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Asriel’s horns start growing in when he’s seven years old.
Kris is right there with him that first day he wakes up, complaining about his head hurting, and they’re right beside him when Asriel asks Mom and Dad what’s happening to him, and they explain, Dad clapping his hands together in pride and Mom beaming, that his horns are growing in.
Kris is not seven years old, but they peak up at Asriel’s tiny budding horns, and touch their own smooth head, letting their blunt claws poke at their scalp.
“Dad,” Kris signs a few days later, tugging at his sleeve to get his attention. When Dad looks at them, they take a moment to stare at his horns: big and curling and have-to-look-at-them, and Kris’s own head is light but one day! One day that’s gonna be them. “When will my horns grow in?”
Dad’s quiet for a moment, and they use that time to butt their head against his side. Asriel says it makes him all dizzy now when he does stuff like that, ‘cause his horns throw off his balance, but Mom says that’s just until he gets used to them and Kris just thinks he has an unfair advantage when they play.
“Dad?” Kris repeats, waving their hand in front of his face.
“Oh, sorry, Kris,” Dad says. “Your horns will grow in when you’re older. You’re still young! Much younger than Asriel.”
Kris nods, chewing at their lip. That’s kinda what they excepted. They’re almost four, which means…fourfivesixseven which means way too long ‘til they’re Asriel’s age.
“M’kay.” They butt against him one last time, and Dad laughs.
“What, Kris, are you trying to prove something?” he asks, ruffing the fur on their head. Kris bats his hand away, pushing at his side.
“No no!” they grin up at him, sweet as can be, tossing their head. If they had horns it would look way better but they’ve just gotta wait wait wait. “Nothing! Gonna go play with Azzy now!”
“You kids have fun,” Dad calls as they charge off up the stairs, “go easy on your brother, okay? Growing in horns isn’t easy!”
“Pssh, sure!” they yell back.
On the way to their room they pass the hallway mirror, but they pay it no mind. Mirrors have never worked for them, anyways.
Their seventh birthday comes and goes and they don’t find their best present until later. Their horns are running late, no matter how hard they squinch up their eyes and think growgrowgrow, and the only headaches they get are from ‘being to close to the TV when they play games,’ at least, so says Mom. But none of that matters ‘cause they wake up a day after being newly seven and right there at the foot of their bed are horns!
Okay, not head-horns, ‘cause if their horns were growing in on the foot of their bed that would be, uh, wild. But a headband, and they scurry to the end of their bed to grab it and shove it right onto their head, racing outside and looking in the mirror, and this time, it works!
Because that’s them, it really is! They’re still shorter than Asriel which is dumb but when they’re old they’re gonna be at least as tall as Mom they bet and they’ve won almost every spar they’ve had with Asriel so they think that means he’ll be shorter than them one day. But! But! Their horns are there, right where they should be, red nubs that poke through their dark fur. Their eyes are red, almost brown, kinda like Mom’s eyes, and when they scrunch their eyes up their body is the right shape, too, all furry like the rest of their family.
They curl their claws into their hand, and poke the mirror. Their reflection pokes back.
Yes yes yes and Asriel has-to-know-right-now so they thunder back into their room and leap onto their brother’s bed, splaying out their paws so they don’t fall, and they butt their newly-horned head against Asriel’s and chant, “Azzy, Azzy, wake up, look! Look!”
Asriel grumbles and rolls over to mash his face into his pillow. “Kris, go bother Mom and Dad, it’s too early for this.”
“Az! Zy!” Horns means they’re even better at headbutting and this time they go right for Asriel’s head, ‘cause sure they’ve had horns for a day but they’ve been waiting for this moment their entire, entire life, they’re not gonna go stabbing holes in all their clothes like Asriel did when he got his. “I’ve got horns! You gotta see!”
They rear up and drop back down, heavy, on Asriel’s chest, and finally he groans and looks up at them.
They sit back and beam.
“Your—!” Asriel sits up so fast he nearly knocks them off the bed, but goats keep their balance, Mom says, so they don’t fall. “Kris, your horns!”
“That’s what I’ve been saying, dummy.” They knock their head against his. Asriel’s horns are bigger, but they’re all boring-white. Theirs are red! The shick-click of horn against horn settles comfortable in their chest. “Now I can nearly take out your eye.”
“That was an accident and I swore you to secrecy,” Asriel says, but mostly he’s got his eyes fixed on their horns. “They really came in, huh.”
