"The Guided Hand" - Milkaanon fic - Edit by SoundsGote

[Something heartwrenchingly sad, milkaanon make me cry, soundsgote make it worse]

Every day, they drew her a golden flower.

It was always a simple drawing, done with whatever Frisk had at hand. Crayons, pencils or paint, the tools of trade mattered little. The details were often smudged and stained, the lines unsteady as if drawn with shaking hands. Sometimes the drawing was pristine, giving the impression of a steadily improving artist striving for greatness, while other times the paper was wrinkled and torn, as if they tried to destroy it several times over.

Toriel was at a loss.

She kept thinking back to the moment they finally left their prison behind. Driven by pure love towards this little child, who saved all of them, she offered Frisk a place to live. She half-expected them to refuse, just as they refused to stay in the Ruins prior. And yet, they timidly embraced her leg, whimpering in a soft voice she so rarely heard before or since. They pleaded to stay with her, their hold on her leg quickly growing to desperate clawing.

She remembered leaning down and reaching out to them. Toriel held the child close, assuring them that she would care for them, house them, feed them, nurture them and give them the love they seemed to lack more than anything. Frisk nearly melted in her grasp and trembled all over, lapsing into hiccuping sobs. Back then, she was sure she could give the child everything they so desperately longed for.

A few months later, she wasn't so sure about that anymore.

The first few weeks passed by without incident and were some of the most heavenly she has ever experienced. Frisk was a perfect little angel, always very attentive and first to follow any possible request she made. They hung out with all the friends they made, performed every chore to the best of their ability and would always be bed in time. Sometimes, she almost wished they'd be just a tiny bit mischievous, but reasoned some children were just timid to the extreme.

The problems only came afterwards.

It started with night terrors. Almost every night, Frisk would wake up crying and sobbing, inconsolable until exhaustion would eventually claim them once more, dragging the child back into their feverish dreams. Toriel tried her best, first alone and then with the help of friends, but nothing seemed to work. Their behavior turned reclusive, barely leaving the house or their room, constantly absorbed in their drawings. Most of them they never showed her, save for that one lone golden flower.

Toriel swallowed, observing the newest drawing Frisk left for her, just a few minutes ago. It was one of the more nervous ones, heavily smudged wherever the lineart was off. The petals were drawn with meticulous perfection, and yet little droplets were scattered all around it. Still, it was never the flower itself, that bothered her. It wasn't even the fact that they never drew anything else.

It was the way they worked on them.

She peeked into the room at least once, curious to find out just how they worked. The revelation was anything, but soothing. Frisk's artwork was not a result of love, but some unseen drive or force pushing them to do it. She could find no other explanation for the way they kept alternating between content drawing and frantic scribbling, between a calm half-smile and near-hysterics. They way the child kept turning their head left and right, Toriel could swear they were constantly trying to please a pair of invisible, infinitely harsh judges. They were the ones drawing, while Frisk just seemed like a conduit at best.

The goat monster turned the drawing around, an uncomfortable lump growing in her throat. The golden flower was just one half of the routine. The other half waited for her on the other side and was so much more alarming, than any flower could be. All across the piece of paper, from top to bottom, left to right, there was a single phrase written over and over again, until it covered the entire sheet:

i'm sorry    i'm sorry
i'm sorry			i'm sorry
		i'm sorry
i'm sorry				i'm sorry

The creeping doubt that had been gnawing at Toriel's heart returned with full force. The drawings were cute at first, but this other half put everything in a different perspective. However likely, she was fearful of jumping to the obvious conclusion.

That this was the only part of the drawing actually made by Frisk.

[sounds add]
Toriel was stuck in a state of outlining conclusions in her head. She had only one action in mind; among the pile of questions she had for herself, she knew how to perhaps gain an answer to them, even though it might just make things worse.

She carefully stepped her way to and into Frisks room. Frisk was fast asleep, as they tended to be after they would exert themselves so intensely when making a drawing. She sat at the chair left at Frisks bedside, in which she would always sit and read a story or sing a lullaby for them whenever she felt it would be helpful, and waited for Frisk to start shifting in their sleep.

As Frisk started to groan and move around, Toriel gently rested her palm on their hand and lightly asked, "My child..."

She didn't really know what to say, she felt almost silly. Toriel was so desperate for clarification at this point, she began to think that Frisk might be possessed. But by precisely whom... maybe she could find out this way. Hopefully.

"... is there someone with you?"

...

Frisk's movements became less jerky and started to reduce to just slow breaths that were still much to heavy for somebody sleeping.

"... Who is this?" Toriel reluctantly nearly whimpered.

In a voice that was Frisks print, but so much more direct and sinister an infliction, the sleeping child clearly murmured, "Don't insult me, old goat woman. You know who keeps drawing you those flowers."

Toriel's heart seemed to stub every one of her toes. She was petrified with fear, and could only breath now in a short panicked stagger. She knew exactly what child was speaking right now.

"Don't do this to my child anymore. Don't keep making them do this Chara!" Toriel closed-to-openly sobbed, now clutching Frisks hand with an unaware might, forcing Frisk awake.

Frisks expression of guilt pinged mortification toward her was nostalgic. It only served, on top of all the emotion from what just then took place, to bring up events, in both their minds of the day Asriel left the surface, his SOUL integrated with Chara's, and when he had come back, and died in Toriel's arms.

Frisk bawled with all they could muster. Literally trying not to waste any breath by adding more "ha"s to their wailing exhales. Frisk wanted nothing more than for this demon inside them to just leave, and being a child, had the unconscious hope they could scream it out of themselves.

Fully embracing each other, Toriel called out Chara if not the world, "You won't take another one of my children. I'm not going to let you steal another innocent child!"

As if told through the mind, Toriel heard Chara's real voice ask her, "Innocent?"

Like a rush of magic energy that Toriel could nearly physically feel, her mind was bombarded with what seemed to be a time-lapse of someones memories.

Frisk could see the look on Toriel's face, one of looking at not what's physically in front of them, a face they knew they had been making for the past few weeks now. Frisk was fully clenching onto their goat mother, saying they were sorry over and over again, raising their voice with each saying of it.

By the time Toriel had come out of her trance, Chara had forcedly shown her everything Frisk had ever done, within a manner of seconds. Every timeline, every fight, every spare, and most tear rendering of all, every moment Frisk had talked to her son, whether as any capacity of monster or as Flowey.

By the time Toriel had regained perception of the environment around her, she could hear Frisk sobbing the word please over and over, in between bawling out the phrase, "Please forgive me."

Toriel raised her arms to hold Frisk to her,looking forward, and over Frisk's crying, speedily said, "I forgive you, my child. No matter how many times I've died. No matter how many times others have died scared of you. I'll never be scared of you. I forgive you. I love you and I'll always forgive you."

Frisk was suddenly silent. All the crying, all the begging to be forgiven had come to a sudden stop. Fear stricken, Toriel looked down at the child who now breathed calmly through their nose. After a few seemingly completely suspended seconds, Toriel heard Frisks voice with a lowness she had never heard it have before. "I owe you a big thank you... old goat woman."

Toriel was crushed by the weight of a feeling of death from the sudden realization.

The only thing keeping Frisk from losing themselves completely was the need for Toriel to forgive them. And she had.