, trying to fight back, her fingers digging into the arm of his coat, desperately clawing at him to release her.

He laughed at her efforts.

She was suffocating, her chest blooming with pain as she fought for air, fought to pull away from him. His grip was too strong, tight enough that Frisk swore she could feel him crushing her windpipe. Her limbs were too heavy, too slow to respond to her commands.

I refuse to die here.

With one last burst of adrenaline and determination she threw everything she had into a single magic attack. Knife-like magic bullets, scarlet red and pulsing with magic –

☆ ☆ ☆

– materialized at her fingertips.

“MISTER GREEN! HOW WONDERFUL TO FINALLY MEET YOU IN PERSON!”

Frisk threw her arm out as she bolted upright and awake. The sharp blades of bright magic flew toward the shout, the desperate attempt to defend herself from the Doctor’s attack.

Too late she realized where she was. Too late she remembered that she had escaped.

That the threat she had been facing was all in her head.

Two of the bullets hit the bulkhead wall, pinging off the metal in bursts of red starlight. The sound rang like a thunderclap in her ears, loud and unmistakable.

“I must speak with your captain.”

Frisk held her breath, desperately hoping that her luck would hold, that her magic hadn’t been noticed.

“I AM AFRAID THE CAPTAIN IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE,” Loud said.

‘Frisk,’ Chara said. They appeared beside her, reaching out to lay a phantom hand on her shoulder. ‘You were casting in your sleep. I couldn’t wake you.’

Her stomach clenched, and for a moment Frisk thought she was going to throw up.

It was too much.

“Well, I am afraid I can’t solve our ‘problem’ until I speak with them.”

‘What?’ Frisk asked as her mind spiraled.

Concerns about being noticed became worries about casting in her sleep, what that could mean.

“THE CAPTAIN IS BUSY,” Loud repeated, somehow raising their voice even louder. They spoke slowly, enunciating each word as clearly as possible. “TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT. I WILL TELL YOU IF WE ARE AMENABLE TO ANOTHER DEAL.”

‘You  were casting in your sleep,’ Chara repeated. ‘I couldn’t wake you.’

“This isn’t a matter for – !”

“MISTER GREENE,” Loud said with an authority that made Frisk cringe further into the shadows of the smuggler’s hold. “I BELIEVE YOU WILL FIND THAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE SOMETHING FOR YOU! SOMETHING YOU HAVE YET TO REIMBURSE US FOR! YOU ARE THE ONE IN THE RED, NOT US.”

Frisk wrapped her arms around herself, barely keeping herself from whimpering. The voice was too close to the doctor’s cold authority. Panic overtook her, rational thoughts banished from her mind.

The voice dropped slightly, becoming an over-exaggerated whisper, “YOU DO NOT WANT TO BECOME KNOWN AS A CHEAT, DO YOU, MISTER GREENE?”

The unsaid threat hung in the air of the cargo hold.

“Fine,” the unmodulated voice spat, breaking Frisk from her spiral with its sheer disrespect. No one would ever speak to the doctor – to any of the researchers so … so petulantly.

It was just enough to remind her where she was.

“I require the schematics to your ship and access to search it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Once a thorough search is completed to my satisfaction I will sign the paperwork and pay the remainder of my debt, and you will be free to leave.”

The brief respite crashed and Frisk deflated, her tense emotions snapping and leaving her exhausted.

It was over. Even if she hadn’t been found yet, she certainly would be if the ship was searched.

“AND WHY DO YOU NEED TO SEARCH OUR SHIP?” Loud demanded.

Frisk couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘To find me.’

It didn’t matter why Greene needed the ship to be searched. If it was, she would be found. If she was found, she would be returned to the Cloister.

And her nightmare would pale in comparison to reality.

Her only chance was hoping she could hide herself better. Her best chance for that would be to conserve her energy.

“A student has gone missing from my school. It is possible she found her way aboard a ship in these docks.”

Frisk knew she should be more surprised that he was actually looking for her, or that he had decided to depict her as a missing student.

Instead all she could do was stare at her hands, defeated and hopeless.

“It shouldn’t take long,” Greene continued. “With a ship this size and the assistance of your crew, I doubt it will take longer than a few hours.”

Her hands were shaking.

‘Aleister Greene,’ Chara said, drawing Frisk’s attention to them. The AI pointed toward the cargo bay. ‘That’s who’s speaking to Loud.’

Frisk frowned.

‘His name sounds familiar,’ she admitted. ‘But I can’t place it.’

“I SEE,” Loud said. “SO YOU ARE SEARCHING ALL THE SHIPS IN PORT.”

“Yes,” Greene confirmed.

‘He’s the “Father of the Huginn Sanctuary” and the first – and so far, only – headmaster of the Huginn Seminary,’ Chara supplied. ‘The Sanctuary seems to be a boarding home for orphaned children. The Seminary is a secondary school that prioritizes children from the Seminary.’ They shook their head. ‘I have no memory of him’

‘I must have met him before I met you, then.’

“there’s no need to search,” Soft said. “just ask the ai.”

Frisk stilled as she processed the words. She turned to Chara, her eyes wide with surprise and renewed fear.

