Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-06-27 12:55 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-06-27 12:55 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: Communication (Deltarune)
Please let us talk to Kris, Deltarune. It's all I want.
It's very weird to write a fic in which one of the central characters is the player of the game! Obviously it's not possible to write a representation that reflects every player, so how do you approach it?
I've ended up writing someone who's not quite me, but who played the game in a similar way and holds similar attitudes towards it. Hopefully it'll ring reasonably true for other players, or at least not outright ring false. (With the possible exception of the part where I push my 'Kris has an unrequited crush on Noelle' agenda, because I could not resist.)
Title: Communication
Fandom: Deltarune
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,000
Summary: Kris has a conversation with the soul.
Warnings: Alludes to events and revelations from chapter four of Deltarune.
Noelle’s house is too big, too visible from every part of town, and Kris keeps finding their eyes drawn back to it. There’s something they can’t stop thinking about.
They’d freed themselves at Noelle’s, for a little while. Giving too much away to the soul, maybe; it might have an idea, by now, of the things Kris is trying to keep from it. But they hadn’t had a choice.
It feels like they haven’t had choices for a long time.
Anyway.
Kris had taken the opportunity to play the piano. A few different songs, a moment to relax. They’d glanced to the side at one point, and the soul was there – it must have come through the vents – and Kris had braced themselves to be taken over again.
But the soul hadn’t moved. It just hovered there. Kris doesn’t know if it can hear in that form, but it looked like it was just... listening.
Maybe it’s stupid. But the thought that the soul might enjoy music feels like some kind of common ground. It’s got Kris thinking about it more as something conscious than as a tool.
Kris knows their own goals, but what goals does the soul have? Does it have things it wants; does it have things it enjoys?
Not counting its passionate and excruciating desire to make Kris talk to everyone in town, obviously. They still don’t understand why the hell it keeps doing that.
Can you hear me? Kris thinks, as hard as they can. I know you’re there. Can you hear me? Can you answer?
There’s a long silence.
And then Kris’s lips and jaw and tongue start to move without their control. It’s familiar, by now.
“Are you talking to me?” Kris asks the empty air. It’s their own voice, someone else’s words.
Kris doesn’t want to look like they’re talking to themselves. They’ve barely had the thought before their body dodges into the nearby alleyway, leans back against the wall.
They’re communicating. Kris and the soul they summoned. They can talk to each other.
Kris isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to them to try this before. They...
They know it’s a human soul, obviously. It has to be a human soul; that’s the point. Without a human soul, they can’t seal the fountains, and Kris’s own soul has been missing for a while.
They just haven’t thought much about the fact that, in that case, there’s a human behind it. A person. Someone like Kris, maybe, although they haven’t met many humans to compare.
But the soul wanted to listen to the piano. That makes it easier to see a person there; that’s something Kris can understand.
“You’re interested in me?” the soul asks in Kris’s voice.
You’re controlling every move I make. Kind of hard to be bored by you.
There’s a strange awkwardness in the soul’s laugh. “I guess so. Sorry. You’re interested in who I am, I mean?”
The sorry jars Kris. It’s said so casually.
Kris isn’t planning to apologise to the soul for summoning it, caging it. It’s too big a violation, and Kris isn’t planning to let it go any time soon, so any apology would sound hollow. Besides, the soul’s been walking around in Kris’s skin for days, deciding what they do and say; Kris figures that kind of evens things out.
This offhand, amused, slightly embarrassed apology feels a lot weirder than no apology at all would. Is there any sincerity there?
“I’m sorry,” the soul says, again, more seriously. “I get that it must be awful. I’ve been trying not to cause problems for you.”
It makes Kris uncomfortable, the way it’s obviously revising its words in response to their thoughts. But there’s something that stands out a lot more: I’ve been trying not to cause problems for you.
Yeah, they guess having someone else in control of their body hasn’t been as bad as they thought it might be. It hasn’t been good, but the soul hasn’t really done any harm. In some ways, it might actually have improved Kris’s life; it’s hard to picture ever managing to befriend Susie without it, and that’s something Kris wouldn’t want to give up.
But it’s weird to hear there’s conscious effort behind that. Actual intent. The soul doesn’t want to cause problems for Kris. Why not?
