Chapter Text
As much as you try, you simply don't find what you're looking for on the Undernet.
Oh, sure.
There's information about it in general. Explanations on websites in text and videos and pictures, tastefully done in order to make it appropriate for the children who might be looking for this information in the first place - which also means that it's all either vague or really clinical, completely lacking the details you actually want.
What does monster sex look like?
‘You can look at or touch each other's soul, or bring them together for the greatest intimacy - ‘
Nope.
What does monster sex feel like?
‘Monsters exploring intimacy with their souls can expect to experience the joy of sharing themselves with their partner - ‘
Nope.
Okay, fuck this. You're going there. You're totally going there. You don't care how clichéd this is, you'll do it.
Taking a deep breath and checking again that nobody is watching you or the screen of your phone, you type in your search query into the Undernet search bar.
Hot soul on soul action.
There.
Your face falls in disappointment when instead of the porn clips you expected to pop up, you're met with even more of the tastefully done, child - appropriate explanations of monster sex.
You try are few other queries that grow increasingly lewd in their wording, without any success either.
What the hell.
No porn?!
How on earth are monsters that conservative?
No, that's impossible. Monsters and humans aren't that different, and even if monsters are conservative and very concerned about keeping their children away from anything lewd, monsters are also curious. There must be at least some who are interested in producing, sharing and watching porn. It must exist.
It exists, you're sure.
The problem is just that you that ‘existing’ doesn't necessarily mean ‘findable’. Thanks to your work, you're aware that there's a lot of ways to ensure that some pages simply won't show up in search results. They can be coded in a way that tells search crawlers not to index them, they can have inaccessible format files for the search engines, they can be password protected, or they could just be shared through peer-to-peer networks without ever making it to the surface web at all.
Either way, it looks like you won't be able to find them without asking another monster.
Yeah, you won't do that.
No porn for you.
You sigh quietly and look around the gatehouse where you set up to work for today. Not the best place to search for porn anyway. You would have done that at home, but one, Dolores and Undyne are currently working there and two, you wanted to be in the gatehouse today so you'll have an easier time leaving for your meeting with Flowey.
That, and Sans and Papyrus accompany Mettaton and Napstablook to another filming session today, and here in the gatehouse you get the occasional snippet on how they're all doing.
So far, everything seems to be fine though. After the arrest of the person who had tried to attack the studio on your visit there a week ago, the military and the police had worked together questioning the attacker and managed to make several arrests based on the information they received. Apparently they had all been part of a hate group that organised itself online. It was no reason to be any less vigilant than before, but with the attack stopped before it even really began and the arrests made, everyone had been confident to clear more visits to the human world for the monsters, although the number of participants is still kept low and the locations are carefully chosen.
Which is part of why you're not coming this time - Papyrus goes, and so to keep the group small, you have to stay.
You feel awkward about using the opportunity to visit Flowey again, but it's just too convenient not to.
Speaking of which, the gatehouse is starting to clear out a little as most people leave for their lunch break.
You wait a few more minutes and then you casually stand up, pocket your cellphone, grab your bag and leave through the front entrance of the gatehouse, making your way past the lab and up the path to the mountain.
There, that seems to have worked well, you think to yourself after you've been walking for several minutes without anyone coming after you.
You breathe deeply, once more enjoying the fresh air of the mountainside. Now that summer has fully arrived, the leaves on the trees are a deep, vibrant green and in the warm weather the forest smells even more intensely of earth and foliage than it did before. There aren't that many birds out now at noon, but there are a few. You keep your eyes on the path, but also peek sideways at the many wildflowers every so often, checking if you see one with that special shade of yellow…
There.
The face is also rather conspicuous.
“Nobody's following you. I checked,” Flowey announces.
“Well thank the heavens, I would have hated to trek through half of the Underground again,” you sigh in relief. “Okay, lead the way then?”
You watch Flowey nod and burrow down into the earth, only to pop up again a few paces away under the trees. Leaving the path, you follow him into the forest and let him lead you back to that hole you almost fell into when you first met him. You still feel a lot of respect for that hole, so you don't step to close to it, unlike Flowey who appears right next to it.
“Hold still,” Flowey tells you.
