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"Tape!"
"Tape!" A small, hard plastic hand in a red glove held out a roll of duct tape.
"Glue!"
A few saxophone honks in response, as a shadowy hand held out a bottle of quick-drying glue.
"Wire cutters!"
No response to this one, and Susie glanced over her shoulders as the Pippins and Shadowguy assisting her shrugged. "I said, wire cutters!"
"No can do, Boss!"
"Why not?!"
The Pippins pointed to a couple of Darkners just off-set, one shaped like a pair of wire cutters with a face (and also flower-embroidered cowboy boots, for some reason), standing near a smug trash can with folded arms and sunglasses. "She's still waiting on an autograph from Serious Trashy!"
"Oh GOD DAMN IT!!" Scowling, Susie yanked the multicolored wires dangling out of the television's arm sockets, pulling them taut. With no other options and time running short she bared her sharp teeth, and snapped, spitting out frayed wire ends once, twice. It wasn't quite a clean cut but it'd do, and she shoved the wires back into their sockets and taped metal arms over them, sighing as she dumped glue into the ripped seams of Mr Tenna's shirt to mend it as well. Or, more likely, stick it onto him permanently. As long as it worked. As long as something worked.
"So, he's fixed, right? He's gonna wake up now, right?!" But Tenna's screen stayed dark, without even a blip of light in his cathode ray tube or a spark from the twisted pair of rabbit-ear antennae sticking out his top. Susie tested the tape holding one of those antennae in place, making sure she'd securely reattached it after it'd been severed by...
The Knight. Wincing as she remembered the black blade she'd taken to her own arm, she hissed, checking on the duct tape she'd hurriedly slapped on as a makeshift bandage. It'd hurt like hell to pull it off later, maybe take a few scales off with it, but it wasn't like she could heal the damage as well as Ralsei could.
She'd tried. She'd tried over and over, cast her spell on Tenna's lifeless shell, but to no avail. If the other Darkners hadn't pitched in to help save their former boss he'd be a goner for sure, but even when they did step in with tools and a little contractually-mandated mechanical knowhow...Tenna's screen remained black. Lifeless. Cold.
Damn that Knight. Damn that...THING!!
"Where the HELL is Ralsei?!" By the time she'd managed to make it back to the Dark World after chasing down the Knight he'd fled, something about getting their new recruits back to the safety of Castle Town, leaving Tenna behind in the snow.
Susie supposed she couldn't blame him, after the way Ralsei had spoken earlier. Tenna was broken, after all. Trash. But people weren't meant to be just thrown out when they broke, damn it.
Sadness in her eyes, Susie located Tenna's red suit crumpled on the ground nearby, where she'd tossed it in order to more easily access the parts she needed. The sleeves she left behind, two red scars permanently etched into the snow, but she retrieved the bulk of the jacket and gently cupped Tenna's body in her hands to transfer onto it rather than letting him lay directly on the frozen ground, and tucked what she could of it around him like a blanket – she'd be worried about it barely covering anything at all, if the television man hadn't automatically deflated like a balloon at some point after he fell, shrinking down to the point Susie actually wondered if he'd end up lost in the oversized fabric instead. Mr "Ant" Tenna had never resembled his namesake so closely, which hadn't helped with the repairs one bit, but if what the other Darkners said was true, he would quickly start to regain his size along with his strength once he woke up.
If he woke up.
Damn it, where the HELL was Kris? They sure were taking their sweet time getting back from the Light World. The Fountain loomed overhead, a pillar of smoke darker than dark, the only thing in the (Dark) world that Susie was powerless to stop on her own. She needed to find Kris and get that thing sealed, but...
Her gaze drifted across the snowy plains, from Tenna's red-wrapped body, to a massive and strangely crusty-looking Gyftmas tree, to a cracked-open prize ball underneath it, to a velvet-upholstered and gilded throne, to...Toriel. Still sleeping peacefully slumped over in her seat, her small golden crown having slipped off at some point and gently replaced into her lap, but she wouldn't sleep forever, and that "all a dream" explanation Susie had bullshitted for Noelle and Berdly could only go so far. Toriel was smarter than them, she was a teacher for crying out loud! If she woke up before Kris sealed the fountain, there was no telling how she would react, how the whole town would react knowing there was a shrieking, misshapen thing out there opening Dark Worlds and abducting people.
Susie couldn't leave Toriel behind, couldn't leave Tenna behind, but she had to find Kris. Had to find Ralsei. Had to get the damn bunker opened to follow the Knight and save Officer Undyne. It was all so much, pulling her in so many directions at once, she eventually just had to close her eyes and pick one.
Snarling, she pointed at the nearest Darkners, the Shadowguy and Pippins who'd volunteered to assist her with Tenna's repairs. "Watch them! Make sure Toriel doesn't wake up, and if she does...just come up with something!" With that, she barreled back through the doors to the outside, braving the frigid winds as they bathed her body in light. In true Light.
Almost instantly the terrified Darkners bailed, their generosity only going so far. They'd just had their contracts shredded by a wild lawnmower, there was no way they were signing themselves away in another one so soon, and especially not to someone with those teeth!
Silence followed everyone's departure. Dusty snowflakes fell, catching on the tattered red coat and melting into tiny drops on Tenna's glass screen, peppering it with dots slowly tessellating into a grid of watery static, soon complimented as an electronic pop echoed deep within him as he switched back on, his faint glow projecting red, green, and blue pixels that sparkled within each droplet.
Soon enough the static snow outside matched the image in his screen, and, gingerly as each and every movement of his arm sent pain shooting through the entire rest of his body, he brought a gloved hand up, running fingertips across the upper rim of his throbbing TV case as he gave a low, muffled groan. It took a few minutes for Tenna's features to fully manifest, and he gritted his teeth as, slowly, he struggled to sit up and reorient himself, without his arms able to support much of his weight, reduced as it was at the moment.
He was alone, completely this time – not a single Darkner in sight, surely even one of his stagehands should still be lingering around? He hadn't fired them ALL, had he? He would, he decided, if he ever caught up to those cowards. Even Serious Trashy had abandoned him. Even Mike...Tenna stifled a sob. Mike. He couldn't believe it.
Even Susie. Even Kris. The Lightners and their friends were nowhere to be seen.
They all left him. They all LEFT him, like the obsolete hunk of trash he was. Left him alone and unloved in the dust. The credits had finally started rolling, the band played out, the spotlights dark and nothing left to do except crawl home to...Mama.
A still figure suddenly stood out to Tenna among the empty plain, slumped over in her chair, but not for long as her soft face twitched, wiggling her snout slightly as she roused. Toriel felt groggier than ever before; she needed to stop nodding off while sitting in Chairiel, unable to get a good night's rest in such a position. The only way she even could was in the presence of soothing classical music, something that had never once failed to lull her into a deep sleep regardless of positioning. Had Kris switched some on at some point? Or...
She yawned, and blinked, as she finally took in her surroundings. This wasn't cozy Chairiel underneath her, a much firmer but not quite unpleasant seat, and she fingered a small, smooth object tucked into her grip, accidentally jabbing a thumb on one of its points. A golden crown, matching the strange throne she found herself in, and her nightgown replaced by a heavy silk robe, as if she'd somehow become Queen of...whatever this place was. From the snow under her feet and the festively-decorated tree nearby it seemed Gyftmas had come a little earlier than expected. An odd kingdom, or queendom as the case may be, to say the least, more suited to her neighbors than to Toriel herself, and empty, save for...
