Your personal Tumblr library awaits
Frisk thought they had never seen anything as beautiful as an Echo Flower. It looked almost as if it were a negative image of a sunflower, the colors reversed and strangely fluorescent, blues and whites that seemed to light up the dark marsh around them, otherworldly and wonderful, in the original sense of the word. Their appearance wasn’t even the strangest part of them however. Frisk swore, as they walked past, they heard one of the funny plants talk.
Now, given their previous encounter with talking flowers had been not altogether pleasant, Frisk was understandably cautious about getting too close to the whispering blooms. But Sans had mentioned Echo Flowers, back in Snowdin, and they thought perhaps their caution was unfounded, and that perhaps the echoes might be worth listening to. They had always been a supremely curious child, anyway. So they took a cautious step closer to the nearest flower.
It was surprisingly hard to get to, surrounded by so much vegetation and growth that Frisk was led to believe that it had been a very long time since anyone had stood close to the flower at all. This assumption was reinforced by the faintness of the recording, but it was not impossible to understand what was being said. A young voice spoke up first, the sound of splashing footsteps suggesting two small monsters were passing at the time of the recording. “They say you can make a wish on echo flowers. What’s your wish?” It was hard to tell whether the voice was male or female. Perhaps it was neither, mused Frisk with a chuckle. They wandered on to the next plant, mimicking the long-forgotten conversationalists’ path. “I...don’t wanna tell.” This voice sounded as if it’d come from a young boy. He seemed to be afraid of something. Apparently the other voice had surmised this as well, because they promptly asked what it was he was afraid of. Frisk continued to the next plant, fancying they could see two ghostly figures walking in front of them. In their fantasy, the two figures were silent until they reached the next plant, a few feet down the marsh. “I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me.” “I promise I won’t!” the first voice assured the boy, and in Frisk’s mind, they could practically see the child clap the shoulder of the other confidently. Frisk smiled as they imagined the first voice as a human, like themselves, striped sweater and all. The other, a monster child, Frisk decided, sighed and looked away. “Alright.” He paused for a long moment. “My wish is to see the stars.” The human child seemed to nod, and smile. This turned into a small laugh as they reached the next flower. Another, further on, had the monster child, who had white fur, Frisk thought, annoyed, saying “You promised you wouldn’t laugh!” “Sorry,” the first child said, still smiling, “It’s just funny.” “What?” Frisk seemed to watch them round the corner as the conversation drew to a close, and they ran out of echo flowers. “That’s my wish, too.”
Frisk felt oddly sad, hearing the end of that conversation. It felt faintly familiar to them, as if they’d heard it on some TV show they’d loved when they were younger, barely remembered. But they were sure they’d never heard it before, and wondered at the image they’d seen, the fantasy they’d drawn up. It’d seemed so real, the children seeming like they’d come to life with their voices barely echoed back by the flowers that’d lived up to their names. Had they really imagined it all? Who knew? This whole place was full of magic and strange life. Perhaps more than just their voices had been caught, frozen in time by this strange place.