‘I thought you said there was no AI!’

‘I didn’t think there was … !’

There wasn’t enough time to prepare. Frisk’s magic was thin and thready after her unintentional casting. After she had been casting in her sleep.

‘One problem at a time, Frisk.’

“hey, wings. there any missin’ students aboard?”

Frisk tensed, bracing against the words that would condemn her back to the Cloister and its endless white halls.

“No.”

The word rang out clear and decisive.

Frisk thought she might pass out.

“STRAIGHT AND TO THE POINT!” Loud said, voice full of approval. “VERY GOOD, WING DINGS! WELL, THERE YOU HAVE IT, MISTER GREENE; YOUR MISSING STUDENT IS NOT ON BOARD.”

“assumin’ that’s to yer satisfaction, of course,” Soft said.

“I-I will need to see proper documentation that I am speaking with an approved, licensed security AI. But with that … yes. That would suffice.”

“so we get you the proper paperwork, and then we can go?”

“Yes,” Greene said.

Frisk stared at the hatch in exhausted disbelief. She felt detached, weightless and empty. She didn’t have the mental energy to celebrate her good luck.

“bones, go tell gills and the doc that we need wing ding’s paperwork. have ‘em forward it t’my pad. then get all this ready t’offload.”

The words were punctuated with a hollow thud. Frisk assumed Soft had kicked one of the metallic crates.

“OF COURSE,” Loud agreed. Three loud steps echoed through the cargo bay before stopping. “AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, COMIC?”

“thought i’d go with our buddy al, here,” Soft said. “make sure everythin’ runs as smoothly as possible.”

“That will not be nec- ”

“don’t worry about it, bud!” Comic said, cutting Greene off. “just think: the sooner you get us taken care of, the sooner we’ll be outta your hair. you’ll have all that free time to continue searchin for that missin student.

“besides … i know a shortcut.”

Loud sputtered but said nothing more.

The cargo bay fell into silence.

They truly hadn’t been noticed.

Frisk sighed, forcing some of the tension to drop from her shoulders.

‘We’re safe from that threat, at least,’ she said as she pulled her legs to her chest, curling tightly over herself and rocking back and forth. ‘Is it possible the AI doesn’t know we’re here?

‘It must,’ Chara said. ‘You released camouflage before we were fully hidden – ‘ Frisk flinched at the accusation in Chara’s tone. ‘ – and it is likely they would have seen the hatch open and close regardless.’

‘So they would have noticed anyway,’ Frisk said, more to herself than to Chara.

But that didn’t make sense.

‘Why did they lie?’ Frisk asked, pulling out of her tight ball. ‘I thought AI couldn’t lie … present company excluded.’

‘It is … complicated,’ Chara said. ‘AI can lie, they simply don’t. There is little utility in misleading others the vast majority of the time, especially when interests are aligned. People and AI wish to travel the Gates safely. There is no need for a navigational AI to lie. However, as for why? … I cannot begin to speculate.’ Chara frowned. ‘Technically they didn’t lie. Aleister Greene asked about a missing ‘student’. I don’t know how the AI would know that … but you are verifiably not a student.’

Frisk sighed and lay down, the anxious adrenaline finally beginning to fade away.

There was nothing they could do about the other AI. Either the AI would turn Frisk in, or they wouldn’t, and either option was out of her control.

Control.

‘I was casting in my sleep,’ Frisk said, jolting upright again. She stared at her hands, surprised she had nearly forgotten. She leaned forward to look where the bullets had hit metal, leaving little scuffed indents in their wakes.

‘I was having a nightmare,’ she said softly. ‘I was lucid.’

‘You remember it?’ Chara asked, their ghost appearing next to her. Once again the AI held a datapad and stylus, appearing so much like a researcher taking notes.

Frisk pulled back from the scuffs, closing her eyes and pushing down a flood of overwhelming memories.

The AI’s concern was understandable. Frisk hadn’t remembered her dreams in years. It was one of the first things she and Chara had worked out with one another.

In her dreams, Frisk was alone.

Frisk was useless without Chara.

Still … The memories the AI brought were painful and fresh.

Frisk nodded without looking at the AI.

‘I was in the Arena. With the … the doctor. We were fighting.’

‘Did you win?’

Frisk chuckled silently, but shook her head.

‘Of course not. I threw everything I had at him, though,’ she said with a smile.

The scratches caught her eye again, and she shrank back into herself.

‘Is there something wrong with me?’

Frisk closed her eyes, regretting the question and fearing the answer.

Of course there was something wrong with her. Why was she worrying about that when Chara was so busy. They didn’t have time for her stupid –

‘No,’ the AI answered. ‘Not with you.’

Frisk looked up, the words catching her by surprise.

Since their escape – not even a full cycle, yet – the AI had been distracted, distant …

Frisk had assumed she was slowing them down. That if Chara had been comfortable taking over her body, they would be doing better.

‘What?’

‘I didn’t realize how much of … me was being hosted on the Cloister’s servers. I’ve been trying to keep everything in balance … ’ they trailed off, looking away from her. ‘It’s not as bad as when we first met … but … ’

Frisk stilled, holding her breath, swallowing a whimper of fear. Memories of the first days after Chara’s installation flooded her mind – what few memories remained.