“Well no duh.” Kris rolls their eyes. “Azzy, I’m seven, like you were! ‘Course my horns are in.” They hop off of Asriel’s bed, heading over to their dresser to change. “I’m gonna go show Noelle!”
“You’d better not try sparring her,” Asriel warns, turning away to give them privacy. “Last time you nearly knocked her down the stairs and I am not going to stop Dess from running after you with a wiffle bat if you hurt her sister.”
Kris frowns. “Didn’t mean too,” they point out. It’s not their fault Noelle’s house has way too many stairs. How were they supposed to remember where they all were? And if Noelle had fallen they woulda gone right after her, ‘cause she’s their friend and that’s what friends do. They’re a goat! It’s like, in their dust to catch people falling down stairs.
“I know,” Asriel says, “still, be careful, okay? Noelle is—deer are—you’re—it’s just, you’re not as invincible as you think.”
They crinkle their nose. “Just ‘cause you’re older doesn’t mean you get to act like Mom.”
“I just worry about you,” Asriel says.
Kris shrugs. They’ve got horns, now, so they don’t need their brother worrying after them, but it’s good to know he cares.
“You drew me all wrong,” Kris tells Noelle.
“Huh?” Noelle stops in her coloring, glancing over at Kris. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean too! I’m sorry.” She rolls her green crayon between her hooves. “Um, how do you want me to draw you, then?”
Technically they’re supposed to be drawing each other, ‘cause that’s what Ms. Church Lady told them to do. Usually when they had to do this Kris would just draw Asriel, but he’s old enough that he goes to the services, and they instead have to partner with Noelle, since they’re neighbors and Kris likes her well enough. Better then all the other kids, that’s for sure.
“Here.” Kris digs through their own crayons, pulling out a red, a black, a white, and the colors of their sweater, green and yellow. “Like this.”
They’ve drawn themself a ton of times, so it’s easy enough to get it down and push their paper over to Noelle. Noelle looks at the artwork, at Kris, and touches a hoof to one of her antlers.
“Oh,” she says, softly. “Oh, that makes sense. Sorry I got it wrong.”
Kris shrugs. “S’okay. For a long time mirrors didn’t work ‘n it wasn’t ‘til my horns came in that they did.”
Noelle nods, looking back to Kris’s drawing before starting her picture anew. “I get it,” she says. “They were like that for me, too.” She draws out the lines of Kris’s face in black crayon, switching to red to add their horns. “They’re really pretty, by the way. Your horns.”
Kris smiles, and knocks their head gentle against Noelle’s side. Sure, maybe Dad’s told them that deer antlers aren’t as bone-strong as their horns, but there’s still a kinship there, at the end of the day. There’s worse partners to have than Noelle.
Kris is the one who finds the book, on the second floor of the library. Technically Asriel and Dess are supposed to be watching them, but they convinced Noelle to sneak off with them while their siblings were distracted, up to the forbidden second floor.
Okay, so it’s not really forbidden, but they’re not supposed to go up there ‘cause they’re still too young, even though Kris is nearly ten and Noelle’s a few months older than them, which Kris thinks is stupid. Nearly-ten and ten is old enough!
“Kris,” Noelle whispers, “maybe we should go back.”
Kris shakes their head. “Nuh-uh!” Up here they’re signing, not ‘cause talking to Noelle is uncomfortable but ‘cause they’re kinda bad at knowing when their voice is too loud, so Sign is better for sneaking. “I wanna touch the secret books.”
“Not read them?” Noelle still won’t stop looking back to the stairs, like they’re being stalked, but she smiles a little, at that, and Kris holds their head higher.
“I guess that too.” Noelle’s all jumpy, up here. Deer are kinda just like that maybe, Kris thinks. They’ve never been so jumpy, but they’ve got horns to defend themself with, even if they’re still really small. But antlers don’t work like that. Apparently they fall off, and that’s normal and it’s kinda hard to look Noelle straight-on when her antlers are shed, but Kris does it anyways ‘cause Noelle has confessed that there’s a part of her that wishes she didn’t have antlers, like Dess doesn’t.
Kris doesn’t get it entirely but they do get it a bit. That’s why they like Noelle better than the other kids. Some words itch against their skin like teeth biting and they get why it might be the same for other things.
But books. Secret books! That’s the important thing.
Most of the books are boring with long names Kris can’t even read, but they pause at a thick book that hasn’t been pushed entirely back into the shelf. A History of, and then a word they’ve never seen.
“What’s a…” Kris pulls the book out, brushing dust off the faded maroon cover. They finger-spell the word. “H-U-M-A-N?”