Some...tiny man. With a television for a head? Now Toriel knew she had to still be dreaming.
The man had no eyes visible in his screen, just a mouth and a long pointed nose, but Toriel still felt his stare, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Water droplets ran down his face like tears.
"Mama..."
"Ex-Excuse me?!"
The man's lips didn't need to part for the word to escape him, his whispered voice electronic and low-fidelity, coming from speakers on either side of his television set head. But a small, shaky smile crept onto them regardless. He seemed injured as he made an effort to scramble onto his feet in vain, flinching and falling back to the ground whenever he tried to move either of his arms, and so Toriel rose, scooping him up into her paws, as well as the torn red cloth he'd been wrapped in. She considered just setting him back down and letting him go on his way, but the way he looked up at her, and the way he looked in general, seemed so...familiar, somehow, even though Toriel certainly didn't know any other monsters like him, if he even was a monster at all.
But the ripped red cloth...
A memory surfaced, of a sunny, warm day far removed from the dark, cold place where Toriel had awakened. Asriel had still been young himself then, tugging at her apron while she worked in the garden, watching him play.
"Mama," he'd shouted, pointing off into the woods, "I hear something!"
"What did you hear, my child?" But Asriel couldn't imitate the faint sound Toriel finally detected coming from somewhere in the trees, and she let him tug her by the paw into its direction, her pace increasing as the sound grew louder, and she recognized it instantly. Not like her kid's bleating, but a baby's cry, a sound so un-monsterlike but unmistakable just the same, and she finally saw the wrapped red bundle wriggling on the ground in the distance, its shrieks only getting louder as she approached.
Human, a word almost forgotten to the people of Hometown. Asgore had the entire police force searching for months for any trace of the human baby's parents, but ultimately came up empty. Toriel pored over the few books on humans she found at the library in order to care for the little one in the meantime, to the point that the staff almost considered just selling them to her outright instead of charging exorbitant fines for late returns.
But, she'd soon decided, Kris was now her child, and she their mother, swaddling them late at night and rocking them to sleep in that same torn red cloth, washed and re-sewn into a small blanket. Kris carried it with them for a few years, until around the time they received their little plastic horns, when it started getting left around the house, outgrown and forgotten. Toriel never could stand to see such an important keepsake left behind, but she couldn't bring herself to throw it away either, and so she did the next best thing.
It remained in a place of honor in her home, in the living room, spread across the table underneath the television as a centerpiece, where Toriel could always see it and be reminded of her Kris' introduction into the family.
That red cloth, the same hue and shade, which appeared to be the remains of a sleeveless and long-tailed suit jacket, the man's television head...why did it look so similar to the set in her living room? What a strange dream Toriel found herself in, but she took it in stride, resolving to simply enjoy it until morning.
Returning to her gilded throne and placing her queenly crown onto her head, Toriel returned the little TV man's smile as she allowed him to rest on her lap, a warm and fluffy paw behind his back to support him. "You're so familiar. Who are you?"
Tenna's grin fell instantly. Kris was one thing, but Toriel didn't know him? TORIEL? The last person to watch him regularly?
He watched Toriel's head tilt quizzically to the side, a genuine lack of recognition in her eyes. Didn't she remember her daytime soaps, her cooking shows, the snowy early mornings closely watching the crawl at the bottom of the screen for school closures? The consternation on her face as she paged through Tenna's user manual trying to find his parental block option the day Asriel first stumbled on an R-rated movie? (It wasn't Tenna's fault, honest! The TV Guide said the program was only TV-14!) Those nights with Asgore on the couch, punching in the code to watch those same movies once the kids had gone to bed?
"T-Tori! You can't really mean...you don't even recognize the FAMILY TV?" Toriel blinked in surprise, as those final two words seemed to almost have an audible shine to them, an uncanny image appearing in her mind of glittery red and yellow letters that Toriel didn't even bother to try and understand. She'd had stranger things happen in dreams before. "You're my NUMBER-ONE FAN!"
Tenna tried to extend his arm and point up at her, but yelped as his shoulder immediately erupted in searing pain, which wasn't helped at all by his instinct to right away grasp at it with his other hand, sending that entire side into agony as well. Feebly wrapping his arms around himself and whimpering, he slid back out of Toriel's grip and collapsed onto her lap in an undignified heap, the miniscule amount of energy he'd managed to recover already drained.
Right away, a few more snowflakes melted into tears onto his warm screen as he stared up at the sky, and into Toriel's face as the latter's jaw dropped open in shock.
"You're badly hurt! Please, tell me what I can do!" Carefully, she brushed a paw pad over Tenna's taped-up shoulder, studying the ragged seams in his white undershirt and his messy, partially-undone yellow tie. It was like his sleeves, or his entire arms, had been ripped off by some wild animal and...glued back on? Like a broken toy, haphazardly repaired by the child who owned it.
She always had to scrub so hard to get the glue out of Asriel's fur whenever he tried that.
Tenna shook his head, also noticing the disappointing repair job he'd been subjected to. He liked this shirt, and it was gonna hurt like heck to rip it off. "Just...put on the Home Medical Channel!" His antennae sparking as he turned his dial to the correct channel, his screen briefly switched to a color bar display. "Oh...right, it's been off the air for years."
Toriel uncomfortably looked away. Goodness, this dream was conjuring up so many memories! "I...used to watch that channel, yes, when Kris was young. It helped so much when they became ill. I was so disappointed when it stopped airing..."
"Boy, YOU were disappointed?" Toriel hadn't watched him for a whole week afterward! It was like she blamed Tenna for it, hated him-
"I had to spend more time at the library instead of watching TV, especially since it happened right as Kris came down with the flu!"
Pausing, his face returned to normal and he stared up at Toriel, astonished. "The library?"
She responded with a gentle laugh. "Of course. You cannot learn everything from television!"
Tenna huffed, insulted.
"Ah, I apologize if that came across as rude." She thought for a moment. "Perhaps you would like something to eat? If I were home I would offer to bake a pie for you, but..." Toriel studied her surroundings once again, the empty, snow-covered plains under open sky, filled with massive stars that sparkled as if made of glitter, leading to purple stepped cliffs far in the distance and a large steel door leading into a dark complex somewhere in between. Nowhere she could think would have an oven.
But, the sentiment still warmed Tenna's mechanical heart all the same. "Pie...I'd LOVE some pie!"
Toriel returned Tenna's grin. "Just last night, Susie...erm, my child's friend, and I started to bake one, but we didn't finish." Huh, no wonder the guy was so half-baked in auditions, Tenna thought to himself. "If I could, I would make you one of my butterscotch-cinnamon ones."
His antennae suddenly stood at attention. "H-How did you know? Butterscotch? Cinnamon? That's my FAVORITE flavor double-feature!" Of course, Tenna had never had a chance to actually eat a butterscotch-cinnamon pie himself, only to watch the Dreemurrs do so through his glass screen. He weakly chuckled, as he remembered the way Asgore would lean in, his beard practically brushing the pie's surface, to deeply sniff the rich cinnamon-y steam wafting up as it came fresh out of the oven, enough that Toriel had to tsk-tsk him away so he wouldn't shed any fur onto it. The way Asriel would slather on extra whipped cream, always oblivious to Kris sneaking up behind, ready to jam their little fingers into the bowl when he turned away and smear the stuff over his snout, the way Asriel would laugh while Toriel would admonish the two of them, sending them to wash while she cut their slices. The way they'd take their plates and gather on the couch, right in front of the TV, and Toriel would switch Tenna on to watch a game show or some other light entertainment while they ate their dessert.