Would it be worse, maybe, with a different soul? How much worse?
“Much worse,” the soul says, with a grim certainty that makes Kris’s skin prickle.
Could it get worse, then, if this one changed its mind?
There’s no response to that. The prickling gets stronger.
Maybe it just didn’t hear. No way to know. Apparently it can’t hear everything; it wouldn’t be possible to hide things from it otherwise.
“What are you hiding from me?”
Kris focuses on their own breathing, tries to push any hint of the Knight out of their thoughts.
It’s easy enough to distract themselves from the Knight, it turns out. Their mind keeps going back to the knowledge that, if the soul chose to, it could apparently make things much worse.
They need to get better at resisting the soul. They should take this opportunity to practise holding its words in, when there’s no one around to hear, no consequence for failing.
They can still have this conversation without words; they always know what the soul is about to say an instant before it comes out of their own throat. More precisely, the soul silently commands them on what to say, and Kris feels that command.
The command comes, and Kris finds their mouth opening, despite their efforts. “I guess you wouldn’t tell me.”
It doesn’t sound angry. Kris doesn’t know much about what the soul wants, but they know it seems to want to know everything it can about its surroundings. It examines everything closely; it talks to everyone; it pokes into every corner it can find. Withholding information from it feels dangerous.
Not as dangerous as giving that information away. But Kris was still expecting the soul to be more pissed off.
“It’s fine,” the soul says. “I’m pretty sure I’ll find out eventually. I’m just enjoying the journey.”
Kris goes back over those words in their head, again and again. They make less sense every time.
You’re enjoying this? they ask.
The soul is a prisoner in Kris’s ribcage; Kris is a prisoner in their own body. Kris hates this situation. They kind of assumed the soul felt the same way.
“It hasn’t all been bad, has it?” the soul asks. “I mean, you’ve been having adventures with your friends.”
It’s true. It’d be better without some kind of alien consciousness piloting their body, but Kris guesses they haven’t hated every moment.
You like spending time with my friends? they ask, cautiously.
Yeah, the soul says, and then, “They’re fun.” Kris manages to suppress the first word, at least.
This... feels weird. Susie doesn’t know the soul exists. Or she doesn’t know it doesn’t belong to Kris, at least. The soul’s been enjoying spending time with her, just piggybacking on her interactions with Kris?
Although Kris guesses it works the other way around, too. They didn’t really get to know Susie before the soul possessed them. Kris considers Susie a friend, but in a way they’ve just been piggybacking on her interactions with the soul. They’ve done their best to show her glimpses of their real personality, but they don’t know how she’d feel about them without the soul there.
Which reminds them of something that’s been on their mind.
You can hear other people’s thoughts, Kris thinks. Can’t you? It’s not just mine.
They’ve been warned about this. The soul can hear your thoughts, so keep your mind as blank as possible; keep out anything it can’t be allowed to know. And don’t tell anyone else, because it might overhear their thoughts as well.
They can feel the answer welling up in their own throat, but they manage to keep their mouth clamped shut, take it in silently. Sometimes.
It’s hard not to wonder what Noelle thinks of them. But they refuse to ask.
Seems like the soul’s picked up on their curiosity, though. Kris finds themselves starting to laugh, unwanted, someone else’s amusement bubbling out of them.
It’s humiliating, being forced to laugh at themselves with their own body. They bite down on their tongue, hard enough to hurt.
I think she’s more interested in Susie, the soul says. Trying to use Kris’s voice for it, but Kris’s teeth are still anchored in their tongue.
I know that, Kris thinks. I’m not an idiot. Shut up.
I wondered how you felt about Noelle. It seems like you’re always trying to get a reaction out of her.
It makes Kris feel kind of sick, the idea of this stranger watching and judging their relationships with other people. Shut up. It’s not like that. Stuff just happened. We didn’t really talk for a while.
“I’m not trying to bully you,” the soul says, breaking Kris’s voice out of their throat at last. “I’m just interested. If something’s bothering you about Noelle, maybe you want to talk about it?”
Why would you care?
“I like you,” the soul says. “I’d like to know more about you.”
It likes them?
It hadn’t really crossed Kris’s mind that the soul might... have an opinion of them. They’d assumed the soul saw Kris as its cage, in the same way Kris views the soul as their prison in return. They weren’t expecting it to have any thoughts on them as a person.