Noelle shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” Kris pokes at the book.
“Kris, maybe…” Noelle is inching back towards the stairs, and Kris wants to reach out and grab her hoof so she stops running off, but they want to talk more so if Noelle runs off fine, she can be a coward. “I don’t think we should be reading about things we don’t know.”
“Why?” Kris chews at their fur. It’s getting kinda long on their head, but Mom doesn’t make them keep their cut fur short like she does for Asriel.
Noelle is quiet.
“Is it cause I’m still a kid and you’re still a fawn?” Kris challenges, narrowing their eyes and tossing their head. “Asriel’s only like, four ‘n a bit years older than me. That’s not a lot. And Dess is only a bit older than him. If they can come up here so can we.”
Noelle worries her hooves together.
“I’ll stop sparring you.”
Noelle sighs. “Oh, fine. But if Dess catches us, this is your fault, got it?”
Kris grins, their sharp teeth poking their lip, and grabs the book and heads for the nearest chair, scooting over so there’s room for Noelle. Once they’re both situated, Kris steadies the book in between them, and flips it open to the first page, and sees—
And—
It’s—
The books up here are for adults and people Asriel’s age so why are there so many pictures?
“Kris,” Noelle says, “Kris, we should—”
“What’s that.” Kris doesn’t know how loud their voice is. Their vision is all blurry and their chest hurts like they’ve swallowed a ball of thorns. “Why is it. What is that.”
“Kris, I don’t know, I’m gonna—” Noelle is backing off the chair, grabbing Kris’s paw. “Kris, let’s go back downstairs, please.”
But Kris’s eyes can’t leave the page.
Fur only on the head. No horns. Mostly dull teeth. Flat faces. No horns.
No horns.
The mirror’s never worked for Kris until they got horns but then why does this look like what they used to see—
Human. There’s pictures and more pages and words and words and they all blur into Kris’s brain, hands and hair and skin and nails and kid, and, and maybe they’re shaking. Are they shaking? They don’t know where they are anymore. It’s cold. The book isn’t in their lap. Where’s Noelle? Where’s, what’s, but—
Paw to their head. Their claws have never been curved and sharp like their family. Just blunt and whenever they got too long they’d break and.
And their horns still haven’t grown in and
when they tug the headband it comes off like it was never a part of them to begin with and
they are in a room and it’s too-bright and they’re trying to blink but they can’t see and
something big and furry and that’s Mom but they don’t look anything like her and
and
deer shed their antlers and goats don’t but they’re not a deer and they’re not a goat and they know, deep in their chest, that they will never see their horns ever again.
| are humans different from monsters |
|---|
| what are young humans called |
| do humans have horns |
| mirror not working |
| how to make mirror work |
| how to get rid of mirror |
| how to get rid of glass |
| do humans have dust |
| what is blood |
| how to get rid of blood |
| how to make blood be dust |
| how to grow horns |
“Kris.” Mom’s voice is gentle outside their bedroom door. Kris presses themself harder against the wall. They’re small, too-small, so small they can still fit under their bed. They don’t have horns to catch on the frame. “Kris, dinner is ready. I would really like it if you joined me and your brother for dinner, but if not, I will leave your meal out here, okay?”
Dig their nails into their skin. Their weak skin. It hurts but down here it’s dark and they can imagine their arm flaking to dust. Like it should. Like it should. It has to.
It has to.
“Kris, I know you are…mad.” No, not gentle, measured. That’s what Mom’s voice is. Kris curls tighter in on themself. “I did not mean to hide anything from you, my child, I simply thought it was not important to you, and that is why you never asked.” She’ll have to go away eventually. Even Asriel’s caught on. He says good night to them but doesn’t try to get them to come out. “I told Asgore it was a bad idea to—”
She cuts herself off. If Kris bites hard on their arm they almost can’t hear how bitter Mom’s voice is. “Nevertheless. I love you, my child, and I am here when you are ready to talk.”
They only poke their head out from under the bed when they’re sure Mom is gone, waiting ten minutes after they hear her walk away, and they throw open their dresser drawer and fish out the single piece of glass they kept from the mirror. Sharp and jagged and when they grip it in their hand the edges of their skin go red.
It doesn’t work and they know this but it’s—it’s—
It’s just.
There is a face looking back at them through that sliver of glass. With dark hair and dark eyes. A round face. Smooth skin.
It’s not them. It can’t be. They know what they look like. They’re not—they can’t be—they shouldn’t be—
They’re.
They just.
