Chapter 17: Too Many Teeth

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/62735791

(A reminder: this is the last Axetober I will be writing. Anything else I add to the fic on Ao3 will be free formatted shorts of my own choosing)

There’s nothing like staring into a mouth bristling with teeth to ruin your day.

It’d been a miscalculation on her part. An error in judgment, too much curiosity. Sans had always warned her, don’t follow any sort of trail back into the woods, food, gold, or otherwise. Papyrus had told her not to follow the whimpering cries or the path of blood droplets, as well, oddly sober and hesitant, at the edge of the treeline.

Dad wasn’t going to forgive her for leaving him alone there, or for getting herself into this mess. She knew, if she survived this (looking less likely by the moment), she’d get the talking to of a lifetime. She could only be grateful he wasn’t the same kind of guardian as gramma had been…

Though a belt whealed backside was the least of her worries now.

The dog monster before her towered over where she had fallen into the snow, easily the size of a bear. His once white coat was matted with twigs, leaves, clumps of ice, and gore, the rusted remnants of armor clamped tight around bulging limbs and a torso as thick as the ancient tree trunks surrounding them. His eyes were glowing with madness and hunger, blood red and pinned to where she lay, foot caught in the bear trap… but his maw was what truly held her attention.

She had never seen so many teeth in one mouth. It wasn’t able to contain them all, spilling over to litter his drooling, blood saturated jaw; some had broken off, and were entwined in the thick fur on his neck. It was a horrifying sight, made no less terrible by the haggard, panting growls the beast was rumbling with, and it was all Aliza could do not to let out a bloodcurdling scream when he took a step closer, struggling at the end of the trap’s chain.

The pain of the steel biting into her leg was nothing to what the animal would inflict on her. She had to get away, she had to do something, but she couldn’t call out for help and make this worse.

Another monster could hear her, and come to see what the commotion was.

Aliza jerked again at the chain holding her in place, the stake frozen into the ground and the jaws of the trap too rusted to part with her own paltry strength; she tried again to call to her unstable, untrained magic, to teleport away, to start a fire, anything. Nothing came.

She begged, as the beast fell to all fours and charged, for some sort of miracle.

And when the axe sliced through the chain as though it were butter, sending her sprawling into the slush, she knew it had been answered.

Sans didn’t so much as glance at her, though his skeletal hand was tight in the hood of her sweatshirt, dragging her up from the ground and behind where he stood, stance wide and magic flared. His attention was fixed on the now halted monster, his own teeth bared and chest rumbling with a territorial growl.

His hand was more gentle, in pushing her back, away from what was now to be a battleground, but still he had no attention to spare her.

This would be no quick, easy fight against a Snowdrake, an ambush on a monster trapped in one of his “puzzles”. This was Greater Dog, trained in combat and as fast as he was ferocious. The beast had been encroaching on his territory for months, leaving warnings and challenges in the trees to show his intent, and now he had finally gone too far.

No one would take Aliza from him. Not even an old friend.

“mine,” he snarled savagely, and rushed forward to meet the beast in combat.