When their team of four arrived at the sparring field, they were greeted by several friends. Orik, Cross, Killer, Dust, a strangely bewildered looking Reaper and Seraphim, and Horror, aura shimmering strangely as three strange new skeletons stood behind him, seeming… not quite there. Like shadows or echoes.

Orik greeted Eragon with pleasant surprise at his solved puzzle ring as Blue blinked at the strangers. "Who are they?" He asked Dust. He seemed most likely to know. Said skeleton shrugged. "Dunno, just that they're ghosts and following Horror." A little perturbed, Blue headed to the grinning broken skeleton, who's smile widened upon his approach.
"Why am I not surprised that you see 'em, too?"

Blue hesitated, taken aback by the other's remarkably clear voice. He had rarely heard a voice so smooth from a Sans, and never would have expected it from him, of all people. Horror normally rasped like an old man.
"What did the celebration do to you?"
Horror giggled at the question. "A lotta things, Blue. Guess what?" He practically taunted, two rose colored eyelights flaring slightly.
"...What?" Blue indulged curiously.

"Do you remember that the sun is classified as a main sequence star with a surface temperature of 6,000 to 5,000 degrees celsius as an average, nontypical yellow star? Yet the coldest known star is a dull red at a temp of 3,600 or 2,000, a little under half that same heat. Yet the hottest is a cold blue and the average temperature on the surface alone is upwards of 11,000 or even 28,000 degrees celsius! I don't know about you, but stars are really hot, huh?" He gazed at Blue pointedly as the energetic skeleton stared blankly at him.

"...."
"..Blue?"
He slowly furrowed his non-existent eyebrows. "I can't decide… if you sound more like Error.. or Outer right now…."
Horror snirked, facepalming. "I think you missed the point, buddy." He snickered.
Blue stared hard at him. "Do you have any idea how well I've familiarized myself with star facts because of Error? I'm just.. I was not expecting that. I never took you to be that knowledgeable about stars…" He spotted Spacey staring in awe at a pair of dueling elves.
Then it suddenly dawned on him.
This was Horror.

"Oh my God." He deadpanned.
"There it is." Horror whispered.
"Oh my gosh." He blinked.
"You're completely coherent."
"I am absolutely, unequivocally, irrevocably present in the mind."
"Holy-" His voice escalated in pitch. Horror started giggling maniacally.
"HoLY-" He squealed, cutting off as he remembered the children present.
"-FLIPPING GODS ABOVE OF GAY FLAPPING MACKEREL YOU'RE COHERENT-!" Blue shrieked.

Horror exploded in laughter, wheezing as Dust broke down as well, Killer howling close by at the choice of words as Cross choked, Reaper wheezing himself. Blue grabbed Horror by the shoulders, shaking him. "YOU'RE OKAY! YOU'RE OKAY! YOU'RE THINKING STRAIGHT! YOU STILL HAVE A HOLE BUT YOU'RE RECOVERED! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH-" He screeched in confusion and amazement, shaking Horror wildly as he leaned back to scream.

Eragon finally started peeling him off the other, snickering at the infectious excitement. "Blue, you're going to shake him to death."
"HOW DID I MISS THIS?"
"You were busy being unconscious." Horror told him between giggles.
"WHAT ELSE DID I MISS?!" Blue continued shouting.

XChara abruptly appeared in front of his face, upside down with a conniving grin. Blue froze for a moment, then the ghostly human wiggled his eyebrows.
"Chara what the fuck." Cross's voice carried over the field, sending everyone back into stitches.

"Wait, am I the only one noticing Blue has a tail?" Killer suddenly spoke up.
Dust collapsed on the ground, struggling to breathe in between explosive fits of laughter as Reaper started gasping for air, tears leaking out of his sockets as he started drifting.
"But guys, why does he have a tail?"
"He makes a valid point, Blue did not have a tail before." Orik argued.

Blue giggled and ignored the appendage as it started wagging as he answered. "It came from the Blood-Oath. There were a slew of other changes, but I can maintain those. However, the tail seems to be stuck there… along with claws, but it's fine." He caught Seraphim's gaze, the godling skeleton lifting his own bladed tail, one much longer than his own. Blue snickered. "I don't know how you manage when a sharp implement is permanently attached to you, but I had to restrain mine!"