With a huff, the glass is thrown back into the dresser, and they retreat back under their bed. It’s not them. It’s not them. Whoever they are, it is not the stranger that stares at them from the mirror.
Is this how Noelle feels? When her antlers grow back in?
Kris thinks Noelle’s mentioned it before. How she’d look in a mirror and it took her a minute.
But Kris hasn’t seen Noelle for a while.
Not since Dess left.
Not since—
But Kris isn’t Noelle and they don’t care about her anyways.
Kris continues to grow. They don’t grow horns, but they grow taller, a bit. Asriel’s horns curl towards the sky. Mom and Dad start yelling at each other, and Kris doesn’t even know if they always did that or if they’ve just stopped pretending around them.
Mom replaces the mirror in the hallway.
Dad sleeps on the couch, and then doesn’t sleep in their house, anymore.
Kris lies on their bed, and stares up at their ceiling. Asriel is typing away on his computer, the keys click-clicking as he fills out applications. He’s taller than Mom, now. Taller than them, always.
They touch a hand to their head. Flat.
“Ugh,” Asriel mutters, and Kris rolls onto their side, to instead face the wall. “Would it be tacky to write about Kris? It’s just, I’m so tired of trying to figure out what to write for this essay, and that was the turning point for everything, wasn’t it?”
He’s not really talking to them. They’re not even sure he knows they’re in the room.
“Just all, oh, yeah, so my kid sibling found out they were a human and it was kinda my fault because I wasn’t watching them, whoops! And then my parents stopped pretending everything was fine! And then, and then, my best friend turned 18 and ran away and I don’t know if she’s alive, haha! And then my parents got divorced! And I have to just keep answering these prompts like I’m some perfect golden boy who’s not trying to deal with all of this! Yeah, that’s going to make these schools accept me.”
His voice goes muffled. “Fuck, I’m so tired of this stupid house.”
Ah. Yeah. For sure doesn’t know they’re in the room.
Kris gets up, quiet as they can, and creeps out of the room, out of the house, and into the nearest tree, where they curl up against the rough bark, and stare at the clouds until the sky goes dark.
With Asriel gone it means there’s only Mom to try and coax them out of bed in the morning, and Kris maybe should be a better child, but leaving their room means staring at themself in the mirror as they brush their teeth, means walking into a kitchen with their old art on the fridge, means going to school and sitting at their desk and acting like they can’t hear Noelle whenever she tries, in a halting, quiet voice, to talk to them.
Go away, Kris doesn’t tell her. But they don’t really need to. They don’t answer and Noelle’s attempts peter out eventually. Everyone’s do, really. Not that anyone bothered to try. The only kid that sometimes talks to them is Berdly, and that’s just to boast about how he’s better at Smash than them, and they don’t even have horns to toss and display, to challenge him with.
Their nails gouge scars into the wood of their desk. Thin scars, though. Asriel could do better.
But Asriel isn’t here. Asriel left.
“Kris,” Noelle says, a month after Asriel moved away, and Kris looks at her through their bangs.
What, they don’t bite out.
“I’m just.” Noelle shakes her head. “Nevermind. I hope you have a good day.”
They don’t, just to spite her.
But then they fall into the Dark World, and they meet Susie, and Ralsei, and Ralsei tells them the Dark World is shaped by the Lightners above, by their hopes and dreams and wishes, and the thing is—
They’re still…them. Too human. No horns.
“I’m really glad I met you,” Ralsei tells them, when it’s just the two of them in the cell, Susie out to try and break them free. “I’ve been…lonely, all this time. And if I never met you and Susie…”
He trails off. “Well. I’m just glad I’m not alone anymore!”
The Lonely Prince. It’s…
Echoes. They don’t want to think about it too hard.
“Yeah,” they sign, and they smile at Ralsei, at whatever this new, fragile thing is blooming between them, between all three of them. “Me too.”
Because in the Dark World, somehow, it’s—
It’s not perfect. It won’t be, so long as they’re human-shaped. But it’s how their sword is never heavy in their hands, how they scramble up rock faces in front of the rest of their party, as though it is second nature. How they point their sword out in front of them whenever they’re challenging someone, feet planted steady, head tossing, sword there.
Ralsei and Susie back them up, and neither of them mention the human thing. Susie chases them around, and they can slam their head into her chest to knock her off-balance, and it doesn’t sting even a little. Ralsei watches from the sidelines, but when they grab his hand to drag him into things, he smiles at them, like they’ve made his day. Being around Ralsei and Susie makes something flutter in their chest, in a way it only ever did when they were very little still.
