[Open] Stars shining bright above you

[inruins]

Who: Toriel & you! OTA
When: First week of March.
Where: Around the ship, specified in prompts.
What: Toriel makes herself comfortable in the Moria, trying to find her rhythm in a new place. Catch all log. Wildcard prompts welcome.
Warnings: Talk of broken bones, violence, sad times. Undertale spoilers. Toriel mom-ing at people.


[A - Lullabies - CLOSED]
Starting from square one wasn't something new for Toriel. She had to do so three times so far in her long lifetime. Starting anew under the mountain after the war, forging their way to build a new society for monsters left behind.

The second time, lay in fleeing to the old ruins teary and enraged. A time she would much rather forget to some extent. Even if it brought what she had thought would be her final shift, Frisk. Their new home, the excitement of a life to be.

Now, now she was here. Toriel brushed her hands across the front of her uniform, smoothing out the fabric. Some part of her wants to be tired, but she shuffles that way.

With little hesitation, the boss monster sends the two children a message.

'Would you like to spend the night with me?' It's a bit silly, sappy. But Toriel wishes Asriel and Frisk were on the same floor as she was. One night with the pair would be nice, to be sure they're sleeping well.


[B - Mess Hall - OPEN]
The mess hall is a bustling place of activity, Toriel must admit it is daunting at first. She swallows the uncertainty, walking into the swirling crowd to find something to eat. For a place as busy as it is, there seems to be a decent enough selection of foods. Some is recognizable, some isn't- not that Toriel is picky in the moment. Food is food.

She loads up from the buffet, glad for her height for once. Being able to see over the crowd to some degree is a relief as she makes her way towards the seating section. With the hustle and bustle, it's not a surprise the tables are mostly taken. Toriel catches sight of a free seat, be it at an occupied table. She walks over, careful not to bump into anyone equally searching for a table.

"Ah, pardon me. Would it be alright if I sat with you?" The table's occupants are greeted by a 6'9 white furred goat monster, a warm smile on her features.


[C - Night wandering - OPEN ]

With all the changes settled upon her, cooking is something she finds solace in. Familiarity in the movements, in the ingredients and the results always left her feeling better. Even food she doesn't quite recognize, she still finds some ease in making it.

It's why she leaves her first evening shift of cooking more relaxed than she entered it. She's more than a little happy to see people eating food she helped prepare. The thought puts a spring in her step when she's off shift.

Toriel lets herself wander after work, not quite ready to sleep as she drifts through the halls. Her mind is wandering at this point, thinking idly of the possibilities of making pies. The lack of snails means she can't make her favorite, but she can improvise. Her mind is wandering enough she bumps into the person passing by her.

"Oh! My apologies." She offers back, snapping back to the present she is opposed to the idle good feeling hanging over her. An embarrassed and equally apologetic expression settles over her features. "I was a bit distracted. I didn't see you there."

Comments

Mess Hall

[neveroutwrenched]

“Sure, go ahead.”

Ratchet doesn’t look up, too busy eating with one hand, and reading with the other. The book was terrible. A human account of wormhole physics from some bygone era that would be impossible to fit into any real timeline. He’s not even sure if it’s meant to be fiction or not, which, either way, makes it useless. When he does finally glance up at her, he double takes, closing the book abruptly (no loss there) a strange look of recognition on his face.

“Oh- holy crap. You’re…” A little bit of uncertainty edges into his voice. He hopes he’s not mistaken or this would be embarrassing. “You’re from the underground aren’t you?”

[inruins]

The boss monster gladly settles down across from the lombax, smiling a bit ruefully at the fact he's multitasking his meal and reading time. Toriel pokes at her meal, intending to dig in if the young man across from her was busy.

The snap of a book closing and his voice draws her gaze back upwards. Some surprise clear on her own features as she responds. "You've heard of Mount Ebott?" He doesn't look like any monster she has seen before. "But yes- I was from the underground."

[neveroutwrenched]

"Uh, kind of." He hadn't known the name of the mountain, but he has no doubt it's the very one that Asriel had mentioned. The one Chara had climbed.

"Sorry, it's just...I don't know why, but humans...you know. They come from all over. Different times and worlds and all that? But whenever you meet someone who isn't human...they always all come from the same place. And you look a lot like someone on the ship."

The explanation almost sounds more presumptuous than the question and he shrugs, looking down at his food.

[inruins]

"I see." She toys with her fork somewhat, mostly moving her food around the plate at this point. "I can certainly believe it. Most of the non humans, monsters and the like seem to be on the rarer side as it were. It would make sense they all seem to come from similar places."

She picks up her cup of tea to take a sip, continuing when she sets it down on her tray. "Are you speaking of my son, Asriel by chance?"

[neveroutwrenched]

Ratchet's gaze snaps back up to her, his surprise obvious.

"Your son. So you're...Asriel's mom?" He shakes his head; you'd think this multiverse stuff wouldn't surprise him anymore, but it keeps on doing just that. "But, uh, yeah. He's one of my roomates, actually."

[inruins]

"I am." She answers, letting Ratchet parse out his confusion about multiverses for the moment to take another drink of her tea. She perks up at that, curious now and smiling as she sets her drink back down.

"Really? Goodness, I hope he's been behaving so far."