Butterscotch-cinnamon pie, Tenna's favorite...to watch everyone else eat. How many times had he wished so badly he could be there on the other side of his own screen, taking an extra plate and finding a comfy spot on the couch, or even somewhere on the floor, anywhere they had room for him. How he'd wished Kris would dab a little of that whipped cream on his long nose, how he could smell the batter as it baked...
But, he had been there in person, hadn't he? Hadn't he watched them all eat while plugged in right in front of them? He'd laughed with them when the game show contestants came up with a funny survey response, even if it blended right into the program's canned laugh track. He'd cried with them at the end of the Thursday night movie, wishing someone would dab his screen with a tissue as the heroine proclaimed her undying love.
He'd been there the one time that Toriel threw a (thankfully cooled) fur-covered butterscotch-cinnamon pie right into Asgore's face, her shouting echoing through the whole house as Asriel cupped his paws over Kris' ears and hurried them upstairs. He'd been there while Asgore moved pillows and blankets to the couch in front of him, and Tenna lulled him to sleep with late-night movies. He'd been there that first evening without Asgore present at all, while the rest of the family ate their pie in stoic silence.
Tenna turned back up to the sky, to let a few more snowy tears melt down his face again. No, no butterscotch-cinnamon pie for him, thanks. Not even if it was his favorite.
But Toriel wouldn't let the suggestion go; this little man certainly did seem like he'd just been through some terrible ordeal, his obvious injuries aside. Hunger was the least of his problems, but always the easiest one to fix – televisions got hungry in dreams, right? To one side of the distant building she spotted what appeared to be a vending machine, worth a closer look. Standing, she gently replaced Tenna into her seat to wait for her return, but immediately he reached out to grip her robe and stop her in her tracks.
Just like Asriel used to do, when he was small...
Tenna cried out, as her attempts to tug herself free unintentionally sent pain coursing through his shoulder yet again, threatening to rip his arm off anew, but his grip was firm. "You can't leave me," he begged, "Not yet! Please...don't go..."
But, under Toriel's patent gaze, he hesitantly released her, instead wrapping his hand around a single digit she offered him. Kneeling down to his level she attempted to reassure Tenna, repeating the words she'd spoken so many times to Asriel when he'd acted in such a way.
"I will only be gone for a moment, my child-" She caught herself, a faint blush barely visible underneath her pale fur despite her attempts to hide it from view. "I will return, I promise."
Taken aback momentarily by the gaffe, Tenna finally nodded in acceptance, and let her go; he knew it'd been an accident, but something about those words soothed something inside him instantly. Not the sting radiating from his mangled shoulders, but a deeper ache, one that Tenna had kept on mute for far too long.
"'Her child,'" he repeated to himself in a hushed whisper, once he was sure Toriel was out of earshot.
Hurrying, Toriel crossed the empty plain, once again marveling at this strange dream world. At how the soft snow crystals that drifted from above, not from clouds but rather pieces dropped from the glittering stars floating low above her head, didn't quite give the crunch she expected as her heavy feet pressed into it; it was slicker, dingier when one looked close, piles of it along the trail seeming to swell and recede as if breathing with a life of their own. She refused to dwell on the observation any further. She noted the odd temperatures surrounding her as well, as the stardust snow almost felt warm to the touch but a distinct chill still permeated the air above it, almost like it'd seeped in from elsewhere, like a draft from an open window or door. It barely lessened as she approached the darkened walls, the lone metal gate leading within locked tight from the inside. To her dismay, the vending machine beside it appeared to have already been torn open by something huge, like an axe the size of Toriel's own head! But, the frightful visual turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as strewn below its broken pieces were a few packs of...TV dinners, as the cover claimed. Squared instead of rectangular, with a design of a television screen and a wide-grinning eyeless face matching that of her guest?
Or, was it the other way around, with him as the host and Toriel as his guest? At closer inspection the walls looming over her did appear to be those of a television studio of some sort, from the black silhouettes of gigantic broadcast towers peeking up over the roof, their tops disappearing into the dark sky. Perhaps this wasn't Toriel's own holiday-themed kingdom after all. The monster had never dreamed so vividly before, but it all still made about as much sense as any other.
The label on its cover also claimed the meal came ready to eat, "No Microwave Needed!", and so she trodded back to where she'd left her throne and the TV-headed man sitting atop it, whose screen literally glowed brighter at Toriel's return.
She'd actually returned! She hadn't abandoned him (yet)! Braving the imminent sting as he reached up, Tenna quickly adjusted his brightness knob, realizing it'd turned itself with joy.
"I did promise, did I not?" The packaged meal came with its own plastic fork built into the lid, which Toriel used to scoop up a small amount of ultra-processed slop and held it out to Tenna, a faint blush filling his screen in embarrassment.
"You're...FEEDING me? A grown TV set?" If his arms weren't so sore he would've pulled at his collar uncomfortably. "Look, Tori, there's plenty to be said about appealing to the TV-Y7 market, but-"
"You've injured both your arms, have you not?" Toriel asked him. "It is best not to move too much, so they might heal more quickly." She insisted, and finally Tenna just shrugged, and took the bite, leaving Toriel confused as somehow the food phased right through the glass of his screen. "We might have only just met, but it pains me to see someone suffer when I could do even a small thing to help them."
It was something she couldn't refuse, the faces of those for which she'd done such small kindnesses still fresh in her mind. Kris, when they'd sprained their ankle jumping down from one of the trees at the Holidays' home, and Toriel right away whisked them into the kitchen for a glass of chocolate milk, to distract them and dry their tears while Carol tied their splint. Snowy, at his mother's funeral, still too young to understand why she had disintegrated into dust, or the meaning behind the gemstone his father had chosen to bury. His father had never been one for words, at least not ones ending in a punchline, and so Toriel offered to take his place and comfort the little avian. Cinnamon, one of the smallest of her own students, when he couldn't reach the top of the stack of chairs to retrieve one, but was too proud to accept anyone else just handing it to him. At first, Toriel simply lifted him up, holding him as he grabbed the top chair – and wiped his tears as his grip proved insufficient, toppling the entire stack onto the floor instead. But, it reassured him quickly when, Toriel pointed out, now he could take any chair he wanted, without having to rely on someone else to reach. Erasing what she had written on the board that day she replaced it with a new lesson, one she had just learned herself, that often there was more than one solution to a problem.
Susie, whose face Toriel remembered most vividly of all now that they had recently been re-introduced, remembering how the smile across from her in the diner booth still matched the one covered in flour across her kitchen counter, the little claws that'd taken Toriel's paw growing big enough with time to effortlessly knead dough for a pie.
Tilting her head curiously, she noticed an oversized pie crumb inside the tray – Tenna didn't have any eyes that she could see but his invisible gaze still greedily followed it in anticipation as she held it out to him as well. He'd already started to feel stronger with a little nourishment, his shoulders no longer shooting intense pain through him as he moved, but he still tried to ignore the lingering soreness as he reached up and grabbed it out of Toriel's fingers, nibbling on it like a famished insect.
"Goodness!" Toriel laughed at the utter ravenousness with which he destroyed that tiny portion of pie, and even, carefully, took the tray and fork in his own hands to finish the rest, just impressed by how quickly he seemed to recover. "I suppose you were hungry after all."