It likes them? What does that mean?
It doesn’t make sense, does it? Kris brought the soul here, they’re keeping it imprisoned. They would understand being hated. They don’t understand this.
“It kind of seems like you want me to hate you,” the soul says.
Maybe. They’d probably be more comfortable with being hated, honestly. It’d be less creepy. You don’t know me.
The soul laughs again. “We’ve known each other long enough for me to decide I like you. You have an opinion of me too, right?”
I don’t like you, Kris informs it. I don’t like being controlled by someone else. I don’t like how you take ages to get anywhere because you keep looking at everything. I don’t like how you keep making me talk to Pizzapants. And I’ll be honest: this hasn’t been a great conversation.
“That’s fair,” the soul admits, after a moment.
Kris hesitates. But you listened to me playing the piano. Right? I guess that made you seem more like a person.
“You’re good,” the soul says. “I’ve wanted to hear you play properly for a while.”
Kris has no idea how to feel about that.
“Maybe I could let you do your own thing when we’re around a piano?” the soul suggests. “If you want to pull me out again, I won’t try to get back in. I’ll just let you finish playing.”
Even with their limited control over their own throat, Kris’s breath catches.
It almost blinds Kris, how much they want that. Just being able to play the piano again. It feels like it’d make all of this easier to bear.
They can’t let themselves agree when they don’t know the terms. They already know something about the dangers of making deals. In exchange for what?
“It’s fine,” the soul says. “I just like hearing you play.”
Kris doesn’t think they’ll ever consider this soul a friend. They’re not messed up enough to like their own cage, whatever the soul’s attitude might be. And they don’t like its casual, friendly, amused tone, like this is just an entertaining diversion for them, when it’s Kris’s entire fucking life.
But it could be worse, they guess.
They don’t mean to say thanks. But it slips into their thoughts, and they feel their own mouth twitch up in a small, answering smile.
It's very weird to write a fic in which one of the central characters is the player of the game! Obviously it's not possible to write a representation that reflects every player, so how do you approach it?
I've ended up writing someone who's not quite me, but who played the game in a similar way and holds similar attitudes towards it. Hopefully it'll ring reasonably true for other players, or at least not outright ring false. (With the possible exception of the part where I push my 'Kris has an unrequited crush on Noelle' agenda, because I could not resist.)
Title: Communication
Fandom: Deltarune
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,000
Summary: Kris has a conversation with the soul.
Warnings: Alludes to events and revelations from chapter four of Deltarune.
Noelle’s house is too big, too visible from every part of town, and Kris keeps finding their eyes drawn back to it. There’s something they can’t stop thinking about.
They’d freed themselves at Noelle’s, for a little while. Giving too much away to the soul, maybe; it might have an idea, by now, of the things Kris is trying to keep from it. But they hadn’t had a choice.
It feels like they haven’t had choices for a long time.
Anyway.
Kris had taken the opportunity to play the piano. A few different songs, a moment to relax. They’d glanced to the side at one point, and the soul was there – it must have come through the vents – and Kris had braced themselves to be taken over again.
But the soul hadn’t moved. It just hovered there. Kris doesn’t know if it can hear in that form, but it looked like it was just... listening.
Maybe it’s stupid. But the thought that the soul might enjoy music feels like some kind of common ground. It’s got Kris thinking about it more as something conscious than as a tool.
Kris knows their own goals, but what goals does the soul have? Does it have things it wants; does it have things it enjoys?
Not counting its passionate and excruciating desire to make Kris talk to everyone in town, obviously. They still don’t understand why the hell it keeps doing that.
Can you hear me? Kris thinks, as hard as they can. I know you’re there. Can you hear me? Can you answer?
There’s a long silence.
And then Kris’s lips and jaw and tongue start to move without their control. It’s familiar, by now.
“Are you talking to me?” Kris asks the empty air. It’s their own voice, someone else’s words.
Kris doesn’t want to look like they’re talking to themselves. They’ve barely had the thought before their body dodges into the nearby alleyway, leans back against the wall.
They’re communicating. Kris and the soul they summoned. They can talk to each other.
Kris isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to them to try this before. They...