Feeling his vines on your body again is strange. They wrap around you firmly and tighten until they're snug enough to lift you up and carefully lower you down into the hole. With Flowey regulating the speed so you don't end up on some weird organic free fall tower and the depth of the hole, it takes you a while until you reach the bottom. The vines release you as soon as you have solid ground under your feet and soon after, Flowey emerges from the earth next to your feet again.
“So, you do book reviews now?” You ask, sitting down next to him.
“Occasionally,” he says. “Playing games got boring after a while. Anyway. You said you were interested in encounters.”
Straight to the point then. In retrospect, you wonder why you expected anything else from Flowey. But then it's not as if you're going to complain if he wants to satisfy your curiosity immediately.
“Yeah. I mean… you asked if I wanted to learn how to perceive all that stuff I currently can't see. I thought that was impossible to learn unless you're a mage?” You fix him with a curious look.
“Oh, yes. You won't be able to learn to actually use magical vision. I'm sorry if you misunderstood that. But I can teach you a way around that and I thought it might be useful!” Flowey tells you with a smile. “I developed it myself. I haven't had the chance to share it with anyone yet, so it'll be exciting for me to see if you can use it!”
“I see,” you reply thoughtfully. You can't help but feel slightly disappointed, it would have been amazing if there had been a way to actually use magic vision. But then an alternative is still better than nothing, right? You're definitely curious about this workaround.
“How did you even get the idea to develop an alternative?” You ask him.
“Well… since you already read it during that little mishap with my diary, I suppose it's okay if I tell you,” Flowey says thoughtfully. He leans forwards a little bit. “I don't have a soul.”
You can't help but stare at him. So he had really meant that literally? It just sounds wrong, after everything you've learned up until now. But yeah, it's not new information.
“I thought every sentient being has a soul?” Your tone is careful; you don't want to insult him or anything. It's just not something you would have thought was possible.
“In theory, yes. But my case is a little bit special. It's complicated. Let's just say there are some things monsters should not tamper with and leave it at that. But the result is that I don't have a soul.”
“Okay,” you say, just accepting what he’s saying for now. You’re pretty sure that you'll want a couple of moments to think about this once you've left, but for now you're going to listen to him. He obviously has information that’s new to you, and he's willing to share it.
“Normally, to see your opponent’s stats you would focus the energy of your soul into your eyes. Since I don’t have a soul, I had to find a different method!” Flowey explains. “I eventually learned how to see stats again, but I had to develop a workaround in the meantime.”
“And that other method of seeing stats won't work for me?” You want to know.
“No, you're not determined enough,” Flowey says. It's not condescending or anything, just a simple statement of fact. “If you were, we would know that already.”
“Okay.” No magic for you, it looks like. Shame. You had kind of hoped you might be trained into a mage or something, if not consciously. “So, what's the workaround?”
“Psychology and deduction, for the most part,” Flowey says. “I know that sounds boring, but bear with me here.”
How mundane. Still, you keep listening. If it helps you in an encounter, then it's worth to learn about considering that they're a big deal to monsters.
“The trick is to figure out your opponent by what little information you can get at a glance,” Flowey says. “There are a multitude of clues about someone at any given time that can tell you so much about them. For example, I could tell that you found the idea of using psychology and deduction instead of magic boring by the minuscule twitches of your eyes and your mouth. I can also tell roughly where you've been judging from the kind of dirt stuck on your shoes and draw conclusions from that. Think of Sherlock Holmes!”
“You've already read Sherlock Holmes?” You ask not without amusement.
“The books are free,” Flowey shrugs. “And well-known. There's TV shows and movies about them. I was surprised humans had the time and patience to develop deductive reasoning as well, so I was interested in the story.”
“Okay. Anyway, that makes sense so far,” you muse. “So you want to teach me how to use non magical means to manage encounters better?”
“If you're interested, yes. In addition, you can learn to understand what a bullet pattern may say about the emotional state of a monster. You won't be able to learn it as a language, but you can learn enough for a superficial understanding.”
That doesn't actually sound so bad. Granted, it's not as cool as actual magic, but it's better than nothing. And you had been curious about that magic bullet pattern language ever since you first found out about it.
“Okay, hit me with it,” you tell him after thinking it over for a couple of seconds.
Flowey nods. “How about we start by going into an encounter together and then if that works, we can go into the ruins and looks for a rock to practise on there? Don’t worry, I’ll still help you with that.”
“There can be encounters with rocks?” You giggle.
“Some rocks are sentient, so yes,” Flowey says.