She frowned. Wasn't the little man much smaller only a few moments ago? Instead of someone she could easily hold in a single paw, he now almost resembled a small child, albeit still one with an oversized television set for a head. But, Tenna hadn't yet grown too big to fit onto Toriel's lap if he so chose, and he did so, allowing her to retake her seat as, with some difficulty, he hopped back up and retook his own. Getting a little more HP back had worked wonders; the soreness in Tenna's shoulders had dulled significantly, but they remained stiff, his movements jittery and slow. But his tongue was a very different story.
"Phew, that really did hit the spot," Tenna laughed, licking the last bits of food out of the tray and nonchalantly tossing it onto the snow at Toriel's feet, making her consider whether it was appropriate to lecture a complete stranger about littering. "Would you believe I've only had TWO of these today! Time to cancel my diet, the camera always did add ten pounds anyway!"
"You know, these...TV dinners, are not very healthy for you. I do hope you can have a home-cooked meal soon."
Shrugging, Tenna sighed. "I mean, we TRIED to budget something like that once, but Ramb's such a lousy cook there wasn't any point. Guy can barely even mix me a decent battery acid cocktail! Don't know why I keep him around honestly." Had to be the accent. Everyone loved the accent. Perhaps if Tenna finally learned to imitate it it'd get his audience cheering!
That is, it would if he'd still had an audience at all. Kris...Susie...Ralsei...it'd been so long since Tenna had that many pairs of eyes on his screen, much less that many hands on the quiz challenge buzzers. Even if the censors were bound to kill him for the names on at least one of their podiums.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he glanced up at Toriel's face, fresh concern in her soft gaze. Shoot, he realized his feed had gone to static for a moment again. And he'd shrunk back down an inch.
"I asked, what is your name?" Tenna leaned into her touch as she braced and even gently rubbed his back again, immediately regaining that inch of height. Come on, Tenna, keep it together! This was one audience he couldn't afford to disappoint! But...
Oh no. This part wasn't in the script at all.
"My name is Toriel," she said, as if Tenna needed any introduction at all. "What may I call you?"
Tenna stuttered, a momentary shiver overtaking him. He quickly turned his screen away from Toriel; usually he managed to keep his thoughts from reflecting openly within it, an absolutely essential skill for someone with eyes, cameras, and whatever Shuttah had in between on him at all times! But, it didn't hurt to be careful, as an image formed in his mind...
An image of Asgore, and Toriel at his side. A memory of before, before everyone stopped watching. Before the family started fighting.
"Kris, Azzy," Asgore's deep baritone voice echoed from the stairwell as he peered out toward the living room, barely avoiding scraping his horns along the ceiling above him.
Pressing her way past, Toriel gently laid a paw onto Asriel's head, lovingly ruffling his fur, and then her other paw onto Kris' hair, stroking it. The human was still too small to have even asked about their horns yet, gripping their red blanket tight.
"Come now, you two," she cooed, "It's time for bed."
Of course, both of the kids complained. Why wouldn't they? Tenna had been in top form that night – living at the top of town made for a crummy signal most nights no matter how his antennae were adjusted but Lanino and Elnina had reported exceptionally clear skies, meaning for once there wasn't a single speck of static snow on Tenna's screen! Even if all he had to show on it at that late hour were infomercials. But he'd entertained them regardless, the overenthusiastic pitchmen inspiring Asriel to make up dubious new products to hawk to Kris, who despite being too young to understand much of the claims still clapped happily and laughed along at the silly voices in which they'd been made.
"Your mother's right," Asgore countered, making his way back to Toriel's side, his paw moving towards Tenna's switch to shut him off.
How his electronic heart had jumped for joy that night, when Asriel reached in turn, catching his father's hand. He pleaded with Asgore, just five more minutes, and Tenna's screen subtly flickered as he begged for it too, but it was already late on a school night, and both the older monsters shook their heads.
"Now, now..." A smile crossed Asgore's face, and he knelt down, barely reducing his height at all as he met Asriel's eyes. Quickly, he tugged on one of his long ears. "Listen, you hear that? I think..." Gently, he patted the top of Tenna's case. "I think I hear...uh..."
He paused for a second, deep in thought.
"I think...Mr Ant Tenna here is tired too!" No he wasn't. He watched Toriel stifle a giggle through his screen, as she scooped Kris up into her arms. "Don't you want to let him get some rest for tomorrow, too?"
"Don't listen to him, he's lying," Tenna wished he could say, but alas, Asriel agreed, and Asgore mimicked his wife, resting his older kid's sleepy head onto his shoulder as the two of them headed upstairs, flipping Tenna's power switch in the process, leaving him there, alone and dark.
But not for long, as their silhouettes appeared in the faint glow of his screen once again, their voices lowered so as not to re-awaken the children.
"'Mr Ant Tenna,'" Toriel chuckled, ribbing her husband, who bristled like he'd just been bitten.
"I thought it was clever," he defended himself. "And it got Asriel to agree to sleep for once!"
"Yes, but...'Ant,' 'Tenna.'" Toriel just couldn't stop snickering at the name as she motioned towards the pair of antennae atop Tenna's case, which made the picture in his screen distort slightly as he "sneered" at her.
Asgore winked, refusing to accept her mockery. "I'm quite good at coming up with names sometimes."
" Asriel, " Toriel said firmly, and he finally conceded, sighing in defeat as he laid his arm across her shoulders to pull her closer, and dug into the couch cushions underneath him for the remote. Asgore had been wrong of course, so wrong. There was no need for a television to tire, or sleep, not when there was an audience begging for entertainment.
And certainly not on the night of the newest series premiere: Mr (Ant) Tenna's TV Time!!
Tenna chuckled softly, smiling. It wasn't a bad memory at all, in fact one of the ones he held most dear, it was the one that made him the STAR he became, after all! But that warmth it brought to him immediately turned icy cold again when he remembered Toriel's question, what she'd asked him. His name. The name ASGORE had given him.
A name that'd surely bring that same memory to her once she heard it, wouldn't it? And to Toriel, it couldn't be as warm and happy as it was to Tenna. He remembered, bitterly, that Asgore's naming habits had come up once or twice in their arguments after all.
It was a memory that Tenna knew Toriel would find upsetting, and no showman could willingly upset his audience!
Instead he switched gears immediately, wiping away a little drop of snow that'd melted and dripped down his face like sweat. He could leave Toriel in a little suspense! Years and years of morning talk and variety shows had given Tenna a deep pool of other potential content to choose from!
"So, Tori," he started, hoping she'd forgive the sudden format switch without even a commercial break to buffer it, "got any BIG PLANS for this beautiful upcoming SUNDAY MORNING?"
To Toriel's surprise, those final two words, along with an image of soft golden clouds and angelic halos, also conjured a brief, half-second snippet of a chorus, making her laugh. She still didn't know this funny little man's name or how he did that with his voice, but she played along, indulging him. "Sunday morning? Well, each Sunday Kris and I attend church service."
To her amusement, Tenna leaned back against one of her throne's armrests, crossing his legs as he stretched out and propped them up on the other side, and mimed pulling back an unseen microphone from her to speak into it himself. Interviews just didn't feel right without one. "Oh, yes, indeed! One of the 'HIGH LIGHTS' of every week!" He fondly remembered those afternoons when Asriel came home from Sunday School, and immediately tuned him to the religious channel to watch while Kris headed elsewhere to work off their "sick fruit juice" and hot chocolate sugar rush. For Tenna, Sundays meant his own private one-on-one time with Azzy, though sometimes Toriel guest-starred when she didn't have choir practice to attend, and they sat there watching the animated adventures of morally-upstanding superheroes, wisecracking superfoods (the singing avocado was always Asriel's favorite), and wholesome comedic stylings of cheaply- but earnestly-made puppet shows reflected in his screen. It was like they'd brought Sunday School home to Tenna, like they'd saved a seat for him right there in the pews at the morning service.