They know it’s a human soul, obviously. It has to be a human soul; that’s the point. Without a human soul, they can’t seal the fountains, and Kris’s own soul has been missing for a while.
They just haven’t thought much about the fact that, in that case, there’s a human behind it. A person. Someone like Kris, maybe, although they haven’t met many humans to compare.
But the soul wanted to listen to the piano. That makes it easier to see a person there; that’s something Kris can understand.
“You’re interested in me?” the soul asks in Kris’s voice.
You’re controlling every move I make. Kind of hard to be bored by you.
There’s a strange awkwardness in the soul’s laugh. “I guess so. Sorry. You’re interested in who I am, I mean?”
The sorry jars Kris. It’s said so casually.
Kris isn’t planning to apologise to the soul for summoning it, caging it. It’s too big a violation, and Kris isn’t planning to let it go any time soon, so any apology would sound hollow. Besides, the soul’s been walking around in Kris’s skin for days, deciding what they do and say; Kris figures that kind of evens things out.
This offhand, amused, slightly embarrassed apology feels a lot weirder than no apology at all would. Is there any sincerity there?
“I’m sorry,” the soul says, again, more seriously. “I get that it must be awful. I’ve been trying not to cause problems for you.”
It makes Kris uncomfortable, the way it’s obviously revising its words in response to their thoughts. But there’s something that stands out a lot more: I’ve been trying not to cause problems for you.
Yeah, they guess having someone else in control of their body hasn’t been as bad as they thought it might be. It hasn’t been good, but the soul hasn’t really done any harm. In some ways, it might actually have improved Kris’s life; it’s hard to picture ever managing to befriend Susie without it, and that’s something Kris wouldn’t want to give up.
But it’s weird to hear there’s conscious effort behind that. Actual intent. The soul doesn’t want to cause problems for Kris. Why not?
Would it be worse, maybe, with a different soul? How much worse?
“Much worse,” the soul says, with a grim certainty that makes Kris’s skin prickle.
Could it get worse, then, if this one changed its mind?
There’s no response to that. The prickling gets stronger.
Maybe it just didn’t hear. No way to know. Apparently it can’t hear everything; it wouldn’t be possible to hide things from it otherwise.
“What are you hiding from me?”
Kris focuses on their own breathing, tries to push any hint of the Knight out of their thoughts.
It’s easy enough to distract themselves from the Knight, it turns out. Their mind keeps going back to the knowledge that, if the soul chose to, it could apparently make things much worse.
They need to get better at resisting the soul. They should take this opportunity to practise holding its words in, when there’s no one around to hear, no consequence for failing.
They can still have this conversation without words; they always know what the soul is about to say an instant before it comes out of their own throat. More precisely, the soul silently commands them on what to say, and Kris feels that command.
The command comes, and Kris finds their mouth opening, despite their efforts. “I guess you wouldn’t tell me.”
It doesn’t sound angry. Kris doesn’t know much about what the soul wants, but they know it seems to want to know everything it can about its surroundings. It examines everything closely; it talks to everyone; it pokes into every corner it can find. Withholding information from it feels dangerous.
Not as dangerous as giving that information away. But Kris was still expecting the soul to be more pissed off.
“It’s fine,” the soul says. “I’m pretty sure I’ll find out eventually. I’m just enjoying the journey.”
Kris goes back over those words in their head, again and again. They make less sense every time.
You’re enjoying this? they ask.
The soul is a prisoner in Kris’s ribcage; Kris is a prisoner in their own body. Kris hates this situation. They kind of assumed the soul felt the same way.
“It hasn’t all been bad, has it?” the soul asks. “I mean, you’ve been having adventures with your friends.”
It’s true. It’d be better without some kind of alien consciousness piloting their body, but Kris guesses they haven’t hated every moment.
You like spending time with my friends? they ask, cautiously.
Yeah, the soul says, and then, “They’re fun.” Kris manages to suppress the first word, at least.
This... feels weird. Susie doesn’t know the soul exists. Or she doesn’t know it doesn’t belong to Kris, at least. The soul’s been enjoying spending time with her, just piggybacking on her interactions with Kris?
Although Kris guesses it works the other way around, too. They didn’t really get to know Susie before the soul possessed them. Kris considers Susie a friend, but in a way they’ve just been piggybacking on her interactions with the soul. They’ve done their best to show her glimpses of their real personality, but they don’t know how she’d feel about them without the soul there.
