Story idea came to be due to the image above, created by Tumblr artist okiiiiee

Ink was not perfect, he was not a god as many claimed.

He was a protector, soulless yes and he knew he missed a lot of social queues.

He never wanted to be in charge, but in his soulless way he somehow stumbled into that position or was it pushed?

Memory was something he was at its mercy, a monsters soul kept them healthy which meant his magic worked overtime to keep him healthy as he lacked one. Meaning magic that usually was thicker in certain mana veins were smaller, unfortunately his memory was linked to one suck thin vein.

He had blank spots in his memory, gaps he would never recover as his mind did not have enough magic at that moment.

As he aged, his magic grew stronger his mana veins strengthened.

Oh... oh my stars, his past self was a freaking idiot!

He did not blame his newborn self, empty and stumbling learning paints. They'd been a scrap or nothing learning what souled beings already knew.

There had been good and bad, and so many things pushed onto already too burdened shoulders.

He should have said no.

He hadn't realized he could say no.

He'd never had childhood memories, technically he'd been in his childhood.

The destroyer Error, he'd apologized many times as he himself had not helped there insanity along with his mindless creating. Belief was a powerful thing, he had no idea how paint magic had evolved into creation magic.

He missed Blue, who had stepped down and out of the Stars seeing what ink nor Dream could see.

Ink had apologized to them too, he'd been forgiven by the too kind too patient swap.

They were still rebuilding there friendship, different from the last time but he had a feeling it would last this time as it felt more... balanced.

Dream... for Dream he'd learned hate, and disgust.

Realizing Dream had played him like a fiddle, little chains, little promises then blamed Ink when he didn't get his goals.

He remembered there words that Dream had raged at him, hwo he was using them for there magic.. for emotions.

No Darling, he was fine with his paints. He would have rather Dream reined it in, so he wasn't blasting him and making him on overdose paints due to trying to balance an outside force.

Amazing, how quickly calmed down without prissy pants Dream poking at everyone with his magic.

He heard Dream was on a self made crusade against Nightmare and the monsters he worked with, it didn't seem to be going to well to 'save his brother'.

With Dream no longer blasting him daily, his mana veins actually started getting stronger and.. he remembered.

Oh so much...

Where was his own original AU, he wanted to find it. To see if the others had finally grown, it had been so empty there.

Oneday...

For now he was learning to plan for the future, now the day to day thing he lived constantly in before.

Stars.. he was getting old.

He rather liked it.