It'd been years since Asriel even looked at Tenna on a Sunday afternoon, but each week, without fail, he still said his little prayer for the family in his dressing room.
Giggling down at him, Toriel tried to recapture Tenna's attention yet again; he certainly seemed to "tune out" quite often, did he not? "It is nice to think of Sunday, but is tomorrow not Saturday?"
"Uh...WELL..." Now Tenna did sweat, without the aid of any melted snow, and gulped. "It's still never a...bad idea to...plan ahead?" Oh boy. What the heck was he supposed to say, that Toriel had lost an entire day asleep in a prize machine ball after Kris opened a Dark Fountain in the middle of their living room, attracting the attention of the Knight who'd falsely promised Tenna a worldwide audience in exchange for her? Kris BETTER have cooked up some way to explain it all to their mother. "ANYWAYS!!"
Realizing just how anxiously energetic Tenna had become, Toriel let him hop down off her lap, where she now stared eye-to-screen with him, so long as she remained seated of course. Pointing up at her, Tenna flashed a wide grin. "Hey, I know what can melt a little of this ice," he said, kicking up a flurry of dusty snow at his feet. "Your favorite was always the Stand-Up Comedy Channel, wasn't it? You'd tune in late every night to listen to the hucksters and punsters heckle and jeckle, long after Asg-" Tenna's face briefly flipped to color bars as he stopped and censored himself. "Long after the kids went to bed!"
"Oh, I do remember!" Toriel laughed jovially, a paw over her mouth. "That reminds me! I must remember to give Mister Sans the channel number, I'm sure it'll tickle all his funny bones as well!"
Every single one of Tenna's servos locked into place, even his projected smile frozen in his screen. One of his antennae twitched.
"...Mister Who ."
"Oh, Mister Sans is...a friend." Nervously, Toriel pawed at her robe, fidgeting with its seams. "I have not yet introduced him to my children, but he is...a very nice, funny man, and someone I would like to know much better."
She winked, grinning playfully, and Tenna felt his soul shatter on the spot.
Suppressing a scream, he doubled over, hands clutching his boxy head tightly as if threatening to crush it in his grip as his face cut to static. What did Toriel mean "would like to know much better"?! Did that mean friendship? Business partners? Co-stars? ROMANCE? MARRIAGE? NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER?? Was that why she was getting rid of her TV, to move in with some stranger she barely even knew, and hadn't even had the decency to invite over to watch the Stand-Up Comedy Channel yet?!
Crumpling to his knees, Tenna instantly reached for his jacket's remains, rifling through the pockets. Melted snow just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Finding the item he sought, he pulled out an oversized spray bottle that made Toriel wonder how it'd even fit in there, and squirted two big blasts of water directly onto his face, letting colorful pixel tears stream down and dribble onto his shirt below.
"T-Toriel...you...you..." A sob wracked Tenna's frame, and finally she rose to her feet, her jaw hanging in stunned silence as she gripped his shoulders. "Y-You're SEEING someone new already?!"
Toriel had no idea what to make of Tenna's reaction. She barely knew this man, and he barely knew her...didn't he? He'd known all her favorite television channels, but surely, that was the extent of it.
But Tenna gained no comfort from her touch, shying away and spraying more tears onto his screen. "But what about...I can't believe...It's so soon...I didn't even know Azzy already went to college and now..."
"Azzy...?" Only Asriel's friends, and otherwise those who knew him well, called him by that nickname.
Something no longer felt dreamlike at all about this strangely-familiar television man, Toriel realized, as she watched him break down further, even bringing a hand up to physically lower his own volume, and stifle a high-pitched involuntary whine that escaped his mechanisms in lieu of words. There was something she'd missed, something she needed to know before she could understand what had so dramatically upset him.
"I just...I just..." Surprisingly, Tenna hadn't shrunk himself yet from the shock, and Toriel's paws moved up to cup the sides of his screen instead, flicking away droplets with her thumbs. His drooping antennae twinged uncomfortably at the contact, but this time he allowed it. "I wanted...the family back together again. But now..."
"My child," Toriel repeated, watching Tenna shudder once again at the address. "I know you somehow, do I not? Please, tell me your name."
Slowly, with his arms hanging limp at his sides and his screen turned downward and dimmed, Tenna rose back up to his full height, towering over Toriel as she came only to his waist. But she didn't back away, clasping her paws in front of her as she looked up into his blank screen, worry and sympathy in her eyes rather than fear.
"If you are afraid I will be angry with you, please understand I will not. I will stay here."
"It's... My name is..." As if to finally pull it out of him, Toriel snatched one of Tenna's cartoonishly-gloved hands, wrapping both of her own around it comfortingly, a couple of short claws similar to Toriel's own even poking out of his fingertips as she squeezed. She really wasn't going anywhere. "...Ant. My name is Ant Tenna."
"Mr Ant Tenna..." All at once, Toriel realized why he looked so much like the television in her living room.
She remembered at once the day Asgore hefted it onto its stand, huffing; the television had been a shower gift for Toriel from a close friend, but did they really have to splurge for such a large, heavy screen? She didn't plan on being completely immobile on the couch for her entire pregnancy, after all!
Not the traditional baby clothes and toys and strollers and tiny horn filing kits, but it wasn't a terrible gift, she decided, watching her husband wipe dust off the television screen until it shined, new and pristine, and plugged it into a nearby outlet. She certainly could see herself sitting in front of it in the coming months, and gently patted her stomach, her baby bump just beginning to show. But, did she really think the rest of her family would get much use out of it, when books were so much more entertaining?
Well. Perhaps she would see in a couple of years, with the pitter-patter of little monster paws running around. She sighed happily, but exasperatedly, at the looming prospect of becoming the mother to one, or perhaps more, couch potatoes.
But Asgore smiled, one hand on his hip as he wrapped his other arm around his wife. "It brings the room together, don't you think?"
"It does, I will admit." With an exasperated smile, she glanced back at the screen, and at the remote control still sitting neglected on top; she would've liked to try it out, but the batteries hadn't been included.
"I'm sure we have some in the kitchen drawer, give me a moment." Snatching it from her paws, Asgore winked and made his way into the next room, but Toriel had other ideas, locating and manually flipping a power switch in one of the top corners of the box.
With an instant electric pop the new television crackled to life, but with little to show for it save for a screen full of distorted static snow, and Toriel sighed, disappointed. So much for hours resting on the couch.
"I've got it, Tori, here-Oh!" Smiling as he passed her the remote, Asgore tested its power button, turning the set back off. "I forgot one thing! Remember how our radio gets such bad reception up here too? I picked something up on the way home that should help with that."
Hopping over the discarded cardboard the television had originally arrived in, he raced out the front door to his truck, where he retrieved a smaller box. Ripping through the tape on one side with his claws he pulled out an aftermarket pair of rabbit-ear antennas, which he wasted no time plugging into the TV and adjusting on its top until, finally, a picture came through.
Channel 2, the Weather Channel.
"Nothing but clear skies ahead," Asgore read off dreamily, gazing down at his wife as he laid his paws onto both of her shoulders, and Toriel in turn patted her stomach again, returning his loving smile.
While the couple's forecast eventually turned to clouds and storms instead, Toriel always looked back on that day fondly, to her baby shower and her gift, a new TV that symbolized a new start, with her new family.