"You had a blade?" Seraphim deadpanned.
"I did. But because I didn't want to wreak havoc cutting things on accident all the time, I have it repressed."
"How do you even do that?"
Blue just jerked his skull at GB, who winked. "Same way he shifts between forms. I can't go around looking like him all the time, after all. I'm supposed to be his translator outside of Du Weldenvarden!"
Seraphim seemed to be only more confused, which led to laughter once again.

Blue grinned at the antics, glad to have everyone happy for a little while.
Even so, he felt his eyesocket twitch as he spotted Vanir approaching, regarding Eragon and shooting the others a slightly disdainful look- probably because of the ruckus they were producing.
Somehow seeing Vanir ticked him off more than before.

The group eventually calmed down, watching as elf and human squared off, blades out. But then Blue heard a whisper of a voice, like an echo reaching him from the end of a long tunnel, hissing and crackling not just with age, but in words. The voice spoke fearfully in Wingdings.
"Brother, I'm scared."
His breath caught in his throat upon hearing it, Blue turning to search for the source of the murmur. His eyelights landed upon the trio of grey, flickering silhouettes of vague details, as though formed of mist. Looking closer, he recognized Horror's aura hanging around them, almost protective in nature.

Coming closer, he saw the taller crouching down and whispering to the young Papyrus. "What's scaring you, buddy? We can leave if it's too much."
The children seemed to flinch away, seeing Blue.
"Are you okay?" He tried asking softly, the elder looking up almost as though in surprise.
Swords clanging drew his attention temporarily back to the duellers as the spirit stood.
Eragon was somehow blocking the elf's attacks with equal speed and strength.

Blue could only see it for a moment, the shadow addressing him tensely. "You can really see us." He blinked at the suddenly more present voice. Like words spoken through a door, through water, but still.. nearer. "I can see more than most others now. Are they alright? I don't know where any of you came from, but I can't have children be scared like that."
"It's fine. They're just shy. I got it covered. You're probably not helping."
He was a little hurt by that, but Blue said nothing, choosing to step back.

The ghost regarded him with an almost sad smile, squatting to whisper to the kids in Wingdings. Blue stared silently, studying the wreathes of magic around them. They had almost no aura of their own, it was as if they were cocooned in Horror's. He could see the trail leading between them and the broken skeleton, occasional wisps and flares of their own mana flickering inside the connection.
He glanced at Dust, peering at Powder and his connection.
The genocidal skeleton and his brother had a different bond. Dust's mana faded into Powder's with hints of each other's magic flickering between both auras.

But this trio.. it was like they were coming from Horror, but certainly not of him. The brothers were a result of Powder's dust being taken by Dust's evolving magic and reanimated, not unlike a Flowey, save for the fact that he had taken shards of his brother's Soul into his own, and thus his Papyrus lived off of him.
These spirits didn't have any solidity to their forms whatsoever. Powder could become physical due to the fact that his very dust remained dormant inside his living brother, but clearly Horror didn't have these spirits' dust around his Soul…. How was his Soul sustaining others without some shard of them inside?
It was one of those times when Blue wished he knew more about Horror.
He always avoided the cannibalism topic.

Wait.
He ate monsters.
Were these ghosts sustained by Horror's Soul purely because the dust was recognized as another being and thus was formed in it's original patterns as a whole, or a shadow of a whole? These apparitions were completely incorporeal.

"Horror." He strode over, deciding to see what he could get out of the other. "Hm?" Two red lights focused on him, lazy and aware. Blue hesitated as he blew insubstantial smoke at him. Or mist? It wasn't quite either.
Shaking his skull, Blue inquired. "Where did those spirits come from? They weren't around before, and I just can't fathom why they're here now."
"They came from me." Horror explained vaguely.
"I can see that, but what does that mean? How? I understand how Dust and his brother operate, but yours seems.. different."

Horror sighed, staring at the ground as he thought. "Y'know how I ate people."
"You did. I don't think you would do that anymore."
"But debatable, actually- but that's not important." He waved off Blue's alarm. He summoned his Soul, the heart shining far brighter than normal. "Doesn't look normal, does it?"
"No." Blue admitted. "It's really bright."
"Yea. That's because- my theory right now- I ate Souls."
"You- you ate their Souls?"
"Hm. Started as a survival tactic. Get the Soul first, body doesn't dust."
"O-oh. Wow."
"But apparently they all added to mine. Everyone. After a while of that I know some part of me could feel them in me. They were asleep, but…" His gaze drifted to the side.

