Chapter Text
Martlet sat for what felt like a thousand years, brow furrowed. She forced down a scream. No use scaring Gerson, and she was strong, she could do this. Just one foot in front of the other, like it'd always been. She picked her head up. She'd had bad days, weeks, months, years, but there was always an alright day eventually. So what if today was her worst day ever? That just meant tomorrow was probably going to feel better. She forced a smile, covered her mouth, tried to let that seep into her for a few more moments. Then she stood and stretched her wing over her shoulder. She looked at her tattered, soaked shirt and pants and realized they were loose. She'd slowly lost weight since she'd joined the Guard and not in a healthy or flattering way, imagining herself like a balloon deflating with a sad hiss. "Um... J-just one question. The names of the humans who fought alongside monsters... who were they?"
"Oh... hm. Theseus, I think his name was, from Athens. Jason, the crew on the Argo, the Sicilians, the Amazons..." Gerson scratched his head, and said a few more names with less certainty. "It was a mess. Someone would fight for us one day, against us the next, for us the day after, and against us last. Like Daedalus, who first built machines to destroy us... then hid us all away. There aren't clean sides in any fight."
Gerson led her to his shop, a small cave in the middle of Waterfall, shelves all lined with artifacts from the surface, or with antique things from monsterkind. He placed the "GIVE" poster on the far wall, then smiled back at Martlet. "It's a lot to think about. Tea helps, if you'd like to chat."
Martlet shook her head, a water droplet slid down her brow and splatted against her beak. She looked away and felt her wing tremble. The pain in her broken one came in slow fiery waves, but she'd been so focused on her thoughts or her footsteps that she only noticed now. "I'd love to, but I'm on Guard business. I've got to get to Hotland quickly, so... maybe tomorrow? Do you have a phone?" She tipped her head. "We can swap numbers."
"Let me at least get ya ready," Gerson said. He re-bandaged her arm with surprising care and skill, then stepped out back into his things. He returned with a long white shirt, tight black pants, and a, wide-brimmed hat all emblazoned with the Delta Rune in gold across the front and back. "Here. I've no use for any of this anymore. Call it a Guard discount, heheh." He placed his phone before Martlet and, after a little fumbling, she managed to add his number. Gerson turned around and let her change with some privacy. He spoke at the wall. "That was the old Guard uniform, back when everyone remembered the war. Except that hat, I just think it looks neat. None of that fits me but... it looks like it'd work well for you, missy. Don't worry about payment, it's just a gift between friends."
Martlet found the garments feeling like a cool hug across her body. She raised her wing, lifted her leg, and moved about, and found her movement free and light. Her neck feathers spilled out of the shirt's collar, and she poked a few back into place with her wing. On bad days, she forgot to preen herself, alongside forgetting to eat, to shower, or... really do much of anything. The bad days had been getting more common lately. She fiddled with the brim of her hat as it slanted across her brow, then tipped it down. Maybe she'd be harder to recognize that way. "Thanks!" She said, waving. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow!"
"Bring your friend!" Gerson said. "I gotta make sure that young love doesn't die before I do!"
Martlet stepped out the door and walked until Gerson's door was out of sight, letting the mud sink into her feet. Once she was sure nobody could see her, she screamed. It felt good to scream. A loud, long, tired sound, just her expressing what it felt like in her head, to be her. She gasped for breath and kept walking, hat low over her head, wing held in front of her, and let her mind drift as she trudged forwards. A change of plans, she needed a change of plan. She was going to Asgore and she was going to tell him everything, and then... no. No, she shook her head, she couldn't do that! The two would rip each other apart, and no matter who won the whole Underground would be in shambles. She liked her hat, it felt good to be underneath something. The dark cavern above her, little gleaming gems embedded in the black rock, made her wonder, sometimes, what the sky was like, whether it was even equal to this wonder. Dark mud under her foot, a slow burning in her arm, in her lungs, in her head. She looked up. She needed air, she needed time.
Her thoughts drifted back to Minos. She only had Gerson's story, and little pieces of his. But he started the war. Could he be trusted? Was any of what they shared real? Did he want her for something, or... she shook her head. She couldn't know. She found herself fiddling with her hat again. Her fingers played across the cool leather, and one of her feathers got stuck in the dark stitching around the brim. She slid her hand away, shook it a few times, and pulled the phone from her pocket. Would the Guard take her back? Could they? She looked at the ground. She wouldn't take herself back. The back of her head throbbed and she kept walking east, staying low in reeds and hiding behind boulders as she turned the thoughts over in her head yet another time. She pressed her head to a cool stone and breathed slowly, trying to sort her thoughts out.