The TV that she'd indeed laid up on the couch watching throughout the last few months of her pregnancy, getting tips from the Home Medical Channel and previewing the shows geared for toddlers and, secretly, flipping over to the Stand-Up Comedy Channel for a good belly laugh.
The TV Toriel had feverishly copied recipes off of from the Cooking Channel, to feed her growing family as Asriel entered it, and Kris in turn.
The TV Asgore had named "Mr Ant Tenna," as the two of them gently whisked their young children away to bed.
The TV the whole family would gather around on the holidays, even inviting their neighbors, as they all ate pie and watched the specials together.
The TV Asriel giggled in front of while he played that video game with the green dinosaur, begging his parents to theme his birthday party around it. The TV he cried at when he needed to drop the green dinosaur into a pit for some reason.
The TV Toriel would often find Kris glued to, cartoons on its screen, after tearing herself from another argument with Asgore.
The TV that had sat unplugged for years, gathering dust, as one by one everyone got busy with their own lives, until the night before, when Kris had plugged it in again, and Susie turned on some kind of giant monster movie, the two new friends smiling at each other as they watched.
The TV that stood before her on his own two legs now, seeking comfort from Toriel, in this strange, strange dream. But, dream or not, Toriel again reached up, tugging at Tenna's collar to bring him back down, stuffing his wet, glassy face into her arms for a hug.
A hug he gladly sunk down into, another sob wracking his giant frame. On his knees again Tenna shook as he carefully leaned onto Toriel, his voice static-y and subdued, barely intelligible through his speakers like it was broadcasting on another channel. "I'm...I'm sorry I'm so...I can get small again, I can..."
"It is alright," Toriel assured him, standing on tiptoes in order to pat Tenna's back, as she supported his weight with surprising ease. "If you are the same 'Ant Tenna' then...I suppose now I understand how you know so much about me. But I still know so little about you, even if you are the...'Family TV.'"
The playful interview Tenna had subjected her to earlier hadn't quite been lost on Toriel, and as she pushed Tenna's head off her shoulder and wiped a few final tears from his screen she loosely gripped the air in front of her, once again summoning an invisible microphone in her hand. With a soft smile, she held it up to her muzzle. "Can you tell me...how old you are exactly?"
She held the microphone up for Tenna to respond.
"Aw, Toriel..." His mouth turned up in a shaky smile, and he playfully raised his volume a bit, allowing his voice to blast out as if speaking into a real mic onstage, even if the acoustics in this open-air theater were less than ideal, and made that slight lisp in his heavily-compressed synthesized voice that Tenna was always a little self-conscious about even more pronounced. Adjusting his tie and sitting up straighter in the snow he blushed. "Don't let the burn-in fool you, I'm actually just a few months older than Asriel!" He turned to the side, cupping his mouth with one hand as if giving an aside to an unseen camera. "(Too bad electronics age in dog years.)"
The response, and the extra punchline, made Toriel scramble to stifle a laugh as she took back her microphone, but she fought hard to keep her composure, to Tenna's approval.
"And what are your hobbies? What do you enjoy most?"
Now that question got Tenna truly grinning from speaker to speaker; Toriel's eyes widened as she noticed distinctively monsterlike fangs hidden within his smile.
"Why, what else? I LIVE to entertain! Literally." Rapping his knuckles a few times onto his TV head, Tenna gave an excited chuckle. "Game shows, talk shows, news, sports, action, drama, you can find it all on TV! And if you can't find it, I'll MAKE it! I'll write the scripts, I'll paint the sets, I'll hire and coach the actors, and I'll even hop into the director's chair, or the editing booth if Mike needs an extra hand! Anything for my BIGGEST FANS!" An audible cheer sounded from...somewhere, as Tenna said those final two colorful words. "But, I suppose once I'm off-camera, I have a wicked tennis serve, and a little video game collection set up in the green room. And of course, rock music ALWAYS perks me up, big fan of Blood Crushers the Band myself..."
Suddenly, Toriel's smile flattened, as did her tone, and she stared Tenna down. "Were you the one who gave Kris the parental block code to watch the music video channel?"
He practically jumped out of his plastic at the accusation, the incident Toriel was referring to instantly replaying in his mind. "M-Me?! No, never! They brute-forced the code, I tell ya! Honest! You should've seen the way they pushed those buttons on my remote over and over until they found the winning combination." Toriel's expression didn't change, her searing gaze still locked onto him, and he nervously tugged at his collar again, trying to dissipate a little of the extra heat building in his circuitry. "Tori come on, you gotta believe me! I might cheat my employees, I might sneak stuff into their contracts' fine print even after they've signed, I might steal peoples' lunch out of the backstage fridge and blame it on Mike instead, I might keep a few of the prizes in the bonus room for myself, and I might commit a little tax fraud here and there, who doesn't! But you know I would never LIE to my own mother!"
Toriel still didn't entirely believe Tenna's claims, even when she could see Kris doing such a thing themself as Tenna's memories involuntarily reflected in his screen, though finally she relented, giving the TV man a defeated, but warm, smile.
But Tenna didn't notice the final confession that'd slipped out of him, at least not at first, until Toriel's silence caused him to shiver, his hands anxiously raking at the snow surrounding him, as if hoping to burrow underneath it for safety. "Uh...If, um, if you don't...like that last part, we can, uh..." His practiced, polished host cadence dropped instantly, as did his antennae, the one without a thick layer of tape holding it straight even dangling against Tenna's screen with an audible tink . "We can just, y-you know, cut it in post..."
He laid a hand across the top of his case, snow melting from his fingertips quickly becoming beads of sweat that dripped down his glass.
"No, Ant, it is alright." Taking both of Tenna's hands in hers again, Toriel murmured soft consolations, keeping an eye on that spray bottle of his. No more tears, on her watch. "If this is how you see me, then...I am happy to call you my child."
Tenna felt his screen flushing, glowing brighter as, once again, his dials turned themselves. And not just brightness, either – his color contrast knob turned as well, his normally blue-white glow taking on a more orange-y pink hue. "Uh...of course, thanks...Mama." Words he never thought he'd get to say aloud, if they weren't expressly written into a script, and he didn't even have a camera rolling to capture the moment.
Normally no one ever, EVER called him just plain "Ant" either, unless they wanted to get fired on the spot, but from Toriel, from Mama, Ant could forgive it.
The pair's play-interview continued, now that the interruption had been dealt with. "Do you have any comments for the viewers at home?"
Tenna turned to another invisible camera, his hands clasped and raised to the sky as he exaggeratedly sobbed, "Please, I'm begging you. Use the streak-free glass cleaner! It's only a dollar more, but your TV's happiness is priceless!" Sniffing, he pulled out a "T"-monogrammed handkerchief to dab at his screen. "And also, when you wipe down the table underneath me...find something other than the lemon-scented stuff! My nose is sensitive, you know!"
Toriel laughed, "Noted." She liked the lemon-scented cleaner, but maybe next time she could try apple-scented; Kris might enjoy it as well.
If she got a chance to use it, before...Uncomfortably, Toriel glanced away from the television man, her fur paler than usual as shame filled her expression.
Just two days prior, as Kris scraped the remains of their dinner into the trash over a fresh bouquet of flowers and loudly tossed the plate into the sink, Toriel sighed. "What do you think, my child? Would a lamp look better on the table, or perhaps my old record player? We've certainly used it more lately than...that."