"It's like feeling emotions in the back of your skull that aren't yours, muted." He gestured at his hole. "That probably never helped." He glanced at Blue, eyelights distant. "I could sense things around me that I just shouldn't have been able to. And.." He paused, waving his hands as he tried to explain. "I really can't put it into words- this has nothing to do with my mind, it's just inexplicable."
"You could feel something else in you?"
He blinked, staring at Blue. "How'd you guess?"

Blue sighed, hand over his sternum. "A bit of a long story. You know Draco has children now?"
"I heard. What's that got to do with anything?"
"One of them never made it through. The Souling was absent by the time he had the child."
"Oohh. Stillborn?"
"For some reason the infant had flesh, and due to Draco being a skeleton he couldn't provide what it needed, so it was dying. That's my theory. I've told no one else."
"Fuck, you dissect it to find out?"
"Absolutely not. You remember my mana poisoning incident?"
"You never said anything about it."

Blue fiddled with his bandana for a moment. "That's because Draco felt his child dying, and I was offering to count how many he had, and apparently he had the brilliant idea to, um,.. you know I'd prefer you never spoke of this to anyone?"
"...I can do that."
"Draco threw me in his ribcage to see the problem."
"He what."
"You heard me."
"Holy fuck he could have killed all of them! And even you if- oh my God that's the fucking incident."
"Yes. I accidentally collided with his Soul."
"It fucked up your magic, didn't it."
"I know it mutated me to have claws." He held up his hand, waving his phalanges as he displayed the sharpened tips.

"But that's not all."
Horror scoffed. "Your magic poisoned the weak Souling to death, didn't it."
"..No, actually. It attached to me as a parasite."
Horror didn't respond for a moment.
"That explains your screwy magic for a while."
"Yes. What bothers me the most is how I should have known sooner. As soon as I found out I went straight to the Twins and they did something that involved Reaper. I don't know what exactly happened, as I was unconscious for it, but now it's in my Soul. I don't think it was their intention, but I can feel it."

"You can feel it in you." Horror realized.
Blue smiled softly, summoning his own Soul to reveal it's altered state. "He's alive in me."
"God, you've been through shit. I don't think this has ever happened in any situation before."
"And your situation has happened?"
"Well there's all my copies."
"...Fair point."
"They'll never have the amount I have, though. I'm the only one who traveled the Multiverse. Even so, they're all still mentally impaired and their spirits are probably still locked in their Souls."

Blue hesitated.
"..The amount you have? Horror, I only see three full apparitions, and they're all skeletons."
Horror grinned at him. "Oh sure, only a few are out right now. If everyone was out here you'd be looking at a ghost town." He patted his ribs, his Soul back in place. "I'll let 'em out a few at a time for now, until I can get a grip on things." He snorted. "It's a lot at once, Blue."
Blue was stammering at the idea of so many minds in one Soul.
"Yes, um, of course, take all the time you need, we wouldn't want you overwhelmed. That. Would be terrible. Heh. How many did you say it was?"

Horror chuckled, then regarded Blue calmly, reaching up in a vague gesture. "Can I show you?"
"Show? Oh- my mind?"
"Yeah."
"Well- sure."
The other tenderly reached out with a delicate hand, slowly resting it on Blue's shoulder before something seemed to touch his consciousness. Blue blinked as he experienced something like running water in his skull, the noise loud and joined by indistinct voices.

He gasped as it suddenly broke like a dam giving way, a tremendous waterfall of minds flooding his own, startling an oddly dragonic squawk out of him as numerous voices called out greetings. He heard a chorus of froggits, a pack of dogs, countless rabbits, and a single Papyrus shouting in glee.

Blue couldn't breathe, his breath was caught in his throat as it washed over him, but due to his training he started to separate himself from it all, recognizing the vibrant chords of Horror's own consciousness almost cradling everything as it strummed beneath it. It was filled with love and sanguine protectiveness. Most of all, he perceived a fond peacefulness radiating from the being.
Horror was at peace with himself, despite his past. His regrets, his pains, his torments, his shame. He took solace in the fact that he was working to redeem it all, and give his family a safe haven in the end.
Tears sprung from Blue's sockets from the force of the emotion.