“Uh.”
“Ridiculous, I know.”
You decline to tell him that it's not actually any more ridiculous than a sentient flower, because you're pretty sure he wouldn't take that all that well.
“You know what, I'm not going to question it.”
“Ready for your encounter then?”
“Yeah, let's do this,” you say as confidently as you can and stand up.
“Here we go!”
Flowey leans forwards a little and then you can feel your soul slide out. The bright purity of its colour once more plunges your surroundings into darkness. Since Flowey told you that he doesn't have a soul, you weren't sure what to expect when looking at him, but in an encounter he looks just like every other monster you've had encounters with so far, appearing uniformly white.
“Golly, I haven't done this in a while,” Flowey muses. He stares at your soul with a ravenous expression of curiosity and a brief flicker of what you think is jealousy, both of which you find somewhat unnerving, and then his face smoothes out and he assumes a more neutral and cheerful demeanour. “Now, pay close attention!”
A row of small, oval bullets reminiscent of seeds spring into life behind him, hovering in a half circle above his head.
“Did you see the way my petals twitched?” Flowey asks you. “Under normal circumstances, I would hide that particular tell. But as we are practising… most monsters have such a tell. A twitch, a flicker of the eyes, a subtle shift in stance or an intake of breath to tell you they're about to attack. They aren't always aware of it. Some also need specific movements in order to send their bullets flying, which you can use to evade them.”
“But I don't know which ones that are, so… should I get ready to dodge whenever my opponent moves?” You ask.
“For the start. It wouldn't hurt to be careful!”
“Okay. So I keep my eyes on the monster and watch the bullets in my peripheral vision?” You guess.
“Ideally, you'll watch both. But otherwise, switch as necessary. If I send these flying towards you, you'll want to watch them instead of me.” He giggles briefly, a high pitched and childish sound that no amount of smiling could ever fully pull into the vicinity of innocent. It just ends up sounding grating. Flowey really has a talent for sounding inadvertently creepy; you wonder if that's a side effect of him having no soul and then chide yourself for making assumptions about him again. Creepy laugh or no, he has been nothing but helpful and nice to you so far. “Well, unless of course I'll use that to move and surprise you.”
“Of course,” you snort.
“Undyne likes to use a tactic like that,” Flowey tells you to your surprise. “She'll send several of her spears flying straight at you only to then send some that switch directions before they hit you, so they'll hit you from behind if you're not careful.”
“I haven't seen that yet,” you say, and you’re about to go on but then you see Flowey’s stem shift ever so slightly and in the context of this conversation the reaction is instant and you duck, narrowly avoiding a set of bullets that were fired at you from behind.
“Very good!” Flowey chirps. “See, you already understand how this works!”
“That was close!”
“Don’t worry, I have calculated the damage precisely,” Flowey tells you casually. “You wouldn’t have ended up hurt... much.”
You sigh, wishing all this training you’re doing wouldn’t always put your soul at risk. But of course you know that this is a futile wish, considering that your soul needs to be out in the open in order to do an encounter in the first place.
“Would you like to try this out in a different situation?” Flowey asks you, completely ignoring your sigh.
“Yeah, sure. I spare you?”
“Accepted.”
With that, the encounter ends and your soul recedes back into your chest. Once the regular colours of the world are properly faded in again, you look down at Flowey expectantly, waiting for him to show you the way. But Flowey is still in the same spot as before, looking up at you with an expression of subtle discomfort.
“I still don’t really want anyone to see me…” He begins.
“Okay…? So, you’ll just tell me the way then? Wait, how are you going to help me if you’re not there?”
“What I mean is, you should let me ride on your shoulder again!” Flowey spits out impatiently.
Oh.
“Uh…”
You’d be lying if you said you don’t mind the thought. You already minded the first time he did that and that was when you were just sitting and talking instead of walking into an experimental encounter. And before Flowey accidentally revealed a whole lot of stuff about himself to you. But then again, he’s currently proving that those reveals don’t matter and you promised yourself you won’t hold it against him, so. And you still want to learn more about this. You didn’t even ask him about the dating hud yet.
“Yeah, fine,” you finally say, and lower yourself into a crouch with your hand held out for him to use.