She'd gestured her snout in the direction of the living room, to the dusty, long-unplugged television atop the table along the wall. Kris had long since grown out of the cartoons they used to love so much, and so little on it interested Toriel herself anymore...
Was this some sort of guilty dream, did Toriel subconsciously feel badly for the TV she'd suggested throwing away after it'd brought her family so many years of joy? Is that why it'd taken a monsterlike form, spoke to her, laughed with her, held her close in his arms and begged her not to let go?
"Ant, one final question." With a somber tone she hoped Tenna didn't notice, Toriel asked him something that'd been burning in her mind since she'd gotten the interview idea. "What is your favorite television channel?"
"Huh?"
"You remembered the channels I enjoyed. Is it as if you know me better than I know myself! But, what is it that you like to watch most?"
"What I like watching most..." Tenna rocked himself back and forth a few times in the snow, thinking, and pursed his glass lips, eventually letting out a loud sigh. "Well, normally I'd love to turn it on and show you, but right now it's just..." With a click, he switched his screen to display another channel, the picture nothing but a deep, smoky black. "...dead air."
"I see..."
"But, uh, I should have SOMETHING I can..." Digging through a pocket for his wallet, Tenna frowned as he again noticed his debit card was missing, replaced with some sort of playing card, and not even one of the useful ones at that but one simply listing the rules for playing Old Maid – most likely just another prank by the Pippinses, but if he didn't recover it soon there would likely be some serious repercussions for Tenna's bank account, given their reckless spending and gambling habits. Instead, he flipped over the leather flap containing his cards in order to access a hidden pocket, pulling out something creased and yellowed with age, carefully unfolding and looking down at it again fondly before offering it to Toriel.
As she took it her eyes widened, seeing the faces in the photo, blurry yet recognizable as if somehow snapped through a pane of glass – first her own, smiling, as she gazed intently at the camera. She hadn't worn that dress in years, though she was sure it was still somewhere in the back of her closet. At her side, though...Toriel gasped seeing Asgore there, his old police chief hat still sitting atop his head and his beard neatly-trimmed, his arm across the back of the couch tugging Toriel closer as he relaxed into the soft cushions with her. At his feet were Asriel and Kris, whose appearances shocked Toriel most of all; still very small, Kris in their horned headband leaning against their big brother, one hand tugging at his striped shirt as they pointed and laughed with the other, at whatever was happening behind the unseen camera. Toriel noticed a bracelet around the older kid's sleeve, one they'd made in class that very day, with Asriel adding extra blue beads knowing it was his teacher's, and his mother's, favorite color.
And off to the side, sitting on the floor next to Asriel in front of the couch armrest, crudely scribbled in red pen was an additional member of the family, a boxy head with an eyeless smile and crowned with a pair of rabbit-ear antennae, wearing a red shirt with orange stripes added with another pen, that matched Asriel's.
"You know, it's a wonder I didn't go into the VISUAL ARTS instead of the PERFORMING ARTS," Tenna jokingly boasted alongside a soundbite of quiet applause, staring down at it again. He wished he'd drawn his nose just a little bigger, but he was still practically fresh out of his box back then, so the mistake was forgivable. Still new, still young, still so full of energy and new programming and so very eager to please (well, maybe one thing hadn't changed, Tenna thought to himself), and still prone to making HORRIBLE decisions that were only partially the fault of smooth-talking mailmen. Boy, did the time fly by. "It's not the same as watching it live, but...this is a shot of my own FAVORITE channel. The show I love...used to love, watching more than any other."
"Ant..."
"I just...wish it wasn't so close to the end," Tenna muttered, re-folding and stowing his treasured family photo safely back into his wallet, his artificial voice quieting to a whisper. "The series finale, you know? Just 'cause I don't have ears doesn't mean I don't hear things!"
Blinking in surprise, Toriel paused. Again, this had to be a dream about her guilt at throwing away the old TV. It really had given her family so many years of entertainment, but now...She'd already decided it was best for them to move on.
But was it best for the TV itself?
"Mama...Don't you love TV? Don't you love...me?"
Tenna could feel another crying fit coming on, and instinctively he reached for his spray bottle, but to his surprise Toriel caught his hand again in a tight grip.
"I know it sounds harsh, my child. But..." Watching Tenna shiver again, his antennae flopping down over his screen, she sighed, trying to come up with any way to lighten the situation for him. To comfort this frightened son she never knew she had, and prepare him for what came next.
It still shocked her how big he'd become, with Toriel now barely able to pull him down into her arms for another tight hug, when only minutes earlier she'd held him securely in her lap. Like Tenna had grown up, right before her eyes. "It is only natural that when a child grows up, they leave their home, and make their own way in the world." She remembered how excited Asriel had been to leave for college, the way he gleefully spoke of his first experiences on the phone with her. Even if he would be visiting home soon, it was only temporary, to see his mother and sibling and to gather up the rest of his belongings; soon enough, he would leave once again. As would Kris in their own time, leaving Toriel alone in her empty nest. But, she repeated to herself, the bitter reality brought hope instead of despair, knowing that, as their mother, she'd raised and prepared them well, and that they would always love her. That they would always be family.
But, even if he'd looked forward to it for months, Asriel still hugged his mother tight as he said goodbye, and Kris as well, practically lifting his little sibling off their feet as they buried their face into his shoulder, refusing to release him.
He didn't want to let go. And, shamefully, in spite of her own words Toriel remembered she didn't either.
"I will remember all of the joy you've brought us, Ant, for so many years. We will always appreciate what you've done for us. But nothing stays forever. After the...series finale, it is time to find something new to enjoy."
"B-But I can give you anything you want! I can act, I can dance, I can-"
"You can! You are so talented at it all, I am very proud of you, my child." Tenna still didn't take any comfort in such hollow platitudes, his expression sour in his screen. "And I know that, someone else will enjoy your talent far more than we do now. No child stays home forever, eventually they must make their own way. A baby bird," she said, with a subtle nod to Tenna's own rather beak-like nose, "cannot stay in its nest. It must eventually spread its wings and fly."
"So it really is curtain call, huh." Despite the encouragement Tenna still sulked, his shoulders drooping and his arms dangling at his sides, only his bandaged antenna still standing tall over Toriel's head. Noticing his body automatically shrinking back down, Toriel gently patted the top of his case, right between his antennae, to try and stall it. "Susie...she did say she could find me a new home."
"I am sure she can. And when she does, I am sure you will be very happy there."
Tenna's shrinking finally stopped. The baby bird looked back up into the first face he'd ever glimpsed through his screen, the mother he'd imprinted on immediately.
"I...I think I will be. It's...it's a series finale, yeah. But, maybe, a new series premiere too?"
"I think that is a good way to look at it," Toriel assured him.
A pulse of colored light suddenly whipped up a puff of dusty snow at her feet, sending it spiraling around Tenna's form, threatening to make him sneeze. Right away, his boxy head spun towards the massive plume of dark smoke in the distance, and his mechanical heart dropped, seeing more flashes of color that spread up and out from within it – the Lightners must have finally returned to do what they came to do.
He didn't have much time left. Seconds, if that, before the Dark Fountain that'd set his stage for the performance of a lifetime, Tenna's own swan song, was sealed for good. That show was now over, the credits were almost done rolling, and the reviews had come in. A smash hit.
Quickly, Tenna launched back onto his feet, not even bothering to dust off his clothes. He wrapped himself around Toriel again in one final embrace, a dark, heartbroken laugh escaping him.
"I still don't want to let go..."
