aefenglom | text | 001 - Emphatic Welcome

Name: Papyrus | Username: CoolSkeleton95
Date: Aguril 1st
Format: Text

SO YOU'RE IN A NEW WORLD, LOOKING AT A WATCH,
WONDERING WHAT TO DO WITH YOURSELF...
WELL!
THE FIRST THING YOU CAN DO, IS READ THIS WELCOME MESSAGE:

HELLO!!!
I HEARD THERE'S MORE PEOPLE POPPING OUT OF MIRRORS TODAY,
AND MAYBE THAT MEANS YOU.
IF IT DOES, WELCOME TO AEFENGLOM!
A HOME AWAY FROM HOME.

YOU MIGHT HEAR SOME DOOM AND GLOOM FROM PEOPLE, ABOUT THE CWYLD, AND THE FULL MOONS...
BUT, ONLY SOME OF IT IS TRUE.
AND THOSE PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT THINGS LIKE THE COLOR OF THE SKY, SO WHAT DO THEY KNOW ANYWAY.
THERE'S OTHER PEOPLE PRETTY MUCH CONSTANTLY WORKING HARD TO KEEP EVERYONE SAFE AND HAPPY.
SO, DO YOUR BEST NOT TO WORRY TOO MUCH, AND LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!
IF YOU'RE A WITCH, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO DO ALL KINDS OF MAGIC.
AND IF YOU'RE A MONSTER, THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE MOONS WILL BE VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU!
AND I GUESS SOME MONSTERS HAVE A KIND OF MAGIC TOO? BUT IT'S NOT -MAGIC- MAGIC.
WHATEVER!!
THE IMPORTANT THING IS, YOU NOW FEEL WELCOMED.
YOU'RE WELCOME!

[If anyone doesn't want to wade through the capslock, let me know and I can drop it when tagging you.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Alphys has been frantically poking at the watch, hoping someone would drop a link to the Aefenglom equivalent of Crunchyroll, but alas, it's just a lot of vlogs. Until this post appears, and she immediately zeroes in on that extremely familiar username and oddly optimistic tone.]

PAPYRUS?????

[Papyrus has been looking forward to new arrivals expressing gratitude and relief about the welcome, not someone expressing surprise that it's him. So this message comes as a bit of a surprise.]

WOW, HOW DID YOU KNOW??
THAT'S A JOKE, IT'S BECAUSE I'M THE COOLEST SKELETON AROUND.

[OH THANK GOD IT'S SOMEONE SHE KNOWS]

oh my gosh papyrus it IS you

its me alphys!

did you walk through a big magic mirror too?

OH MY GOD! DOCTOR ALPHYS??

[Come to think of it, he did see a familiar-looking lizard in the dream...! And a famous, fabulous robot. Could it mean...?]

THAT'S RIGHT, I DID!
EVERYONE WHO'S READING THIS DID, AT SOME POINT...
SOME OF US A FEW MONTHS AGO.

[He thinks it's a private server for them, anyway. If anyone from the Coven or anything is reading and watching everything, they haven't mentioned it to him.]

[It does not occur to her that Paps was one of the many who came a few months ago, because she remembers just seeing him the other day. Maybe that's why she dreamed about him...?]

I met this other monster that told me we can't go back on our own! ;A; what are we gonna do? my phone doesn't even get a signal here!

[She seemed so happy to realize it was just a dream, he doesn't want to be the first to reveal that, while it was a dream, it wasn't just a dream.]

UH, WELL...
I'M THINKING ABOUT WAITING UNTIL THE MIRRORS, OR WHATEVER PULLED US HERE, GETS BORED OF US.
AND WORKING SOME JOBS IN THE MEANTIME!
I'M AFRAID MY PHONE ALREADY DIED.

[Without anybody who knows monster magic and the witch magic to make something to charge it, its batteries dwindled and lost power.]

but that could take forever! we just got out of the Underground and now we're stuck in some weird parallel universe! this is totally unfair!

[It also hasn't occurred to her that this Papyrus isn't exactly the same one she knows.]

sorry, i'm not yelling at you or anything this is just a lot to take in at once T_T

I DON'T HEAR ANY YELLING FROM HERE, YOU'RE FINE!
BUT I HAVE TO ASK...
HAVE YOU INVENTED A TIME TRAVEL MACHINE??
I DIDN'T REALIZE THE WAR WAS GOING SO WELL.

