The vessel wanders through Hometown at night

The vessel coalesced in an alley as the sun set.

One moment, cracks and errant stripes of paint on the grey brick wall outlined the shape of a human, if you squinted just right. The next, a real three-dimensional figure was filling the outline.

Maybe not entirely real. The stripes in its sweater stayed perfectly horizontal even as it swayed from side to side. If you asked two observers to describe it they might disagree about whether it had hair. If they looked carefully, they would note that it didn't cast a shadow.

But there were no observers.

The vessel raised its head. If it had a nose, you could say it was sniffing.

It went down on all fours, crawled up to a convenient saucer of milk, and slurped eagerly through something that wasn't quite a mouth.

When the saucer was empty it pushed itself up and shambled away, swaying less than before.

It wandered through most of Hometown. Few people were outside at this hour. One person happened to see it through their window, but only made out a silhouette and thought nothing of it.

It walked up to the flower shop. It had a friendly feel to it. More importantly, the lock was broken, and firmly walking into the door made it swing open.

Asgore walked halfway down the stairs. "Ah. Welcome back."

The vessel climbed up to his level, and grabbed his hand. It held it tightly, and studied the fingers. Asgore chuckled.

He picked up the vessel and carried it upstairs. He sat down on his bed. The vessel curled up in his lap and released a stream of gibberish.

"There, there."

Asgore fell asleep shortly afterwards. The vessel would dissipate before sunrise, but for now, both of them felt safe.