Neither was sure who said it first as the rushing snow and color and Light surrounded them, but in the end it mattered little. In a blip Toriel vanished, the snow vanished, the glittering stars above vanished leaving Tenna to grasp at nothing but the empty, black void surrounding him.
It was cold, SO DANGED COLD, without the solid foundations granted by the Dark Fountain giving his body, his studio, the Dark World surrounding him form – without the studio's thermostats cranked snow would always blow right on in, and sometimes Tenna swore that without the hot studio lights on him at all times, he'd freeze solid right onstage! Looking around at its now drab, lifeless existence, with all its inhabitants but one whisked away elsewhere he sighed, wiping away some of the rainbow-tinted splotches of snow that'd melted onto his screen in the aftermath.
But, he'd never needed a solid form to warm himself. The face nearly always reflected within the confines of Tenna's screen seemed incomplete to onlookers, but he did in fact possess well-hidden eyes, even if they didn't show buried deep under his thick leaded glass. Normally he kept them shut tight, never needing to rely on sight when his sensitive antennae could navigate the Dark World around him just fine, but sometimes, when he was alone in his dressing room, or standing by himself in a cold, lonely snowfield, he could concentrate, steel himself...
And open them.
They still weren't visible, of course, and neither were the rest of his features in the soft morning sunlight of the living room, the darkened pixels of his screen highlighted in that dull golden glow but otherwise blank. Without a column of darker-than-dark smoke in the way he first glanced to his side, to Chairiel, and to Toriel shifting awake in her seat, her queenly silk robe replaced by a regular nightgown.
"Goodness, what a strange dream..." Blinking, she scanned the room, seeing Susie reclining sleepily on the couch, and...she clapped her paws over her mouth, barely hiding her joy at the sight of the chair across from her.
Kris hadn't slept so cutely in years, flopped over in the seat like a little puppy! Hurriedly, Toriel rose and fetched them a blanket, and got started on some breakfast to rouse the two of them gently, mumbling about how she HAD to stop falling asleep in her chair.
But, Tenna paid it no mind, letting her go. Across from him above the couch he caught his faint reflection in the window, noticing the scuffs he'd gained along the top of his case, and the tape wound around his antenna – sighing to himself, he was just glad that was all, that his screen hadn't cracked and nothing inside him had broken beyond repair, making him unable to be rehomed easily. His gaze shifting downward, he watched Susie toss and turn a few times, then one leg dropped, and the other, and then the rest of the lizard girl's body as the scent of freshly-cooked butterscotch pancakes yanked it off the couch, drawing her to shamble into the kitchen after it like a half-asleep zombie. The spectacle would've made Tenna bust out laughing, if he weren't just a big electric box attached to the wall.
He blinked hard, rubbing the glass over his eyes as they stung; Tenna never could keep them open for long, the brightness of the Lightners' world threatening to blind him if he did so, but it didn't deter him. It was better than the desolate Dark World he immediately returned to. Truthfully, Tenna never did like the place; no matter how he built up his labyrinthine studio to try and bring a little light and sound and laughter to the great wilderness outside its walls none of it made any difference, didn't make it any less dreary, empty, cold, any warmth the place once held slowly dissipating over the years as one by one the Lightners who brought it there disappeared.
The contrast, as he blinked between Dark and Light, from his tall, lanky plastic-and-metal body to a heavy electric box, was staggering.
As Susie politely ate her breakfast and Toriel gently jostled Kris awake he took in as much of the Light World as he could stand; without Shuttah nearby to snap photos of the images replicated within his screen he wanted to remember as many details as he could, from the soft fabric of the couch cushions to the aged wallpaper to the small table next to the front door with a book of hymns delicately sitting on it, to the hand-woven tapestry and toys and framed photos and big planter of water sausages he saw reflected behind him in the window glass, to even the long-corded phone barely in sight in the hallway. He didn't want to let any detail of his home fade from memory anytime soon.
Strangely, he noticed in his reflection that the little red blanket, the one Kris used to drag around behind them everywhere and later on kept Tenna's hard rubber feet from scuffing the table, had gone missing. He'd have to fill in that particular detail himself.
Tenna's observations continued, as he watched the kids and Toriel hurriedly get dressed for Sunday service and march out, leaving him behind again, but not for long. Though normally she'd have stayed later with the choir for practice, Toriel surprised Tenna by slipping back through the door, alone, followed a few minutes after by Susie.
"Hey, Tenna," she whispered to him, studying his injuries and gingerly pressing her claws against his thick plastic, as if to massage him a little. "Glad to see you're holdin' up, buddy."
Tenna couldn't respond to her, even with his eyes open and locked onto her kind face.
But, he watched Susie jump, as heavy footsteps approached from the stairs. "T-Toriel?!"
"Oh! I am sorry to startle you, Susie." Coming closer, she smiled, seemingly holding something behind her back out of Susie's view, and strangely that of the television screen as well. "You surprised me as well! I thought you and Kris would be, erm, going to school?" Toriel never took Susie for someone who'd return to study on a weekend. In fact she'd definitely never known Kris to do so either, but perhaps it was simply their new friend's influence. It was one of the better things they could've taken from her, if Alphys' stories were anything to go off of.
"Yeah, well, uh..." Nervously, Susie's eyes momentarily shifted to the television, then back to Toriel. "Hey, you know how you've been planning to throw out your old TV?"
OLD?? Tenna's antennae bristled, but he quickly forgave the insult.
"So I was thinkin'...Kris and I were gonna ask around town and see if anyone could use it, better than just letting hi- it , rot out in the trash, right?"
Smiling, Toriel nodded in agreement. "That does sound like a good idea, Susie. I appreciate you offering to help."
"Yeah, 's no problem. But, uh, until we find someone..." Scratching the back of her neck, Susie paused, sorting out the best way to explain, or rather, the best excuse to give. "Cool if we, like, moved it somewhere else, just for...safekeeping?"
"Oh...well, I do not mind," Toriel responded, finally allowing the younger monster to let out the breath she'd been holding in. "But, there is something I wanted to be sure you kept with it."
Finally she brought the object she held into view, something Susie stared down at curiously but it made Tenna silently gasp.
Kris' red baby blanket. Tenna's red suit jacket. A memento of happier days gone by, its torn seams carefully stitched up, not quite good as new in such a hurry but far better than the tattered wreck he was sure it'd been, seeing how the damage had translated once the light ran low.
"This used to belong to Kris. But it's been with the television for so long instead that it feels...wrong, not to keep them together." Softly, she pressed the cloth into Susie's claws, folding them over it with her own.
"Uh, alright. I'll make sure that whoever takes him...IT...will keep this close by too."
"I am sure 'he' will appreciate it," Toriel replied with a wink, and disappeared back into the kitchen to clean, leaving Susie and Tenna alone once again, glancing between each other in confusion.
Draping the red cloth over her arm and kneeling back down, she switched him on, letting his screen fill with distorted static. He couldn't speak to her directly, tell her all the new hopes shooting through in his cathode ray tube mind, but it was the closest he could get, and he silently thanked her for it.
Smirking, she asked him, "You ready to go, big guy?"
Tenna wished so badly he could say something, anything, to her. Say something Toriel could hear in the next room. He tried, over and over, practically chatted Susie's ear off through his static, did his best to manipulate the snow in his screen to show words, letters, lines and colors, anything; if she noticed it though she didn't give any indication.
But, then, fondly patting his case again she smiled. Even without any sound or sight at all, but rather from the heat of Tenna's plastic underneath her fingertips alone, two of his words did make it through, the two that mattered most.
"I'm ready."