Flowey eyes you for a second before several roots shoot out of the earth and wrap themselves around your hand. He uses those as leverage as he lifts himself out of the earth completely. Watching all of his vines and roots move is pretty weird, but also kind of fascinating. They’re really flexible from what it looks like, stretching and contracting seemingly at will, and yet they prove to have enough strength to cling tightly to you as he climbs up your arm and take the same position he took when he first did this in the curve of your neck. His roots wrap themselves around your shoulder and you once more feel his barely perceivable weight and the tickle of his flower petals against your ear as he shifts to make sure he’s hidden by the cloth of your shirt and the strands of your hair.
“Okay, this will work,” Flowey says, keeping his voice a little more quiet now that he’s directly next to your ear. “Just follow the path for now.”
You start walking and make your way through the corridor and the dark room to the set of double stairs that marks the entry to the ruins proper. The puzzles along the way are familiar to you and Flowey both, so there’s little trouble navigating through them. You’re halfway through the ruins before Flowey tells you to stop and you think you remember that there was a rock in the next room.
“Now, remember,” Flowey tells you. “I’m not here. I’m going to whisper into your ear if I think you need help, but otherwise just remember to check for any tells.”
“Wait a second, won't it be noticeable if you're in the encounter with me anyway? With magic or something?”
“No, I don't have a soul, remember? That makes me pretty hard to detect for monsters as long as I stay quiet and out of sight,” Flowey explains impatiently. “And as long as I don't use any magic myself, which won't be necessary. It's only a rock after all.”
“Flowey, I’m not trying to duck out at the last second or anything, but… if it’s a rock, can it even move?” The thought occurs to you suddenly that maybe you didn’t think this through. Flowey huffs in that way that’s so typical for him, which always makes him sound as if the entire world just exists to annoy him in a very personal and deliberate way. But at least the question seems to make him think, since he doesn’t dismiss your concerns outright.
“Fine, I’ll help you to demonstrate what to look for,” he finally says. “But you still can’t reply to me!”
“Okay, got it,” you say.
You walk into the next room and come to a stop in front of the rock.
“Hi!”
No reply.
“What are you doing?” Flowey hisses into your ear.
Well, excuse you for assuming that a sentient rock must be a monster and therefore someone you can talk to. Encounters are half about communication anyway, right?
The rock trembles slightly.
“The rock can't understand what you're saying,” Flowey informs you. “I'm going to draw it into an encounter.”
For a second you feel like protesting, thinking that suddenly being drawn into an encounter without warning would be pretty rude, buy then you remind yourself more strongly that encounters are talking opportunities for monsters. Being drawn into an encounter with no warning would be rude to you because you're not a monster and not used to it. But for monsters, this must be normal - akin to just suddenly chatting up a stranger.
The room appears to flicker as the encounter is initiated and your soul leaves your body once more. The rock in front of you goes from dark shades of grey and brown to appearing in white with stark black shadows on its surface. So it must be a monster, just like you guessed. Huh.
You watch the rock tremble a little and wonder what happens now.
“You have the first turn,” Flowey whispers to you.
You're not really sure what your best option here is if the rock can't understand you. But hey, the rock might understand the tone of voice, right?
“It's nice to meet you,” you tell the rock.
The rock shakes a bit more intensely. You watch it closely, trying to figure out anything about its intentions from the way it moves. What a thought. You're suddenly overcome with a desire to laugh as you imagine what this situation must look like from the outside; you standing in a cave, staring intently at a shaking rock, wanting to understand the rock. Would you ever have thought this would be just another day in your life before the monsters emerged? Probably not.
You focus back on the rock. Several small pebbles pop up in your vicinity and begin to tremble at the rock's motions, giving you enough of a warning to avoid them easily when they suddenly shoot upwards around you.
So far so good.
“Good job,” Flowey whispers. “Go on.”
“Uh… I think you look very nice today,” you say, not exactly sure how to keep up a conversation where you don't understand your conversational partner and your conversational partner also doesn't understand you. So you just stick with the whole idea of hoping that the tone of voice matters, and a compliment surely sounds positive.
The rock squiggles back and forth.
You note that this movement is different than the shaking it did before, which helps to prepare you for when the pebble bullets that pop up in response fly sideways instead of up at you. They're more slow than before. You dodge them without trouble.
“It feels flattered by your compliment,” Flowey informs you. “Did you notice how the speed decreased? That can be an indicator that a monster feels more positively towards you and doesn't wish to harm you.”
