#btw martlet is building ava 2. I don't know what to name her yet tho

[nonhumanresources]

Snowfall

Short Undertale Yellow fic about trying to move on. Spoilers for the pacifist ending! This isn't everything I want to write about Yellow for sure, I've got at least one more idea I've been toying with, but I was listening to the soundtrack and feeling stuff. It's not much but I've been thinking about the characters a lot so it's nice to get something down on the page.

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Snow fluttered downwards, flakes tumbling over themselves in their haste to join the building drifts. It sank through the air, some snowflakes lagging behind others, apprehensive. The flurries twisted around and around, eventually scattering across the treetops and paths in even layers, like sand. Or ash. Or dust. 

Martlet let the snow collect on and around her. She’d have to shovel later, tossing the buildup off her balcony to keep the fragile wooden beams from snapping. Those had been built… what was it, three years ago now? Itching for space, she’d torn down a wall and repurposed it into an exterior patio with uneven handrails and mismatched floorboards, held up by a tree and too few poles. Nowadays, she could see the flaws in the construction; too-shallow angles, half-pounded nails, stress points with naught but a single board hastily screwed into position keeping the whole thing up. Martlet prefered to pay attention to the other details, though. From where she was sitting, she could see down, just between the handrails on one of the poles, there was a nick in the wood. That was where she had taken a chunk out of it with her carving knife when she dropped a mallet on her talons. Further down, there was a section with evenly spaced nails, save for one that was bent in half. That was Chujin’s work. He’d been so excited when his wife had shown up that he’d missed the last nail in his haste to wave hello. 

She sighed, closing her eyes, feeling the snow accumulate. 

Somewhere not far off, Marlet heard wood scraping against wood. Front door, she thought immediately, knowing that particular sound by heart. She ignored it; the balcony was on the front of the house, so whoever it was would have seen her up here anyway. Sure enough, the door behind her opened moments later. There was the sound of clawsteps and the swish of fine cloth. 

“You’re not at your post.” Ceroba’s clipped tone was short, but that didn’t indicate annoyance. She was just like that. Martlet heard more rustling cloth, and the creaking wood told her that Ceroba had sat down beside her, nearly silent. She often moved like that these days. 

Martlet wanted to sit in silence for a while. She’d been doing that already, after all, besides briefly greeting the balcony when she’d sat down. Her beak had other plans, though. 

“You ever wonder about where it all comes from?” she asked. She liked to imagine her voice swirling out like the snow, laying across those who could hear in a soft blanket, conveying its meaning through its delicate frigidity. It didn’t; it was just about as loud as she normally spoke. It was so hard to capture the way she saw it all in her head, even with her own voice. 

“The shiverstones in the cavern roof,” Ceroba responded without hesitation. Martlet imagined her staring up through layers of snow, ears tilted back, a snowflake or two settling on her nose and melting in her breath. It was very picturesque. “Water-laden air is sent up by the lava in Hotland, where it freezes and falls in Snowdin. Apparently part of what keeps the Dunes so dry is the wind that movement creates. Chujin would talk about it when we visited, sometimes.” 

Martlet stayed still. She imagined Ceroba frowning at her. (She was right about that one.) 

“This is a riddle again.” 

“It’s not a riddle,” Martlet pointed out. 

“Fine,” Ceroba sniffed. “Further back then. The humidity required for this kind of snow comes from Waterfall. The water from rivers and streams collects into the lake and the fens, where it’s picked up by the wind and carried through here.”

“Yeah,” Martlet nodded. 

“But, that’s still a definite answer. You don’t wonder about facts.” She could see exactly how her friend’s ear twitched when she used that tone—some mix of what might be frustration, but might be humor, too. Or maybe something else entirely. Ceroba tended to keep an unreadable demeanor when she could. “So, keep going. The Waterfall cavern is largely tougher minerals, with slick, unforgiving walls, except for the limestone veins that have been worn away by the water flow. The main river emerges underground, but at least as much seeps down from—”

“The Surface,” Martlet whispered. Ceroba was silent. 

By now, Martlet’s head feathers felt warm. They’d been cold at first, then frigid as snow melted into them, but once a thick enough layer had formed, it had warmed right back up. The snow made for a good insulator. Or maybe she’d just gotten used to it. 

