thisavrou_log | what did the skeleton say to the other skeleton

Apparently, Sans hasn't taken into account any night owls on the ship. Or the people who can't sleep, so they wander around to either distract themselves or make themselves tired.

Elsa is more the latter, though she's had an idea similar to Sans'. If it's late and most people are asleep, that makes for a good time to practice with your magic uninterrupted, right? Since she's been taking time to practice her own in an effort to increase the amount of control she has over them, she's been doing it in places where she's unlikely to be watched or found. Doing it at night has been particularly useful, since she still has no idea how to get rid of all the ice and snow once she's finished and thus has to leave it to melt. But that's a whole other thing.

When she enters the training room some time after one in the morning, it comes as a surprise to see the skeleton already there. She hasn't seen him in quite a while, but she remembers him from her first day on the ship, which is enough to prevent her from sneaking back out of the room. Rather, Elsa steps further in, and she's about to say something when the bone is tossed back. It hits her in the leg, not hurting at all, and her eyes drop down to the floor to rest on it.

"You did, but it's all right." Lifting her head, she gives Sans a reassuring smile. Waving it off with one hand, she watches him quietly for a moment before deciding to ask the question on her mind. "It's awfully late to be training. Were you having a difficult time sleeping, as well?"

The sight of the familiar yet unfamiliar face is enough to give Sans pause. He knows her -- the human mage. They hadn't talked often, but he feels her presence from time to time all the same. To see her here feels especially surprising, somehow. He's never in the training room much. Maybe she frequents the place and he missed it.

Either way, it leave Sans feeling a little awkward.

"I, uh... yeah, I guess." It's not not a lie. "Just, y'know. Firing off a few bones to pass the time before bed."

As if to punctuate the statement, Sans snaps his fingers again. Of course, just his luck, all that conjures is a shower of pathetic sparks. Sans feels a faint flush rising in his cheekbones, blue just like his magic.

"Impressive, huh?"

Elsa nods in understanding. She gets that, obviously, otherwise she wouldn't be here right now, either. Or, she might be. Sometimes it was an inability to sleep, sometimes it was merely a convenient time to get some practice in.

Eyebrows raise slightly as Sans snaps his fingers and blue eyes flit to the spattering sparks. ...That doesn't seem right, and it's not only the blue colouring the skeleton's face that clues her in to that fact. She recalls seeing him summon a bone before, and it...definitely hadn't looked like that.

"It looks like sleep isn't the only thing you're having difficulty with," she notes as her attention slides back to Sans, a hint of concern edging its way into her expression. The idea of someone's magic weakening is foreign to her, but it's not as though she's spent enough time around others with powers to really know anything about it. That, and this universe doesn't care much about the laws of anyone else's universe, anyway. Who really knows what can happen here?

"...Has something happened?

Her concern prompts Sans to close a hand over his opposite wrist, almost on reflex. He's never been one to be easily embarrassed. Nevertheless, this encounter was already proving to come at an inopportune time. If there's one thing Sans isn't used to being, it's... vulnerable.

Even the word itself feels uncomfortable. Like lover or moist.

"Nah... I mean, yeah, but when isn't something happening on this ship." He leaves it there, hoping he won't be asked to elaborate. "Just a little magic block, y'know how it is."

At least, he assumes she did.

She's not all that sure she believes that nothing has happened directly to him, but she also doesn't press. Not for now, at least. It's possible it could be brought back up later, it's just that he already looks fairly uncomfortable as it is. If it's not being elaborated on, he doesn't want to talk about it.

"Magic block?" She repeats, frowning softly. That doesn't sound good, but it doesn't sound like it's horrible or unfixable, at least. Elsa can't out and say that having magic block isn't a thing, obviously, since her actual understanding of magic is limited and her knowledge of what other universes are like is even more so. However, it does feel to some extent like it's not the full truth. "I haven't ever experienced that, myself. Though I think my experiences with magic are quite different from those of most."

A small smile is offered, an attempt at reassurance.

"Is there anything I can do? Any way I might be able to help?"