They don’t want to go back to the Light World, when it’s all over. Why would they? Here they are—someone. Here they are the Lightner with the sword, like how Susie is the Lightner with the ax.
“Before you guys go,” Ralsei says, and he pulls his hat off, and—
It’s like looking into a mirror.
Their red horns. Their thick fur, a few shades too light, but other than that and the glasses it’s them, right to a T, and their hand is up in their hair and feeling for horns before they can stop themself, except—
“Kris?” Ralsei asks.
He’s.
Kris swallows. Ralsei blinks at them, waiting. His horns are smaller than Asriel’s, but starting to curl. Just like theirs would be if they—
Kris turns on their heel, and leaves the Dark World, and does not once look back.
The mirror shows a stranger, as it always does. The Dark World shows Ralsei, as it always does.
They are neither stranger nor Ralsei. They are floating, somewhere in between, while Ralsei talks to them like he has any right to wear their dreams on his face.
The Dark World exists from the dreams of Lightners.
Ralsei is there, its lonely prince. Kris sits alone in their room, prince of nothing.
“Ralsei.”
It’s the first word out of their mouth when they return to the newly-filled castle town, before Ralsei can say anything about exploring. Susie has already run off after Lancer, and that is fine. This is not a conversation she needs to hear.
“Yes, Kris?” Ralsei asks, polite as anything. His voice isn’t theirs, and they can grasp onto that. Neither are his eyes, much too light, nothing like Kris’s dark maroon. Like Mom’s.
“When.” Kris swallows. Forces the words out. “When we first met you. You hid what you looked like. Why?”
“Oh, um.” Ralsei looks down, pressing his paws together. “It’s—I don’t know. I just…I guess I don’t really look like anyone else here, do I? I mean. I guess all Darkners look different, but I’m.” He laughs. “I mean! You can see me. The glamour, I just…fit in.”
“Did you like it?” Kris presses. “Fitting in?”
Ralsei nods. “It was…good,” he says. “Easier. And it made me feel like I was some big hero! That was a plus. Like I had some sort of purpose, and I was fulfilling it. But…you and Susie are both my friends, Kris. I guess…I guess I don’t really know what it means, to be Ralsei, but maybe I can find out with you guys?”
He smiles at them, and it is nothing like their brother’s smile because it is all them, somehow, as though reflecting out of their chest. Earnest and hopeful and things they haven’t been since they were a kid.
“I kinda don’t know what it means to be Kris either,” they say, fast, so fast the words blur together, and before he can say anything they grab his hand and are rushing the last direction they saw Susie go, saying, “let’s find Susie! Get the gang back together!”
Ralsei laughs, hurrying along after them. They squeeze his hand tighter, and close their eyes, and let the growing sound of Susie and Lancer’s laughter carry them forwards.
“Kris,” Susie says, tilting her head. “Y’know, I’ve never asked you this but I’ve always thought it. Were you named after the dagger?”
Kris pauses. “What?”
Susie won’t meet their eyes when they look at her, instead staring up at the sky. “Like. The dagger? It’s all, uh, curved and shit. They look pretty cool. If you tell anyone I skewer you, but I found a bunch of pictures of them in this old human history book the library has. I always wondered. Your Mom doesn’t really seem that type, but I dunno.”
“Oh.”
They like their sword. It’s comfortable in their hands. They’ve never thought of—of a dagger. They’ve never heard of a dagger with their name.
When they swallow, it is heavy. Ralsei is watching them, curious, though he does not speak. They’re not sure if it’s easier that way.
“Dunno,” Kris settles on, finally. “But. If I am. I think that’s kinda cool.”
Susie grins at them. “Hell yeah it is,” she says, knocking her fist to theirs.
It’s not horns. It won’t ever be horns.
But…a dagger. A knife.
That’s not the worst thing to be.
“This is the dumbest assignment,” Susie is complaining beside them, as Kris carefully picks a selection of colored pencils out of the basket being passed around, making sure to grab the sharpest ones before they’re gone. “I can’t draw for shit, why does Ms. Alphys think I can somehow draw my own face?”
“Just draw an oval,” Kris says, pressing the tip of their black pencil to their paper.
A self-portrait, Ms. Alphys said. Something to do with their group projects, Kris thinks.
They’re not sure who they’d see, if they looked in a mirror right now. If they’d see the stranger, or Ralsei.
But maybe this time they’d just see themself.
Not a monster, not a human, but a Lightner: just themself.
Just Kris.