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The barrier was finally broken.
It had shattered in a burst of brilliant magic and light, the sound ricocheting off the mountain to the land below like a thunderclap. They had stepped out into the light, then, her friends and the child, and seen the endlessness of the sky painted in the shades of sunset. Beautiful. It was so very beautiful, and Toriel believed it was made all the more beautiful by the way it illuminated the faces of the monsters and their human. She breathed the fresh air of the surface deeply.
They stood there in silence- she didn't know how long for- before it was broken by dear Papyrus asking his brother what the light in the sky was. She smiled at his innocence, and looked down at her child as Sans quietly informed him as to the existence of the sun. Frisk stood there, eyes half-closed in the warmth. Toriel reached for their small bony hand and held it in her large furry one. She felt... complete.
No moment lasts forever, though, and one by one, the other monsters trickled away, leaving only Toriel and Frisk behind. It was strange; Toriel had wanted to ask her child this since they woke from whatever event had broken the barrier (her memory was hazy) but seeing Frisk sighing happily in the sun, delighted at returning home, she wasn't so sure she could. The answer had seemed certain before, but now? Now she was unsure. Now she was nervous, like she was a child no older than Frisk.
Frisk, in their uncanny perceptiveness, tugged gently at her sleeve, their little face inquisitive. Toriel faced them and cleared her throat.
"Will you stay with me, my child?"
Frisk giggled. Yes, they signed back, if you want me to.
Toriel felt her eyes mist, and she laughed too, pulling her child in for a hug. "Of course I do, little one, of course I do."