thisavrou_log | Strain this chaos, turn it into light

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Strain this chaos, turn it into light

Who: Toriel & you!
When: July 4th - 6th
Where: Around what's left of the ship.
What: Toriel emerges from death, more than a little confused and agitated. She copes by taking care of what is left of the ship.
Warnings: Talk of death, battle and bloodshed? Also glass children will probably appear.

[A - July 4th]

Waking up in the medbay was something Toriel was not finding particularly enjoyable. The only relief she finds is the fact she isn't tired or injured. She's alive again, somehow. With Curre's assistance, Toriel is back on her feet easily enough.

She saves whatever thoughts she has regarding the battle, the chaos that unfolded upon the ship for later. Whilst she does not have the warmest spot in her soul for the Captains, she can see they're trying. Trying and failing, again and again.

When given the clear, Toriel more than happily leaves the medbay, startled by the sea of glass and people passing her by. She has missed much in the wake of the battle ending.

A gusty, tired "Oh." Escapes her as she surveys the damage. Rooms are gone, the dining hall is now merely an emptied room. Toriel lingers, stunned by the sight. She doesn't realize she's blocking the hallway until someone jostles by her.

"Ah- my apologies." She offers back weakly, gaze briefly moving to the person passing by.

[B - July 5th]

Toriel does what she can to make things easier, gently brushing aside fallen shards of glass from the floor. She is relieved the broom in her grasp is still wooden and solid. She wishes she had some form of dustpan, but finding the broom was already a task in itself.

All the glass makes Toriel wish shoes were an option for herself, but she'll make do. If she can keep the glass to the side out of the main footpath it should be fine.

"Be careful, dear. Something shattered around here." She advises someone approaching, not glancing up from her work. "Step carefully."

[C - July 6th]

Coming to the garden was a mistake. Toriel realizes this immediately when her eyes fall upon the glass sculpture. Before she had thought it was lovely, without context it seemed respectful.

In Memory of Caducus Primary
the glass may reflect images of the past and future

Now it felt like a cruel joke played upon all of those who came after the fall of Caducus. Toriel clenches her fist at her sides, frowning tightly at the sculpture before forcing herself to move on.

Those who walk into the gardens will find her cleaning off the playground equipment she and Peter installed before the battle. The boss monster mutters softly to herself as she works on making sure no glass lay on the plastic surfaces of the playground equipment.

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"Yes. Mercy was not an option as far as the captains were concerned." She shakes her head, wrinkling her snout unhappily. It makes her angry to think about it even now. Her disgust is palatable even with her attempts to push it away.

"It was a terrible situation for everyone. One I can only hope we don't repeat. If we do not learn from this, we have done very little." Toriel is very, very tired of war. Her people had nearly been destroyed once, she did not want to have that happen again. "As far as I've been told, those refugees remaining on the ship were thrown into the ingress. The ships became one from the ingress malfunctioning due to that." Asking around has given her a better picture to some extent.

"I wasn't personally here to witness it." She picks a large shard of delicate glass, carefully setting it into the bucket. The glass shatters as soon as it touches the side of the bucket.

"Huh." He's annoyed, but not because the captains ordered an attack on mourning people. Sure, that was upsetting but Peter remembers how angry everyone was with him for trying to take down Rinzler. He remembers the dressing down he got from the captains, the time in a cell. He may be trying to put it behind him and he can admit now he wouldn't be able to go through with an intent to kill, but it rubs him the wrong way that one threat would be taken more serious than Rinzler's. "I'm kind of surprised by that."

"Does anyone know for sure they lived through the trip? I mean, if the ingress malfunctioned after we can't be sure if it worked for them. Can we?" It's not like he understood how the machine worked. "It wasn't really working in the first place, bringing in all of us."

Peter watches her work, frowning at the tinkling noise of breaking glass. "So it wasn't your fight either."

"Given how murder is usually treated here- it is hardly consistent." She answers with a grimace and flash of fangs in the process. "Leadership is never easy, that I can grasp. I've done my fair share of hard choices, but this was a disaster."

Toriel shakes her head, "No one has really checked far as I know. I.. I have no idea where any of the survivors could have ended up, much less if they'd survive the trip." Disgust bleeds easily in her words, frustration at how poorly everything clashed together. No one deserved what happened.

"It was very much not my fight." She agreed with a sad kind of smile. "Dying for a fight I was never a part of was not quite how I pictured my time being spent this month."

"They don't understand anything about how justice works out in the real world," he says, shaking his head. His idea of justice probably different from the norm, considering he was a big part of the Captain's treatment of murder after what Peter himself had caused. But even he knew there were some lines not to be crossed, and his arguments back then had warned off this very thing. Don't treat situations differently if you want people to have trust.

The way she words it catches his attention. "Do you know much about being a leader then?"

He bites his lip, sweeps several shards away into his hand. "I know some people who work in with the science department. Maybe they could figure out what happened to them." He can't imagine Bruce was happy with what happened either. It couldn't be that hard for Peter to convince him to look into it.

"Wait. You died?"

"I suppose space has its own rules? Rules they have yet to truly tell us." She works on cleaning up the swings next, careful with each pluck of glass. The delicate work at least helps the boss monster curve her temper considerably. Toriel knows she cannot work with a hot head without possibly hurting herself.

Peter's question does make her pause. "I do not admit it regularly, but I was queen of monster kind for centuries. I stepped away when the king and I did not... see eye to eye on something gravely serious."