“You’re thinking about that day.” 

Martlet sighed. She was. She had been, every single day since. It was months later, now, and she still couldn’t believe that it had only lasted… what, nine hours? Ten? According to Dalv, Clover had only been in the Underground for about an hour and a half before entering Snowdin, and according to some eyewitness reports she’d been so wrapped up in puzzle maintenance that she’d missed them by a hair on multiple separate occasions. Had she turned around, she’d have met Clover and had an extra thirty minutes with that knowledge. 

She didn’t expect that to hurt so bad. 

When she finally opened her eyes, Ceroba was staring at her, gaze sharp and discerning as it always was. How was it that the fox had more of an eagle eye than the bird? There was no snow on Ceroba’s clothes, and it had melted in a small aura around her kimono. Seeing Martlet’s face, she sighed and turned, staring out over the treetops. Her paws curled along the edge of the balcony, tapping on the underside of the wood.

“Yeah. Me too.” With her deeper voice, when she spoke softly, it came out in a growl. Chujin had once confessed that he’d convinced Ceroba he’d suffered an ear injury at the Steamworks and gotten her to whisper for a whole week just to hear it. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever not been thinking about it,” Martlet sighed. 

“None of us have, Martlet,” Ceroba admitted. “It’s kind of hard to forget.” 

“I noticed,” Martlet grumbled. She hunched forwards, wings on her knees, and stared down into her yard. “So many monsters are so happy. Almost every time a human has shown up, it’s been a disaster, either for us or for them. A slaughter or a rampage. But when it’s neither, I can’t even…” she took in a shaky breath. “I’ve been thinking about the water a lot. Clover, they didn’t even hesitate when I said that we had to ride on Ava. Heck, I tipped the boat more than they did.” 

“You aren’t known for your grace, dear,” Ceroba interjected. 

Martlet gave her a sardonic stare. “Thanks. The point is, I seriously doubt it was their first time on a boat, you know? No one has that much confidence the first time. Do you think…” 

“They were some sort of sailor, up there?” Ceroba guessed. Martlet just shrugged and hunched forwards further. 

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s a stupid thought, I guess. I’ve just been… yeah. Wondering. That’s all.” Martlet slipped a nail from her pocket, fiddling with it and brushing it through the feathers on the tips of her wings. 

Ceroba mulled over it while Martlet sulked, taking her time to answer. This was always how it went; Martlet would run through a series of tangents, and her friend would come up with some sort of swift response that helped her narrow down her thoughts. At least, that was how it had been back before they’d stopped talking.

This time, Ceroba didn’t offer up any wisdom. She only sat and stared out at the trees. “I can see why you like it up here.” 

Martlet sighed. “Yeah.” 

The snow continued to fall. It was morbid, in a way. Falling was a symbol of death in the Underground. Falling down was the start of it. There was a while afterwards, for most monsters, but eventually, they were nothing more than dust. Unlike the snow, though, their dust rose upwards, towards the myths of avenging angels and the dark cavern and, maybe, someday, through layer upon layer of mica and shale and marble and rich ore, to the sun and the Surface. That was how you knew it was snow, not dust. It settled. 

Even the first human had fallen down. Every time, one after another, all six had fallen, never referred to by another term, sharing the literary fate of monsters themselves. It was true, every time, too. They fell. Killed, vanished, or… allowed to fade. 

Clover hadn’t turned to dust. Martlet knew that all too well. The cold pierced her feathers, and she shuddered. 

“How do you stand it?” she choked out, tears threatening to spill. “Chujin. Kanako, your family, they’re gone, yet here I am acting like this after a kid who showed up that day is gone. I… I barely even knew them. I abandoned them in the Dunes! And here I am, months later, and I, I haven’t even written in my, my journal, there’s feathers all over, I can’t stop… stop thinking about them, what I wanted to say, so much—”

Crack. Martlet shrieked, wings flapping. Ceroba hadn’t moved, but she’d tightened her grip so heavily on the edge of the floorboards that they’d snapped in her paw. She slowly unlatched her paw, brushing the splinters from her fur and placing it back down next to the ruined board. 

“It’s… hard,” she grunted.

“Er. Sorry,” Martlet said sheepishly. 

