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Dust doesn’t often think about the before. More often than not, he finds himself actively trying to completely forget about his old life, his old name, his old soul. If he had it his way, that part of his life would be completely erased from existence, forgotten and left to rot. Eira makes that near impossible with her knowing eyes and bared fangs, hackles raised as she hissed at him to ‘never forget where we came from, never forget who we lost.’ Dust longed to let go of his past. Eira fought to hold onto it even if she detested her old name and still panicked at the sight of another badger shaped daemon.
Much like with Horror-Antheia, their decent into insanity was a slow crawl, one that stretched over hundreds of resets, hundreds of genocide runs. Neither could remember who came up with the idea, couldn’t recall what finally pushed them over the edge they had been tittering on for so long but they will always remember the first time they killed their brother. It had taken a few resets of them killing other monsters and still losing to the homicidal child to finally turn against their siblings. Up until that point, Eira had still been Danita, had still been a badger. Until that point, they had clung to a small fragment of the person they had once been.
It had been snowing that day, the village quiet and dust mixing with the snowflakes. Papyrus and his beautiful Golden Retriever Imani stood at the edge of the village, eyes sad yet still filled with love. Dust remembers how he looked up at his brother, eyes wild with a broken smile splitting his face. Beside him, Danita growled like a thing possessed, claws digging in the snow and dirt as she snarled at Imani who had whimpered sadly at her sister.
”We still believe in you.” Papyrus had smiled. His voice never wavered, body never trembled or flinched away. Dust sometimes wished he’d screamed at them, had said how disgusted he was with them. Perhaps then it wouldn’t have hurt so much when he finally drove the bone attack through his brother’s chest.
”There’s nothing left of the brother you once knew, so stop looking, stop believing.” Dust remembers saying as Papyrus began to turn to dust.
”We’ll never stop believing in you. We love you.” Imani sighed just before she burst into a shower of golden dust and Papyrus crumpled into grey dust.
Maybe it was her parting words that finally triggered the resettling, the unwavering love and belief their siblings held towards them even in the face of their murder. Whatever the case, the moment the last golden dust particle disappeared into the wind Danita screamed as her body broke apart and reshaped itself. Dust had screamed alongside her, mind, body, soul and magic feeling like it was burning him from the inside out. It was the worst pain he had ever felt, one he never wished to feel again, one he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
When the pain faded, when he was able to think and breathe again he found himself staring into dark brown eyes from an unfamiliar face. Gone was his small badger daemon and in her place was a ragged, wild looking dog that snarled with blood thirsty rage. That rage was turned onto anything and anyone that crossed their path, sharp teeth tearing into daemon after daemon. By the time the human tracked them down both skeleton and daemon were covered in blood and dust. They killed the human in the most brutal of ways over and over again until they finally decided to just reset and try again.
Waking up in the next timeline with a ragged dog beside him instead of a badger almost seemed to break Dust’s fragile mind even more. They never gave anyone a chance to even question Danita’s changed form, killing friends, family and strangers quickly and efficiently.
“Danita! This isn’t you!” Alphys’ Baris called out desperately only to scream when the Wild Dog lunged forward, pinning him to the ground.
”I am not Danita, not anymore.” The Wild Dog snarled before closing her jaws around Baris’ neck, Golden dust and blood splattering across her muzzle.
It was a pattern that followed into every timeline the human forced them into after her resettling. Every single time someone tried in vain to call out to her, called out her name she would react with a violent rage as she screamed that she wasn’t Danita anymore. Dust began to fall into the same pattern, forsaking the name ‘Sans’ in favour of a new name, one that would always remind him of the atrocities he had committed.
”You are Dust, what we leave in our wake everywhere we go.” His daemon had whispered after they had killed the human for the final time, had finally won and been left completely alone in a broken timeline.
”What about you? What are you now?” Dust had whispered back.