[If anyone could, it would be Alphys - she's a pretty amazing engineer. But he doesn't remember her mentioning anything like that on Undernet before he got lost, and she usually seems so willing to give hints about what she's up to... in between terrible enthusiasm for cartoons, self disparagement, and ramen selfies.]

[wait

what

She reads his reply several times, not entirely sure what he means. Did he hit his skull and forget everything?]

time travel? the war? the war's over! Frisk broke the barrier (ssssomehow idk) and we all got to leave, remember?

[papyrus you bought a convertible]

[A convertible, on the surface? What a beautiful dream.

The more he reads, the more and more time travel her whole story is. Who the heck is Frisk, and how are they so powerful?? Some up-and-coming who found the missing souls... and then some?]

UHH....
ALPHYS, I CAN TELL YOU WITH THE UTMOSTEST OF SINCERITY.
THE FIRST TIME I LEFT THE UNDERGROUND... WAS WHEN I WALKED THROUGH A MIRROR.
THAT'S WHY I ACCUSED YOU OF TIME TRAVEL.
YOU'RE CLEARLY FROM THE FUTURE, OR... SOMETHING.

[Or she had a super realistic dream that isn't one of the Aefenglom dreams. Can't rule that out.]

you really don't remember? you were there when we all walked out together! it was you, me, your bro, Undyne, the king and queen....

it was right after Undyne got you to be my life coach! in the garbage dump!

[Surely he remembers THAT, right...?]

[Papyrus takes a minute to check if he's still hallucinating in that spider cave, and then checks for post-it notes telling him that he's been had. But there's no sign of injury, or disconnection from reality, or obnoxious prank to be found.]

NO??? I DON'T... REMEMBER ANYTHING OF THE SORT.

[Should he? Come to think of it, when he started telling his brother about where he was and what he was doing when the mirror grabbed him... Sans had seemed a little cagey, cagier than usual. Had... had Sans remembered this other future, too??]

OH NO! I REMEMBER THE KING GOING MISSING, AFTER THE HUMAN... LEFT.
AND IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE THE QUEEN HANGING OUT WITH HIM ANYWAY.
BUT!
I LIKE THIS FUTURE YOU'RE DESCRIBING.
ME, YOU, AND UNDYNE, IN THE GARBAGE DUMP...
GETTING ME A JOB WHERE I HELP YOU? INCREDIBLE.
ARE YOU SURE IT ALREADY REALLY HAPPENED, AND WASN'T A BRILLIANT IDEA OF A DREAM?

no way! it totally happened!

[Or did it? Maybe she's been hallucinating this entire time and she's really still in the basement of her lab and nothing has changed at all? She pinches herself, then gently slaps the side of her face, but she doesn't wake.]

i'm definitely NOT dreaming! and i know the king was there, so he couldn't have gone missing...

[Papyrus wouldn't be the type to try and mess with her, so he's got to be telling the truth, even if his story doesn't match up at all with hers. So the most obvious explanation is that they're both true...]

ok

bear with me here
but what if this place isn't the only parallel world? what if there's like... TWO versions of our world and we're each from one of them?

THAT SOUNDS ABSURD, OUTLANDISH, EVEN FANTASTICAL.
STRAIGHT OUT OF A COMIC BOOK!
AND YET...

[He can't deny the appeal of the idea, in that it would mean neither of them was lying or mistaken. It could be a little lonely, still being the only one from his world... but, hopefully, his world is back through the mirror, to be available... someday. And how much better to be lonely with company than lonely alone!]

ALL THE MIRRORBOUND SEEM TO COME FROM DIFFERENT WORLDS, WITH DIFFERENT MAGIC,
BUT LOTS OF THEM ARE NAMED EARTH, WITH FIGURES LIKE SHAKESPEARE, BUT NO MONSTERS.
IF SOMEBODY LIKE AN AUTHOR CAN BE COMMON TO MULTIPLE WORLDS...
WHY NOT US??

[They've each got to be at least as famous, in their own time, as that playwright was, right?]

Edited 2019-08-08 08:32 (UTC)

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