It is a safe summary to give, far safer than going into the details. "Please do talk to them, I would like to find out what we've done to those people, where they could have landed..."

She gave herself away didn't she? Toriel nods slowly, gaze focused on her task, "I had to protect my son. It cost my own life for a short period of time."

"How are we supposed to follow them if they don't tell us?" His movements are jerky, agitated. He hates how every time he thinks he's got a handle on what this place expects from him, Peter finds out he was playing the wrong game. "We're stuck here. We deserve something better than to be forced in these shi- uh, bad situations."

He pauses mid swipe, eyeing her with a slack jaw. "No fooling? I mean, you seem smart enough and all. But a Queen. Huh."

He seems to be meeting a lot of important people on the ship. It's a strange journey from petty thievery to community service with royalty.

"I'll see when I can catch them and get him working on it," he promises.

"I'm sorry." He means it, even if he's not the best at seeming sincere. "This whole thing took out a lot of good people. It really sucks you were one of them." He pauses, shaking his head. "Did, uh, is your kid okay?"

The catch of his swearing does make her smile somewhat. "That is the question of the hour, dear. I wish they gave us some idea of the politics and expectations a crew has when joining a ship as this. Instead of assuming we'll all just know." The whole situation is endlessly frustrating. Toriel keeps her hands busy as they talk, wanting to make sure the playground equipment can be used in the near future without any glass hurting someone.

She chuckles softly at his words, smiling at the teenager fully now. "I do hope it doesn't change how we interact, I'd rather just be Toriel now. Opposed to queen. I have not been queen for quite awhile now."

The boss monster nods at his promise, glad to know Peter will follow up on that. Even with his rash behavior on occasion, he is a good young man. "Thank you."

"Asriel survived as did Chara, ah Frisk didn't- but they've returned. So all of my children are accounted for thankfully." Her family is starting to come back and its all she can really ask for.

"Sometimes I think they're making stuff up on the fly, you know?" He shrugs, answers her smile with a rueful one of his own. "Like, they keep changing the rules when it benefits them. So I don't think they really knew what they were doing in the first place."

"That sounds like a story," he says pointedly, but then drops his gaze back to his work. "You don't have to tell me about it, but not being queen anymore sounds like something went down. Just as well. We didn't have royalty in my country, I'd totally forget how to address you as 'your highness' or whatever."

He shrugs off the gratitude with an air of faint embarrassment. It's a small thing, the very least he could do since he didn't help defend the ship in the first place.

"Frisk, they-" He pauses, color draining his face moment before he rights himself. She said they were fine. He'd seen Chara had been, after that time with Sans. Speaking of Chara... "Chara and Frisk are your kids?"

"It certainly feels that way." She agrees readily with a sharp frown, "Now we're more than a little stuck dealing with their apparent cluelessness."

His politeness does ease the boss monster. She isn't about to go into the story, the boy doesn't need to know of old wounds. "I've forgotten at times I had the position, I will admit. I've rather enjoyed helping children more."

She gathers up a bigger portion of glass, carefully placing it into the bucket. The slide should be clean enough. The hard part will be checking the nooks and crannies for smaller bits of glass.

It takes her a moment to notice his shock, glancing up at his tone uncertainly. "Yes, I know we don't all quite look alike, but they're my children." The only thing she and Chara seem share by pure luck lay in their red eyes.

Her mind jumps to Chara causing some trouble. "...Chara hasn't been rude to you have they?"

"You know, I really believe that," he says, because it's obvious how much she cares about looking after the children. Had she never said anything, Peter would have put her down for someone running a daycare or orphanage.

He stares at her a little longer, expression slightly sheepish. "No, it's not the looks-" Peter starts and stops. It's not like he looks anything like his family back home and if being here has taught him anything, it's about how the shape of families can change. But he's not sure how to say anything without sounding sappy or stumbling.

He moves on instead, shaking his head. "No they're, well not nice or anything, but I don't mind. Kids, you know?" If anything, Peter usually found Chara's death threats and the like amusing. He was too fast for the kid to actually hurt anyway. "It's just, uh, I've had some interesting conversations with them. Like, both of them. Worrying kind of interesting."

He's either going to be the bad guy ratting the kids out or going to make Toriel mad for calling out their behavior. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

The boss monster stills, listening to the teenager. Even with his start and stop, she doesn't interrupt. He wants to say something important enough to need time to think on it. "They've both... been through some strange things. Chara tends to lash out at others whilst Frisk takes things out on themselves and pretends to be fine."

She may give both children free reign, but she isn't oblivious. Chara attacked her upon arrival, so the violent streak isn't unknown. "They're both working on things, I'm doing what I can to help, but if anything truly worrying has come up, please do tell me."

That does sound like the kids. Peter relaxes a little. At least she already seems to be aware they have issues to work out. He'd hate to be the one delivering bad news, giving her a shock when she's been nothing but kind to him so far.

"A while back I had a conversation with Frisk, with both of them actually. But nothing Chara said really surprised me." He knew what Chara had done before, had been attacked by the child enough times that the kid could say anything and Peter could shrug it off. "Frisk, though, they act like- they said some stuff that sounds like they don't understand why they have to keep themselves safe. Like they'd walk right into a lion's den if they thought they had half a chance of making the lion like them."

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Strain this chaos, turn it into light

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