”I am an African Wild Dog who are famous for having the highest kill success rate. I am death, but I am also mercy, sparing our friends and family an endless loop of death. I am Eira.” She had declared.
Eira had become his rock, his lighthouse in a raging storm that was his guilt and crumbling mental health. She is what kept him tethered to reality until Nightmare had found them. The God of Negativity rescued them from both their empty abandoned world but also from their guilt, helping them to heal and work through their trauma. Meeting Horror-Antheia and Killer-Fran also helped them come to terms with their resettling.
”Fran, she’s like me. She changed due to killing.” Eira pointed out when questioned why she was so willing to tolerate the little tabby cat.
”Careful, that implies I’m like Killer.” Dust cautioned with a small quirk of his teeth.
”Perish the thought.” Eira scoffed, amusement bleeding through the bond between them.
Dust finds peace with Horror, the gentle giant being a steadying presence for him when his mind began spiral. Killer brought back fun and kept him on his toes, the sarcastic bastard pushing his buttons in a way that didn’t chip at his sometimes still fragile mental state but instead made him feel like an exasperated brother once more. It was a splash of normality that healed a wound he didn’t even realise he had.
“We’re still waiting for something though. Antheia said we’re waiting for our almost to appear.” Eira informed him when he touched on how they were starting to feel like a family.
“Any idea what it is?” Dust asked.
“We’ll know when we see it.”
They wait for a few years, never knowing exactly what it was they were waiting for until Cross and his unlikely daemons stumbled into their lives. Seeing the twin snakes wrapped around the monochrome skeleton was enough to freeze Dust in his tracks, eyes widening underneath his hood.
“You see it too, right?” He hissed to Eira who couldn’t pull her eyes away from them.
“Two daemons! It shouldn’t be possible.” Eira hissed right back.
Seeing twin snakes become twin ravens was like jumping into a frozen lake, the shock leaving them near speechless until Nightmare revealed the reason for the unsettled daemons was that Cross was actually from a daemonless AU. AU’s that didn’t have daemons left a sour taste in Dust’s mouth and had Eira’s teeth on edge. Seeing monsters and humans walking around without daemons always felt wrong, leaving them feeling sick and anxious.
“It must be terribly lonely to not have your other half by your side.” Antheia said later that night when Cross-Elisha-Heshel had gone to bed and the rest of them had congregated in Horror’s room.
“They acted like they had always been with each other though so surely those without a visible daemon still have their companion in some fashion.” Eira pointed out.
“Still ain’t right.” Dust scoffed, phalanges digging into Eira’s ruff the only outward sign of his discomfort.
“Well I like the newbie, I think they are gonna be lots of fun.” Killer stated, face split in a lazy smirk.
“The twins are fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like them before.” Fran added while she arched her back in delight.
Days later, Eira would pause in the middle of the hallway as a realisation washed over her.
“What? What is it?” Dust asked her, confused by her sudden pause.
“It’s them, they are what we’ve been waiting for. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel how complete everything feels now that they are part of our lives?” Eira said.
And now that Dust actually thought about it he too realised that Eira was right. The arrival of Cross and his never before seen twin daemons had filled in a missing piece of his life he hadn’t noticed was so big. It was like a weight that had always been there was finally lifted, never noticing how heavy it had been until he no longer had to carry it around anymore. Looking into Eira’s eyes, he knew his daemon understood what he was feeling. They both smiled, a sense of peace washing over them as they walked into the living room to see Killer introducing Cross to the joys of video games while Horror brought in a tray of snacks. Off to the side, Antheia was lying down while Fran curled up in her front legs and twin bone white hares perched on her back.
“Yeah, I think things are finally settling into place.” Dust sighed to Eira who clicked her teeth happily as she bounded over to the daemon pile.
They had their home and family ripped away from them first by a homicidal human and then by their own hands when their minds broken under the strain. Now they had a family and a home once more, a strange mismatched family that they would do anything for.