The cold reminded Martlet of Snowdin, of Chujin. Her thoughts turned to him, and when they last spoke, they sat on her balcony, as snowflakes gently dusted their heads, both of them looking across the gray-green pines in thick and messy rows out on the horizon. His gaze was as glassy as his spectacles and the fur around his face and neck had gone whiter than the snow around him. She'd handed him his coffee, with the five sugars and the no milk, exactly how he liked it, and took her hot chocolate. Once she'd taken his coffee and had to be pried from the ceiling: she'd resolved not to drink coffee after that. She sat next to him then as he wrapped his coat tighter around himself, and remembered the days when he didn't need a coat in Snowdin.
"How's the business going?" He asked her, in the voice of a man who knew he was going to die.
She rubbed her wings together and looked up at the sky then. She'd taken over his engineering work as he'd vanished on his projects and to tend to his family, and she wasn't invited to his manor so long as Ceroba drew breath. She'd turned sharply to say hello to Kanako, to give her a toy she'd made, tripped, and came to with Chujin pulling shards of a priceless antique teapot out of her face. So it was in everything she did. Build quality was higher than ever and she was doing more jobs than the two of them combined had achieved when she was starting out, but she remembered to charge about as often as Asgore shaved, and asking her about how much money she'd spent or made was like speaking to her in a foreign language. "I've... I got a new job. In the Guard." She smiled and closed her eyes. "It's steady G, at least. When you get better, I'll get back to engineering."
Chujin shook his head and exhaled, a long white cloud left his mouth. "Marty..." He sat back on his hands and his ears flattened against his head. "I need you to promise me something. If you see a human, fly until you scrape the Barrier and don't look back for a second. They're evil to the core." He pushed his glasses against his head. He sipped his coffee and shivered. "Keep yourself safe." He smoothed the feathers on her head with his fingers, and smiled at her. "I don't need to worry about you, too."
Martlet swirled her chocolate in her hand. "There's got to be at least one good human. Even if it's only one, I'll find them, somehow." She nudged his shoulder and smiled. "Maybe we can build a machine to do it!"
Chujin looked into his coffee then and coughed. "Maybe..." He sounded unconvinced, and sipped the rest of his drink in silence.
Martlet picked her head up off the rock and dragged herself to her feet as she returned to the present moment. History meant asking questions, real history was real hard questions. Martlet turned her wing over. Yesterday was history, and today would be tomorrow's history. She couldn't live in history without asking questions. She felt like someone was standing behind her and staring at everything she did and wondered whether she'd be remembered for what she was doing. She paced in a circle, ideas floated up to the surface of her mind and then popped like bubbles in a soda, and she shook her head as it to clear it of cobwebs. Maybe she couldn't answer her own questions yet, but she could ask them. She grabbed her phone and called Papyrus. The phone rang once, then he picked it up.
"MARTLET! IT'S BEEN SO LONG! ARE YOU COMING BACK? I'VE BEEN WORKING ON MY LATEST DISH NOW: A PUZZLE ON THE PLATE, A SPECTACLE FOR THE MIND AND TONGUE ALIKE."
"N-no, Papyrus, I'm not coming back yet. I'm still out on, um, business. Maybe you can call Undyne. Think about what happened as an... an opening in Snowdin!" She tried to bring herself back to her old, cheerful chirp. "That a real puzzle master like you would be perfect for."
"I'M STANDING OUTSIDE UNDYNE'S HOUSE AND I'LL ASK AS SOON AS I SEE HER."
"She can be pretty moody. So... we're... we're friends, right?"
"NO! WE'RE BEST FRIENDS!"
She sat on the rock and cradled the phone to her ear. "Let's say you make a... let's say you don't know what to do, and you're scared." She lowered her voice. "And maybe there's a lot on your choice. What would you do?"
"YOU? SCARED?" Papyrus sounded like she'd just announced she'd gone to outer space. "AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE ACHIEVED? PUZZLE LORD OF SNOWDIN, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD? WHO TAMED THE KING OF HUMANS? YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT TALKING TO UNDYNE. SHE'S A LITTLE... MURDERY RIGHT NOW BUT I'LL CALM HER DOWN. IF YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU CAN DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE DOING, I'LL BE YOUR BACKBONE."
Martlet laughed without trying to and coughed afterwards as Papyrus cheered her name. After a few short goodbyes she hung up, folded her wing behind her back, and felt a thousand pounds lighter. Her mind twirled back to Minos and what she knew, and, more importantly, what she didn't know. She doubted she'd find Gabriel anywhere in the Underground and wondered if he'd even care about what she said or why. He wasn't one of the humans who fought for monsterkind. Perhaps he didn't know she even existed, maybe he wanted to be king of Minos's flying city, or was a human who only fought other humans. There was only one way she'd get answers.
Martlet took a deep breath and steeled herself as she entered the pass leading to Hotland, the dark stones loomed over her like silent judges. She had to confront Minos, she had to learn everything she could... she had to end the war. She looked about, saw a flash of blue, and ducked as a spear sailed an inch over her head.