COLC - Tragic Decisions

The Letter:

“To the reincarnated goddess and the TSAB summoner,
I expect you are anticipating some sort of 'eye for an eye' cost to your request. Wherein for saving Sans' universe another must be condemned. However, I have no such desire for this outcome, but I will however insist that this request have something to be repaid rather than simply be granted with no conflict.

I have pondered what sort of conflict could be suitable repayment for this, and have not been able to settle on one. So I have decided, to allow you to choose for yourselves between three options; know however, that you must both come to an agreement on which one, or else I will not accept any of them.

1: Cease your friendship with Sans; pretend that you hate him. And you may not let anyone know that you are doing it for his benefit.
2: Kill Sans once. Again, you may not let anyone know that you are doing it for his benefit, even after the fact; nor may you pretend that it was just an accident.
3: Join the group in the city that you know as Ruckus. Until such time as the group is completely dissolved, you must follow the orders of the current leader, and not attempt to do any internal espionage or sabotage. Only if the orders involve harming Sans may you refuse to follow them. You may however inform whoever you please as to the reason why you are doing this.”
----

The Ensuing Conversation:

Caro had been just observing what was happening almost listessly ever since she had the horrifying contents of the letter transfer to her mind. She barely noticed as Zelda asked Miss Tairee for a private place. Only being suddenly pulled across space towards the top of the library somewhat snapped her out of it.

She slumped on the hard floor below her, her gaze cast downwards and what could be seeing of her face easily denoted just how crestfallen it was. She only listened to what her friend was saying because she knew it was important, but it took a while for her to finally be able to look up and manage a response.

"It almost feels like cold comfort that we don't have to sacrifice what we thought we would have to now ... That would have been hard and likely it would make us not be able to go through with, but this is just as bad if not almost worse in some sense," she said, her tone making it clear just how it was all hurting her already.

"All those choices ... They are all unthinkable. I think we can agree that joining Ruckus is entirely out of question. We would be ordered to kidnap people and then sacrifice then to bring back the very thing we want to keep as far away as possible from everyone, for good reason. Even after that, we would still have to hurt and kill even more. The fact that we could tell why we are doing is cold comfort. Everyone is still gonna hate us for regardless, including Sans," With every word her expression got more heartbroken and tears started to flow.

"K-Killing ... We would be planning it out, w-we would have to willing do it, without anyone knowing why. W-We would have to betray his trust and he would never forgive us for it ... W-We certainly could never show any reason why he should, with the way the deal is supposed to work ... E-Even if he knew why, that would only make things almost worse ..."

She had to pause for a while, taking a long breath and wiping a few tears, before continuing, "E-Even the first one ... I-In any other case, it would have been awful but it also would getting off mildly ... But as it is ... There's a reason why he gave us that option. Our friendship ... It's practically a lifeline. If we end it like we are being asked to .. It will practically kill him, Zelda and I mean that literally! We do that and it's as good as the second option. Not to mention, even if I wanted to .. I couldn't do it. Keeping this away from him is already wrenching me as it is ... I don't think I can convincely pretend to hate him and if we can pull off it then it will be all for nothing ..."

She shook her head vigourously, a few stray tears flying away as she did it, "I don't think I can make this choice ... I know the reason why we arein this situation is a very good one .. But even then it almost doesn't seem w-worth it ... I want to do this to create hope, Zelda ... But now all it will do will be sowing despair. Is it worth ... To make him miserable for the rest of our stay, even if it all ends well? For all we know, even after this all ends, he will never know the reason for our terrible actions ... So, is it really worth it?"'
----
"Well...there's one way I can think of to make the second choice bearable...." Zelda started, "...I know we couldn't make it look like an accident...but it didn't say anything about having to make it clear we were the ones responsible. I...I guess it's possible to make it seem like someone else killed Sans, and that way we'll have fulfilled a condition and kept our friendship going at the same time. It'd...just depend on our ability to keep a secret...."

One look at Caro and just how distraught she was over the whole thing was enough to make her immediately regret suggesting that. She closed her eyes and sighed painfully, before sitting down next to Caro.

"...Who am I kidding? Sadness was bad enough as it was; I'm not atoning for that by putting yet more blood on my hands. And I don't want you getting any on yours." She paused for another moment. "...But if that's not something we can bring ourselves to do, than we're definitely not capable of either of the other two options. I...I'd probably be better off than you in regards to not being friends with Sans, since I'm not as close to him as you are. But I still don't want to be mean to him for what he'll think is no apparent reason. And I refuse to help Ruckus. I'm not helping undo everything we've done to stop them up until this point, and I'm not willing to place my hopes on the others defeating them before they get the chance to try reviving the Lord of Change."

She opened her eyes again and stared off into the distance again. At this point, it was looking like the best option was simply to do nothing. But then, what was the point of even asking the storyteller god in the first place? If they did nothing, Sans's fate would remain unchanged. They could keep being his friend, but once their time here was over than that would be the end for him.

As she thought more, however, another part of her started bubbling to the surface. The same part of her that had felt jealous of Sans and Caro on previous days. And that part was now suggesting a fourth option that'd both still give Sans a chance at having a worthwhile future and keep his friendship with Caro intact.

"...Sans would probably find out once its time for him to go home and the world he returns to is much better than the one he left. And he's a smart person; I imagine he'll connect that to what we did pretty quickly," she said after a long pause, "But even so...I'm doubting it myself. Sans has gone though enough misery; he certainly doesn't need more of it from us. I'm thinking that the best we can do for him is keep being his good friends and make his stay here as enjoyable as it possibly can be, even with everything the storyteller god keeps throwing at us. It sadly won't change his fate, but we can at least be happy in the fact he was happy, at least for a while."

At that, she draped a comforting arm around Caro. "How about we just do that for now? The storyteller god didn't say we had to make a decision right this instant, and chances are if we do decide it's worth it after all we can handle it then. But even if we don't, we're still doing something good for him."
----
What Zelda then suggested was almost as bad as the rest, so it was fortunately that her friend soon realized that would also have been a serious mistake.

"... Yeah and doing it like that feels like it would be almost even worse ... And unlike what happened with you, it would have to be by necessity intentional and to have to plan it out like that ... Whoever did it, neither of us would be able to ever forgive ourselves, even with knowing what that terrible price would buy us ... And you're right about the other two ..."

She looked downwards again. It felt pointless to have ever put them through this if what they choose was to do nothing, knowing that it would keep everyone happy for now, but with Sans looking still as bleak as it had before, with nothing changed. But somehow, that really seemed to be the better option for now.

"Even if he did figured that out ... We would have still terribly betrayed him ... Nothing could ever erase something like that ... " She also took a long pause and then managed a small, althought tearful smile, " You're right ... There's been enough tragedy as it is ... To cause even more, even with ultimately good intentions ... I don't think that is something we could, or should, be able to bring ourselves to do ... I think it would really be better ... If we could make hope instead of causing despair ... Even if we know that in the end, nothing will really change ... He did say that we just had to be ourselves to make things better for him ... And if we did any of this, we would be betraying that as well ... So I think that just being friends and making him happy is really the best thing to do for now ..."