Which reminds them of something that’s been on their mind.
You can hear other people’s thoughts, Kris thinks. Can’t you? It’s not just mine.
They’ve been warned about this. The soul can hear your thoughts, so keep your mind as blank as possible; keep out anything it can’t be allowed to know. And don’t tell anyone else, because it might overhear their thoughts as well.
They can feel the answer welling up in their own throat, but they manage to keep their mouth clamped shut, take it in silently. Sometimes.
It’s hard not to wonder what Noelle thinks of them. But they refuse to ask.
Seems like the soul’s picked up on their curiosity, though. Kris finds themselves starting to laugh, unwanted, someone else’s amusement bubbling out of them.
It’s humiliating, being forced to laugh at themselves with their own body. They bite down on their tongue, hard enough to hurt.
I think she’s more interested in Susie, the soul says. Trying to use Kris’s voice for it, but Kris’s teeth are still anchored in their tongue.
I know that, Kris thinks. I’m not an idiot. Shut up.
I wondered how you felt about Noelle. It seems like you’re always trying to get a reaction out of her.
It makes Kris feel kind of sick, the idea of this stranger watching and judging their relationships with other people. Shut up. It’s not like that. Stuff just happened. We didn’t really talk for a while.
“I’m not trying to bully you,” the soul says, breaking Kris’s voice out of their throat at last. “I’m just interested. If something’s bothering you about Noelle, maybe you want to talk about it?”
Why would you care?
“I like you,” the soul says. “I’d like to know more about you.”
It likes them?
It hadn’t really crossed Kris’s mind that the soul might... have an opinion of them. They’d assumed the soul saw Kris as its cage, in the same way Kris views the soul as their prison in return. They weren’t expecting it to have any thoughts on them as a person.
It likes them? What does that mean?
It doesn’t make sense, does it? Kris brought the soul here, they’re keeping it imprisoned. They would understand being hated. They don’t understand this.
“It kind of seems like you want me to hate you,” the soul says.
Maybe. They’d probably be more comfortable with being hated, honestly. It’d be less creepy. You don’t know me.
The soul laughs again. “We’ve known each other long enough for me to decide I like you. You have an opinion of me too, right?”
I don’t like you, Kris informs it. I don’t like being controlled by someone else. I don’t like how you take ages to get anywhere because you keep looking at everything. I don’t like how you keep making me talk to Pizzapants. And I’ll be honest: this hasn’t been a great conversation.
“That’s fair,” the soul admits, after a moment.
Kris hesitates. But you listened to me playing the piano. Right? I guess that made you seem more like a person.
“You’re good,” the soul says. “I’ve wanted to hear you play properly for a while.”
Kris has no idea how to feel about that.
“Maybe I could let you do your own thing when we’re around a piano?” the soul suggests. “If you want to pull me out again, I won’t try to get back in. I’ll just let you finish playing.”
Even with their limited control over their own throat, Kris’s breath catches.
It almost blinds Kris, how much they want that. Just being able to play the piano again. It feels like it’d make all of this easier to bear.
They can’t let themselves agree when they don’t know the terms. They already know something about the dangers of making deals. In exchange for what?
“It’s fine,” the soul says. “I just like hearing you play.”
Kris doesn’t think they’ll ever consider this soul a friend. They’re not messed up enough to like their own cage, whatever the soul’s attitude might be. And they don’t like its casual, friendly, amused tone, like this is just an entertaining diversion for them, when it’s Kris’s entire fucking life.
But it could be worse, they guess.
They don’t mean to say thanks. But it slips into their thoughts, and they feel their own mouth twitch up in a small, answering smile.
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It felt pretty weird to drop the name 'Pizzapants' into a fairly serious fic, but Pizzapants is the only name canon gives him. (Well, he's called Burgerpants instead in Undertale, but that's not really an improvement.)
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given how you can hear other people think if they're talking via text boxes and such, it makes sense that kris would just never do that if they have the chance and only talk outside of any boxes through reflecting off of others
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Huh! I suppose the Froggit that tells you how to skip text at the start of Undertale does imply that text boxes are canonical; that raises a lot of weird questions.