Interesting. You hadn't learned much about the magical bullet based language of the monsters yet and now you really wonder how much you actually can understand about it. While Toriel told you that it relies on intuition and feeling the magic of the other monster, which you obviously can't learn to do, you think that you could actually do what Flowey proposed and learn what you can about the visual aspects of this language.
“You're the nicest rock I've ever met,” you say earnestly now that it's your turn again.
The rock does a somersault.
You're so baffled by this sudden big movement that you completely forget to look for any bullets. Thankfully though, there don't seem to be any.
“It's sparing you,” Flowey sighs. “Well, that was fast. Let's end this and go back.”
“Thanks for talking to me,” you say to the rock. “I spare you.”
The encounter ends. As soon as you can see the world as you normally do again, you keep watching the rock for a moment or two as it gently trembles in place. You may not have been able to understand it directly, but from what you experienced and what Flowey told you, this is still a pretty nice rock. You definitely feel like you learned something, communicating in an entirely unfamiliar way with an entity you don't share a language with.
“Bye bye,” you finally say and then leave.
“That was nice,” you tell Flowey once you feel you're out of earshot of the rock. “And very informative. I want to learn more about this.”
“We can keep practising, if you like.”
“I would like that. Actually… can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
You take a deep breath and go for it.
“So, Papyrus gave me a dating manual which contains information on some sort of dating hud - “
You pause. Out of the corner of your eyes, Flowey’s face slowly comes into view as he stretches forwards from your shoulder. And the more he comes into view, the easier it is to see his expression - the widest, most shit-eating and knowing grin you have ever personally witnessed.
“Any particular reason you're curious about that?” Flowey asks and waggles his eyebrows at you.
“Oh for heaven's sake, Flowey.” You actually start laughing at his expression, even though you can't help but feel mildly embarrassed. Fine, so you're being about as subtle the as a freight train, but hey, it's not as if you have a lot of people to talk to about this in the first place, so that's only understandable, right?
You press your entire hand against his face and push him back down to his original position, ignoring his indignant sputtering for now.
“I'm just. Curious. I can't see all those magical stat thingies that are apparently involved there, after all,” you explain once you removed your hand and Flowey is back in his former position right under your ear.
“Uh huh,” Flowey hums in complete disbelief.
“Come on, can you fault a woman for wanting to learn more?”
“I take it things with the smiley bonebag are going well then,” Flowey cackles.
“I exercise my right to remain silent.”
“Did you show him your socks yet?”
“Flowey!”
“I'm not hearing a no.”
“... Why are you even asking me that. I thought socks were super kinky to you guys. Is there a point in a relationship where people are expected to show each other their socks?”
“Oh, so you have a relationship, huh?”
“I didn't say that!”
“You didn't bring up concrete relationship questions when you first expressed your interest, but now you do,” Flowey observes. “I also can't help but note that you've stopped asking about things like preferences or general tips about approaching him.”
Damn.
Does he have to be so observant?
Flowey continues to giggle. You can feel him shake ever so slightly where he is perched on your shoulder. The longer you remain quiet, the more obnoxious his giggling gets.
“Fine,” you eventually cave. “We kind of agreed to… try. Just in general, you know? It's nice, we're not as awkward with each other anymore when we talk.”
“Talk,” Flowey cackles.
“Yes, talk,” you insist firmly.
Flowey abruptly stops giggling.
“That's all?”
“What do you mean, ‘that's all’?”
“You agree to try a relationship and all you've done so far is talk?”
“We agreed to take things slow,” you explain with a frown, hoping he won't go all shipper on you like Alphys and Dolores tend to.
“Oh,” Flowey says. “So, is the reason you want to learn about the dating hud that you want to progress in the relationship?”
“I…. guess? I thought I might surprise him with it.”
You didn't really think about it in those terms yet. So far, you thought about your desire to learn more about the dating hud in terms of it being interesting to you and a nice way to maybe surprise Sans. But now that he’s said it, yeah, you kind of do. You don’t need to have him pin you against a wall and ravish you or anything, but just a little bit more than talking and handholding would be nice, wouldn’t it?
Flowey carefully stretches enough to have his face in your view again, without the grin this time. He just looks at you curiously and a little bit thoughtfully.
“I think you should learn about that with him,” he says after the two of you have regarded each other for a moment.
“Yeah?”