There is a way, though Sans doesn't ask directly. You can help me change the subject is the sort of thing better implied than stated.

"Actually..." He begins, dropping his hands back into his jacket pockets. "Maybe you could tell me what your experiences are. Who knows, right?" A shrug, affable and avoidant as ever. "Might help me figure out my own deal."

When it seems as though there may actually be something she can do to help, Elsa perks up. It's been a while since she's been of much use anywhere. However, when he goes on to essentially ask her to tell him about her experiences, she eyes him quietly, almost a bit suspiciously. It feels like a cop-out.

She'll choose to believe that it might help him in some way, nonetheless. Who knows, indeed.

"I don't mind talking about them, if you think it might help." Elsa replies, though she's still giving him a rather unsure look. There are some things about her experiences she may not share, the things that make her uncomfortable, but otherwise? It had been fun discussing them with him the last time they'd spoken, so she's happy to do that again. "I wouldn't know where to start, though. Is there a particular question you'd like to ask?"

When you're a good study of people's faces, it gets easier to recognize when you're being studied. Not a good feeling necessarily, but her reaction matched against his is telling.

She might be the wrong person to take for granted on this ship.

"I guess I've always been curious how humans learn they have magic at all." Sans shrugs, smiling, shooting for casual. "I mean, mages and magicians, they're all out of legend for us."

That's not an invasive or uncomfortable question at all, which is a relief. Not that she was necessarily anticipating him to ask a question like that, but it's not as though she knows him all that well. He's continuing the attempt at being casual, and Elsa continues to go with it for the time being.

"I can't say that I speak for all humans with magic, but it feels as though I've always been aware of mine." The answer starts relatively slowly as she considers the question seriously. How did she learn she had magic? It's something that's simply always seemed to have been there... "It must have happened when I was very young. As my magic is very...emotion-dependant, it likely manifested itself rather than me playing with and discovering the ability."

It doesn't feel like that's a very informative answer, but it's all she has. She honestly can't think back to a time that she wasn't aware of having magic.

"Humans with magic are legends where I'm from as well, or are usually considered to be. It's certainly not a common thing."

As Sans listens, there are glimmers of recognition in his eye sockets. Elsa's story is the story of all monsters. Firing off formless, aimless magic as a small child, graduating to the tumultuous emotional swings of teendom, to eventually settling into yourself as an adult.

It's odd, hearing a human parrot the experience Sans lived through himself. The experience he watched his brother lived through. Even knowing that humans were capable of wielding magic, he never imagined that he could... relate.

"They weren't scared of you, were they?"

Sans wishes it was more of a question than it actually is. Something tells him he already knows the answer.

Somehow, that question comes as more of a shock than the previous. The surprise on Elsa's face only lasts a few seconds however, before she turns her head and glances away, eyes lowered. One hand crosses over to grab at her opposite arm, and she thinks back to the way things had been at home. To all the times she'd shown her magic to others, intentionally or not.

"My family wasn't. Once they were used to it, it was...just a normal thing. My sister loved it, even. I'd make snow during any time of the year, and we'd play in it." There's a small smile at that, though it's sad. Of all the things she wishes had stayed the same, that was the biggest one. But what had happened instead had been for Anna's--for everyone's--safety. "But there-- There was an accident and I ended up hurting her unintentionally. After that, it was all about keeping my magic hidden, so I believe my parents were afraid in the end."

Not enough to avoid her, not enough to not try to help her, but enough so that they...didn't want her to leave home or to actively use her powers at all. Glancing back over at Sans, it's only a moment before Elsa's gaze drops again, her hand squeezing at her arm.

"Not long before I found myself on the Moira, my whole kingdom discovered my magic. ...Another accident while emotions were high. They were scared of me. I don't ever mean any harm, but...they can't understand that because magic is simply something in stories to them."

It's strange, being so open and honest about the things she normally prefers to not think about, let alone talk about, but... It almost feels good, on some level, to discuss it with someone who may understand. Someone who, perhaps, has had similar experiences.

A monster's magic is hardly something to keep secret. All monsters use their magic every day, for tasks as benign as cooking or showing they love someone. It's a fact of life, a piece of their very soul. There was o widespread fear, not anymore, not among their own kind.