[neveroutwrenched]

"Oh no, he's been terrible. Stays up all night, always listening to loud music, jumps on the furniture, never cleans up after himself." He grins in case his sarcasm wasn't obvious. "Really awful to live with."

He takes a bite of his food, shrugging. In reality, of course, Asriel was almost concerningly quiet and mostly kept to himself. Of all the kids on the ship, he was one of the least troublesome.

[inruins]

The sarcasm earns a shake of the boss monster's head, sarcasm has never been her favorite type of humor but she has to smile a bit at its use here. Asriel if anything is too quiet of a child to run wild. "Truly, I've failed as a mother then." She jokes lightly back, "Have you two been roommates long?"

[neveroutwrenched]

"Uh, no," says Ratchet, covering his mouth, only half intelligible through a mouthful of food. He looks away, finishing chewing before continuing. "Er, only about a month, I mean. I haven't been that good of roommate to be honest...we've only talked a little. I probably should have gone out of my way a little more...I know he's been having a hard time."

It was surreal now, to be talking to Asriel's mother. Actually it was weird to be talking to anyone's mother. Parents or their children, but rarely bother came through the Ingress. What were the odds?

[inruins]

"I can guess this place keeps you busy enough." She amends, a touch of a frow rising to the surface at Ratchet's statement. Whilst she and Asriel had been talkative, Toriel won't doubt the fact Asriel has his own secrets. A month without her means he's had more than enough time to get into trouble.

"A hard time? Has something happened?" Boys at that age aren't exactly honest with a parent.

[neveroutwrenched]

"Oh, uh. I just meant, you know." He looks down at his food and doesn't look back up, not wanting to meet her gaze. He makes a show of pushing some food around on the plate, shrugging. "It's hard enough to adjust...this whole multiverse things is pretty unsettling to most people. And when he- when Asriel showed up, things were...kind of tense with the others."

He assumes she knows who he means when he says 'the others'. Asriel had known them so it seems like she would too. Although maybe that's presumptuous.

[inruins]

Toriel toys with her fork quietly, thinking for a long moment before she speaks. "Tense..." She pokes at her own food trying to find her voice again. Her food is starting to get cold and she can only poke at it, hunger fading off in the moment.

"I would guess, this ship and..." Toreil is finding it a little hard to really say it, her tone comes out more strained than she intends. "Well, being alive again would be hard to adjust to."

[neveroutwrenched]

Ratchet does look up at that, eyes wide and the hand holding his fork freezes.

"Sorry, I-" he hesitates, the words catching in his chest. "Alive again?"

[inruins]

She wonders if she should have said anything at all. "Yes." The metal of her fork digs into her paw pad, she does this unintentionally at first but doesn't move it. The cold and the pain keeping her grounded in the moment.

"There was an accident, Chara and Asriel died." She states it plainly as she can. Her tragedy is a monster story, a legend. Everyone seems to know it back home. Emotionally detaching is not something she can do with this, but the fork offers her some solace. "This happened a very long time ago."

[neveroutwrenched]

Ratchet's eyes flicker down to her hand and back up to her face, and he opens his mouth, faltering, unsure what to say. What do you say? He'd never been any good in these situations, even with people he knew, and here was someone he didn't know at all her distress obvious and all he can think to say is;

"I...I'm sorry. That must have been hard." He winces visibly. That's it. He keeps thinking of Chara. Chara. Geez, no wonder that kid had such a chip on their shoulder.

[inruins]

"You need not apologize. You had no hand in it." Apologies, sympathy, she's used to it. The entire kingdom had been nothing but that at Chara's illness so long ago. She forces herself to casually place the fork down to pick up her drink to take a slow sip from it.

"It was not easy. I can only guess it is hard on the pair."

[neveroutwrenched]

"Yeah it's...I can only imagine." Ratchet looks to the side, brow furrowed. It seemed like the more he learned about Chara - where they came from, their past - the less he felt like he knew. He wondered how much of a role it all had in their behaviors.

"What was..." He hesitates, a question on the tip of his tongue, before he pushes his curiosity back, staring at the fork in his hand as if remembering something. He frowns, shifting uncomfortably. "You know what, nevermind. I- sorry. You just came here to eat a meal, I didn't mean to drag that all out. It's really none of my business."

[inruins]

"It is fine." It really isn't.

She warms her hands against the cup of tea, the scent of it lessening her discomfort. What a fool she was to say that. No one wanted to hear such things and she had to say it. "I'm sorry I interrupted your meal like this." Her own food seems almost disgusting now, a repulsive mess on a plate. Toriel can't even think about eating now.

"I hope this doesn't change how you treat the children. I... do not know if they remember."

[neveroutwrenched]

"No, of course not." He says it adamantly, but whether he's referring to the meal or the kids isn't clear. He looks up at her, the echo of a smile returning to his face.

"They're good kids, by the way. I guess that must be at least in part, thanks to you."

Even Chara. Somewhere. He believed that.

[inruins]

She forces herself to eat, chewing feeling like a slog but it buys her time to think. Time to find words that don't make the wound fester any worse.

When she swallows she speaks, her voice stronger now to some degree. "Thank you..." She keeps her hands busy, finding her drink, just holding onto it as continues. "They're both good children, with good hearts."

She remembers Chara the child, more than Chara the menace to monsters.