Skeleton Ghost

To Be Not Alone

((This chapter became unexpectedly cursed and now I fucking  r e g r e t. Probably why I forgot it, lol!))

"What?!" He squeaked, having run out of breath just processing.
"What do you mean you're-"
The man gestured slightly, tilting his head to the side. "A dragon died and returned in thirds. You know how it goes. You are living it now."

"But-" He cut short, staring.
"You don't. Act like it?" He wasn't sure how to respond, how to think. They simply hadn't expected the possibility that they weren't alone.
It just didn't seem conceivable for some reason.

The human laid his palms flat on the table. "We do not act like so because it has been far longer for us than it has been for you." He explained.
Sans blinked at the use of plurals.

Leaning back, he continued. "It has been a long time since we met another who was a dragon that became three in death. We were alone for our transition back to a previous form, but." Sans flinched as he reached across and warm, human hands wrapped around his thin phalanges.
"You do not have to be alone."

He stared at the slightly clammy hands, chestnut contrasting starkly against the bone white. He slowly tugged himself out of the grip, bewildered.
"I.. uh. You're still different." He subtly pointed out how the other was strangely human.

Quetzal glanced to the side, nodding slightly. "That is true. In my case, our Souls converged on the human amidst us, whereas in you, it was not so. Circumstances still make your situation strange. It is new, but it is not unfathomable."

Sans stared at him, still struggling to wrap his mind around it all.
"Who were you before?" He then asked.
Setting his elbow on the table, he grinned slightly, head in his hand.
"As a dragon or as three?" He fired back.
"I don't know, both?" He gestured vaguely.

The human let his glowing opaque, white eyes slide shut, setting his hands in his lap.
"As a mere man, I was a hunter of a tribe now forgotten, merged into others to create a grand empire that ruled with blood and lived in fear of the Old Ones. I was Ehecatl, and the family I had is long, long gone." He intoned, a hint of sadness in his voice.

His voice shifted and colors briefly flashed in his otherwise pale eyes, now sounding feminine despite the indisputably male appearance.
"I was Venualí, and we lived in a land that would burn regularly. We were of the blood of the rebirthing Old Ones who were reborn again in the cleansing flames, as were the forests. But when the floods came and our forest was drowning, we flew out to find help from our ancestors. I did not find them. I found Ehecatl as his people fought another. His enemy.. struck a spear through me and I died on the bloody earth."

His voice returned to masculinity, obtaining an echoey quality as he continued.
"I was Kukulkan, and I preferred my mountaintop alone. I did not like others. I never felt whole. I was angry and alone until a thunderbird drove me from my eyrie and claimed it as their own. I wandered the land without direction until I came upon Venualí and Ehecatl together. I no longer felt so empty and alone. We became one. We remembered as time stretched on. We are Quetzalcoatl. I am Quetzalcoatl." At that, all three voices spoke at once, sounding eerily similar to the amphiptere that appeared for all the world to be asleep.

Sans leaned back, shocked at how familiar those words felt. He blinked in surprise, reaching for his face and feeling dampness there. He pulled back to see a white, translucent fluid, unmistakable. He spun around to see the dragon behind him, crying out more of the milky tears. They didn't hurt. They didn't sting like he expected. He stared at his own face through the dragon's illusory eyes and realized they had not fallen on him, but he was crying them. Napstablook was crying through the body he inadvertently inhabited and the host.
"How..?" He rubbed his face in bewilderment.