Screaming.

Agony.

‘No,’ Chara said, breaking through Frisk’s fear. The memories vanished, locked away. ‘I still have control over everything important. Those systems are firmly and fully integrated. This is different.’

‘How?’ Frisk asked. When the AI didn’t respond she pressed further. ‘Chara. What’s different? What’s going to be different?’

‘Your emotions,” the AI admitted. ‘Anything regulated by your hypothalamus is going to feel out of control.’

Frisk frowned, trying to remember what the hypothalamus did, exactly. She had never been great at biology, and beyond knowing it was a structure in her brain and that it was important, she was uncertain.

‘You’ll feel things,’ Chara explained. ‘Things you haven’t felt in a long time. Fear, hunger, anxiety, sadness … you’ll feel them. Without any input or moderation from me.’

Frisk paled.

The walls of the smuggler’s hold suddenly felt much too close for her comfort. The darkness too similar to the Sensory Room.

Bile rose in her throat.

She panicked.

‘I can keep the worst of it down,’ Chara said quickly, throwing out their hands to try to calm Frisk, despite being unable to touch her. Frisk stared at the AI, trying to breathe through the desperate fear that overwhelmed her. ‘Especially if you keep calm and try not to panic more than you already have. Our best chance at staying out of the Cloister is remaining hidden until the next port.’

Frisk let out a slow breath.

‘Your idea is a good one,’ Chara said, not meeting Frisk’s eyes. ‘The best one we have.’

Sincere reassurance, without a hint of sarcasm.

Chara probably wasn’t lying in an attempt to soothe Frisk’s fraught emotions. They meant what they said. Which meant …

Her plan was actually the best they could come up with – at least in the AI’s opinion. Her plan was the best out of any plan Chara could come up with.

“This could actually work,” Frisk whispered, startling herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a hysterical giggle.

‘We might actually be able to escape,’ Frisk said, full of confidence. ‘I just need to stay quiet, right? Hidden? Conserve my energy?’

‘That would be best,’ Chara said with a nod. ‘The less I have to deal with the better.’

‘I can do that,’ Frisk said. ‘You can do that. It’s easy: Unless it’s important, don’t wake me up.’

It was the solution to all of their problems.

‘I need to hibernate anyway, it’s the only way to save enough energy to ensure survival.’

‘You were casting in your sleep,’ Chara reminded her. ‘It could happen again.’

Frisk’s confidence deflated at the reminder, leaving a hollow pit in her gut. She lifted her hands to stare at them.

Traitorous things.

She hadn’t cast magic unintentionally in years. It was embarrassing, frustrating. Control was one of her few talents.

To be losing it now, as she was on the brink of freedom … it was painful.

‘I was scared,’ Frisk said softly. She dropped her hands, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘In my dream … Calibri was there. He was going to kill me. I thought it was real. I thought I was back in the Cloister, I had failed some test. It felt real.’ She felt so stupid, forgetting that she was in a dream after becoming lucid. ‘I gathered everything I could, everything I had, and threw it at Calibri.’

Chara nodded as though they understood.

‘Why was I dreaming at all?’ Frisk asked.

‘You shouldn’t have been able to reach the rapid eye movement stage of sleep,’ Chara said instead of answering directly.

‘Do you think you can stop it from happening again?’ Frisk asked.

‘… I don’t know,’ Chara admitted after an uncertain pause. ‘It’s possible – but since I don’t know the cause of your dreaming … It will take some trial and error to be certain.’

Frisk nodded, understanding. She pulled her legs closer to her chest, curling as small as she could.

’I think it’s the best option,’ Chara said after a moment.

‘What?’ Frisk asked, surprised.

‘I think it’s the best option,’ the AI repeated. ‘There are fewer variables. Hibernation makes sense – it keeps you quiet, preserves energy, and will give me time to troubleshoot the problems.’

‘But the casting – ’

‘Happened because of a coincidence of variables that is unlikely to happen again. As it is, I can set alarms to alert me to any gathering magic. I can wake you before it wills to shape.’

Frisk considered the proposal.

She had been caught off-guard by the dream, but now she knew to expect them. She could work on her lucidity, keep herself anchored to her more conscious mind.

‘I just need to remember that we’re free,’ Frisk said, speaking mostly to herself. ‘That we’re out of the Cloister. That we escaped. If I can remember that, then the nightmares will just be bad dreams.’

It would be all in her head. Phantoms and shadow plays, dreamt up by her unconscious mind.

‘Let’s do it,’ Frisk said, looking up to meet Chara’s eyes. ‘It’s our best chance, right? Then let’s do it.’

The AI said nothing, but they held Frisk’s gaze for a moment, then two, before vanishing with a quick nod.

Almost immediately Frisk felt her system flood with a sedative mixture of hormones and chemicals. She lay down, curling up around the stolen sweater.

‘Chara?’ she asked as she drifted off to sleep.

‘Yes?’

‘Wake me up when we take off … please.’

She was asleep before she heard Chara’s soft response.

‘Promise.’

---