Cerboa chuffed, acknowledging the apology. “It helps to have friends.” 

“I mean, I do have those…” 

“Yeah, I know,” Ceroba responded. She took a moment to respond. “Look, Clover’s gone. We can’t change that. I spent a very long time trying to get Kanako back, and I nearly killed the kid over it.”

Martlet frowned. “If this is supposed to be helping—”

Ceroba interrupted her again. “I get it. I’m not the most consoling, okay? Only Kanako could get that side of me out.” She tapped her claws on the wood again, tracing a semicircle around the splintered board. “Clover gave us a gift, Martlet. The gift. Everything. I really didn’t get it for a while. Honestly, it made me furious, knowing that they took away my chance only to throw it right back in my face. I couldn’t even begin to realize what made a kid their age so obnoxiously noble.”

Martlet nodded. She’d seen how kind Clover was firsthand.

“It was Kanako that helped me figure it out. She…” Ceroba swallowed. “Kanako, she had the exact same look on her face when she asked me to let her help that Clover did that day. A deep-seated need to do what was right.” 

“But that’s what I can’t get over!” Martlet burst out, trying to find her words. “I—we let a child give up their soul, Ceroba. I don’t care about the stupid barrier or Asgore or the Royal Guard or anything, because what does it matter when all that we accomplished was convincing a kid that the only way to help is to die for the cause?!” 

She was standing. When had she stood up? Snow slipped from her head and smacked her beak, falling to the ground and filling some of the holes left by her talons. Tears followed the same route and splashed in the snow. Martlet started to pace, Ceroba remaining motionless. She tapped the nail against her thigh with agitation. 

“Maybe it’s not… it’s not worth it. We live okay, down here. Maybe if it means letting children die, I don’t want to destroy the barrier.” She knew it was a bad idea to speak about that kind of thing; monsters avoided you with that kind of talk, and in a place like the Underground, isolation was a torture all on its own. Ceroba, though, just nodded. 

“Perhaps it isn’t. That does not bring back my family, though. So perhaps instead we should make it worth it,” she stated, even voice cutting through Martlet’s flurries like a hot knife in the snow. 

“How? How are we supposed to change anything?” she demanded, stepping up to the handrail and gripping it with her wings. It bowed under her weight. “I couldn’t even stop Clover.” 

“You asked how I stand it,” Ceroba recounted. “I stand it because if I don’t, that means inaction. And inaction means stagnation. I let myself live in an Underground that allows children to sacrifice themselves for strangers. I don’t intend on letting that Underground claim any more. Perhaps that doesn’t help you, but that’s why I continue on.” She stood up, and despite being several inches shorter than Martlet, she managed to carry so much more weight to her. It was like she’d gone off and lived three times as much as Martlet had when they’d parted ways. It was unnerving, at times. She folded her arms, leaning on the handrail as well, and a small piece of wood splintered off and fell to the snow-covered yard below. 

“Yeah.” Martlet took in a deep breath, letting go and wiping her face with both wings. “Yeah,” she sniffed again. “I think I get it.” 

“Good. And Feathers… keep wondering. Maybe we’ll get some answers someday.” Ceroba squeezed her upper wing, her palms hot. The nickname warmed her heart

Martlet nodded. “Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome. Now, about the actual reason I came here—”

“Ohmygosh, sorry!” Martlet startled. “I didn’t even ask!” 

Ceroba waved dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Starlo and the others have gotten it into their heads that they need some sort of mechanical horse in the Salon. I told them that it was dumb but they wouldn’t stop pestering me until I offered to go pick up an expert.” 

“An expert? Where are you—oh! Oh, me!” Martlet grinned. “Mechanical horse. Yeah, I think I can do that! Let’s see, I’ll need my saw, nails, pulleys…” she trailed off, counting on her feathers, then switching to her talons as she took off, sending snowflakes soaring upwards into the cool air. So enticing was the project that she didn’t even think to say goodbye, already doing mental calculations.

Ceroba watched her circle down to her toolshed and start pulling out all manner of DIY paraphernalia. A distraction would be good for the bird. It would be good for everyone, honestly. She turned back to the stairs, leaving the view behind, and went to go help pile tools into a wagon.