Horror let him go then, shooting him a smile. "Sorry if it was too much." He chuckled awkwardly, a ghostly vegetoid appearing from the ethereal mist in his breath, waving a plant fiber at Blue before dashing into Horror's shirt and vanishing.
"It wasn't so bad, it was just… wholesome."
Horror snorted. "Wholesome?"
Blue nodded breathlessly. "Maybe tone it down next time you touch someone's mind? I don't know how others could function under that… feeling. I never thought you to be one that could be so full of love."

Horror glanced away, a faint red hue dusting his cheekbones. "Thanks. But I call it acceptance. I'm okay with it. Don't ask me what, I'm okay with everything. I'm just…." He stared up at the sky, joy suffusing his features. "I guess I feel at peace, y'know? They know what I know: it's all coming together, it'll all work out in the end." With a smile, he looked back at Blue. "I'm just so happy to be me again, knowing I was right. I am giving them all a second chance, giving it to myself. I'm leading them to the sunlight, to happiness… just like Dogamy said."

Blue stared at him for a long moment, watching as the other smiled peacefully.
"You know, that smile suits you."
Horror wordlessly glanced at him.
"You look like you've been through hell and back, but found inner peace. I like that on you. You should be proud of yourself.. Sans."
The corners of his sockets creased as he smiled wider. "I'm not creepy, huh?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, even now you look like someone not to mess with, but you look better this way. Honest." He leaned closer to nudge him, grinning.
"...Thanks, Blue."
"Of course."

He glanced over to the duel only to realize it was over already, Eragon busy plucking arrows out of a shooting target by the range.
"Whoops, I missed my training time. I'll see you later, alright Horror?"
The other nodded. "C'ya."
Blue beamed as he skipped over to GB, glancing back.
"Ready to go?"
"Been ready. You saw something I couldn't, didn't you?"
"...Right. I forget you can't see spirits. You can ask Horror another time."
"Kay."

. • ° . • ° . • ° . • °

The next few weeks Blue was left engrossed in the studies, though he didn't miss Eragon's shocking change in adequacy. He was learning at an even faster pace than Blue, which got him excited every time he thought about it. They had taken to occasionally dueling each other instead of Cross and Vanir respectively, the elf showing undeniable respect for Eragon ever since their first duel as equals.
Blue somewhat regretted missing that, though he wouldn't give up his profound experience in witnessing Horror's mind and collection of Souls he held within himself.

He took to challenging Eragon in anything purely for the sake of light-hearted competition, knowing that doing so pushed Eragon to do his absolute best. He had the sneaking suspicion that Eragon had realized this given how the human would look at him and smirk.
A part of him did it because he sensed Eragon's discontent.
The human was pining for Arya, and he didn't dare ask what had happened between him and his crush.
The Rider would tell him in his own time.

At the same time, Blue found himself waking up already moving, his body perching outside their rooms in the tree, or merely sitting at the window and staring at the trees. He was always in his half-form then.
Blue would put a hand to his ribs and send a mute apology to the dragonchild within him.
He never doubted that it wasn't the lost Souling, for he knew. He could feel it in himself, it's mind in his own, it's wills pulsing in his bones.
He sometimes wondered if he could just cede his control to the youth for one day, let it live.
Others he would peer at the egg he kept around and wonder if he could transfer it's consciousness to it's original body.

A part of him knew that the infant was a part of him now. That thought probably came from the child itself. It had settled into him, a part of his Soul, permanently fused with his core magic.
That was okay.

What wasn't was the stress he felt in the world.
Blue could feel the world tensing up, almost like the ambient mana was preparing a tremendous attack, Wyrda weaving the spells of danger before everything exploded.

And the others felt it, too. He saw it in their eyes and lights. They could feel the build.
Finally someone said something in their spare time.
Saphira addressed them all, but mainly Eragon.
The world is stretched thin, my friends. Soon it will snap and madness will burst forth. What you feel is what we dragons feel and what the elves feel- the inexorable march of grim fate as the end of our age approaches. Weep for those who will die in the chaos that shall consume Alagaësia. And hope that we may win a brighter future by the strength of your bones and skulls and sword and shield and our fangs and talons.

"Amen." Blue whispered.
Amen. GB added.
"Amen." Eragon agreed.
Amen. Said the blue dragon.

((To make up for the long wait and forgetting the already written previous chapter I'm posting two in one Friday! I hope you all enjoy! All.. several thousand readers.))