That's not to say fear didn't exist entirely. It was hard to go through what the humans did to them, the violence and isolation they suffered, without learning the nature of what fear meant -- what concealing meant. It seems not even humans were immune to that from each other.

Sans frowns, thinking about his own magic, how rarely he chooses to use it. Is it really just laziness? Hard to say.

"Your kingdom, and they still...? Yeesh." Humans. Sans kept as neutral as he could, when he could, but there were stories and experiences he couldn't sweep under the rug quite so easily anymore. "What are you, nineteen? Monster teenagers go haywire all the time trying to get their magic under control. S'not your fault you didn't have anyone to tell you it was normal."

"Close. Twenty-one." Though his point still stands well enough. It's interesting to her, to hear that monster teens have that difficulty keeping magic controlled. Almost reassuring, in a way. It's nice to know that, at least somewhere, there are others who deal with the problem. Even if they're from an entirely separate universe, it somehow makes her feel less alone.

"That's just it, though: it isn't normal. Not for my people. I can't blame them for their fear, not when magic is something most grow up believing doesn't exist. And especially not considering what I'm capable of." Elsa wears a smile as she speaks, but it's weak and sad. She desperately wishes she'd had someone to teach her how to handle her powers as she'd grown up, maybe things would have happened differently, but as things are... "I'm dangerous. My lack of control only makes me more so."

Again, her mind goes back to Anna. How she'd very nearly killed her own sister, completely by accident. She never wants for that to happen again, not to anyone--even now as she's gotten a tiny bit more control of her magic and started getting better at no longer isolating herself entirely, she continues to fear that it will happen again. It feels inevitable.

"It may not be my fault that I had no one to explain anything to me, but that doesn't change the way things are."

There's a hardness to Sans' perpetual smile, betraying just how little he accepts the facts as Elsa is presenting them. Dangerous. Fear. It's the same rhetoric that led to the genocide of his people and, from what it sounded like, led to a whole lot of self-doubt from Elsa.

"Yeah, and who decides how things should be?" He asks, faint traces of bitterness in his voice. "Who told you that -- that you're dangerous? Must've been someone. Nobody dives into that all on their own."

"I-I... Well..." The questions throw Elsa off as much as the hint of bitterness in Sans' tone. She thinks it's possible that she could have felt that she was dangerous after hurting Anna, except...she remembers thinking of it as more of an accident. A horrible one, of course, but a simple accident. It had been after that incident that her parents had kept her isolated, enforced the idea of hiding her magic. ...Because it was dangerous.

It's never even occurred to her that the thought, the idea had come from anyone else. It's simply felt like fact ever since then, one that she can never refute as it proved itself true over and over again as she's struggled with and occasionally lost control.

"I don't know. I...suppose it's the majority who decides how things should be," she answers after a few moments of thought, brow furrowing as her gaze lowers. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's really the way things should be, but it ends up being considered that way and anything out of the norm is threatening. "Even if someone did tell me though, that doesn't change the fact that I am. I've hurt people, I could easily do it again. Even as accidents, it's...still dangerous."

Sans says nothing for a moment, knuckles cracking quietly from inside his pockets. Whether he's gathering his thoughts or collecting a calmer tone isn't clear.

"Accidents happen. There are people who are clumsy and people who can't see very well and people who have trouble with all sorts of things." The analogy isn't perfect but, as far as Sans is concerned, it makes about as much sense as repressing someone's natural ability. Magic as he understood it was so inherently tied to emotion -- to happiness, to sadness, to everything a monster could ever hope to feel.

The idea of trying to snuff it out was paramount to trying to snuff out someone's emotions -- to making them stop feeling completely. It just wasn't right.

"You're not dangerous, kid."

Falling into a pause as Sans is silent, she can hear the quiet cracking from within his pockets. That has Elsa more hesitant; her intention hasn't been to anger or upset him at all, she's simply been stating the truth. Or what she believes is the truth.

