UnderAsriel

19 - Fish and Net

"I don't like it. Not at all."

The words were spoken in a hushed voice, a voice that sounded far louder than it should in the echoing canyons surrounding it. The flower was still clinging tightly to her shoulder. It hadn't relaxed a bit since their encounter with the River Person.

Well, sure. The River Person had been kind of creepy. But in Kel's opinion, Flowey was overreacting. They'd faced Undyne, deathly puzzles, freezing snow, and razor-sharp bones, and this was what it chose to obsess over? Albeit unnerving and considerably loony, the River Person had been downright friendly to them, compared to the other monsters they'd met.

"Why don't you like it, though?" She was trying hard not to sound skeptical.

"Well, why don't you like Sans?" Flowey retorted, making Kel wince. "That 'bad feeling' you have about him? I have the same misgivings about... it, whatever it was." It gave an involuntary shudder.

Well, fair enough. Flowey had trusted her about Sans, so Kel supposed she ought to trust Flowey about the River Person. And yet... Flowey hadn't made any move to stop her from accepting its help or boarding its boat. They were traveling in the thing as they spoke, and it hadn't made any move to get off.

"You do realize we're in its boat, right?"

"Well, obviously," it said, irritated. "And for your information, my misgivings don't extend to the boat. It has always struck me as a very friendly boat; I would have never suggested it as a shortcut otherwise. And I would never," it added in disgust, "have guessed it was associated with... that thing."

'That thing' evidently being the River Person.

Kel chose to accept this, though she couldn't really see the logic there. Help equaled help, in her opinion. Though, she remembered, she'd herself gone against that rule. She'd refused the help of Sans, even though he'd never done anything but be perfectly friendly to her. Maybe the flower had a point.

Beware the man who speaks in hands...

She shivered. Entering Waterfall had just been really odd, in general. First the glowing flowers, then the River Person. Maybe Waterfall was where all the really weird stuff in the Underground tended to congregate. Like Alphys's ramen. Or Kel herself.

...Sign language? she wondered. Speaks in hands...

"Speaking of the boat... how long do you think this ride will take?" she asked, pushing the River Person's eerie warning out of her mind. It was insane. That was that.

"Should not be much longer now. We've passed three other docking points, so..." The flower paused, calculating. "One last one, and then we should be in Hotland."

The lightness that seemed to fill the air didn't just come from Kel. She could tell they were both relieved. 

Only one more to go. She strained her eyes, struggling to make out any sign of a bank in the murky darkness, but there was nothing... or, if there was, she couldn't see it. The darkness was like a solid wall to her.

Leaning back in the boat, she wondered what Hotland was like. It sounded warm. Warmer than Snowdin, she was sure. And then, after Hotland... 

...New Home, wasn't that what Flowey had said? They'd find King Asriel there, and... wow. Frisk. Kel could hardly believe it. After all that time, all those struggles... from triggering mattress alarms to getting limbs broken by fish warriors.... she was almost there.

She was going to see her friend again.

And after that... they were going to leave. That was the plan. They'd use whatever exit to get back to the Surface, and then... and then what? Drop right back into their normal lives, like none of it ever happened?