“Have I ever given you bad advice?”
“No, you haven’t,” you admit. “Okay, fine, no surprises.”
“Trust me, it’s going to be better this way,” Flowey assures you and begins to climb down your arm. You crouch down to allow him easier access to the earth and he slips his roots back into the ground quickly only to look up to you again. “It will strengthen your relationship! Learning about communication together is important. It will ultimately help you avoid misunderstandings and all the bad things that can come up because of them.”
“You’re right,” you sigh quietly. “Misunderstandings are never good.”
“Now that’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Flowey laughs. It’s not a particularly nice laugh. “Considering what happened to the monster monarchy because of it.”
“Uh… what? What happened to the monster monarchy?”
“What, you haven’t heard about that yet?” Flowey frowns up at you. “Has nobody told you? Don’t you read any history books up there?”
“Toriel has taught Frisk some history before they went to school, but I didn’t really hear anything about misunderstandings there… or do you mean the war between humans and monsters?” You wonder.
“No, that’s not what I mean. Boy! I thought they would have told you by now!”
“Told me what?” You’re beginning to feel irritated. You know that the monsters are still keeping some things to themselves, but having it dangled in your face like this is terrible.
“About the first fallen human and the prince of monsters,” Flowey says. You shake your head, you don’t know this story. Flowey sighs quietly, his tone approaching something very close to wistful without ever quite getting there as he continues. “It’s a very sad story. The prince of monsters adopted the first human as his sibling and together they wanted to free all monsters from the Underground. They had a secret plan… but the siblings weren’t honest to each other. And when the human died and the prince managed to cross the barrier with the help of his sibling’s soul, he and his sibling fought over control of their now shared body. The humans misunderstood the sibling’s actions and attacked. The prince returned Underground and died, and the king and queen couldn’t deal with losing both of their children, and in their grief and rage the monarchy was torn to shreds. The queen exiled herself and the king became single-minded in his focus to free all monsters to reclaim the surface from the humans. In their foolishness, the sibling’s lies, miscommunications and secrets had destroyed their own lives, that of their parents, and the hope of all monsters for the future.”
“That’s…” You have no idea what to say. Absolutely none. You keep staring at Flowey in disbelief and shock. Nobody had told you about this story, or even hinted at it.
It explains so much.
Toriel’s and Asgore’s troubles with each other, their wistful sadness whenever they have a particularly sweet moment with Frisk, how protective they are of them.
Why didn’t they tell you about this? Back when they first told you about monsters having the ability to absorb human souls, you had wondered who had done this, and why, and how. Now you know, and the answer makes you just as sick as hearing about it in the first place did. Absorbing the soul of your dead sibling just sounds deeply wrong to you. But you also feel grossed out by hearing about the humans attacking and killing the prince and his sibling, when they were only trying to free the monsters. You can imagine how back then, humans would have attacked a creature trying to convince them to come and help break a magical barrier. Especially if the prince resembled Asgore and Toriel with their goat-like appearance. They probably thought it was the devil trying to trick them or something.
But then, Flowey said Asgore wanted to ‘reclaim the surface from the humans’ and that doesn’t sound very positive to you, so maybe that’s why the monsters decided to keep silent about it despite obviously no longer feeling that way.
You wish they would have said something, though, it’s not as if you can’t muster some understanding that Asgore might have felt a little bit aggressive towards humans after losing his son to them.
Fuck, the poor man. According to Flowey, the prince returned to the Underground before dying and given that his story appears to be common knowledge to monsters, the prince must have had time and opportunity to tell it to someone. And since the room immediately before the barrier is the throne room… Did Asgore listen to his son’s story before watching him die?
“That’s terrible,” you finally say very quietly.
“Yes, it’s quite bad,” Flowey states neutrally, having lost that almost wistful tone in his voice. “I’m still surprised you didn’t know about this. I suppose it’s not directly related to your work, maybe that’s why. It should be in the history books in the library, in case you would like to find out more about it.”
“I… might. Thanks.”
Flowey looks up at the sunlight falling through the hole far above you.
“Well! It’s evening already. You should probably return home.”
“Yeah.”
You watch Flowey vanish into the ground and a couple of minutes later, you're lifted out of the hole by his vines. He leads you to the edge of the forest and quickly tells you goodbye before leaving you to find the way down yourself.
You return from the mountain quiet and thoughtful.