Still, she listens as he speaks eyebrows drawing together slightly. It doesn't feel the same, clumsy people or people with sight problems compared to people with little control over magic. Magic that can harm others. Elsa pulls her arms in tighter against herself, though her gaze zips up to Sans' face as he finishes speaking. It's funny, the effect just a few words can have when they're the opposite of everything you've been told and believed for most of your life. There's a surge of emotion in her chest--what emotion, she's not entirely sure, but it feels like...a good one. Maybe it's appreciation. Maybe even some amount of relief. Or, it could simply be affection--affection toward someone who understands her and honestly doesn't consider her any kind of threat.

"It's--" Elsa starts, but breaks off as her voice cracks ever so slightly. Before she even realizes it, a soft snow begins falling gently through the whole training room and she laughs, briefly and quietly while dabbing quickly at her eyes with her sleeve. Absolutely unexpected reaction to just a few words, and she feels silly, like she's overreacting. "...It's nice to hear someone say that."

Distracted by his own middling frustration, it's the snow he notices first, falling lightly overhead. It prompts him to look up, blinking his eye sockets owlishly towards their invisible source. For a town called Snowdin, it didn't snow that much. Most of their perpetual winter was permafrost, with the snow already there freezing and refreezing over and over. Occasionally, though, vibrations in the earth would rattle the cave ceiling enough that soft flurries would fall down over the town.

It was beautiful, on the rare occasions it did happen. Sans always thought so.

This was beautiful, too.

"Yeah, well." He smiles, closing the gab between them with a quick squeeze of Elsa's arm. He can't quite reach her shoulder without stretching. "People should tell you that more often."

He points upwards, catching a flake in his hand.

"This is great. And you never got taught, either, huh?"

Natural talent.

Admittedly, it's a surprise when he closes the space between the two of them and she feels his hand giving her arm a gentle squeeze. Looking down at him then, Elsa can't help but mirror his smile. It's ridiculous, the way just a few simple words could affect her, but the fact that they have only makes her appreciate his gesture more. It's so rare that she's understood, much less defended like that, that it just...apparently struck a very emotional chord in her.

While she's still not entirely certain that it's true, that she's not dangerous, her mind not so easily swayed, it's still so nice to know there's at least one person who doesn't view her as such. Who thinks that no one should see her that way.

"Oh--" Blinking as Sans points up and catches the snowflake, she lifts her gaze toward the ceiling. It's bare as ever, and yet snow is falling, which she'd only just barely registered before he pointed it out to her. It's...unintentional, but for once, it's not caused by negative emotions. This has her believing it'll be much easier to bring to a stop, and has her smile widening ever so slightly. It's...been a very long time since anyone ever enjoyed her magic. "No, never. It all just sort of...happened. Any learning I've done, it's been on my own."

"Heh... no shame there. I never got taught, either." Not entirely true, but true enough. He reaches up, catching another flake. It doesn't melt -- no body heat to coax it in that direction -- but rather sits comfortable on the bone until Sans sees fit to brush it away. "Taught my little brother, though. N' I could teach you, if you wanted."

That proposition comes as a shock. So much so that Elsa isn't certain of how to react at first, simply blinks at Sans in surprise.

"You-- You'd do that?" She doesn't know what to say. It's such a kind offer, and one that she appreciates greatly. In fact, she'd very much like to take him up on it, but... "Do you think that you really could? Our powers are... They seem very different."

"I'm probably not as good a teacher as a Snowdrake would be." He shrugs, seemingly unfazed by that fact. He catches another flake, staring up at the sourceless place they fell from. "But all magic is different. We're not the same person, right? Stands to reason our magic wouldn't be, either."

He shrugs, finally putting his hands back into his pockets.

"I'm up for giving it a shot if you are."

"I... Yes, I suppose that makes sense," she nods slowly, watching as he tucks his hands away. Surprise fading, a smile spreads in its place and her final nod is a more certain one. It certainly can't hurt to give it a try, and if she can actually get someone to help her with her magic in this way? Well, it's more than she's ever hoped for.

"I'd love to. Thank you, Sans, that's so kind of you to even offer."

what did the skeleton say to the other skeleton

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